Frederic Back (1924 - 2013)

Christmas is usually a time of joy and cheer. After all, we are celebrating the birth of Christ, who came down for our sins. Unfortunately, sometimes those are times of sadness, as those are the days of passing for some people. Men like Charlie Chaplin and former Rangers manager Billy Martin died on Christmas Day, while Kurosawa regular Toshio Mifune and former Rangers manager Johnny Oates died on Christmas Eve. Well now we can add another figure to those that died around this time: the great French Canadian animator Frederic Back.

Best Animated Short - 1932/1933

And then there were two. After almost two years of writing reviews nobody reads, I've almost completed my quest of reviewing the Oscar nominated short films. (Of course, I would already be done if I didn't go onto a three month hiatus last year or switch the reviews to every two weeks, which has eroded whatever support I was getting for this blog.)

But anyways, we are near the finish. If you're paying attention that you might have noticed that the review's title included two years instead of just one. That's not a mistake. In the early years the Academy considered films from an August to July schedule, just like what the Emmys do now, and the ceremony would be held in November. Then somewhere around this time the Academy decided that was stupid and decided to extend the eligibility period from July of 1932 to the end of 1933 and then going to a January to December eligibility for 1934, and that's the way it's been since.

Best Animated Short - 1934

Well, now we're really getting somewhere. It's been almost a month since the finalists were announced, and it's about a month before the Oscar nominees will be announced. According to some insider info the committee won't even be watching the finalists and voting on them until later this week. So for now it's just waiting and more reviews. Of course I've noted that since I've slowed these reviews down to just once every two weeks that my traffic had dried up. I was afraid that would happen, but I just haven't had much time to work on these reviews, what with work and also my desire to play some more Tokimeki Memorial. Oh well.

We're now in 1934. It is the year of the Gashouse Gang, when the St. Louis Cardinals so thoroughly trounced the Detroit Tigers in Game 7 that Joe Medwick had to be told to leave the game because the fans in Detroit were throwing food at him. There has to be a lot of hate when people were willing to part with food in the middle of the Great Depression.