Categories One-By-One: Animated Short

1998 through 2007
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rain Bard
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Post by rain Bard »

I saw I Met the Walrus and Madame Tutli-Putli at Sundance. The latter I saw a few days before the nominations were announced. On that morning I passed one of its directors on a stairwell at the festival headquarters, and enjoyed being able to congratulate the new nominee in person a mere hours after his nomination. Never had that opportunity before.

I like both of the nominees I've seen so far (I believe the full slate is supposed to play local theatres starting this weekend), and could imagine either winning, but neither feel like slam dunks.

I Met The Walrus is a lot of fun, if not really that innovative. It borrows its aesthetic from the collage animation of folks like Larry Jordan, Stan Van Der Beek and Terry Gilliam, but adds a dash of Yellow Submarine fantasia and some more technologically slick techniques than those 60's filmmakers used. The idea of animating an interview, especially this interview between John Lennon and a young fan, is probably its most charming aspect.

Madame Tutli-Putli is technically astonishing in its seamless marriage of puppet animation with real human eye movements. Does the presence of these eyes make the film somehow "less" animation? I'd say no, but voters may have their reservations. And they might not love the apothecary style somewhat reminiscent of the Starewicz/Svankmajer/Quay line of animation, which to date has garnered a grand total of zero Oscar wins, if I'm not mistaken. The vague ending also may overwhelm the delight to be found in the rest of the narrative.
HarryGoldfarb
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Post by HarryGoldfarb »

This is one of the most fascinateing categories and I think here we don't give it the importance it deserves. Since the first time I saw 1989's winner "Balance" (and that occurred two or three years ago) I've been following this category and tried to find previous winners and nominees. A recent favorite is last year's Little Matchgirl, a heartbreaking-beatifully done film that goes on even after the last frame.

This year's nominees are:
- "Even Pigeons Go To Heaven": A funny yet harmless film.
- "I Met the Walrus": Haven't seen the totality of it, but it looks quite innovative.
- "Madame Tutli-Putli": An absolute delight
- "My Love": I haven't been able to find a subtitled version of it, so I don't understand it. The images are extremely beautiful though. Petrov is already an Academy Award winner for The Old Man and the Sea.
- "Peter and the Wolf"

Peter and the Wolf is definitely (so far) my favorite of the bunch. It's beatifully done, the animation is fantastic, the use of Prokofiev's music is outstanding and the story itself, classic as it is, is told in a very passionate way. It has my vote...
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
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