Best Animated Short - 2023: Nominees

It's been over a month since the Best Animated Short shortlist was released. Heck, it's been a month since I posted about the films on the shortlist, and that went up a few days after the release of the shortlist. The films have all been screened, and the votes have been cast, and today the Oscar nominations were announced. Normally I have to wake up at ungodly hours just to catch the nominees, but now that I work overnights I can just stay up after my shift and watch the nomination announcement. Which still kind of sucks, but going to bed later than usual is better than waking up earlier than usual. Anyways, between the Oscar nominations in the morning and the Baseball Hall of Fame announcements in the evening it's going to be quite a busy day.

I will say I am encouraged by how my shortlist post had a couple of comments. It's good to know some people would care enough to post even though I don't post very often. I have been trying to find the shortlisted films, but with varying effect. I haven't had the guts to request access to the Animation Showcase, because I don't actually work in animation. I do this on the side, and not very well at that. But now we shall see if any of the films that I was able to track down would get the nomination.

And the nominees are:

Letter to a Pig
Ninety Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

So I've currently seen three of the five nominees, not exactly terrible but also not exactly enough for me to go out and write my review just yet. I want to save my thoughts about the films to the actual review, but I will say that of the films I've seen the ones that got nominated were pretty good. Maybe now that they've received nominations, the other two would get uploaded online soon. Of note, Our Uniform is incidentally the from animated short from Iran to get nominated in this category. 

I can't really say too much of the films that missed the cut, because I haven't seen all of them. Of the misses, I'm sure the ones that most shocked the general population would be Once Upon a Studio since that was a beloved short film celebrating Disney history. However, I've seen people complain that it is nothing more than a big advertisement for Disney. It seems that in recent years the Academy has tackled films that deal with deep themes that make the cut, so it makes sense that they'd leave Once Upon a Studio out. The film that surprised me the most at missing out is Humo, since it deals with a subject that usually does very well with the Academy in the Holocaust, and does so with some strong stop motion animation. Although there is already a Holocaust related film in the final lineup in Letter to a Pig so I guess they didn't feel so bad leaving Humo out. The one I am most sad to see get left out is Pete, since it is a film that combine gender identity and baseball.

Anyways, I can't really say much about the rest of the categories, since I haven't paid all that close attention. I did get into the "Barbenheimer" craze and watched them both on the same day. In fact both of them made the Best Picture cut, with Oppenheimer picking up the most nominations with 13. Poor Things and Killers of the Flower Moon also did fairly well, with 11 and 10 nominations respectively. Barbie ended up with eight, including Margot Robbie missing out in Best Actress but getting a nod for producer. It is interesting how four of the Best Picture nominees ended up with five nominations: American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers and The Zone of Interest. Maestro and Past Lives closes out the Best Picture lineup with seven and two nominations respectively.

For the other animation category, Best Animated Feature is pretty much down to Kimitachi wa dou Ikiru ka (known in the US as The Boy and the Heron) vs. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse. I figure Spider-Man has the advantage in this match-up since it seems to have captured more of the critics awards. I do hope Hayao Miyazaki can still add to the Oscar he won for Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) 21 years ago and actually receive the award in person this time.. The Academy can still award the upcoming Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-verse anyways. Elemental, Nimona and Robot Dreams are just along for the ride. It still sucks that Joe Hisaishi got passed over for Best Original Score for Kimitachi wa dou Ikiru ka.

The Taiwanese submission for Best International Film Marry My Dead Body didn't get into the shortlisted stage. However, I did notice that two films that have some connections to Taiwan received nominations for Best Documentary Short in Island in Between about the Kinmen Islands as well as Nai Nai and Wai Po, a film about a Taiwanese-American director's maternal and paternal grandmothers that live together. Not that they really have any chance of winning.

Anyways, not much else to say. I guess I should try to track down Our Uniform and War is Over! huh. But for now I go to sleep. I need to rest up before the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement.