Sanjay's Super Team (USA): With the full weight of Pixar Animation behind it, this one has the best look of all the shorts. Sanjay is a young boy who is a huge fan of the Super Team, a trio of super heroes on a kids cartoon show. He even has an action figure for the leader of the team. While he is trying to watch his cartoon, his father is praying to a trio of Hindu gods (I'm guessing they are Hindu, I am unfamiliar with the religion). The friction between quiet prayer and loud cartoon soon comes to a head and dad turns off the TV and summons Sanjay to the small household shrine. Sanjay soon finds himself transported into the shrine to do battle with an evil spirit with the trio of gods. The story is rudimentary and best suited to kids. The movie ends with pictures of an adult Sanjay Patel (the director) with his father
World of Tomorrow (USA): Here was the worst animation of the bunch - barely above the level of stick figure drawings. South Park has better animation. And yet, this had the most engaging yet ludicrous story. It is immensely funny and also often sad. The movie opens as a very young Emily answers a video phone, putting us in the not too distant future. The woman on the screen proves to be Emily's future self. Sort of. You see, Emily will some day clone herself and transfer all her memories to that clone. And that clone will clone herself and transfer memories, resulting in the Emily from the future, whom Emily Prime mistakes for her grandmother. The future that old Emily reveals is very bizarre. It is quite funny to have old Emily trying to impart details of the future to a toddler incapable of understanding them. Emily Prime just sees pretty colors. Old Emily has a deadpan delivery that makes it even more hilarious. By far, this was the best of the bunch though the visuals were quite lacking.
Bear Story (Chile): The tale of a sad and lonely bear who lost his family when he was kidnapped by a circus. After watching this movie, I suspect most children will be inclined to burn down the circus tent. Though the visuals are quite good, I found the story to be an overly sad story. In the end, he does not rejoin his family though he has created a puppet show of sorts that does show him rejoining them. The melancholy score just accentuates the downbeat quality of the movie.
We Can't Live Without Cosmos (Russia): Two cosmonauts in training demonstrate that they are the top of the class. It is clear that one is better than the other and goes to great efforts to help his partner get top marks. Through the training, we see a rocket on the pad waiting for its crew. Sure enough, the pair are chosen. They suit up and then only one boards the rocket. The other is the backup cosmonaut. The mission ends in disaster. The story then tells the tale of how the backup cosmonaut deals with the loss. This is quite good though tragic. Competent but basic animation, in line with a Saturday morning cartoon quality.
Prologue (Spain): The animation is stupendous in this short but that does not save it from the lack of a story. Four soldiers, two of whom are inexplicably naked, meet in a grassy field. A Greek Hoplite and one of the naked men face a Greek archer and the other naked man. The battle is brutal and none of the men survive. However, a young girl has witnessed the carnage and runs to inform an older woman. The end. Huh? Whatever the point of this was, I missed it.
In addition to the nominees, there were several Highly Commended shorts, only three of which I can recall:
If I was a God (Canada): A Claymation short about a middle school boy with delusions of godhood. Of course, our hero demonstrates he is an idiot by electrocuting himself rather than the frog he is dissecting. Thinking that some of the incidents in his life indicate he may be a god, he ponders how the world would work if he were. Interestingly, this is likely just the type of film a middle school student would enjoy. Mostly pointless.
Catch It (France): A family of meerkats emerge from their burrow to spot a lovely fruit on a nearby tree. They gaze lovingly upon it and even stroke the fruit. Then a vulture scared them back into the burrow. The vulture, complete with a Snidely Whiplash cackle, takes the fruit and flies off. This is too much! The meerkats give chase and thus commences a comedy of meerkat vs. vulture. Mildly entertaining with decent 3D animation.
The Short Story of a Fox and a Mouse (France): A fox is pacing through a snowy woodland, hunting for a mouse. Suddenly, a mouse pops out of the snow and dashes away with the fox in pursuit. The mouse manages to escape the fox by climbing a tree only to find himself on a branch with two owls who show a similar interest as the fox. As the mouse flees, fox and owls give chase. These are not personified animals so there is no dialogue. It seeks to be a feel-good short where the fox and the mouse become friends. Meh. Not bad but if this was Highly Commended, what must the rest of the field been?
No comments:
Post a Comment