Best Animated Short - 2017

Well, it's time for my annual review of the Best Animated Short nominees, pretty much the only post I care to write every year. This year I'm writing it much later than I'd like. I've been following the Best Animated Short category since starting to watch all of the nominated films shortly after the 2006 Oscars (or the Oscar ceremony dedicated to honoring the films from 2006, which is my preferred way of classifying ceremonies.) It was before the 2009 Oscars that I found out about the Shortlist, and since then I've been trying to watch as many as I can before the nominations are out. On only two occasions I've seen all five on the day of the nomination. For all the rest I've had to rely on the screenings around the country of the Oscar nominated short films, which have become quite popular. Alas, most of the times there are usually only one or two films that I'm missing, and I have to go to the showing, which I've gone to anyways even on the two occasions where I have seen all the nominees by the day of the nomination. Anyways, this year I saw three of the nominees before the nominations were announced, and was able to find another one online after that. Sadly, I had no luck with the last film, and had to go to the showing, which seemed to happen later this year than in previous years. Nevertheless, I was going to Houston for a card show on February 11 and was able to find a theater showing the films on February 10, so I was able to get the films seen. So here's my review on each of the five films.




Dear Basketball

It is Italy in the 1980s, and a young boy is in love. No, it's not with his father's graduate assistant, instead the boy is in love with his father's sport: basketball. Using his father's socks and a miniature basket, as well as the videos sent over from America of the boy's favorite teams the Los Angeles Lakers, the boy develops his skills to become one of the best young basketball players. The years go by and the boy becomes a man. He has become one of the best basketball players in the history of the game, and his love of the game has continued. And yet he knows his time around the game grows short. As he looks back over his life dedicated to the game, he tries to verbalize what the game has meant to him. Dear Basketball is the brainchild of Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA. In a career that stretched from 1996 through 2016, Kobe scored over 30,000 points, one of only seven to do so (eight if you include the ABA). He led the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles, three straight from 2000-2002, and then twice more in 2009* and 2010. And he put up single-game point totals not seen since the 1960s, including 81 in a game on January 22, 2006. Yet by 2015 injuries had come to decimated his skills and left him unable to put up the same kind of numbers he was accustomed to. He ultimately made the decision that the 2015-16 season would be his final one. He made the announcement in a short poem dedicated to the game that appeared on "The Player's Tribune" on November 29, 2015. The poem was titled "Dear Basketball." Kobe went on to have another difficult year, although he scored 60 points in his final game.

*I've said this once and I'll say it again. Game 1 of the 2009 NBA Finals happened on June 4, 2009, which was the same day Randy Johnson won his 300th game. Kobe scored 40 points as the Lakers dominated the Orlando Magic 100-75. The Lakers would win in five and Kobe was named the series MVP. 

With no more basketball to fill up his days, Kobe Bryant turned to other endeavors, such as entrepreneurship. He formed his own company Kobe Inc. to make investment deals and other media projects. One of his ideas is to make his poem into an animated film. To help him to make this a reality he turned to legendary animator Glen Keane, who was a key character animator at Disney for almost 40 years before branching off to form his own animation company. One of his earliest solo films was Duet, which was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. Kobe was inspired by Keane's ability to portray motion using deceptively simple brushstrokes and approached him for the project. Keane in turn was inspired by the humanism featured in Kobe's poem. They came together and formed a dream team that also included Glen's son Max, the Oscar winning composer John Williams and the Oscar nominated animator Minkyu Lee (the director of Adam and Dog.) The end result was a film that was as inspiring as it is beautiful. Keane's animation is excellent, using the same rough-looking brushstrokes to expertly convey the action inherent to a quick-paced game like basketball. The decision to intercut Kobe's NBA career with scenes from his childhood also helps to paint a picture of the hold the game had on his life and serves as a nice contrast. Kobe's understated narration of his own words provides context to the action without being obtrusive. The use of actual commentary such as Mike Breen's enthusiastic call of Kobe's game winning shot against the Suns on April 30, 2006 to open the film also helps add a feeling of authenticity. And of course Williams's rousing score serves to lift the spirits of viewers. The Academy don't often nominate sports films in this category. The only previous sports-related nominees were How to Play Football and Aquamania, the latter coming 56 years ago. It was only two years ago that another somewhat-basketball-related film Love in the Time of March Madness made the shortlist but failed to earn a nomination. Nevertheless, Dear Basketball stands out with its animation and presentation so it's certainly worthy of a nomination.

