#wendy tilby

[dweemeister]

Best Animated Short Film Nominees for the 95th Academy Awards (2023, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages. Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Animated Short Film at this year’s Academy Awards. The write-ups for the Documentary Short and Live Action Short nominees are complete. Films predominantly in a language other than English (or in two cases here, with dialogue) are listed with their nation(s) of origin.

So completes this year’s omnibus write-ups for the Oscar-nominated short films.

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It (2021)

In 1953, director Chuck Jones tortured Daffy Duck with the whims of an unseen animator (revealed to be Bugs Bunny) in Duck Amuck. Fast forward almost seventy years and a film of a similar concept comes in Lachlan Pendragon’s An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It. Pendragon, who directed, wrote, animated, and voiced the main character this film as an undergraduate student at the Griffith Film School in Brisbane (where he is now a PhD candidate), frames hapless toaster telemarketing salesman Neil as under fire from his boss (Michael Richard) due to a lack of sales. As the workday continues, he begins to notice peculiar aspects of his fellow coworkers and the office that make him question what is going on. Accidentally sleeping at work through the night, he encounters an ostrich (John Cavanagh) in the elevator who then claims the world Neil lives in is, “a lie”. What follows is a meta-breaking, existential short film deriving its comedy from the character’s realization of the stop-motion artifice of his life.

A winner of the Student Academy Award from last year and a nominee for Best Graduation Film at Annecy (the premier animation-only film festival), Ostrich uses what I am assuming is Pendragon’s hand in place of Bugs Bunny’s glove and paintbrush. Shot entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown at home in the living room, this is a one-man animation job. For most of its ten-minute runtime, the viewers see the film through an in-film camera monitor – allowing us into Pendragon’s workspace. Meanwhile, in the background that comprises the margins of the frame, we witness the rigging, wiring, and animation handiwork that is occurring at twenty-four frames per second.  The impressive character design and the clearly-delineated pop-off faces and jaws provide a remarkable assist to Ostrich’s comic timing and Neil’s acting (which Pendragon admits that Neil’s reactions take inspiration his own behavioral habits). The film’s metaphor is perhaps not as well developed, but one can make the argument that Ostrich is a blistering take on this stifling office environment and champions an exploration and investigation of all possibilities in one’s earthly life and in existence. One imagines we will see more from Pendragon, who is at the very beginning of his career and wishes to make a feature someday.

My rating: 8/10

The Flying Sailor (2022, Canada)

Making its debut last year at Annecy and from National Film Board of Canada (NFB; who, as a studio, are the second-most nominated ever in this category behind Walt Disney Animation), Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis’ The Flying Sailor is an experimental take of the story of Charlie Mayers. On December 6, 1917, a French cargo ship and a Norwegian merchant vessel collided in a strait called the Narrows, just off Halifax, Nova Scotia. A fire began on the former ship, which carried with it high explosives. The resulting explosion was the most violent peacetime accidental explosion ever on Earth – killing more than 1,700 and wounding around 9,000 in the immediate area and from the shockwaves. Mayers was actually onboard the deck of one of the ships, but Tilby and Forbis move him to the docks, watching on as an inquisitive spectator instead. As in real life, the blast is enough to quickly tear off all his clothes, and he spirals skyward. It is here that Tilby and Forbis send Mayers flying in slow-motion, almost balletically spinning as the film delves into his unconsciousness.

His life flashing before his eyes, we see hazy glimpses of the sailor’s memories – his childhood self at play, his mother, the rough-and-tumble life of being a sailor. Along with My Year of Dicks, The Flying Sailor is one of the first films in this category to make use of mixed media since Mémorable (2019, France). It opens with juxtaposing our hand-drawn sailor with the ships – as if in the style of the opening of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood – hurtling towards each other. But once the explosion occurs, the film, too, explodes with a clash of styles. Showcasing hand-drawn, computer-generated, and live action footage, Tilby and Forbis’ choices are reflective of the instant disorientation following the blast. The film’s penultimate moments are an orchestral cacophony from composer Luigi Allemano as the sailor returns to our earthly existence. This is perhaps the only film of these five that absolutely needed to be a short film. It presents its direction, completes its business, and concludes.

