Shorts, But Sweet
Friday, March 12, 2010 - 09:10 AM
If you watched the Academy Awards this Sunday it would have been easy to miss the category for Best Animated Short Film. The presentation for the award was...well...short.
But anyone who saw this year's nominees would agree that none of them lack for quality.
Logorama
Logorama won the Academy Award for its provocative repackaging of trite Hollywood action fare; the film used only recognizable corporate logos to construct the set, characters, and story. And Wallace & Gromit delivered their share of time-tested misadventures in A Matter of Loaf and Death.
La Dama y La Muerte
But I was most impressed by a couple of other imports. Spanish production company Kandor Graphics received a nomination for The Lady and The Reaper. The film is a commentary on how we die and the ways in which life can be distorted as one is pulled back from the precipice of death. At the same time, it's a frenetic cartoon chase, ala Looney Tunes. Imagine Bugs Bunny examining the medical-industrial complex as he tangles with Elmer Fudd.
Runaway
But for my money, the best entry was one nearly overlooked by the academy: a 'commended' Canadian film titled Runaway. In rough, stylized animation, Runaway delivers a political parable set on an out-of-control train. The engineer presiding over this ill-fated ride neglects his duties to cavort with a woman from the first-class car. Soon thereafter, the train accelerates dangerously out of control, inciting a class struggle between the cars in which first-class passengers attempt to buy their safety by bribing, manipulating, and then betraying those in coach. As the film nears its inescapable conclusion, each new development still delivers a surprise. We know what's going to happen, but still groan and laugh as we struggle to keep up. In nine minutes, that ambiguous combination of ideas manages to surpass anything I've seen in a feature film in a long time.
In New York, all of the nominees and select commended films are showing at the IFC Center.
- Michael Guerriero
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Comments [19]
i not seen any of this but will love to
Sweet and very funny
funny and awesome!! :D
You'd think somebody would figure out there's at least a niche market for a Blu Ray + DVD of the nominees on this, and rush it into stores.
Clearly I'm out of the economic understanding of how this is supposed to work.
awesome
Thanks v. much :-)
I saw the award show and I thought the foreign films looked very interesting. My friend saw Logorama and she speaks the world of it.
Thanks for the quick summaries. I'm always looking for ways to incorporate media into my class assignments, and I'm thinking some of these would work really well with some of our "coming of age" thematic units!
Hi foolsprints --
It's hard to find a place to see all the Oscar-nominated shorts -- but here's a post that has clips for all of them (and even a few of the full versions), plus links to where you can see more:
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/movie-review-animated-oscar-nominated-short-films-2010
Happy hunting,
Studio 360
pretty neat !
Good post.It's interesting.
Every day the shorts are being highlighted in the media, shown here are to be congratulated ...
interesting short films! they're getting better each time
What is the best way to watch these shorts?
those pictures are so funny! rolfl
Didn't see the awards, but as an avid Wallace and Grommit fan, my loyalties sides with them...until I read about Runaway. Haven't yet had the pleasure of seeing it, but the trailer and your description has certainly fueld my fire. And wouldn't mind seeing the others you mentioned, as well.
Well, I've seen two of the three (I'm still looking for "Runaway") and I can say with confidence, I'm glad I didn't have to vote. "Logorama" and "La Dama y la Muerte" are so completely different, yet both are incredible in their story-telling.
Now if only we could see more of these, or at least there was a larger venue for these kind of films.
very good, you blog...
I actually just bought the short film Logorama... I got it off of itunes... I liked the theme of it, but there was a lot of cursing... other than that, I give it a thumbs up!! It's incredible how he took 6 years to finish this project. It was very detailed and had almost any and every logo or brand you could think of.
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