Categories One-by-One: Animated Short

For the films of 2018
Post Reply
anonymous1980
Laureate
Posts: 6377
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 10:03 pm
Location: Manila
Contact:

Re: Categories One-by-One: Animated Short

Post by anonymous1980 »

Finally caught Weekends, the only one of these I haven't seen.

Animal Behavior stands out among the pack. Not only is it the only pure comedy out of all the animated shorts this year, it's also the only one not about parents and children. Though I'm tempted to place this as a last place because it's also the only one that doesn't attempt at deep emotional resonance, it could also be the reason it could win.

Bao is the most widely seen of the group. While it does have some emotional heft, it's also funny in the first parts so this balances things out. I would peg this as the front-runner.

Late Afternoon is a very wistful ditty about an old lady reminiscing about the past. It's very sweet and very nice but I don't know if it will inspire a lot of votes.

One Small Step will probably get my vote. It's a beautifully animated tale of a Chinese-American girl wanting to be an astronaut and her supportive father. The ending got me.

Weekends won the Annie. While it's the most creative and the inventive of the group, it's also probably the most "inaccessible" so to speak. It takes a while before it will hit you. It's about a young boy going back and forth with his divorced parents and that should resonate with a lot of voters.

My preference:
1. One Small Step
2. Bao
3. Weekends
4. Animal Behavior
5. Late Afternoon

In order of what will probably win:
1. Bao
2. Weekends
3. One Small Step
4. Late Afternoon
5. Animal Behavior
FilmFan720
Emeritus
Posts: 3650
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 3:57 pm
Location: Illinois

Re: Categories One-by-One: Animated Short

Post by FilmFan720 »

Haha, Mister Tee and I have almost the exact opposite reactions to these.

I found Animal Behaviour the least impressive of these; it is clever, but there isn't a whole lot there. I found it the most forgettable and the ending pretty lackluster.

I agree that Late Afternoon is obvious pretty easily, but I also think it could be a stealth winner.

I saw each of these twice, and the first time I found Weekend really lackluster. The second time through, I found it really powerful and I think it has some of the most distinctive visuals (I watched these with my kids, and they both still talk about Birthday Cake-head).

I think this is probably between Bao and One Little Step, however. Step is my favorite...I found it emotionally resonant and visually clever throughout, and it played just as well the second time. But Bao is the most seen, and is really memorable even if you haven't seen it since last summer, and will probably win here.
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers, Jr.
Mister Tee
Tenured Laureate
Posts: 8637
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Categories One-by-One: Animated Short

Post by Mister Tee »

Because I saw Bao with Incredibles 2 and found the other four on You Tube, I can comment on this category.

The nominees:

ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
BAO
LATE AFTERNOON
ONE SMALL STEP
WEEKENDS

Mark Harris put out a tweet the other day that summed things up well:

https://twitter.com/MarkHarrisNYC/statu ... 2192134144

Four of the five nominees seem to fall into this niche -- wistfulness over the passage of time (the opening of Up seems to have been the ur-text for much of today's animated world). This may indicate major preference for such a film -- or it could be be an advantage for the one film that doesn't conform to the trend.

I saw Bao last summer, and honestly don't recall that much about it, except for some vague creepiness I felt about a mother treating a dumpling as a child. I think it's the least distinguished of the group, but Disney has had a way of pulling out wins in this category.

One Small Step is also fairly slight, and a bit generic (compared to the remainder of the nominees). It does do a decent job of suggesting achievement and loss can often trade off with one another, but its insistence on providing an uplifting ending undercuts its poignancy.

I pretty much figured where Late Afternoon was going to end up right from the start, but it finds some creative ways to explore the interior world of its main character, and it doesn't overstay its welcome. Older voters might especially respond to it.

Weekends strikes me as the most inventive and wide-ranging of the films in this general area. The aftermath of divorce seen from a child's point of view, it covers an enormous amount of ground (largely by letting single/tiny images stand in for major/ongoing developments) and finds its own unique insights (notably: the fact that each parent is seeking a new life, rather than consolidating the one into which the child was born, makes it inevitable neither of them will truly give the child what he needs). It also shows a good deal of visual imagination. Of the wistful crowd, this is my favorite.

But the one I most enjoyed was Animal Behaviour: a parody of group therapy with assorted animals sitting in on the session. This film took a creative approach, and had me laughing out loud multiple times -- which was especially refreshing after the rather lugubrious rest of the pack. I wonder if Academy members will feel the same, and give it their vote for novelty alone.
Post Reply

Return to “91st Academy Awards”