In Contention

Tag: Best Short Film

  • TELLURIDE: ‘La Luna’ is Pixar’s best short in years

    Yesterday before the 3D screening of Wim Wenders’s “Pina,” the audience was treated to Pixar’s latest animated short (which was also shown to audiences, I believe, at the D23 convention last month). I felt like it deserved some notice here, because it’s my favorite short from the studio in quite some time.

    I greatly admired “Day & Night,” which was attached to last year’s “Toy Story 3.” I wasn’t too keen on “Partly Cloudy” (which accompanied “Up” in theaters) and “Presto,” which tagged along with “WALL-E,” was cute and a nice ode. But the last Pixar short that I really got all that jazzed about was “Lifted,” Gary Rydstrom’s nifty, though admittedly slight, 2006 UFO abduction spoof.

    “La Luna” is my favorite since then, and probably since “Gerri’s Game” way back in 1997. It’s a delightful piece about finding your own way and eschewing expectations for your own identity, all built within a typically magical and imaginative narrative, and it doesn’t stoop to being blatant about its message. It’s also rendered with some of the best animation we’ve seen yet from the studio.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 53 — BAFTA fallout, foreign language and animated short races, Banksy in L.A.

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    We’ve got another 10 days left in the 2010-2011 awards season, not that anyone’s counting. That means three more episodes of Oscar Talk and Anne and I will exit stage right, but for now, there is still, as always, plenty to chew on. Let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • ‘God of Love’ director’s top eight for a date

    Whether or not Luke Matheny’s “God of Love” nabs the Oscar for Best Live Action Short is still to be seen.  It sure has its share of champions but it’s rare for a winner of the Student Academy Award to also take the big prize.  Nevertheless, there’s clearly a publicity push in motion, witnessed by a cute press release that was waiting in my inbox this morning.

    Matheny offers up his “top eight for a date,” films that dovetail nicely with today’s holiday (and what an opportune time for such a holiday to strike when your film is a riff on Cupid).  They are (I’m assuming in no particular order):

    “Joe vs. The Volcano”
    “Paris Blues”
    “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek”
    “The Bodyguard”
    “The Thomas Crown Affair”
    “Doc Hollywood”
    “Shop Around the Corner”
    “Arthur”

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  • CINEJABBER: Hey now!

    Catch up with the idea behind these weekend posts here.

    This week flew by, I thought. Hopefully the next two will, too.

    This is the first weekend without football in months.  I don’t know what to do with myself.  Maybe I’ll catch up on those non-Oscar-related Netflix discs that have been waiting patiently for me to have the time?  Read a book?  Get the hell away from my computer for a day?  I don’t know.

    I’ve randomly been revisiting The Larry Sanders Show lately.  It started out as some nostalgia to pass the time online the other day and eight episodes later, it looks like I might just push through all of it.  Great TV, and a landmark for that breed of comedy.  Any fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” owes it a debt.

    The Oscar Guide has been coming along well. Thanks for participating in our daily polls. With that in mind, I thought I’d post the short category polls again this weekend, seeing as Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International released their package of nominees into theaters this weekend. If you get a chance to see them and still want to vote, now’s your opportunity. I’ll post them up again next weekend, too.

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  • 2/10 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Gasland’ director fires back, Wahlberg/Russell on Aronofsky, hoping Banksy stays away

    • Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell on Darren Aronofsky’s departure from “The Fighter.” [Inside Movies]

    • Eric Kohn writes up the Oscar shorts. [indieWIRE]

    • Josh Fox fires back at gas industry accusations about the accuracy of his documentary, “Gasland.” [Facebook]

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Short Film (Live Action)

    As noted yesterday, Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International will be releasing the Oscar-nominated short films this year on February 11. It’s the third year running and it is a great little program. And in the case of this category, it could provide an early glimpse at tomorrow’s star talent.

