Best Animated Short - 2022

Well, here we are, the 91st year of the Best Animated Short category at the Academy Awards. It's already been the 17th year since I started following this category closely with the 2007 Oscars. And it's the 12th year since I started this blog before the 2011 Oscars so I have a space to write my reviews instead of posting them on my Facebook page (which is probably a good thing since Facebook ended their notes.) Of course it's also been close to ten years since I've finished catching up on the reviews, and I still haven't exactly found anything else animation-related to write about. (I did recently watch and write about Ke Huy Quan's 1993 Taiwan TV drama The Big Eunuch and the Little Carpenter so I'd appreciate it if y'all check it out.)

But for the most part this blog is still dedicated to the Best Animated Short category at the Oscars. Yes, I'm still pretty upset that the short categories including this one were relegated to pre-recorded status. And yes, I'm still not over the fact that the pretty but pretentious The Windshield Wiper walked away with the Oscar over four films I liked a lot more. But it's another year and we have another five films to review. I had a difficult time finding An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It and I was getting worried I had to watch it on the big screen to get all the nominees reviewed. It was something I hadn't had to deal with since 2017 when I had to go to a showing to watch Negative Space. I suppose I don't mind it that much because I do enjoy going to the showings. I mean I did go to the showing for the 2018 nominees even though I had finished my review because I enjoyed the films that much. But I do find it more convenient to have the films at my disposal when I write my reviews. Thank goodness a copy of An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It finally showed up and I am able to get this review out before the official release on February 17.

Anyways, now that I've seen the nominees for the 91st time I'm here to write a review on all of them.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

It is a bright winter day, and a boy wanders around the snowy landscape. He looks around amongst the snowflakes, but he appears lost. A mole comes burrowing out from the ground, and asks the boy what he is doing. When the boy tells the mole that he is lost, the mole becomes momentarily distracted by a tree, thinking it is a big cake. When he realizes that there is no cake to be had, he tells the boy that an old mole told him to follow a river and it would take him home. They find the river and follow it, but they also find a hungry fox that end up getting trapped in a snare as well as a white horse who hides a mysterious secret. Together they set out to find out what exactly it means to be home. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse was a 2019 book by the British writer and illustrator Charlie Mackesy based on pictures that he would post on Instagram. The book became a runaway best-seller, popular with its inspirational sayings as well as its focus on the themes of empathy and kindness. As in the case with many best-sellers there were a large group of producers hoping to adapt it into a feature film. The adaptation rights finally went to Matthew Freud and Cara Speller, the former of whom is a descent of Sigmund Freud and latter of whom produced the Oscar-nominated Pear Cider and Cigarettes. The y recruited a team of producers that include Oscar nominated filmmakers JJ Abrams and Woody Harrelson. The producers allowed Mackesy to serve as co-director of the film, and the original author put together a team of animators whose job is to recreate the distinctive illustrations featured in the book, which had the look of unfinished sketches. The presence of the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the production efforts, as the crew eventually totaled over 100 animators in several different countries. It was a worthy and successful effort as the animation is frankly the most impressive aspect of the film. It really does capture the look of watercolor paintings and is somewhat reminiscent of the animation of Isao Takahata's Oscar nominated The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. The character design also captures the look of the animals in Mackesy's illustrations. It's nice that the animation is dazzling because the rest of the story is somewhat dull. The film runs a bit long at 34 minutes and is marked by the characters spouting some pearls of wisdom punctuated by brief moments of action. Some of the thoughts are really profound, and I'm especially touched by the line "asking for help isn't giving up, it's refusing to give up." Still, perhaps I'm not zen enough to appreciate the moments of stillness. The music is very beautiful, and the voice acting is solid, especially with Tom Hollander as the cake-loving mole. In fact the mole is the best character in the short, and the end credits that feature him going after a cake is a wonderful coda. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a worthy adaptation, and the positive messaging is a warm beacon in this age of cynicism, even if I may be too cynical to truly appreciate it for what it is. 
Where Can I Watch It?
It's available online if you have Apple TV+. And why wouldn't you get Apple TV+? You can use it to watch Wolfwalkers and Ted Lasso and The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. 