My rating: 8/10

Ice Merchants (2022, Portugal)

By earning Portugal its first-ever Academy Award nomination, João Gonzalez’s Ice Merchants – a production of the Cola Animation collective – already has a place in Oscars history. In his third film as a director following The Voyager (2017) and Nestor (2019), Gonzalez transports audiences to an impossible, dreamlike place and imbues his film with a metaphor of loss and how family routines can be an extension of grief. In a cliffside house suspended by hooks and ropes live a father and his son. Living thousands of feet above the town below, they jump off their porch daily, parachuting to safety in order to sell the ice. They return home after selling their wares and purchasing whatever they need in town by using a pulley system that probably takes ages to ascend and descend. In the rarified, chilly air, father and son go about their lives peacefully, continuing their lives amid the shadow of loss.

Garnering award wins at Cannes, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the Annies, Ice Merchants is among the most-awarded short films ever prior to an Oscar nomination. According to Gonzalez, the idea of the cliffside house came as he was dreaming or was about to fall asleep – a development that has, thus far, fully informed the visual conceits of his entire filmography. Prior to starting the formal animation for Ice Merchants, Gonzalez himself modeled the entire house (including the swing, interiors, and pulley system) 3D and started composing the score (Gonzalez is a pianist, but required his friend, conductor/orchestrator Nuno Lobo, to transpose for various instruments). Unusual in that the film’s narrative and themes spring from the score rather than the other way around, Ice Merchants adopts an everyday melancholy reflected in its strikingly limited color palette. Those colors include shades of red, orange, a dark blue or green for backgrounds only, and two brief but noteworthy instances of yellow. All these decisions – visually, musically, narratively – combine in a breathtaking conclusion that unleashes a wave of emotions. That mastery of cinematic control leads me to write something longtime readers know I do not say lightly. Ice Merchants is the best nominee in this category since Bear Story (2014, Chile) and World of Tomorrow (2015) were nominated together seven years ago. By extension, it is one of the finest animated short films of the young century.

My rating: 9/10

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)

Adapting Charlie Mackesy’s 2019 picture book of the same name, Peter Baynton and Mackesy’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse made an enormous splash when it aired on BBC One on Christmas Eve as part of the BBC’s annual slate of Christmas specials. It qualified for an Academy Award nomination by virtue of a nominal one-week theatrical release in Los Angeles County on September 23, 2022. Here, the Boy (Jude Coward Nicoll) has lost his way in a wintry forest when he encounters Mole (Tom Hollander). Mole is a cheerful, friendly sort that enjoys a good cake. But the Boy believes himself to be lost, is searching for a home, and wishes to be a kind person. Along their travels they encounter starving Fox (Idris Elba) and the lonely Horse (Gabriel Byrne). For the duration of this movie, the Boy and his animal friends speak to each other in platitudes of positivity, reassurance, and perseverance for what is most likely chronic depression or seasonal affective disorder.

The Boy might just be the most beautifully drawn of this year’s nominees. Its painterly watercolor backgrounds seem as lifted from a picture book; the residual sketches on each of the characters are a beautiful expressionistic touch (I especially like the ends of the Boy’s hair and Fox’s tale, as well as the curvatures to denote Horse’s leg musculature). My sense of visual wonder lasted all but five or so minutes. Because once the Boy has a few conversations with Mole, the film’s thirty-seven minutes seem all the more interminable. The film’s dialogue – and my goodness, no one speaks like this in real life – is trite, straight from the crowd that might have a “live, laugh, love” embroidery unironically hanging on their wall. Each character appears as if they are trying to one-up the other in their AI-generated speech*, as if each Very Important Line of Dialogue is attempting to be the penultimate or final line in a children’s picture book. I understand how this might be impactful for those with major cases of depression and seasonal affective disorder, but the film’s messaging and horrific script is sheer overkill.

My rating: 6/10

My Year of Dicks (2022)

A winner at Annecy, Chicago International Film Festival, and SXSW, Sara Gunnarsdóttir’s My Year of Dicks adapts Pamela Ribon’s comedic memoir Notes to Boys: And Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public (Ribon is the sole screenwriter on this film). This is not about people named Richard. It is 1991 in Houston. In the first of five chapters, we find Pam (Brie Tilton) – a fifteen-year-old who wants desperately to lose her virginity sometimes this year – narrating a diary entry/letter to her first boy, David (Sterling Temple Howard, “Skater Dude” from 2020’s Two Distant Strangers). David is a skater boy who has filed his nails into sharp points and his teeth in a similar way. As one can imagine, this romance does not work out and Pam cycles through the next four chapters awash in heterosexual hijinks (some readers will interpret the use of “heterosexual” here as a pejorative, but I say it as only an observation) with Wally (Mical Trejo), Robert (Sean Stack), best friend Sam (Jackson Kelly), and Joey (Chris Elsenbroek).

