Good day faithful blog-readers, you are reading Post #1 of my Second Annual Oscar Wishlist. As those of you who read last year’s list know: most individuals have some sort of Christmas Wishlist (of what they would get in an ideal world where they could have anything they wanted) or even a Fantasy Football Wishlist (made up of all their favorite players regardless of team affiliation), but not I; I have an Oscar Wishlist –a list of who and what should be nominated based solely on the truth and caliber of the work, a list uninterested in Hollywood’s awards' season politics, a list of the lineup of nominees that Seth McFarlane and Emma Stone should have announced that early Thursday morning, and a list of the names and films that should be called the night of the 24th (Oscar night) in the Kodak theater. This year has marked a return to epic, brave, and daring (albeit not always 100% successful) studio film-making, and thus this year’s list includes a greater number of studio-generated films than last year’s indie-heavy selection. Also this year’s Wishlist includes a higher percentage of actual nominees than it did last year (the Academy got a lot more right in 2013 than in 2012).
After the other day’s screenings of the Oscar nominated shorts (live action and animated), I have seen all of the nominees (excluding the documentaries *both feature length and short*) and just about everything even remotely apart of (and much that isn’t apart of) this year’s Oscar conversation (save for some of the effects nominees, the un-released foreign contenders, along with On The Road, Stand Up Guys and Matthew McConaughey’s performance in Magic Mike, all of which I hope to be evaluating in the near future). So even more so than last year, with my exhaustive and inundating viewing of 2012’s crop of films, I feel prepared to make an informed Oscar Wishlist of what should win and have been nominated. I’ll begin with the Shorts:
*Unlike all of my other categorical lists which will be unconstricted by what is actually nominated and populated purely by what I wish to be there, due to the only shorts Ive seen all year being apart of SHORTS-hd's presentations of The Oscar Nominated Shorts, I'll simply comment on all the nominated shorts (and the 3 additional shorts included in SHORTS-hd's Animated Shorts presentation).
BEST ANIMATED SHORT:
Paperboy
A B&W '40s-style charmer from Disney in which a mild mannered accountant-type's attempts to meet the girl he encountered that morning on the train platform seem doomed until a little Disney magic steps in to bring them together. Wordless but perfectly scored, it captures the whimsy, fantasy, and romance of "love at first sight".
Fresh Guacamole
Nothing more than a mildly entertaining, "something-someone-recommends-you-look-up-on-YouTube-when-you're-bored-at-work"-quality-level bit of stop-motion wizardry. How was this nominated?
Head Over Heels
Possibly containing the best and easily most profound concept of all the Animated Shorts, Head Over Heels shows us an older married couple living separate lives in a house where gravity seems split. She lives upside-down walking on the ceiling while he lives right side up on the floor. They live totally unrelated lives until an old memory provokes the man to try to get them both on the same level (literally!). The short's one downside is mediocre stop-motion claymation that possibly detracts from the shocking visual of a couple living on top of and below one another. Not a heart-string is left un-tugged though when the woman actually nails her shoes above her so she can be with the man she loves (think the spirit of the opening sequence from Up with a more upbeat conclusion).
Adam and Dog
With an animation style reminiscent of Disney features of the '50s (i.e. Sleeping Beauty) where glorious and meticulously painted works of art served as landscapes for and backdrops to the foreground animation, Adam and Dog tells the tale of Earth's first dog and the friendship he formed with Adam in the Garden of Eden. It stretched a bit, could have benefited from more use of and a better musical score, and included ill-defined but still unnecessary animated nudity (when its main audience is obviously small children). If the effort level put into the backgrounds had been given to the foreground animation and the short's content, it would have been more successful.
Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare"
Vivid colors, humorous onscreen signage, loads of sight gags, tricks, and surprises, a lively score perfectly in sync with the animated action, and characters who Americans welcome into their homes on a weekly basis make this Simpsons short a true delight!
*screened out of competition
Abiogenesis
This visually dazzling extremely brief short wordlessly chronicles an "alien"-instigated biologically-slanted reworking of Biblical Genesis-style Creation and thus provides a 4-minute feast for the eyes, begging the question of how Fresh Guacamole was nominated instead.
Dripped
Some need art as sustenance. One could say they just "eat it up". Dripped's art-museum burglar literally "eats it up"! With an avant garde look and noirish tone, this Pollock-inspired short is heavy on art references, whimsy, and explosive splashes of paint.
The Gruffalo's Child
As exemplified earlier this year by the feature length film The Lorax, some films are appropriate for young children while are others are for young children... such is The Gruffalo's Child. This well animated, narration heavy short about the late night adventures of a young Gruffalo suffered from overly long vocal pauses on the part of the voice actors (a veritable cornucopia of British talent) and a somewhat muddled moral lessen for the youngsters; but in the end it just made me yearn for the infinitely better narrated-adventure-short Lost and Found.
WINNER: Paperboy
It was a hard choice between Paperboy and Head Over Heels, but ultimately even though Paperboy was less ambitious, it was completely successful in everything it attempted whereas Head Over Heels tried to accomplish more but didn't succeed in every one of its endeavors.
Check back soon for Part II -The Oscar Nominated Shorts (Live Action) and click HERE to read an Animated Shorts review by one of Roger's correspondents that he recently posted to his website.
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