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

The Flying Sailor

It is the morning of December 6, 1917, and the port city of Halifax, Nova Scotia is just waking up. A black steamship prepares to leave the harbor while a white cargo ship sails inland. Unbeknownst to many in the busy town the white cargo ship is carrying a dangerous load of TNT and other explosives. A sailor walks along the pier, getting ready to start his day, As he passes by he sees an unexpected sight: the black steamship collides with the starboard side of the white cargo ship. The sailor stops and decides to light a cigarette as he waits for what happens next. As he does this, the white cargo ship bursts into flame. When he stamps out his still-lit match on the wooden pier, the white cargo ship explodes in a tremendous fireball. While the city of Halifax is flattened, the sailor is sent flying through the air and undergoes a journey that is as existential as it is physical. The Halifax Explosion is one of the great catastrophes of the 20th century. The collision between the SS Imo (the black steamship) and the SS Mont-Blanc (the white cargo ship) and the resultant explosion killed over 1,700 people and left thousands more injured and homeless. It still ranks as perhaps the largest explosion not involving nuclear weapons or nuclear testing, and certainly left its mark on the Canadian people. Perhaps that's why over 100 years after the tragedy, the Oscar nominated Canadian animators Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis crafted The Flying Sailor to honor the memory of the event. They considered the tale of Charlie Mayers, a sailor who somehow survived the explosion despite flying over two kilometers and told the story from his perspective. There were perhaps a few changes, such as the fact that Mayers was apparently standing on a ship instead of on a pier when the explosion happened. Nevertheless, The Flying Sailor is still a magnificent tribute. Tilby and Forbis were previously nominated together for When the Day Breaks and Wild Life, two films that considered the fragility of life through filmmaking highlighted by major tonal shifts. The Flying Sailor works in somewhat the same way. The film opens rather cheerfully, with a light-hearted tune and snappy editing. Even when highlighting the SS Mont-Blanc's deadly cargo it still feels like something from a Warner Bros. cartoon. Then when the collision happens everything goes silent, except for the call of the seagulls and the striking of the match. The explosion catches viewers by surprise, and after a couple seconds of chaos, the film takes unexpected tonal shift. As the sailor flies through the air looking back at the events that transpired in his life, the mood is placid, highlighted by the peaceful piano tune. The mood is a stark contrast to the unprecedented destruction happening in slow motion. And of course that isn't the final tonal shift that happens in the film. All of these shifts in tone makes viewers feel like they've been on a journey similar to that of Charlie Mayers. Besides these themes, Tilby and Forbis have also utilized different forms of animation, as in Wendy Tilby's solo nomination for Strings, and The Flying Sailor is no different. It uses the 2D animation that is featured in Wild Life, but also makes use of 3D animation to visualize the collision of the shifts and the resultant destruction. Real-life footage is also used generously in some of the flashback scenes. The use of mixed media is also something that adds to the disjoined feel because while the individual elements look great they don't exactly fit together so certain aspects stand out. And of course the music by Luigi Allemano (who also scored the fellow 2011 nominee Dimanche) is tremendous and adds to the overall feel. The Flying Sailor isn't necessarily the easiest film to watch, but it takes viewers to more places in seven minutes than several films do in 70 minutes.
Where Can I Watch It?

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

Ice Merchants

A young boy swings on a swing hanging down on a house located on the side of a giant cliff, tethered in place by a series of chains. He shares the house with his father, and he accompanies his father as he goes about his business as an ice merchant. They take ice made from water that had frozen over in the temperatures that is always below freezing. Then they parachute down into the villages below, losing their hats to the wind in the process. Then after making their sale they take the money use it to buy their supplies as well as new hats, before returning to their mountains home in a pulley elevator system. It is not an easy life, but father and son get by. Even then, there is something missing in their lives, one that always goes unspoken, but may become important in the one day that the temperature stays above freezing. Animation is international affair. After all, animation is a form of art, and there is no limits as to the creation of art. While the Academy has lagged behind in bestowing honor upon foreign animation, there has been no shortage of international nominees as soon as A Place in the Sun and Munro, a pair of Czech productions, received nominations in 1960. In the past decade alone there have been several counties that has seen an animated short produced (or co-produced) within its borders receive a nomination for the first time, from Luxembourg (Mr. Hublot) to Chile (Bear Story although they were nominated again for Bestia) to mainland China (One Small Step) to South Korea (Opera) to Iceland (Yes People). And now with João Gonzalez's sublimely beautiful Ice Merchants we can add Portugal to the list. Of course while the film is Portuguese, the film's themes is one that transcends borders. Director Gonzalez has tackled some difficult subject matter in his previous films, and with Ice Merchants he decides to address the issue of a family loss. He does so in a very unconventional way, by telling the story about the father-son duo and their unique way of life. Gonzalez allegedly came up with the concept from an image that came to him of a house tethered on the side of a cliff. The story, told entirely free of dialogue, pairs well with its vivid visual imagery. The initial dive takes up a good three minutes and is absolutely breathtaking, with the camera going up close and far away as the family falls. It's an impressive piece of animation considering the film is done completely in 2D animation, and even the fact that Gonzalez used 3D modeling to prepare for the shot doesn't take away from the effect. And yet as the film enters the middle montage portion the death-defying leap becomes almost routine. The film makes good use of symbolism as the feeling of loss is portrayed with simply a coffee mug. I admit I did find it somewhat puzzling the first time I saw Ice Merchants why the family would just leave the hats and buy new ones, but it later becomes clear that it is absolutely necessary for the film for the hats to fall. The symbolism isn't limited to material objects as Gonzalez uses color effectively as a symbol as well. The film has rather limited color palette as the greenish-gray of the mountain contrasts with the orange buildings. Yet each member of the family have their own color, with the father's red matching well with the son's brown and yellow for the missing member. All these elements combine for the jaw-dropping conclusion. The film's use of silence in between the beautiful score composed by Gonzalez himself also adds to the emotion. Ice Merchants was one of the most critically acclaimed animated shorts going into this year's Oscar race, and having watched it, it's easy to see why.

