Blind Vaysha – National Film Board of Canada – Theodore Ushev Borrowed Time – Quorum Films – Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj Pear Cider and Cigarettes – Massive Swerve Studios/Passion Pictures Animation – Robert Valley and Cara Speller Pearl – Evil Eye Pictures/Google Spotlight Stories/Passion Pictures – Patrick Osborne Piper – Pixar – Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer
I think Pear Cider or Borrowed Time ought to win.
I think Pear Cider will probably win.
I hope Piper does not win. Pixar is just giving me a headache with its endless cute.
I like animated films that do things that live action films can't do as easily. And the story-telling in "Pear Cider and Cigarettes" was a bit too conventional for me. My favorite was "Pearl," which takes us through a span of about 20 years or so. "Pear Cider" also covers an extended timeline, and has more striking animation, so I would't be sorry to see that one win. Entertainment Weekly is predicting a win for "Piper" however.
I enjoyed REVOLTING RHYMES the most, but much more for its story and dialogue (from several Roald Dahl poems) than for the computer animation, which was not particularly creative. I'm going to have to track down Part 2 of that film.
Animation-wise, I thought GARDEN PARTY had the superior visuals.
You certainly can't rule out DEAR BASKETBALL. The Academy loves to recognize stars in areas outside of film. On Best Song, for example, the bigger the pop/rock star that sings the tune, the more likely it is for that song to win an Oscar.
I enjoyed REVOLTING RHYMES the most, but much more for its story and dialogue (from several Roald Dahl poems) than for the computer animation, which was not particularly creative.
I agree. I'm only betting on it because The Academy Public dotes on "bigger is better", in my opinion.
You certainly can't rule out DEAR BASKETBALL. The Academy loves to recognize stars in areas outside of film. On Best Song, for example, the bigger the pop/rock star that sings the tune, the more likely it is for that song to win an Oscar.
I'd say "the bigger the hit the tune is, the more likely to win the Oscar," no matter who performs it.
e.g. How big a star was Casey Cisyk? (or Debby Boone when she re-recorded it, for that matter)
DEAR BASKETBALL: Puh-lease, does a multi-million-dollar industry and one of its stars NEED more accolades???? ---------------------------------------------------- You certainly can't rule out DEAR BASKETBALL. The Academy loves to recognize stars in areas outside of film. On Best Song, for example, the bigger the pop/rock star that sings the tune, the more likely it is for that song to win an Oscar.
BEST ANIMATED SHORT: DEAR BASKETBALL
What did I tell you? The Academy is nothing if not predictable.
The short films don't open at my theater until next week--and then only the animated and live action shorts. There is only one theater in the entire area that shows the documentary shorts. It's about an hour away. One year I made the pilgrimage there only to find a theater so small that the screen was about the size of a 50-inch flat-screen and the seats were folding chairs set up in rows. I haven't been back.
WEEKENDS, or second choice LATE AFTERNOON WEEKENDS had interesting artwork, and an interesting narrative structure.
(But they won't win, because I'm generally wrong about this stuff.)
Probably will win:
BAO (Puh-lease. Pixar doing their usual cute-for-cute's-sake.) or ONE SMALL STEP (Believe it or not, people, this short is proof that there are now Pixar-wannabe's.)
I think both have equal chance of winning because Oscar members can't get past cute, and are now in love with congratulating themselves for being inclusive.
If ANIMAL BEHAVIOR wins, I'll be surprised, because the others are more of what Oscar usually rewards. It is, though, worth seeing for its moments of clever writing.
There was nothing special in the animated shorts this year. The funniest, and my favorite, was "Animal Behavior", but it's a bit risque for general audiences. I'd seen the Pixar short, "Bao", before. It's not one of their best. The memory piece "Late Afternoon" was a slow 9 minutes for a brief payoff at the end. I admit to dozing off during the 15-minute "Weekends." I can see the Academy going with the kid-friendly, girl-power "One Small Step," which has an emotional tug at the end.
The live action shorts were each more dispiriting than the last, with way too many children at risk in them: A mother frantic over a lost child; A young boy inadvertently causing his friend's death; A semi-documentary on the youngest convicted child-murderers of the 20th century; A young boy corrupted by racist parents. Only "Marguerite" broke out of the child-jeopardy mold with its story of a elderly woman regretting not pursuing a lesbian relationship when she was young. In this year of the woman in Hollywood, that one could get the nod.
There was not a single note of humor or even lightness in any of the live action shorts. I can take a two-hour downbeat film as well as anyone. But to sit through five stories boiled down to the essentials of their bleakness was really soul-crushing.
