"An Unseen Enemy" & Immortal Sister Act

Silent Saturday! 

 Cinema, our favorite artform, may have already celebrated its Centennial year but Movie Stars (our favorite part of the artform if we're being honest) were invented later. Lillian Gish, the honorary mother of screen acting if not quite "the first movie star", and her sister Dorothy Gish starred in their first D.W. Griffith short An Unseen Enemy a full one hundred years ago... or one hundred and one depending on where you get your silent film info.

Lillian & Dorothy

Not all pictures are worth a thousand words but if you wanna double down, make sure to include pretty girls.

The one-reeler -- which thankfully survived when so many films of its day didn't -- is about two sisters (Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish) who are grieving the loss of their recently deceased father. Their brother liquidates their estate and suddenly the sisters are flush with cash -- boy does that wrap up their mourning process; they're giddy by the two minute mark! But mo money, mo problems. If someone has a lot of cash, someone else will want it and soon the cinema's first sibling darlings are under attack.

The short and an awesome Lillian Gish anecdote after the jump... 

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Animated Short Oscar Race ~ The Great Winnowing

The fifty-six wide list of Oscar semi-finalists previously announced has been narrowed down to just ten lucky films. Half of these (or less) will go on to win the insanely coveted title of "Oscar Nominee".

They are...

Adam and Dog (Minkyu Lee)
Combustible (Katsuhiro Otomo)
Dripped (Léo Verrier)
The Eagleman Stag (Mikey Please)
The Fall of the House of Usher (Raul Garcia)
Fresh Guacamole (PES) 
Head Over Heels (Timothy Reckart)
Maggie Simpson in 'The Longest Daycare' (David Silverman)
Paperman (John Kahrs)
Tram (Michaele Pavlátová) 

The list is notable for: the absence of Pixar, which usually has a showpony in this race, though Paperman represents for Disney; nudity since Tram is comically erotic and the Adam of Adam and Dog is the first man; the absence of any previous winners -- only Michaela Pavlátová has been Oscar nominated previously! It'll be a first time for anyone who wins and maybe for all who are nominated.  

You can see photos and read more about these on our Animated Predictions Chart. Reviews coming soon for the films we can get our hands on...

Who Will Be Nominated For The Animation Oscars?

This year's animated feature race still feels like a mystery: Brave wasn't beloved enough to slide right into Pixar winner position; Frankenweenie wasn't popular enough despite its fun aesthetic achievements; ParaNorman was a hit but not a huge one; Madagascar 3 was very well reviewed and a huge hit but the third in a series Oscar hasn't cared for; and so on.

With 21 eligible features this year we'll have five nominees and unless either Rise of the Guardians or Wreck It Ralph (just opened) are across the board sensations, we'll have a real race.

21 ELIGIBLE FEATURES 

• Adventures in Zambezia
• Brave
• Delhi Safari
• Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
• Frankenweenie
• From Up on Poppy Hill
• Hey Krishna
• Hotel Transylvania
• Ice Age Continental Drift
• A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman
• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
• The Mystical Laws
• The Painting
• ParaNorman
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits
• The Rabbi's Cat
• Rise of the Guardians
• Secret of the Wings
• Walter & Tandoori's Christmas
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Zarafa

More after the jump...

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Oscar Horrors: An Irish Ghost Story

HERE LIES... Hilton Edwards' short film Return to Glennascaul, mauled by Disney's Bear Country.

Andreas here with another spooky Oscar Horrors case file! This time, it's a ghost story. And who doesn't love a good ghost story? (Other than the Academy, I suppose.) Return to Glennascaul (1953) retells a traditional urban legend, that of the "vanishing hitchhiker," but with so much flair and atmosphere that its overfamiliarity doesn't matter. The set-up is classic: it's late at night, on a winding road outside Dublin, and the narrator stops to pick up a stranded motorist. But aha, a twist: the narrator is in fact Orson Welles, on a break from Othello! What better addition to a ghost story than Orson, that master raconteur, he of the perfect radio voice?

Aother small twist: his passenger isn't a ghost, but instead has his own eerie story of two mysterious women and the old abandoned house he drove them to, a house called Glennascaul. All these framing devices, coupled with Orson Welles playing a wry version of himself, make the short feel like a "friend-of-a-friend" anecdote. Like something built up too plausibly not to be true. And hey, who knows what can or can't happen in the misty Irish countryside? The women themselves (one old, one young) seem harmless enough, if a little kooky, until Orson's new friend contacts the realtor trying to sell Glennascaul... and, of course, learns that they've both been dead for years. (If that's a spoiler, then you should really bone up on your campfire stories.

This is some subtle horror, certainly, but it grows in power as the climax hits—as the gentleman makes the titular return, only to discover a dusty, desolate house with no residents to speak of. Truly haunting. In addition to Orson's baritone, the film's carpeted by a sparse piano and harp score, and it's shot in chiaroscuro black and white; exactly the minimalism that the material calls for. Sometimes, as Return to Glennascaul teaches us, all you need to tell a chilling story is 20 minutes, a little music, and an old house. Oh, and Orson Welles.

It may not have won the Oscar (thanks, Disney) but it will send shivers up your spine.

Recent Oscar Horrors 
Jaws - Best Editing
Aliens - Visual FX
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte - Supporting Actress

All Oscar Horrors

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