Round up: Oscars for 'Best Animated Short'

As someone with a degree in Animation, I certainly should know a lot more about it than I do. I've always been fascinated by traditionally drawn animations as well as the magical world of stop motion, and despite a few exceptions not quite as much when it comes to contemporary 3D work.

Towards the end of 2013, I had decided that in the following year I was going to watch all of the Academy Award 'Best Picture' winners. The outcome of that particular journey will be the subject of a subsequent post, however, I also felt a desire to watch all of the animated short winners. I didn't want to overwhelm myself with lists upon lists of films to take a look at, but I knew that most of the shorts would probably only stretch to around 30 minutes at the most.

The Oscar for 'Best Animated Short' was first awarded in 1932, and in every year of that 30s decade the prize went to the same man; Walt Disney. Not surprisingly, most of the other nominees were made up of his other productions. Ultimately, he still holds the record for the most Academy Award wins and nominations by some considerable margin.

 

The Films

In order to keep this post concise and free of blubber, I will simply just mention what I felt were some of the high and low points over the past 90 or so Oscar winners. In chronical order, they are as follows:

'Winners'

'Mouse Trouble' - Fred Quimby, 1944.

'The Little Orphan' - Fred Quimby, 1948.

'Johann Mouse' - Fred Quimby, 1952.

'Speedy Gonzales' - Edward Selzer, 1955.

'Birds Anonymous' - Edward Selzer, 1957.

'Special Delivery' - Eunice Macauley & John Weldon, 1978.

'Tango' - Zbigniew Rybczynski, 1982.

'The Man Who Planted Trees' - Frederic Back, 1987.

'The Wrong Trousers' - Nick Park, 1993.

'Logorama' - Nicolas Schmerkin, 2009. 

'Binners'

'Moonbird' - John Hubley & Faith Elliott Hubley, 1959.

'Is it Always Right to be Right?' - Lee Mishkin, 1970.

'Frank Film' - Frank Mouris, 1973.

'Bunny' - Chris Wedge, 1998.

'Peter & the Wolf' - Suzie Templeton & Hugh Welchman, 2007.

With regards to the above film 'Peter & the Wolf', I really have to say that it is probably one of the most amazing and best looking stop motion sets that it's ever seen. However, for me it was vastly outweighed by the poor telling of its story. Beauty alone can't tame the hearts of the audience, the Academy Awards judging panel; maybe.

Special mentions should go to Bob Godfrey's 'Great' (1975) and John Canemaker & Peggy Stern's 'The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation' (2005) as these two films in particular inspired me as an animator in terms of what animation can really be used for in a more personalised but meaningful way.

I'll admit I was disappointed that the two animated shorts I usually consider to be my favourites were not even nominated for an Academy Award, but this is par for the course with many things. I would certainly recommened seeking them out; should you be in need for inspiration. They are William Hanna & Joseph Barbera's 'Mouse in Manhattan' (1945) and David Fleischer's 'Big Bad Sinbad' (1957), truly great animated shorts.

I shall leave you with the most recent animated short that I really enjoyed, Nina Paley's 'This Land is Mine' (2012). I happened to catch a screening of it at the Berlin Pictoplasma festival in 2013, and unlike the vast majority of animations on show there I was moved by its message; despite it being carried through a satire that had the audience in stitches.

   

The split cinema release trend

Around the time of the early to mid-noughties, there seemed to be a popular trend of film studios releasing finished back-to-back sequels at the cinema several months apart. Examples of this include 'Kill Bill' volume 1 & 2, the 'The Matrix' sequels and most notably the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy; each of which hit the big screen at Christmas time for three consecutive years. A decade later this decision has been repeated for the associated 'Hobbit' trilogy, due to conclude at the end of this; the third and final year.

However, this trend is not quite as new as you might think. There are previous examples, though more out of a need than a want to separate releases. An early Chinese film which unfortunately no longer exists,'The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple' (1928), had a total runtime of around 27 hours and had to be screened in a number of sittings over several years. Similarly, the 1957 Russian Revolution movie 'And Quiet Flows the Don' was shorter at around 5 hours but still saw a separated release.

There were also cases prior to the digital age of cinema where theatres in remote areas could only show so much of certain movie releases, due to them having not received all of the reels. In this case the cinema and audience had to resume the film at a later date when the rest of the spools had arrived. As most of the films released today are filmed digitally onto hard disk drives rather than traditional celluloid film, the cost of updating projection technology suggests that some of these areas may still not be able to see some of the latest releases.

WINNER: Bad Lieutenant (1992)

I finally got around to watching this film at the weekend, having seen the recent remake a few months back.
I enjoyed it, but half expected a comedy following the opening scene in which Harvey Keitel's character discusses bathroom politics with his children.

I only really had one problem with the film, and you may not wish to read on for the sake of spoilers.

Due to the scene early on where the lieutenant has a sex romp filled with drugs and sobbing, I had assumed that the raping of a nun shortly after was part of a porn film that he was possibly involved in. The gritty close-up shots and film quality seemed to suggest this to me, but it was only later when the rape case was brought to attention that I realised my confusion.

BINNER: The Lightor Semen

On the day that marks 100 years since the First World War officially began, I have been doing some research on the movies that document or revolve around "The Great War". It was through this that I came across a film that I haven't yet seen or even heard of, 'The Lighthorsemen'.

However; this image happened to be the first thing that I had stumbled upon, a German DVD cover for the film. I'm sure that you will forgive my ignorance when I initially assumed the title to be 'The Lightor Semen", and as one would imagine; I was very confused by this.

It was only after I had searched further that I came across the correct title, and looking back at this previous image (as someone who has designed posters and DVD covers in the past) I was quite stunned by the glaring errors in it.