21 Days 'til Oscar: The Animated Shorts

Amir here. Every year I promise myself to try harder to keep in the loop with short films. Then, on this weekend I realize just how badly I've failed and console myself by watching the few that are Oscar-nominated. In an incomprehensible feat of planning, TIFF cancelled its screening of the documentary shorts for the second year running (presumably for copyright reasons?) so I’ll stick to the other two categories. Let’s start with the animated ones. 

The shortest film in the crop is Fresh Guacamole – you can watch it here - a stop-motion recipe for making guacamole with light bulbs, baseballs and dice. Though it had the theatre laughing throughout its short runtime, I think its similarities with Western Spaghetti will keep voters from going for it. It’s an innovative film that takes the audience by surprise if they’re unfamiliar with its predecessor. It’s also the only film to ever make an entire room of people salivate over poker chips, but down the line, I think it will have to be happy to be nominated.

four more after the jump

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Podcast Nom Reactions Pt 1: Snubs, Squeals, Questions

A couple of days after the Oscar Nominations, I rang up Joe Reid, Katey Rich and Nick Davis to discuss the Academy's big reveal. In pt 1 of this hour long conversation we discuss:

1) The snubs that hurt us most.
2) The moments that made us squeal with delight.
3) Reader Questions. Thank you to the handful of people who were brave enough to ask them. 

Pt 1 is mostly focused on the "big eight": Picture (Amour & Beasts of the Southern Wild !), Director (Benh Zeitlin  - yes!, Ben Affleck -???), Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress (Amy Adams & Jacki Weaver mostly), Supporting Actor, and the Screenplays.

But high profile categories aside the masterful but snubbed Animated Short The Eagleman Stag gets a shout-out. And I promised I'd link up to it in this post, so here ya go. Watch it!

The Eagleman Stag. Absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately snubbed.

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post. 

Squeals, Snubs, and Sass from Oscar Nomination Morning

A Lively Live Action Short Race: Bryce Dallas Howard, Matthias Schoenaerts & More...

Yesterday the finalists list for the Live Action Short film category at the Oscars was announced. Bryce Dallas Howard could be an Oscar nominee in just 39 days time! But Ron Howard's daughter is not the only familiar face in the mix here. 

Matthias Schoenaerts in "Death of a Shadow"

One film about mountain climbers, The Night Shift Belongs to the Stars features popular 80s stars Nastassja Kinski (Tess herself) and Julian Sands. Another, Death of a Shadow, stars the rapidly ascending Belgian god Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead & Rust & Bone). He plays a dead soldier who hopes to win his life back by capturing thousands of shadows of dying men and women.

Father and Daughter will be nominated together if "when you find me" wins the nomination on January 10thThe 11 wide finalist list, which also features multiple films about children in war-torned countries (a frequent subgenre within award-winning short films), goes like so:

• A Fábrica (The Factory) 
• Asad 
• Buzkashi Boys 
• Curfew 
• Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw) 
• Henry  
• Kiruna-Kigali 
• The Night Shift Belongs to the Stars 
• 9meter 
• Salar 
• when you find me 

More info and trailers on the Animated, Shorts & Documentary Oscar Chart Page

"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...