Garden Party

A green tree frog goes swimming in the pool of a palatial estate, capturing the attention of large brown toad. The toad follows the frog to the bedroom of the mansion where they establish some sort of a connection. Meanwhile a muddy yellow frog chases a butterfly around the property, never quite catching but leaving mud marks everywhere. And a fat pussy toad feasting on some caviar sees a jar of delicious macarons sitting on the counter. All of these amphibians and more have taken over the building, but what has happened to the owner? That is a mystery the frogs don't particularly care about, but the viewer perhaps should. Garden Party is a student film directed by a group of six animators at the MoPA Computer Graphic Animation School, a CG animation school located in Arles, France. (Somehow only two of them received nomination credit for the film, which kind of sucks for the other four, unless it was decided ahead of time that those two would represent the film if nominated.) Apparently the school does good work, because one of the first things that stands out about the film is the quality of the animation. The animation is photo-realistic, from the frogs and toads that take up most of the running time to the abandoned surroundings that they explore. All of them look as though they have been photographed using trained animals, all the while never crossing the so-called uncanny valley where it becomes creepy. (Although I don't know if there is even an uncanny valley for frogs and toads.) The film is also accompanied by a sort of quiet ambience that consists of mostly ribbets and croaks that serves the film well. As far as the content goes, I'm sure the filmmakers wanted it to be some sort of a mystery, but the majority of the film seems to be related to the antics of the amphibians. And they are pretty entertaining antics. The Hideki Irabu (RIP) toad got a lot of laughs at the showing that I went to. The film does build up to a final climax, but it drops enough hints that the climax really wasn't much of a surprise. (It is still kind of grotesque.) I was hoping it would have had some more of a type of social commentary, but instead it's just an entertaining films about frogs and toads that's well animated. I suppose can't ask for much more than that.

Lou

It is recess time in a small elementary school presumably in southern California. Two boys punt a football outside of the schoolyard. After they went back to class a benevolent being living in the lost and found box retrieves the football and many other forgotten items and takes them back to the lost and found. However, while the being has no problems retrieving the items from outside the schoolyard, he has to deal with an even bigger challenge: the schoolyard bully who seems to take delight in taking the toys of the other kids. Can this lost and found spirit defeat the bully and take back what has been lost? As I said, Lou is a short film from Pixar that played before Cars 3. Pixar short films have often been vehicles for animators to take a chance in experiencing the director's seat, and this time the helmsman is longtime Pixar animator Dave Mullins. Lou starts out as a pretty much slapstick film. It sets up the unseen spirit of the lost-and-found box (named Lou because those were letters were missing on the box that said "Lost and Found") as the protagonist and the bully JJ as the antagonist. The methods JJ use to take the toys are varied although they definitely don't endear him to the audience. The action starts when Lou tries to take JJ's backpack that he keeps all of his stolen goods. The back and forth nature of the battle makes use of the playground equipment are clever and are pretty funny. However, it's nothing that hasn't been seen before in other slapstick-heavy Pixar short films such as Mike's New Car, Lifted, and Presto. However, a little past halfway into the film, Lou finds out JJ's secret, and the all of a sudden the film becomes more than just a slapstick film. Director Mullins has said publicly that he wanted the film to address bullying. It is often said that bullies are not born, but created by their circumstances, and the film does a good job at showing that. JJ's transformation and redemption is certainly one of the more heart-warming moments in a Pixar short, and successfully turns an annoying character into a relatable one without feeling forced. The animation is fairly typical Pixar fare. Their human animation has certainly improved as even the background characters are expressive. The main triumph is the design of the character of Lou, who is made up of the items found in the lost and found box. The design team makes good use of these elements and give Lou a life-like appearance. I'll admit I haven't always been fans of Pixar's short films, but Lou is certainly one of the good ones.

Negative Space

A man packs his bags to go on a trip on a snowy morning. As he packs he follow the advice as his father, who went on frequent business trips and taught the man how to pack the bags. As he drives on the wintry roads, he begins to reminisce about the days of his youth when he learned these packing skills and how this became a way for him to bond with his father. Packing soon became a source of joy for the man as he grows up and became a central part of his life. He eventually arrives at his destination, but what he finds there will shock him and shake him to his core. Like Dear Basketball, Negative Space is based on a poem, this time by American author Ron Koertge, from a collection of writings titled Sex World. The poem itself is relatively short and simple, barely 150 words long, but talks of a universal theme in a son's relationship with his father. The poem was adapted to animation by an animation team based on America made up of an American and a Japanese director, and financed by a French company. The dynamic duo of Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter have previously made several films and commercials with a mix of stop motion and CGI, but for Negative Space they went for full stop-motion. The stop-motion itself isn't quite as polished as the works of say Aardman or even the short-listed but not nominated Lost Property Office. The sets are somewhat simple, the motion is somewhat wooden, and the characters are rather generic and unappealing, with their oblong heads, slit eyes, and thick lips. However, Negative Space makes up for it by becoming memorable in the actual filmmaking. Like Dear Basketball, Negative Space uses the text of the poem as the script. However, while the poem is merely words on paper, the film makes them come to life. When the poem talks about the father's rules for packing, the items move into the suitcase on their own. When the poem talks about how the father puts the narrator into the suitcase, the film features a fantasy sequence where the boy is swept into a sea of laundry where clothes swim around like fishes. There are also visually clever transitions that keep the action moving. The narration by animator Albert Birney is passable, but it is the words themselves that carry a lot of the weight. Even though the climax is hinted at, it still packs an emotional wallop that can be both funny and sad. Negative Space is a film without the greatest animation, but manages to transcend the quality of the animation by excelling in other areas.

