Best Animated Short - 2023: The Shortlist

It's that time of year again, when I dust off this blog and force myself to write about the films that can potential win the Oscar for Best Animated Short. Of course I haven't really paid attention to the race beforehand, not like Cartoon Brew who have kept track of animated shorts that qualified by winning festivals, then interviewing their directors. Of course, yesterday marked the day when I can no longer ignore the race, since it was the day that the Academy released the shortlist for several categories, including Best Animated Short. 

Ideally I'd write about the shortlisted films the day the shortlist was released, but I was driving to Pittsburgh on no sleep and went to watch a Pittsburgh Penguins game, so I really didn't have a chance to watch the trailers for each of the shortlist or learned a little more about these films. But now that I'm back home there's no excuse for me to delay. Of course I'm not going to be reviewing the films, since that's not the point (and also because I've seen barely any of them). Which makes me wonder why anybody would read this post.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse wins Best Animated Short - 2022

After last year's debacle where the short categories were presented before the live telecast, the Academy finally reversed their decision and included them in the telecast. Of course, that didn't stop host Jimmy Kimmel from blaming the short categories for the length of the show (and not stuff like the bullshit Warner Bros montage or the Little Mermaid trailer). Anyways, it's good that Best Animated Short gets its regular due, although it means I have to watch the rest of the telecast to find out who won. Not that I mind, since it seems like Everything Everywhere All at Once is a top contender for Best Picture.

But there really shouldn't have been any surprise. While My Year of Dicks made some splash with its name and Ice Merchants touched the hearts of viewers, the front-runner the entire season ended up capturing the crown: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.

No real qualms from me. While I enjoyed all of the rest of the nominees more (and thought Ice Merchants should have won), The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is still an exquisite piece of art that expound on the idea of kindness, something that is sorely lacking in today's society. At 34 minutes, it does surpass Peter & the Wolf to become the longest winner in this category.

More about the rest of the night after the break.

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.

Best Animated Short 2022 - Nominees

Yes, this is the beginning of the tenth decade of the Best Animated Short category at the Oscars. Of course, I haven't exactly been the most diligent at updating this blog. (I guess a part of me is still somewhat upset at The Windshield Wiper taking the category this past year.) Why, the shortlist was announced all the way back on December 21. Normally I'd make a post introducing the shortlist, but as you might have noticed I haven't done so this year. It doesn't help that December 21 happened to be the day that I drove cross-country and didn't have the chance to make the post, but it's been a whole month since then and I still hadn't made the post. I guess I just didn't think it was all that necessary.

Of course by no means did it indicate that I was no longer paying attention to the category. During the month-long deliberation I had managed to watch 11 of the 15 shortlisted films. And all that leads to the nominees, the final list of five animated short films that could be up for the exalted honor shared by such legendary films as Magoo's Puddle Jumper, A Greek Tragedy, and The Windshield Wiper.

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

The Windshield Wiper wins Best Animated Short - 2021

Well, the Academy has gone ahead with their plan to remove several of their categories from the main broadcast, which includes Best Animated Short. As a result I will not be watching the ceremony. The good news is that the excited categories would be announced early on. The bad news is we find out early on that the Academy has voted The Windshield Wiper as the Best Animated Short of 2021, and the 90th winner of the category since its inception in 1932.

Yeah...the film that I ranked 50th out of 50 films nominated between 2012 and 2021.

It's not that I think it's a bad film. I did rank it fourth in quality in my actual review over the seasonal front-runner Robin Robin. I just felt that it tried to be too cute in the way the vignettes were presented, and as a result left me feeling empty. But obviously it was enough to impress the Academy at large. So with that out of the way I can move on to something else and ignore the rest of whatever the Academy has to say.

Re-ranking my top 10 favorite nominees 1932-2011

A week ago I had completed my ranking of the 50 nominees from the past ten years (2012-2021) by how much I liked them. During the introduction I noted that my tastes change with time, so the overall rankings could feature some differences from the individual rankings. That led me to thinking about the rankings I did for the previous decades that I did as I was writing those reviews. I created the rankings after every ten years I reviewed, but since I finished my last review in 2013 that would meant those rankings were made between 8-10 years ago. Surely there would be some changes during that time.

I didn't revisit every single ranking, but instead I focused on the top ten favorites from every decade. I re-watched those in the top ten, as well as some of the films that were near misses just to see if some might sneak into the top ten. Well, as it turns out every single decade had some changes in the individual rankings. What are those changes? Well, let's visit each of them and find out.

Ranking the Oscar Nominated Shorts: 2012 - 2021

Welcome to a very special edition of the Best Animated Short blog. We are still a few weeks away from the Academy Award ceremony, where the Best Animated Short category has been relegated to second class status. Yet it is also the 90th year where the Academy has a category for Best Animated Short. Which means it's time for me to pull out an old favorite from when I was going back in time reviewing the nominated shorts: I'm going to rank the Oscar nominated films from the past 10 years by how much I enjoyed them.

If you've been reading my reviews over the past ten years you'll know that at the end of each review I rank the shorts by quality and by preference. However, both of these metrics are incredibly subjective, and quite frequently how much I enjoy a film goes a long way by how good I think it is. There are certainly times where I can recognize the artistry into a film I didn't really like, but they almost never claim the top spot in rankings by quality. Anyways, when I have to go back over the 50 short films that were nominated in the past ten years, I think it's easier to solely rank them by preference. That is what I did with my eight previous entries, and that is what I'm going to do here.

This edition is going to be different in certain ways from the eight previous rankings that predated this one. For those I had almost all of the films available to me in some fashion, and I was able to make those rankings every ten reviews, which usually took a few weeks. For these 50 films I had to wait for the Academy to announce their new sets of nominees, and to do that for ten years. That means a lot more time for my tastes to change and evolve than with my previous reviews, especially since there are several of these films that I haven't seen since I wrote the review in their respective years. I have watched all of the films again to make these rankings, so yes, there will be some discrepancies between my rankings in the individual reviews and this one. 

And also, just because a film is ranked low doesn't necessary mean I hated it. There are just that many more of the nominees I liked more than it. I think it is a testament to how well the Academy had been doing in formulating these nominees. It's just a shame that they would relegate this category to secondary status. Anyways, as in previous entries, I will be writing small blurbs about each film that will get longer and longer until they become mini-reviews. I hope you're getting all settled because here we go.