Alternatively hilarious and excruciating (see: the scene where Pam’s father gives her The Talk) to watch, one-half of the film’s genius lies in Ribon’s adapted screenplay of her memoir. Ribon (a co-screenwriter on 2016’s Moana and 2018’s Ralph Breaks the Internet), who saved all of the letters she wrote to all her crushes when she was a teenager, adapts that writing to form an honest, secondhand embarrassing story. The central ideas play like a grown-up Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold!, sans used gum bust of her beloved. My Year of Dicks’ resolution is genuine, as is a non-judgmental depiction of teenage female sexuality‡. In a roundabout way, it is a deconstruction of the idea that the only way for girls to achieve full womanhood is through sex and sexual appeal. And like The Flying Sailor, My Year of Dicks employs a litany of styles of mixed media that help it succeed. Though its rough rotoscoping (a time-tested technique in which animators trace over live-action footage) is the dominant style, there are some fascinating breaks here: most interestingly, a scene involving a metaphoric angel and devil over Pam’s shoulders and interludes of shôjo anime (which probably was not on the radar of Houston teenagers in 1991). A sidesplittingly funny film, My Year of Dicks nevertheless retains a sliver of nostalgic poignancy to keep it grounded.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013), 87th (2015), 88th (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), 91st (2019), 92nd (2020), 93rd (2021), and 94th (2022).

* This begs a question. Should programmers of AI chatbots receive credit for their work when, inevitably, we have a film written by one?

‡ This line of thinking was certainly more prominent in the 1980s-2000s than it has been over the last decade, as teenage sex in the U.S. is down considerably from those times (the reasons are many).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[naturalvalues]

by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

[animatedshortoftheday]

Strings (1991) [10 min] by Wendy Tilby | Canada

[haverwood]

The Flying Sailor Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby Canada, 2022

[you-should-care-about-animation]

When the Day Breaks | Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby (1999)

I'm know i'm late to the party but I think that this film is worth every praise it got! The directing and animation are an absolute delight, so many great transitions too! I really recommend it!

[randomrichards]

THE FLYING SAILOR:

Sailor strolling by

Has near death experience

When 2 ships explode

[lilyjigglypuff]

2023 Oscar nominees challenge

The flying sailor (2022)

Dir.: Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby

Nominations: Short film (animated)

My rate: ⭐⭐⭐

Incredible true story

Loved the art of the animation

Predictions: not winner

[jerichopalms]

#17: The Flying Sailor (2022, dir. by Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby)

[cyarsk52-20]

Here Are All the Winners From the 2023 Oscars: Complete List

The 95th annual Academy Awards are hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

The 95th Academy Awards take place on Sunday (March 12) at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and air live on ABC, with Jimmy Kimmel returning as Oscars host for the third time. 

Related 

Jimmy Kimmel Jokes About Nick Cannon’s Kids, the Will Smith Slap in 2023 Oscars… 

03/12/2023

Everything Everywhere All At Once, which earned 11 nods, is the most-nominated film this year. One of those 11 nominations is for best original song (David Byrne, Ryan Lott and Mitski’s “This Is A Life”). They’re competing against Lady Gaga and BloodPop for “Hold My Hand” (Top Gun: Maverick), Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson for “Lift Me Up (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Diane Warren for “Applause” (Tell It Like a Woman) and M.M. Keeravaani and Chandrabose for “Naatu Naatu” (RRR). This is Warren’s 14th nomination, with no wins so far. Gaga previously won this category for co-writing “Shallow” from A Star Is Born. 

Baz Luhrmann’s biopic on 20thcentury icon Elvis Presley, Elvis, was nominated for eight Oscars, including best picture; it also earned a best actor nomination for Austin Butler, who portrayed the King of Rock & Roll.

