![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Oscar-Nominated Short Animation
Whoa, it's been a busy week. I'm teaching a unit on anime in a third-year animation class and did my first lecture this week, on Spirited Away. To my great relief, it went well. But next week, I face the challenges of teaching television animation with Cowboy Bebop, and then the challenges of co-teaching in a tag-team lecture on Paprika. If that weren't enough, I finished a thesis chapter (3 down, 3 to go) and am determined to get another done by the end of the month, so that I can start right away on the chapter after that, which I'll be presenting part of at a conference in Scotland in late May. A grad student's work is never done!
Still, I'm hoping to take some time out this weekend to watch the Oscars. Hollywood blah blah Avatar yadda yadda, yes, but I want to see what wins in the animated short film category. I had a chance to see all the animated shorts in theatre this week, and while none are equal to last year's winner, Kunio Kato's "La Maison en Petit Cubes," there is one obvious choice and one edgy choice to keep things interesting.
Of the five nominees, two are cute but definitely not winning material. The first, Fabrice Joubert's "French Roast" has a neat cinematic concept: it keeps the camera almost entirely fixed on one guy sitting in a hoity-toity cafe who has forgotten his checkbook and keeps ordering coffees while he tries to think of a way out. Mirrors and windows are used to move the action along. But ultimately, the action is only mildly funny, and there's an obvious moral at the end about charity that comes off a little too pat.
The second, Irish director Nicky Phelan's "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty," has a lot more verve, featuring an over-the-top granny telling a vitriolic Fractured Fairytale to a terrified little girl. It's well-acted and visually innovative, mixing cg and Flash animation, but it's a one-note joke, which makes for a weak ending with no surprise or reversal to it.
Then there's "The Lady and the Reaper" by Javier Recio Garcia from Spain. It's a classic Chuck Jones sort of chase cartoon, only this time, we have the Grim Reaper and an arrogant superstar doctor (with his bevy of hot nurses) rip-roaring through a surreal contest for the soul of a little old lady who just wants be reunited with her dead husband. It's a bit macabre and a lot wacky. I wouldn't be outraged if it won. The only thing is, it is a familiar genre, and not so major an effort as the two main contenders.
There's a giant in the room at this competition, and that giant is Nick Park of Britain's Aardman studios. His latest Wallace and Gromit short, "A Matter of Loaf and Death," clocks in at 30 minutes and is executed in flawlessly smooth claymation, giving it a strong edge over the other entries in terms of characterization and technique. The story is good old British murder mystery drolerie, with Wallace -a baker- the target of an over-the-hill bread mascot girl out for revenge on all confectioners. Park has won Oscars for his last two Wallace and Gromit shorts and the feature Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and this one is no worse than the others, so it seems like the obvious choice.
But then there's "Logorama." Created by the French collective H5, "Logorama" has the crude, piratical, cutting-edge sensibility of a really good web cartoon. It uses Flash-style coroporate logos as characters in a profanity-ridden, ultra-violent satire on American-style commercialism. Ronald MacDonald is a psycho criminal. Michelin Man cops have rambling Tarantino conversations before engaging in vicious shootouts. None of the logos are used with permission, so the entire thing is an exercise in brazen copyright violation. It's so ballsy in taking on the corporations in the name of free speech that I've got to admire it. But it does make me wonder: if we really want to have free speech about commercialism, why keep speaking its language? Postmodern parody, as Linda Hutcheon says, cuts both ways: it subverts and reinscribes what it critiques. I wonder if Hollywood will embrace this film -which ends by destroying Hollywood- and resinscribe it under the Oscar logo. Would a win be an ideological defeat for Logorama? Hmm...
I also saw three films that were not nominated but got commendations, namely Pixar's "Partly Cloudy," the Canadian NFB's "Runaway" and Polish director Tomek Baginski's "Kinematograph." In my opinion, Cordell Barker's "Runaway" -the madcap, socially-conscious tale of a runaway train- and the heart-rending "Kinematograph" both deserved to be nominated over "French Roast" and "Granny O'Grimm." So that just goes to show what I know about what Oscar voters will pick.
