Best Animated Short 2016 - The Shortlist

Well, it took a while but the Academy has finally announced the ten films moving on among the 70 that qualified, some of which I profiled a few weeks ago. Yes, I know that I'm five days late. No, I don't have any valid excuses. And no, I don't think anybody cares because I doubt anybody is still reading this blog, and I'm just doing this because I like to waste my time and am doing this for completionist's sake. Don't think I'm giving up on the category. I'm still doing all that I can to watch these films in my limited can't-go-to-festivals capacity. In fact I've seen three of the shortlisted films on the day of the announcement. That still leaves five films that I have yet to see. Watch those five get nominations. Anyways, surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly as unlike me, Amid Amidi knows what he's talking about), all of the films were featured in the profile. So maybe this may go quicker as my views may not change for films I haven't seen.

Best Animated Short 2016 - Some Contenders

No, I swear that I'm not dead. I've just been busy with moving and starting a new residency and basically ignoring the Best Animated Short race. (I haven't even reviewed the animated documentary for a Best Documentary Short Film Oscar from last year.) But now comes the time where there is no more procrastinating. The Academy has selected their qualifying films, and they've screened these films for members of the Short Films and Animation branch. According to Cartoon Brew, 70 films have qualified for the Oscar this year. Sadly they don't have a list of all 70, but they do have a list of the top contenders, of which I'll showcase here. You know, instead of on Cartoon Brew.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - World of Tomorrow

In the past few years, the number of blogs dedicated to covering the Oscars has grown quite tremendously. This officially counts as an Oscar blog, I suppose, albeit one that focuses solely on a single category. With so many options I suppose you have many to choose from as to which to follow. For me I usually stick with Sasha Stone's Awards Daily and Nathaniel Rogers's The Film Experience. I suppose the latter is more of a general film blog than a blog dedicated to the Oscar, but I first followed it for its predictions and insights in the Oscar race. This was back when I was hoping that Spirited Away would win an Oscar, so I've been a semi-loyal reader for a good 13 years now.

One thing that the site does well is that in the down months for Oscars, it hosts events where readers can participate, such as the Supporting Actress Smackdown, where readers can rate all of the nominees for Best Supporting Actress in a certain year. Five years ago they offered a contest for a Blu-Ray copy of West Side Story in honor of the 50th anniversary. I went out on a limb and entered (and was actually one of the winners). But for the most part I've only been an observer posting a few comments here and there. And this includes their most enduring series, Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot is pretty much as the title suggests. They bring up a movie and we pick one shot that we feel is the best. Then we post it on our blog and at the end we can see what every viewer picked as the best shot for that one particular movie. Anyways, it's interesting to see, but I never felt the need to participate. It would be kind of weird to do a HMWYBS about a non-animated short film on this site about the Best Animated Short category. Until I saw what would be the topic for this coming week.

That's right: one of the two short films that can be chosen is none other than Don Hertzfeldt's Oscar nominated World of Tomorrow. Now as a blog dedicated to the Best Animated Short category, how could I not enter? Especially for the film that I felt should have won the Oscar (over the good but not quite as good Bear Story?)

But then I came across another reason why I never entered these HMWYBS events? What exactly is the best shot in World of Tomorrow?

Bear Story wins Best Animated Short

Link to a video to the film after the break. Congratulations to Gabriel Osorio and the country of Chile!

2015 Oscars Live Blog

It's on Facebook this year

https://www.facebook.com/notes/%E9%99%B3%E6%9C%97/2015-oscars-live-blog/10153546525667545

Best Animated Short - 2015

Well, it's that time of year again, time for me to stop ignoring my blog and actually write something for once. With all but one of the nominees seen and reviewed, I'm at the point where I'd either have to write some content about topics that are not related to this category or wait around for the nominees every year. So far I've been too lazy to write original content, so I'm just waiting around for the nominees, and now comes the point where I can't delay any longer and write the review, because I finally seen all of the nominees.

Best Animated Short 2015 - Nominees

So yeah, as loyal reader Sean Ramsdell noted, the Oscar nominees were announced today. I actually woke up in time to watch them (not too bad considering they were at 7:30 and I had to be at work by 8:15) after getting back from an interview in Boise at 2:30. However, I missed the actual Best Animated Short announcement by Guillermo del Toro and two-time Oscar winner Ang Lee due to computer issues. However, it didn't take too long for the full set of nominees to make it online. The tricky part was just finding time to write about them. I've only seen three of the five, so the full review won't come up until I see the last two.