Check out the complete winners list below, updating live throughout the show. 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Angela Bassett in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hong Chau in “The Whale” Kerry Condon in “The Banshees of Inisherin” Jamie Lee Curtis in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — WINNER Stephanie Hsu in “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best Costume Design

“Babylon” Mary Zophres “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Ruth Carter — WINNER “Elvis” Catherine Martin “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Shirley Kurata “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” Jenny Beavan

Best Sound

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Viktor Prášil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel and Stefan Korte “Avatar: The Way of Water” Julian Howarth, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Dick Bernstein, Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers and Michael Hedges “The Batman” Stuart Wilson, William Files, Douglas Murray and Andy Nelson “Elvis” David Lee, Wayne Pashley, Andy Nelson and Michael Keller “Top Gun: Maverick” Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor — WINNER

Best Original Score

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Volker Bertelmann — WINNER “Babylon” Justin Hurwitz “The Banshees of Inisherin” Carter Burwell “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Son Lux “The Fabelmans” John Williams

Best Adapted Screenplay

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Screenplay by Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson & Ian Stokell “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” Written by Rian Johnson “Living” Written by Kazuo Ishiguro “Top Gun: Maverick” Screenplay by Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie; Story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks “Women Talking” Screenplay by Sarah Polley — WINNER

Best Original Screenplay

“The Banshees of Inisherin” Written by Martin McDonagh “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert — WINNER “The Fabelmans” Written by Steven Spielberg & Tony Kushner “Tár” Written by Todd Field “Triangle of Sadness” Written by Ruben Östlund

Best Live-Action Short Film

“An Irish Goodbye” Tom Berkeley and Ross White — WINNER “Ivalu” Anders Walter and Rebecca Pruzan “Le Pupille” Alice Rohrwacher and Alfonso Cuarón “Night Ride” Eirik Tveiten and Gaute Lid Larssen “The Red Suitcase” Cyrus Neshvad

Best Animated Short Film

“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud — WINNER “The Flying Sailor” Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby “Ice Merchants” João Gonzalez and Bruno Caetano “My Year of Dicks” Sara Gunnarsdóttir and Pamela Ribon “An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It” Lachlan Pendragon

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Brendan Gleeson in “The Banshees of Inisherin” Brian Tyree Henry in “Causeway” Judd Hirsch in “The Fabelmans” Barry Keoghan in “The Banshees of Inisherin” Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — WINNER

Best Animated Film

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley — WINNER “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” Dean Fleischer Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan and Paul Mezey “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” Joel Crawford and Mark Swift “The Sea Beast” Chris Williams and Jed Schlanger “Turning Red” Domee Shi and Lindsey Collins

Best Original Song

“Applause” from “Tell It like a Woman”; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”; Music and Lyric by Lady Gaga and BloodPop “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”; Music by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson; Lyric by Tems and Ryan Coogler “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”; Music by M.M. Keeravaani; Lyric by Chandrabose — WINNER “This Is A Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; Music by Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski; Lyric by Ryan Lott and David Byrne

Best International Feature Film

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Germany — WINNER “Argentina, 1985” Argentina “Close” Belgium “EO” Poland “The Quiet Girl” Ireland

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Heike Merker and Linda Eisenhamerová “The Batman” Naomi Donne, Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Camille Friend and Joel Harlow “Elvis” Mark Coulier, Jason Baird and Aldo Signoretti “The Whale” Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Anne Marie Bradley — WINNER

Best Production Design

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Production Design: Christian M. Goldbeck; Set Decoration: Ernestine Hipper — WINNER “Avatar: The Way of Water” Production Design: Dylan Cole and Ben Procter; Set Decoration: Vanessa Cole “Babylon” Production Design: Florencia Martin; Set Decoration: Anthony Carlino “Elvis” Production Design: Catherine Martin and Karen Murphy; Set Decoration: Bev Dunn “The Fabelmans” Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Karen O’Hara

Best Cinematography

“All Quiet on the Western Front” James Friend — WINNER “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” Darius Khondji “Elvis” Mandy Walker “Empire of Light” Roger Deakins “Tár” Florian Hoffmeister

Best Visual Effects

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Frank Petzold, Viktor Müller, Markus Frank and Kamil Jafar “Avatar: The Way of Water” Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett — WINNER “The Batman” Dan Lemmon, Russell Earl, Anders Langlands and Dominic Tuohy “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Geoffrey Baumann, Craig Hammack, R. Christopher White and Dan Sudick “Top Gun: Maverick” Ryan Tudhope, Seth Hill, Bryan Litson and Scott R. Fisher

