The 2013 Best Animated Short Oscar nominees

Mickey Mouse is up for his first gold in agesTim here. Having already looked at the newly-minted Best Animated Feature Oscar nominees, let's turn for a little bit towards that category's older, smaller sibling, Best Short Subject - Animated. We already briefly discussed these films back when the 10-title shortlist was announced, but now that it has been whittled down to five, let's take a more in-depth look at each of them.

Feral (Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden)
For solely aesthetic purposes, this would be my favorite of the nominees. It's a simple enough story: a boy raised by wolves is brought back to civilization and has a hard time of it. The greatness lies in the marriage of that scenario with rough impressionistic images, some which look like extra-bleak newspaper comics, some which look like somebody was trying a sheet of paper apart using a pencil.

It's the most distinctive of the five by far, looking handcrafted because it so emphatically is: some of the images are drawn on computer, some are hand-painted, but they all have a desperate crudeness that lacks the polish of most animation, and this couldn't be a better fit for the material. It's available to rent for $1 on Vimeo.

Mickey Mouse, friendly witches, and more below the jump

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Happy 50th, Jane Horrocks!

IMDb --> Jane Horrocks --> trade mark: “Very strong Lancashire accent”. The specificity of that might not mean much to anyone outside of the UK (no judgment; I can’t locate Maine on a map), but you’ll know the voice whenever you hear it.

The piercing, excessively rounded vowels are unmistakably Horrocks, unique in the global film industry that so frequently sands off regional accents into indistinguishable homogeneity. Maybe that’s why Horrocks’ career hasn’t ever reached the peak she did in 1998, with a Golden Globe nomination for Little Voice – she simply sounds too strange for a Hollywood career. On her fiftieth birthday, let me, David, take you on a little highlight reel tour of this superb performer’s career.

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The Curious Case of The Grandmaster

Dancin' Dan here with a fun bit of Oscar trivia after nominations. When Wong Kar-Wai's gorgeous The Grandmaster didn't make it into the Best Foreign Language Film category. I wasn't surprised. Wong hasn't had much luck with the category (his masterpiece In The Mood for Love was also submitted but Oscar passed on it) and the new film, based on the life and work of Ip Man, has been divisive. I feared that this would spell doom for Philippe Le Sourd's stunning cinematography, thought Nathaniel had been predicting its nomination there for some time, but was heartened by its somewhat surprise inclusion in the ASC's seven-wide field. To my delight, upon looking at the full list of nominations, not only was Le Sourd nominated, but so was William Chang for the film's sumptuous costumes!

Which sets the mind racing... How many films that missed out on a Best Foreign Film nomination been nominated in other categories?

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Critics Choice Award Winners & After Party

Quickie post to give you more of an opportunity to discuss the CCMA winners. I salute all those with strong enough multi-tasking skills to both attend and cover events simultaneously. I've just arrived in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival and before I stuff my face, it's catch up time!

Arriving at the CCMAs - Seating Chart?

When I arrived at the Critics Choice Awards last night -- excuse me, last afternoon (awards ceremonies start so early on the West Coast!)-- I had no idea where I'd be seated so I was just goofing in the photo above and pointing randomly to the space as if to say "There! I'm sitting there" Well there was within stumbling over into the American Hustle and 12 Years a Slave tables which were right next to that open walk way to the stage. This is not where I was sitting. You're doing it wrong, Nathaniel! 

THE WINNERS
with commentary 

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The Desolation of Smaug: Accentuate the Positive

Michael back again. Nathaniel recently asked us if any of us had seen The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Peter Jackson's latest Middle Earth chapter is entering its sixth weekend with $800+ million in the worldwide bank and three more Oscar nominations and it's gone completely unremarked upon at TFE.  But I could feel the life draining out of me as I attempted to review it. Surely the world did not need one more dissection of Peter Jackson’s chronic inability to rein in his material. What’s left to say, save that Desolation has exactly the problems you would expect it to have? Hell, one could get the same from any archived review of The Lovely Bones or King Kong. All the criticisms still apply.

So I junked that review and decided it would be good for the soul to write something positive instead. After all, Jackson is a maddening filmmaker not because he’s some worthless hack but because he frequently buries moments of brilliance in all the sprawling self-indulgence. So with that in mind here is a list of five things I loved or liked about The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug:

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