The various Academy Award categories for short films generally receive the least amount of attention. That is, unless you’re an Oscar prognosticator or have money riding on the show, in which case these nominations are a source of frustration, since very few people get to see these shorts, making the winner difficult to predict. But never fear! We have seen all the Oscar-nominated shorts, and whether you want to win your office pool or are just curious about them, we can tell you all about them.
Get a Horse!
A.K.A. The One Everyone Has Actually Seen. This film blends old and new, featuring Mickey Mouse and co. in their retro designs as they cycle back and forth through a 3D CGI theater and a 2D black-and-white movie screen. This Sherlock Jr.-esque conceit allows a good amount of cleverness to be squeezed out of an otherwise routine chase/rescue the girl plot. The movie keeps throwing a new idea into the works every few moments, keeping things lively. It’s a lot of fun, and a worthy way to meld the classic and the contemporary.
Grade: B
Mr. Hublot
Makers of CGI animated shorts sure seem to love them some steampunk. This film follows the titular character, a shut-in living in a clockwork city, as the arrival of a mechanical pet that refuses to leave forces him to form an emotional bond. Mr. Hublot is nice to look at, and further demonstrates how far we’ve come in terms of what small teams are able to do with animation. This kind of visual wizardry once seemed like something only big studios could pull off. But the movie leaves the mind as soon as it has finished. It’s design is unremarkable, strongly reminiscent of that of past winner The Lost Thing. The plot leans on our sympathy for strange creatures but does nothing more. Each year, there’s usually one film in each of the shorts categories that feels more like a student thesis work than anything else, and this is it for 2014’s crop.
Grade: C
Possessions
In Japanese folklore, when an object reaches one hundred years of age, it attains a soul and becomes a Tsukumogami, a trickster creature. This short features a man lost in the woods who finds himself in a house full of such beings. However, with pluck, determination, and some mending skills, he’s able to make it out alive. An unusual cel-shaded CGI style brings the various colorful monsters into vivid life, although there’s a disappointing lack of diversity to the Tsukumogami – most are some variation on an umbrella. But Possessions is quick, it’s fun, and it features conflict resolution through a means other than violence, which I dug.
Grade: C
Feral
A hunter discovers a feral child in the woods and tries to integrate him into society. This doesn’t really work out. Far and away my favorite of the nominees, this film utilizes an unforgettable mixture of earth tones and blinding snow white in its visual style, conveyed through a beautiful, paint-like look. I actually wish the movie had been longer, and added more layers to its protagonist’s struggle to comprehend his strange, civilized surroundings. It does such an excellent job of showing how alien the world of humans looks to him. In my ideal world, all of the nominees in this category would be trying to do what this short does, with more on their mind than being cute or briefly affecting.
Grade: B+
Room on the Broom
Another adaptation of a children’s picture book from the makers of The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom follows the travails of a witch (voiced by Gillian Anderson) as she attempts to fit her animal companions onto her broom as she flies about. I don’t know why the crow needs to fit on there – she can fly on her own. It’s nicely animated but utterly weightless. The most baffling thing is that major British actors like Anderson, Rob Brydon, Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins, and more are brought on to do little more than make animal noises. Simon Pegg at least gets to indulge his whimsical side as the narrator. But I feel parents would be better off just reading the original story to their kids, instead of showing them this.