Best Film Editing

“The Banshees of Inisherin” Mikkel E.G. Nielsen “Elvis” Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Paul Rogers — WINNER “Tár” Monika Willi “Top Gun: Maverick” Eddie Hamilton

Best Documentary Feature

“All That Breathes” Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, John Lyons, Nan Goldin and Yoni Golijov “Fire of Love” Sara Dosa, Shane Boris and Ina Fichman “A House Made of Splinters” Simon Lereng Wilmont and Monica Hellström “Navalny” Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris — WINNER

Best Documentary Short Subject

“The Elephant Whisperers” Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga — WINNER “Haulout” Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev “How Do You Measure a Year?” Jay Rosenblatt “The Martha Mitchell Effect” Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison “Stranger at the Gate” Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Austin Butler in “Elvis” Colin Farrell in “The Banshees of Inisherin” Brendan Fraser in “The Whale” — WINNER Paul Mescal in “Aftersun” Bill Nighy in “Living”

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Cate Blanchett in “Tár” Ana de Armas in “Blonde” Andrea Riseborough in “To Leslie” Michelle Williams in “The Fabelmans” Michelle Yeoh in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — WINNER

Best Directing

“The Banshees of Inisherin” Martin McDonagh “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — WINNER “The Fabelmans” Steven Spielberg “Tár” Todd Field “Triangle of Sadness” Ruben Östlund

Best Picture

“All Quiet on the Western Front” Malte Grunert, Producer “Avatar: The Way of Water” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers “The Banshees of Inisherin” Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Martin McDonagh, Producers “Elvis” Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss, Producers “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang, Producers — WINNER “The Fabelmans” Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, Producers “Tá”r Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan and Scott Lambert, Producers “Top Gun: Maverick” Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison and Jerry Bruckheimer, Producers “Triangle of Sadness” Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober, Producers “Women Talking” Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Frances McDormand, Producers

Billboard

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Read in Billboard: https://apple.news/AHKFOmlU5QtqosjZ_09EbPg

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[the-celluloid-correspondent]

QUICKIE REVIEWS: OSCAR EDITION

The Quiet Girl, Directed by Colm Bairead

The Quiet Girl is a quiet beauty in this year's Oscar nominations. It's soft and heartfelt, as we see the world through a child's eye, who has known nothing but neglect. The story is straightforward and masterfully handles numerous themes from child-neglect and abusive households, to redefining what we considered to be family. The entire ensemble cast brings all of these themes to life masterfully. The cinematography and the simple score are beautiful. Overall, The Quiet Girl a charming film worthy of its Oscar nomination.

My Rating: A-

*******************************************************

An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It, Directed by Lachlan Pendragon.

If there ever was an Academy Award for Best Titled Film, An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It, would easily take the cake home. Besides the absurd title, with a runtime of 11 minutes, the film pulls apart the theme of the existential crisis, with a self-aware twist. It's a fun and incredibly intriguing premise of office life. The animation is wonderful. However, the story could have been ironed out a bit more, but overall this was a fun short film.

My Rating: B+

*******************************************************

Ice Merchant, Directed by Joao Gonzalez

There is something personal and touching within The Ice Merchant. For being 14 minutes long it's filled with themes such as grief, loss, and love. What's even more impressive is that it does this without saying a single word. All of these themes and many more are beautifully woven into the animation. The animation is stunning and thoughtful. Its ability to convey so many emotions, through a universal story is impressive. Overall, a beautiful piece of animation.

My Rating: A

***************************************************

The Flying Sailor, Directed by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby.

The Flying Sailor is a fascinating take on near-death experiences. Inspired by the Halifax Explosion in 1917, we see a sailor get tossed across the city and we see his life flash before our eyes. It's thoughtful in its portrayal of these experiences without saying a single word. Though the animation style was not for me, I still respected it. Overall, an interesting animated piece.

My Rating: B

[msamba]

The Flying Sailor

Nominated for Best Animated Short Film. In a short film by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, two ships collide in a harbor, sending a passing sailor skyward as he contemplates the wonder and fragility of existence. The story behind the film: newyorker.com/culture/screening-room/serenity-amid-disaster-in-the-flying-sailor

[animation-of-the-day]

When the Day Breaks by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis

What I like about this short is the use of rotoscoping and photocopied frames in the film, which creates a unique atmosphere that I haven't seen in other films. The theme of the film also attracts me personally as I am interested in films that relate to death and/or the significance of a single human life.