Where Can I Watch It?

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

My Year of Dicks

The year is 1991, and in sunny Houston, Texas a 15-year-old teenager named Pamela has set an ambitious goal for herself. Somehow, someway, she is going to lose her virginity before the end of the year. She has already made all the preparations, and she has a potential target: a gothic skateboarder that she knows from school. When a potential sexual encounter at a house party failed, she instead turns her attention instead to a French employee of an art-house theater. When it becomes clear that he just wanted to use her for sex, she bolts. She ends up dating another boy and they spend a day at a fair together with her best friend Sam. To get her mind off the break-up, Pam's friend Carina invites her out to a party, where she meets a guy that seems nice. When Pam is stranded at the party, she spends some quality time with the nice guy. Yet he cuts her off when he finds out about her virginity, and Pam learns some uncomfortable truth. To top it off, after all this Pam gets The Talk from her father. Is she ever going to find a nice guy with whom she can lose her virginity? When the nominations were announced late last month, there was one film that received more attention than any other, largely from the reaction of Oscar winner Riz Ahmed as he read the title. That film was, of course, My Year of Dicks. After all, a dick is a colloquial term referring to a penis. I'm not going to blame Riz Ahmed. I had a similar reaction when I saw the title among the 15 shortlisted films. However, when I actually tracked down the film and watched it, I realized it was more than just a series of dick jokes. It's a refreshingly different coming-of-age film of the life of an adolescent female as she explored her sexuality. Unfortunately for her each of these encounters end up less than ideal. As I was watching the film it came to me that there is more than one definition of dick. Indeed, dictionary.com also lists "a stupid, mean, or contemptible person, especially a man." The title My Year of Dicks is actually a double entendre.

 

My Year of Dicks is the brain child of Pamela Ribon, the writer who helped work on the screenplay of such Disney classics like Moana and Ralph Breaks the Internet. In 2014 she wrote a "mortifying memoir" titled Notes to Boys (And Other Things I Shouldn't Share in Public) revisiting many of the notes she wrote during her teenage years in the early 1990s. The book was well received, and when Ribon had the opportunity to pitch an idea to the FXX animation anthology Cake (which included the previously shortlisted Symphony No. 42), she decided to adapt a few stories from her book. To her surprise, not only was the film greenlit, but FXX allowed her to develop as an independent short film project.  Ribon teamed up with Icelandic animator Sara Gunnarsdóttir and together they set out to turn Ribon's awkward teenage experiences into a visual reality. The film was split up into five chapters, perhaps an acknowledgement to the literary origins of the film. Each chapter deals with one of Pam's miserable experiences with a male. The script is raw yet funny, full of phrases that harken back to the early 1990s. It touches upon all sorts of relationships, from Pam's falsely idealistic fantasies to the more genuine friendship she has with Sam. As if the story wasn't memorable enough, each of the five chapters feature a different and distinct animation style. For example, the chapter on "The Vampire" features a style reminiscent of the 19h century European style reminiscent of Dracula while "The Horror Show" features a style of melting faces and other horror tropes. My favorite of these styles is the anime look featured in the middle chapter "The Sweet One." Each of these styles are interspersed between a more realistic style rotoscoped on filmed footage. The contrast between the standard animation and the stylistic one and help add to the film's lasting impact. The voice acting is also top notch. Part-time voice actress Ribon doesn't voice her adolescent self, that honor goes to young actress Brie Tilton, but she does get to deliver the film's best monologue as Pam's white trash classmate Kelly. (Ribon's cousin Chris Kelman finishes a close second in the best monologue race delivering "The Sex Talk" as Pam's father.) My Year of Dicks is certainly not a film for the faint of heart, especially if you still view animation as a medium only for kids. But it's certainly rewarding if you can make it through.