    Recent winners of the Best Short Film (Live Action) category that have gone on to feature film careers include Martin McDonagh (“Six Shooter” to “In Bruges”), Andrea Arnold (“WASP” to “Fish Tank”) and Aaron Schneider (“Two Soldiers” to “Get Low”). Taylor Hackford won the award back in 1978. So you never quite know where the individuals in this year’s field will end up.

    The nominees are:

    “The Confession” (Tanel Toom)
    “The Crush” (Michael Creagh)
    “God of Love” (Luke Matheny)
    “Na Wewe” (Ivan Goldschmidt)
    “Wish 143” (Ian Barnes and Samantha Walte)

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Short Film (Animated)

    Once again this year, Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International are teaming up to bring the Best Short Film nominees to a theater near you on February 11.  It’s the third straight year of this partnership and it remains a stellar way of getting these otherwise fringe categories out to the masses.

    This year’s animated short field features a typically varied mixture of styles and approaches.  But it is, I feel, a less impressive line-up than we’ve seen in recent years.  Nothing really stands out as profound or instantly worthy of awards consideration, but there are certainly particulars of each that warrant praise.  What’s more, it could be perceived as a relatively open race.

    The nominees are:

    “Day & Night” (Teddy Newton)
    “The Gruffalo” (Jakob Schuh and Max Lang)
    “Let’s Pollute” (Geefwee Boedoe)
    “The Lost Thing” (Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann)
    “Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)” (Bastien Dubois)

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  • Animated, live action short fields narrowed to 10 each

    Via AMPAS press release, the 10 live action shorts shortlisted this year are:

    “Ana’s Playground”
    “The Confession”
    “The Crush”
    “God of Love”
    “Na Wewe”
    “Seeds of the Fall”
    “Shoe”
    “The Six Dollar Fifty Man”
    “Sma Barn, Stora Ord (Little Children, Big Words)”
    “Wish 143”

    Animated shorts after the jump.

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  • ‘Fur of Flying’ clip

    If you go see “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” this weekend, you’ll be treated to one of the new stereoscopic 3D Warner Bros. cartoons, “Fur of Flying.” A clip of the short has been lingering on the net for a while and I never got around to posting it, so I figured today was as good a time as any.  I can’t wait to sse it (and the other shorts WB has been cooking up.)  Maybe we’ll be seeing it pop up in the Best Animated Short race.  Take a look at the clip after the jump.

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  • Record box office for Oscar shorts

    Early in my Oscar-watching days, long before the advent of YouTube or VOD, the short film awards represented little more than a chance to get ahead in the Oscar pool by sheer guesswork.

    With no means of viewing the nominees, and the field of awards coverage considerably less comprehensive than it is today, you’d do well to find out what the shorts were about, much less whether they were any good. In the end, you picked the title that most caught your fancy, and hoped for the best.

    For most casual viewers, of course, the short film awards still mean little more than a handy bathroom-break opportunity in the telecast. But for serious awards-watchers, there’s less of an excuse these days to be uninformed: clips of the nominees (and sometimes even the entire films) are readily available online, while Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures have screened an annual program of the nominees in theaters for the last five years.

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  • Shorts coming to the small screen

    Miracle FishI’ve received a lot of emails lately asking where people can see the Oscar-nominated.  Generally my answer is, get to a theater.  They have been released by Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International in select (domestic) markets.  But if that doesn’t work for some, never fear.  It looks like you can pop open the Pringles and watch them in your skivvies.

    The press release, in part:

    New York, Mar. 2 – The Academy Award Nominated Short Films are often difficult for film fans to find. Now, for the first time ever, “The Oscar® Nominated Short Films 2010” will be available via cable’s Movies On Demand (MOD), presented by Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures. The nation’s leading MOD distributor, iN DEMAND L.L.C., will make the films available to U. S. digital cable audiences through Movies On Demand (MOD) starting March 3rd in both standard and high definition. Nominees in both the Live Action and Animated categories will be available on Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks systems around the country.

    Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, and Bright House Networks will host the films within MOD in an “Award Nominees” category. Comcast customers will find the films within MOD and its “Top Picks” category under the subcategory “Oscar Nominees.” Comcast will also be presenting the top live action short film titles from 2009. The cost for these programs varies from $2.99 to $5.99.

  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 23 — Divebombing the competition, doc and live action shorts, foreign film, etc.

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk, a weekly kudocast between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.

    Every week inches us closer to the end of the loudest Oscar season of all time. Today Anne and I sit down and discuss the noise of the week, adding our own noise (we went on a bit long this week):

    • Leading off, Anne has a whole new reason to hate “the 10”: members just aren’t bothering with ranking and the preferential ballot, not to mention the rigging and manipulation that goes into making it an impure process.

    • Things are getting “hairy,” as Anne puts it, with a close race bringing out the worst in people. We talk about “The Hurt Locker” and EmailGate and add some much-needed perspective on the matter.

    • We bounce around ideas for dark horse contenders that could benefit from the preferential ballot (assuming it’s taken seriously).

    • We also discuss the documentary shorts at length (now that I’ve seen them all) as well as the live action short films (now that Anne has seen them all).

    • Finally, we discuss a potential upset lurking in documentary feature nominee “Which Way Home” as well as “A Prophet” in the scheme of the Best Documentary Feature race.

    Have a listen below, with a track from James Horner’s “Avatar” score leading the way. And as always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

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    Subscribe to Oscar Talk

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Short Film (Live Action)

    Simon J. Berger in Instead of AbracadabraThis year’s crop of live action shorts is, in my opinion, one of the weaker fields in recent memory. There isn’t anything that stands out and announces its storytelling or cinema prowess, though the usual caveat with shorts — gimmicks in the plot — are mercifully scarce this time around.

    Generally films that showcase top notch filmmaking techniques, mini-features with noticeably rich production values, have a leg up here. There are exceptions, of course, and many times that built-in bias tends to shun more profound stories that might be assembled with lesser means, but nevertheless, there’s a decent mixture of budgets, genres and talent this time around.

    The nominees are:

    “The Door” (Juanita Wilson and James Flynn)
    “Instead of Abracadabra” (Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström)
    “Kavi” (Gregg Helvey)
    “Miracle Fish” (Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey)
    “The New Tenants” (Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson)

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Short Film (Animated)

    French RoastThis is one of the few times the animated short category doesn’t have an American in the bunch.  One of the big snubs, in fact, was probably Pixar’s “Partly Cloudy.” So I wouldn’t bank on any domestic bias this time around.

    The animated short films feature a wide array of creative prowess, but it almost seems unfair to have such brief exercises up against longer-form narratives. The shortest entry of the bunch is roughly six minutes long, while the longest is nearly 30. You get vastly different pros and cons when you get that mixture of pace and comedic (since most animated shorts are comedies) timing. Nevertheless, none of them stands out as outright bad, so that’s certainly a plus.

    The nominees are:

    “French Roast” (Fabrice O. Joubert)
    “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” (Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell)
    “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” (Javier Recio Gracia)
    “Logorama” (Nicolas Schmerkin)
    “Wallace & Gromit in ‘A Matter of Loaf and Death’” (Nick Park)

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  • 10 live action short films short-listed by AMPAS

    Sidney TurtlebaumThe Academy announced today 10 finalists for the Best Live Action Short category.  They are:

    • “The Door,” Juanita Wilson, director, and James Flynn, producer (Octagon Films Ltd.)
    • “The Ground Beneath,” Rene Hernandez, director, and Kristina Ceyton, producer (Passion Pictures)
    • “Hotel,” Tim Conrad, director-producer (Oyster Films)
    • “Instead of Abracadabra,” Patrik Eklund, director, and Mathias Fjellstrom, producer (Direktorn & Fabrikorn)
    • “Kavi,” Gregg Helvey, director-producer (Gregg Helvey)
    • “Miracle Fish,” Luke Doolan, director, and Drew Bailey, producer (Druid Films)
    • “The New Tenants,” Joachim Back, director, and Tivi Magnusson, producer (Park Pictures)
    • “The Response,” Adam Rodgers, director, and Sig Libowitz, producer (Look at the Moon Productions)
    • “Short Term 12,” Destin Daniel Cretton, director-producer, and Michelle Steffes, producer (Destin Cretton)
    • “Sidney Turtlebaum,” Tristram Shapeero, director, and Daniel Jewel, producer (Third Man Films Limited)

    Check out excerpts/trailers for six of these films after the jump.

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  • AMPAS announces shortlisted animated shorts

    The Cat PianoVia press release:

    • “The Cat Piano,” Eddie White and Ari Gibson, directors (The People’s Republic of Animation)
    • “French Roast,” Fabrice O. Joubert, director (Pumpkin Factory/Bibo Films)
    • “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty,” Nicky Phelan, director, and Darragh O’Connell, producer (Brown Bag Films)
    • “The Kinematograph,” Tomek Baginski, director-producer (Platige Image)
    • “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte),” Javier Recio Gracia, director (Kandor Graphics and Green Moon)
    • “Logorama,” Nicolas Schmerkin, producer (Autour de Minuit)
    • “A Matter of Loaf and Death,” Nick Park, director (Aardman Animations Ltd.)
    • “Partly Cloudy,” Peter Sohn, director (Pixar Animation Studios)
    • “Runaway,” Cordell Barker, director (National Film Board of Canada)
    • “Variete,” Roelof van den Bergh, director (il Luster Productions)

    You can watch one or two of these on YouTube I think.  Anyway, thoughts?  Anyone?

  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Slumdog’ stays happy, Bale gets angry

    A slower news week, this, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t find plenty to discuss. Here’s what was on our (and your) minds:

    • In the week’s biggest precursor news, Danny Boyle won the Directors’ Guild Award. Hollywood is still reeling from the shock.

    • Oh, and “Slumdog Millionaire” nabbed the USC Scripter award too.

    • Speaking of scripters, we say “WALL-E” is taking Best Original Screenplay. Here’s why.

    • We take a detailed look at this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts.

    • The Santa Barbara fest wrapped, with a tribute to Mickey Rourke among the highlights.

    • Two London critics’ groups acquitted themselves well this week, giving long-overdue Best Picture honours to “Hunger” and “The Wrestler” respectively.

    • Does “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” have a prayer in the Best Picture race after all?

    • Sticking with “Button,” Tech Support interviewed composer extraordinaire Alexandre Desplat.

    • We finally laid eyes on an Oscar season institution: the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue.

    • We contemplated what constitutes a genuine ‘upset’ in the Best Picture category.

    • BAFTA is taking a long hard look at their own voting process.

    • Away from the awards beat, you probably didn’t know this, but Christian Bale said some bad words.

  • 2/6 Oscarweb Round-up

    Richard Jenkins• David Poland is probably wrong on two counts at the top of his recent Oscar column (certainly plkenty of us had our sites set on Davis and Shannon going into this awards season), but we’ll give him some slack. [Movie City News]

    • David Carr, via video, talks about Bill Condon and Larry Mark futzing with the traditional Oscar show format. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Dammit.  I thought something was fishy when I had to shell out money hand over fist for some Boss tickets Monday. [The Big Picture]

    • Getting to know Oscar nominee Courtney Hunt. [The Guardian]

    • Dave Karger bangs the drum for Oscar underdog Richard Jenkins. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • The annual “how the Oscar statuette is made” feature. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Was “Waterworld” an “eco-parable” ahead of its time? [Slate]

    • Claufia Puig reviews the Oscar shorts.  High marks for “Toyland,” “The Pig” and “Manon on the Asphalt.” [USA Today]

    • Andrew O’Hehir also digs in. [Beyond the Multiplex]