[mbti-sorted]

Wendy Tilby

[chrisshepherdfilms]

I'm really looking forward to our next Bar Shorts on Tuesday 5th September. Kick off its at 7pm and there's still a couple of tickets left.

Director of the British Animation Awards, Helen Brunsdon, is the guest programmer of this evening’s Bar Shorts. Helen has worked extensively across the animation industry as a consultant, producer and executive working with the most creative names in animation including Aardman, Arthur Cox, Brothers McLeod, CBBC, Creative Skillset and Disney, We look forward to evening of classic, ground-breaking and fun animated shorts. 

The programme will be followed by a Q&A with Helen hosted by Chris Shepherd. The evening is curated by Chris and Dog&Rabbit Animation Studio. 

Join us in the bar from 7pm for networking

Films Screening:

Busby (1997) - Anna Henkel

When the Day Breaks (1999) - Amanda Forbes and Wendy Tilby 

Uncle (1996) - Adam Elliot

The Conformist (1991) - Phil Mulloy

The Hill Farm (1989) - Mark Baker

Murder (1991) - Phil Mulloy

The Dirdy Birdy (1997) - John R Dilworth

Cousin (1999) - Adam Elliot

That's Nothin (1991) - Phil Mulloy

Wife of Bath (1998) - Joanna Quinn

Creature Comforts (1989) - Nick Park

The Big Snit (1985) - Richard Condie

About Bar Shorts:

Bar Shorts hosts regular short film and animation nights in different venues across London and the UK. It's aim is to bring shorts to a wider audience. It is curated by Dog&Rabbit animation studio and hosted by Chris Shepherd.

[you-should-care-about-animation]

June 2023

Day of Wrath - Carl Theodor Dreyer (1943), Train of Thought - Jonathan Hodgson (1985), Madoka Magica - Yukihiro Miyamoto & Akiyuki Shinbo (2011), On Your Mark - Hayao Miyazaki (1995), The Jungle - Joseph Melhuish (2017), 1001 Nights - Mike Smith (1999), Accordion - Michèle Cournoyer (2004), Sátántangó - Béla Tarr (1994), Little Dragon - Cady Buche & Travis Barron (2023), The Sand Castle - Co Hoedeman (1977) , The Visit 探望 - Morrie Tan (2022), Expansion - Toshio Matsumoto (1972), Death Race 2000 - Paul Bartel (1975), Conversations With a Whale - Anna Samo (2020), Energie! - Thorsten Fleisch (2007), When the Day Breaks - Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby (1999)

[greensparty]

Green’s Party Guide to the 2023 Oscar Nominated Short Films

Every year the Academy Awards give out their annual movie awards, but all of the attention usually goes to the big categories. I am a longtime champion of the Short Film categories for Animation, Live Action and Documentary, mainly because I have made short films and I know how hard it can be to tell a story in a short amount of time. I am very excited to continue my annual tradition of showcasing the Oscar Nominated Short Films (read my 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 guides).  This year’s nominated short films are available from ShortsTV both in theaters and online. I’ve watched all of them and here are my thoughts and predictions:

2023 Shorts TV poster

Best Live Action Short:

This year’s Live Action Short nominees are all from other countries. In addition to global diversity, they are all very diverse in genres too. In An Irish Goodbye  (Ireland), two estranged brothers reunite after the death of their mother. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the similarities to multi-Oscar nominee The Banshees of Inisherin, with it’s rural Ireland setting, humor, and drama. Ivalu (Denmark) is about a young Inuit girl searching for her missing sister against the breath-taking backdrop of Greenland. It is co-directed by Anders Walter who previously won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short for 2013′s Helium. Disney+’s The Pupils (Italy) is about girls at a Catholic boarding school during Christmas time. Of all the nominees this has gotten the most attention because it was produced by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity and Roma) and if he wins for this that would be a 5th Oscar on his mantle. Night Ride (Norway) shows a woman with dwarfism who steal a tram and a series of unexpected events occur as she continues to make tram stops. In The Red Suitcase (Luxembourg), a young Iranian woman arrives in a new country for an arranged marriage and suddenly makes a life-changing decision. 