Where Can I Watch It?

It's available on Vimeo...for now

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

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It

A camera sits in the middle of a stop motion animation studio. While the master animator busily works on his stop motion puppets, we sneak a peek at the camera view screen. There we witness a telemarketer named Neil, who has a problem. He isn't very good at making sales. As he is being berated by his boss for his low sales, Neil notices the strange phenomenon of his boss's mouth dropping to the ground. Later, while chatting with his co-worker Gavin, Neil notices some other strange events. As Neil continues to fail making sales he becomes distracted and ends up falling asleep. When he wakes up he sees an ostrich in the elevator. The ostrich tells Neil that he is living a lie. To prove his point that the world is fake, the ostrich tells Neil to visit a storage room. What Neil finds at the other side will change his life forever. Animation is a very time-consuming process. After all, every single frame of animation has to be created by hand (or in many cases nowadays rendered on a computer). Stop-motion animation is no different. Each puppet has to be manipulated precisely for every frame. It's easy to forget this while we watch animation, but his student film An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It, director Lachlan Pendragon shows viewers the labor intensive nature of creating stop motion. The film's trailer gave the impression of a film that's rather unusual in its concept but standard in its execution, no different than some of the other meta films involving an animator interacting with his creation such as Aardman's Adam or the Oscar-winning Manipulation. However, when you actually watch the film you see that the majority of the film takes place through the view screen. It's not nearly as distracting as it may sound. You can follow the action fairly well, but you can see Pendragon working in the background of some shots, and it's impossible not to notice the frame count in the upper left-hand corner of the view screen ticking up, changing for every different viewing angles, with certain longer shots going well over 1,000 frames. This gives viewers a breathtaking glimpse at the breadth of work that goes into making an animated film, and sure makes me glad that I write about animation instead of working on it. (I definitely don't have the patience). Of course the fact most of the film is seen through the view screen makes the moments without the view screen stick out far better. The moments of interaction between Neil and the master animator is clever and harkens back as much to Master Hand in Super Smash Bros. as it does films like Manipulation. I'm not going to spoil the climax, but while he doesn't necessarily say it I do feel like it's a possibility Pendragon is making a commentary on the commercialization of the work of animators. The puppets are fairly well designed except for the detatchable mouth, but it's clear that design is necessary for the film's objectives. The voice acting is decent, especially with director Pendragon as the hapless protagonist Neil. The music is also a banger. I initially thought of the Oscar-winning Tango hearing the first few beats before realizing that it's just a sped-up instrumental version of Carmen's Habanera. An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It certainly caught the attention of viewers with its creative title, but the title isn't the only thing creative about the film.

Where Can I Watch It?
I found a copy of it on Vimeo, but it doesn't seem that the uploader has anything to do with the production of the actual film. So out of respect for the filmmakers I'm not going to be embedding the film. I plan on eventually watching this set of nominees on the big screen in penance for using a copy that may not be completely kosher, and I suggest you should do the same.

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

Well here we are. The review of this year's Best Animated Short nominees is up, with plenty of time to spare before the opening of the Oscar Nominated Shorts series in theaters. No, this probably isn't the first review of this year's nominees, and it most definitely isn't the best. Nevertheless, this is 393rd through 397th film nominated in this category that I've reviewed, and I doubt there have been very many people that can say they've accomplished that.

Anyways, it's a fairly solid lineup this time around. Of course, I say that almost every year, but I liked all of this year's nominees, which I can't really say that every year. *glares at The Windshield Wiper*. If anything else this year's set of nominees are certainly diverse internationally. You've got a film from the UK, a film from Canada, a film from Portugal, a film from the US, and a film from Australia. If I'm not mistaken it's the first year since 2008 when there are five films from five different countries (Russia, Japan, France, US, and UK.)  I still think The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is the front-runner, but I do also think that My Year of Dicks has made enough of a wave that it isn't impossible to see it winning.  Here's how I'd rank the films.

My Rank (by quality)

Ice Merchants > My Year of Dicks > The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse > An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It > The Flying Sailor

My Rank (by preference)

My Year of Dicks > An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It > Ice Merchants > The Flying Sailor > The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Anyways, see y'all at the Oscars a month from now. (I'm not actually going) After the winner is announced I'll go back into hibernation until we're ready to celebrate the films from 2023 - the 92nd year of the Best Animated Short category!