Each year when the Academy releases its nominees for the various categories at the Academy Awards my family always pokes me and says, “Drew, when and where could we have seen these shorts?” Viewed as the go-to guy when it came to, perhaps, more obscure tastes in movies, I still wouldn’t really know what to say. Shorts are a category within the nominations that provide a quick and complete start-to-finish production designed to drive home some theme, usually something societally topical.
However, now they — and consequently, all of you — know exactly where to go to see all of these shorts: Ragtag Cinema. Right here, close to campus, everybody has the opportunity to go to see all five Oscar-nominated animated shorts.
Specifically, to get you all up to speed, a short film is defined by the Academy as “an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all the credits.” The first viewing will showcase all of the animated shorts, run back-to-back, and will last 80 minutes, from Friday, Feb. 10 to Thursday, Feb. 16.
**Oscar Nominees for Best Animated Short:**
• **”Dimanche/Sunday,” directed by Patrick Doyon**
This short is the story of a small boy and his interesting adventure through just a normal day: Sunday (or _Dimanche_ in French). After church, his family gets together at his grandma and grandpa’s house. And like any young kid stuck at their grandparents house he quickly realizes there isn’t much to do. So, to entertain himself, he plays with coins on railroad tracks. Then, he notices something interesting about some of those coins. Whether or not the day will be ordinary or have a bit of that “extra” added to it, remains to be seen.
• **”A Morning Stroll,” directed by Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe**
Why did the chicken cross the road? No, no, no. That’s not what the joke is in this movie. This movie’s joke is more about _when_ did the chicken cross the road. This short is actually a three-part short that remains centered on, you guessed it, a chicken. The story starts in 1959. It is shown in black and white through old-time, “flickery” animation. It then jumps 50 years forward to 2009 and reverts to using lots of bright color in its animation style. Fast forward yet another 50 years and we end up in 2059 looking at a CGI chicken. This isn’t a bad joke. Quite the contrary, it’s pretty ingenious.
• **”The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg**
A storm takes a young man to a place where books literally come to life! With this film, the director takes great pride in using multiple mediums and techniques to make character miniatures, 2-D animation, as well as computer animation. They have created a piece that book lovers should love. It’s a story partially inspired from Hurricane Katrina, partially from The Wizard of Oz, and partially from Buster Keaton (the silent film star) and is really about people who love books and the books that love them in return.
•**”Wild Life,” directed by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby**
A real gentleman from England leaves in 1909 to settle in Alberta to become a rancher. What could go wrong? Well, actually, apparently a lot of stuff can go wrong. This real gentleman is refined and civilized; he is an avid badminton player, bird watcher, and drinker. Yet, he soon realizes that he hasn’t done much in terms of preparation for the harsh new conditions of this New World. This film is all about the beauty of the prairie, being homesick and just how crazy life can be when you live outside of what you’re used to.
•**” La Luna,” directed by Enrico Casarosa**
This short is a coming-of-age story that centers on a young boy who rows out to sea with his dad and grandpa to perform a very special job concerning the moon. This adventure is based on Casarosa’s own life, in part, in terms of the grandfather and father, as well as the old story, “The Distance of the Moon,” which concerns the notion of building a ladder to the moon. An interesting note of this film is that it’s a Pixar production, and it is actually Pixar’s longest short, lasting seven minutes.