2023 Live Action Short Film nominees

Will Win: The Pupils has name recognition with Cuaron as a nominee, but it is also the most uplifting of this year’s nominees. The fact that it’s on Disney+ doesn’t hurt either.

Should Win: The Red Suitcase truly stayed with me for days after watching it. It told a highly emotional story with high stakes in a very short amount of time and left me in awe. 

Best Animated Short:

I always enjoy animated shorts because this category is always showcasing various styles of animation from all over the world. Apple TV+’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (U.S. / U.K.) is based on a children’s book about, well, a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse who travel together in the boy’s search for a new home. This one boasts the star power of voices Tom Hollander, Idris Elba and Gabriel Byrne as well as star producers J.J. Abrams and Woody Harrelson. In The Flying Sailor (Canada), it shows a sailor who goes flying after an explosion (based on a true story from 1917). It is co-directed by Amanda Forbis, who was nominated twice before for Best Animated Short, and Wendy Tilby, who was nominated three times before for Best Animated Short. Ice Merchants (Portugal / France / U.K.) has been getting a lot of attention because it is the first Portuguese film to ever be nominated for an Oscar. It shows a father and son who jump with a parachute from their house to go to a village and sell ice. FX and Hulu’s My Year of Dicks (U.S.) is about a 15-year old girl who is determined to lose her virginity in early 90s Houston. Based on Pamela Ribon’s memoir, it is animated but has moments of live action interspersed as well. There are five different guys she is with in this time period and there’s different styles of animation throughout. In An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It (Australia), a telemarketer is confronted and told that the world is stop motion animation and now he needs to convince his colleagues. 

2023 Animated Short Film nominees

Will Win: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse boasts star power and it’s on Apple TV+, but more than that, it feels like an animated feature in 32 minutes.

Should Win: I am rooting for The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse also because it was produced by someone I interned for a while back. But I will say this: a case can be made for My Year of Dicks for using animation to tell her personal recollection...and let’s face it, it would be wildly entertaining to see a presenter on the Oscar telecast say “and the winner is...My Year of Dicks” and not get censored. 

Best Documentary Short:

This year’s Doc Shorts are all completely different in their subjects and in their approaches to documentary. In Haulout (U.K.) a lonely man waits on a remote coast of the Siberian Arctic for an ancient gathering. There is a powerful environmental message to this, even if it is slow moving and has very little dialogue. Netflix’s The Elephant Whisperers (India) also has an environmental message in it to: an Indigenous couple fall in love with an orphaned elephant and work for his survival. Both have breath-taking cinematography! HBO Max’s How Do You Measure a Year? (U.S.) is a doc 17 years in the making: The director had a ritual with his daughter Ella every year on her birthday from age 2 to 18, he filmed an interview with her being asked the exact same questions each year. Director Jay Rosenblatt was nominated for Best Documentary Short last year for When We Were Bullies, my favorite of last year’s nominees. Netflix’s The Martha Mitchell Effect  (U.S.) is a historical doc about Martha Mitchell, the whistleblower who was married to President Nixon’s attorney general John N. Mitchell. She was gaslighted by the Nixon Administration to keep her quiet and today through the lens of 2023, we see she was speaking the truth even though she was told otherwise. The New Yorker’s Stranger at the Gate (U.S.) is about a U.S. Marine who plots a terrorist attack on a mosque in Muncie, Indiana. But in the process of doing so, a surprising turn of events occur for all involved.

2023 Documentary Short Film nominees

Will Win: This is a hard one to predict. Sometimes the Academy goes for environmental or socio-political subjects, but recent years it has been introspective human interest stories. A case could literally be made for any of these to win, but if I had to predict I’d go with The Elephant Whisperers. It had the backing of Netflix, but more importantly it’s cinematography can’t be denied and neither than the endearing story.

Should Win: Even if the haters are going to say How Do You Measure a Year? is just a gimmick, I really liked it. Sure, we’ve seen this approach in the Up series and to an extent Boyhood did something similar in it’s narrative approach, but the way we are seeing this girl grow and mature through the annual interview tradition was intriguing and introspective. I do have to say a close second would be Stranger at the Gate based solely on the unbelievable twist and sense of surprise you don’t always see in documentaries. 

This year’s Oscar Nominated Short Films can be seen online from ShortsTV and in movie theaters, including Somerville Theatre, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema and Coolidge Corner Theatre in the Boston area. For tickets and info: https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/tickets/