As for features, I can say it in a line: I really want to see Coraline win, but I think UP probably has it. And that's my Oscar animation report. Back to you, Ben Mulroney!
Still, I'm hoping to take some time out this weekend to watch the Oscars. Hollywood blah blah Avatar yadda yadda, yes, but I want to see what wins in the animated short film category. I had a chance to see all the animated shorts in theatre this week, and while none are equal to last year's winner, Kunio Kato's "La Maison en Petit Cubes," there is one obvious choice and one edgy choice to keep things interesting.
Of the five nominees, two are cute but definitely not winning material. The first, Fabrice Joubert's "French Roast" has a neat cinematic concept: it keeps the camera almost entirely fixed on one guy sitting in a hoity-toity cafe who has forgotten his checkbook and keeps ordering coffees while he tries to think of a way out. Mirrors and windows are used to move the action along. But ultimately, the action is only mildly funny, and there's an obvious moral at the end about charity that comes off a little too pat.
The second, Irish director Nicky Phelan's "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty," has a lot more verve, featuring an over-the-top granny telling a vitriolic Fractured Fairytale to a terrified little girl. It's well-acted and visually innovative, mixing cg and Flash animation, but it's a one-note joke, which makes for a weak ending with no surprise or reversal to it.
Then there's "The Lady and the Reaper" by Javier Recio Garcia from Spain. It's a classic Chuck Jones sort of chase cartoon, only this time, we have the Grim Reaper and an arrogant superstar doctor (with his bevy of hot nurses) rip-roaring through a surreal contest for the soul of a little old lady who just wants be reunited with her dead husband. It's a bit macabre and a lot wacky. I wouldn't be outraged if it won. The only thing is, it is a familiar genre, and not so major an effort as the two main contenders.
There's a giant in the room at this competition, and that giant is Nick Park of Britain's Aardman studios. His latest Wallace and Gromit short, "A Matter of Loaf and Death," clocks in at 30 minutes and is executed in flawlessly smooth claymation, giving it a strong edge over the other entries in terms of characterization and technique. The story is good old British murder mystery drolerie, with Wallace -a baker- the target of an over-the-hill bread mascot girl out for revenge on all confectioners. Park has won Oscars for his last two Wallace and Gromit shorts and the feature Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and this one is no worse than the others, so it seems like the obvious choice.
But then there's "Logorama." Created by the French collective H5, "Logorama" has the crude, piratical, cutting-edge sensibility of a really good web cartoon. It uses Flash-style coroporate logos as characters in a profanity-ridden, ultra-violent satire on American-style commercialism. Ronald MacDonald is a psycho criminal. Michelin Man cops have rambling Tarantino conversations before engaging in vicious shootouts. None of the logos are used with permission, so the entire thing is an exercise in brazen copyright violation. It's so ballsy in taking on the corporations in the name of free speech that I've got to admire it. But it does make me wonder: if we really want to have free speech about commercialism, why keep speaking its language? Postmodern parody, as Linda Hutcheon says, cuts both ways: it subverts and reinscribes what it critiques. I wonder if Hollywood will embrace this film -which ends by destroying Hollywood- and resinscribe it under the Oscar logo. Would a win be an ideological defeat for Logorama? Hmm...
I also saw three films that were not nominated but got commendations, namely Pixar's "Partly Cloudy," the Canadian NFB's "Runaway" and Polish director Tomek Baginski's "Kinematograph." In my opinion, Cordell Barker's "Runaway" -the madcap, socially-conscious tale of a runaway train- and the heart-rending "Kinematograph" both deserved to be nominated over "French Roast" and "Granny O'Grimm." So that just goes to show what I know about what Oscar voters will pick.
As for features, I can say it in a line: I really want to see Coraline win, but I think UP probably has it. And that's my Oscar animation report. Back to you, Ben Mulroney!