Audience Member
These are a strong collection of animated shorts this year. The Disney/Pixar entry "Bao" that screened before "Incredibles 2" is as expected the most slick, with it's story of the chinese woman raising a dumpling as her son, "Weekends" is a stylized tale of a child moving between his mothers home and his fathers apartment on the weekends, "Animal Behavior" is the only one with real dialogue and it contains a lot of laughs in its animal group therapy session. "Late Afternoon" is a sweet story about an old women with dementia as her memories come and go as if driven by waves.. and "One Small Step" is a touching father / daughter story as she dreams of being an astronaut. The collection also included three other films that weren't nominated with the best being the Russian "Tweet Tweet" which is also about walking on your life line... Overall a stronger group of films than in recent years, and while the Pixar one will probably win most of these were deserving nominations.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
Full Review
darren j
More evidence that the Oscar voters have lost their minds. Of all the many hundreds of outstanding submissions, they manage to choose animated shorts that all have the same THEME. Every critic mentions this. It can't be a coincidence. What is the agenda here? It is obvious that they were chosen to portray a unified theme in the theaters, when all are shown together. Insane. They should be chosen on MERIT alone. Most shocking is even the "Highly Commended" final short was also of the life-passing, aging theme. Most amazingly is that this final one was by far the most outstanding of the group, yet wasn't even nominated. It had brilliant hyper--realistic animation, and a soul stirring concept. Yet voters nominated several others with the most basic elementary animation possible, and with really lame or confusing stories. I cannot recommend that anyone see these as a collection in the theaters. And they are the weakest bunch I've seen in my five years of seeing the programs in the theaters. Someone at Oscar obviously made a decision to choose the films based on a single theme. Why? These voters have serious psychological issues with childhood and aging. The only nom that didn't seem to touch on this theme is Weekends. And the pirate-themed honorable mention. I felt I was watching the same movie 5 times. And they were all quite boring and even confusing. (In Bao, how did the son suddenly appear after the mother ate him?) Worst bunch of Oscar noms I've ever seen. The final one (Tweet Tweet, from Russia) should have gotten nominated and won. So disappointing. These voters are crazy, just like last year when they chose the lame Dear Basketball, which was the weakest of the five, just to kiss some celebrity ass.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/12/19
Full Review
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