Revolting Rhymes

One rainy evening, a woman enters into a bar in the city. She is later joined by a large wolf, who sees that she had brought along a book of fairy tales. He begins to regale his companion about his story of his two deceased nephews, as well as about the princes Snow White and her best friend the Red Riding Hood. But while the characters from these stories sound familiar to the woman, the content is completely different and somewhat disturbing to what she has heard before. And yet she has no idea that she is about to play a major role in a crime saga that has lasted for decades until it is far too late. Revolting Rhymes is a film based off of a series of poems by British author Roald Dahl (1916-1990). Dahl was best known for his novels, many of which have become beloved films including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Revolting Rhymes was a series of poems published in 1982 that feature off-beat versions of famous fairy tales. There have been a few animated adaptations, but in 2016 Magic Light Pictures took a shot at adapting the poems. Magic Light Pictures has gained some fame for their adaptions of popular British short stories starting with The Gruffalo and followed by Room on the Broom, both of which received Oscar nominations. For Revolting Rhymes they decided to make two 30 minute films that had aired on BBC on back to back nights. More importantly, while the poems were unrelated in the original book, in the films the poems were woven together to create a streamlined storyline. Evidently only Part One was considered for a nomination*. This part combines the story of Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Three Little Pigs in the form of flashbacks and use the wolf-in-the-diner as a framing device. The diner scenes are a bit bland, but the fairy tale scenes are a lot of fun, full of action and humor. The original text were used as narration, but the filmmakers threw in material that were not seen in the original stories. Characters were given additional backstories that add to the depth. While many added elements usually fall flat, for Revolting Rhymes they work surprisingly well. The decision to make Red Riding Hood and Snow White best friends give a sense of gravitas to their plight. And the decision to make the three pigs developers and a crooked banker also makes their fate easier to swallow. This also highlights another aspect of Revolting Rhymes, and that is how danged dark it is. The Gruffalo dealt with death in a natural sense where killings are a path to survival, but with Revolting Rhymes death is handed out in a more cold-blooded fashion. It also features some mature themes including contract killing, seduction and gambling. All of these dark themes are even more stark when contrasted with the colorful and simple animation style that Magic Light Pictures utilized in their previous works. There are some nice post-modern designs and some creative character designs as the film features more human and anthropomorphic characters than the previous films. Once again the film features solid work from an all-star (at least in Britain) voice cast, which includes Dominic West as the wolf and narrator, Rose Leslie (of Game of Thrones fame) as Red Riding Hood, and Rob Brydon as the crooked banker pig. The original poem collection is meant as a form of entertainment for children and while the film doesn't really elevate it beyond that, but it is a very well done adaptation of a beloved film.

*Because only Part One received a nomination, only Part One is shown at the showings, a fact that led to some disappointed groans at the showing I went to. Well, I did watch Part Two because I wasn't sure which part would get considered. Well I can safely say that the framing device for Part Two is superior. It is a heart-warming tale of revenge and forgiveness. However, the actual fairy tale elements aren't quite as strong. It has the same darkness, but less of the humor. It's still worth tracking down because it does complete the story that started in Part One.

-----------------------------------------------

Well, here we are. It's a day and a half late but I finally got it finished. This is the latest that a review has been posted for a current set of nominees. Anyways, this is a solid set of nominees that would rank above several of the films on the shortlist. I'm not really going to do any predictions because I never seem to get those right. I would say right now it seems Dear Basketball is the front-runner because it has the high publicity and because it's a great film, although Negative Space has gotten a lot of awards and could be a spoiler because it's also a great film. That's not to say the other three are bad, but they don't seem to match up. I suppose I can let y'all watch them, preferably at a showing, and you can make your own conclusions. There are just mine.

Anyways, because I always like to give my rankings:

My Rankings (by quality)
Dear Basketball > Negative Space > Lou > Revolting Rhymes > Garden Party

My Rankings (by preference)
Dear Basketball > Revolting Rhymes > Lou > Negative Space > Garden Party