Best Animated Short 2017 - The Shortlist

Yes, I am still alive. I will admit I've kind of fallen behind on the animation scene. When Cartoon Brew reported on the qualifying films this year I didn't feel like writing a post about all 63 of them. And Jerry Beck has been writing excellent articles about the films that qualified for the Academy Awards but were not nominated from 1947-1975, but I haven't written about them. Part of it may be related to the fact my computer has gotten agonizingly slow, but part of it may be because I've had my attention elsewhere, such as baseball. Still, I figured I'll write about the shortlist once it's been revealed. However, Thanksgiving came and went and there was still no sign of a shortlist. I was beginning to think that they wouldn't even announce a shortlist this year and I'll be REALLY out of the loop, but loyal reader Sean Ramsdell reported to me that the shortlist is FINALLY out. So I'll take this opportunity to give my quick thoughts about each of them, just like I have in the past few years.

PIPER wins Best Animated Short

 
Well, I didn't have my computer when watching the Oscars so I didn't have any way to make this post, so it's probably a few hours delayed, but being that this is a blog about the Best Animated Short category, I might as well report it. Most of the news tomorrow (or rather later today) will probably be about the fiasco with the Best Picture category, but there's no doubt about what went down in the Best Animated Short film category (which is clearly the most important category anyways). After 13 years of heartbreak and eight previous losses, Pixar finally went back to the winner's circle (at least in this Best Animated Feature category) with their first win since For the Birds in 2001.

That's right, Piper takes home the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

This is only their fourth win in this category, with Tin Toy (1988) and Geri's Game (1997)

Other thoughts after the break

Best Animated Short - 2016

Well, as you might have heard, the Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and five more films entered into the rank of Best Animated Short nominees along with such luminaries as Small Talk, A Greek Tragedy, and The Jaywalker. I had talked a little bit about the nominees earlier today, but for the first time since 2009, I was able to watch all of the nominees not only before the Shorts International theatrical showing, but also on the day of the nomination. After all, four of the five shortlisted films I had seen received nomination, and the National Film Board made the final nominee available for purchase. So, since I have seen all five films I might as well get the review out of the way. I just hope this isn't going to take six hours (although knowing how slow my computer is now it probably will take more than six hours.)

Best Animated Short 2016 - The Nominees

Well, it's that time of year again, the time that I have to get off of my sorry butt and start working on preparing for this year's Oscar nominations. Thankfully, with the NFB making Blind Vaysha available for purchase, I was actually able to see all of the nominees by the day of the nominations, something that hadn't been done since the 2009 Oscars. Unfortunately, I'm currently at work and won't have the time to actually do the reviews until I get off work, so I figure I might as well just post the nominations and some of my quick thoughts about the nominations for this year.