Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films

On a whim, I decided to jump on the subway and catch the Oscar nominated shorts at the IFC Center. I have seen all the live action and documentary shorts, but only two of the animated ones (those were the only ones on YouTube). Every year, the IFC screens the nominated shorts, giving a leg up to Award show fans in their party betting pools. As I have related before, I've actually been at Oscar viewing parties where people objected to allowing me to bet in the pool because I had the unfair advantage of seeing all the films in these categories, even though they were open to the public and playing only a few blocks away. This year's animated shorts are high-caliber and it's difficult to pick a favorite, but here are some thoughts:

Our Uniform

Our Uniform (Iran): Yegane Moghanddam cleverly uses clothes as a backdrop for her ruminations on attending an all-girls school in Iran where the students had to wear the hijab, even though there were no males present. "Who were we covering up from," she asks in her voice-over narration. She says she learned to be a female in Iran, but nothing else, not a doctor or soccer player, just a female. She examines attitudes about the dress codes women must adhere to as figures move along dresses, slacks, jeans, and the hijab itself.

Letter to a Pig

Letter to a Pig (France/Israel): Previously seen on YouTube. In an Israeli middle school class, a Holocaust survivor relates his experiences hiding from the Nazis in a sty where a pig saves him by hiding him from view. One girl student imagines herself in a frightening dreamscape where the pig at first symbolizes the forces of antisemitism and then shrinks and becomes a tiny innocent piglet. Pencil drawings over live-action footage transforms the characters into semi-animals.

Pachyderme (France) A surrealist memory piece of a Frenchwoman recalling a bizarre summer spent with her grandparents. Difficult to decipher. The floorboards creak at night. An elephant tusk hangs at the top of the stairs. Grandpa says it's okay for the little girl to swim in just her underwear with no top. Was she molested? Why does it snow in the summertime? What is the drowned lady in the lake meant to represent?

Ninety-five Senses

Ninety-Five Senses (USA): Directed by Jerusha and Jared Hess, creators of the cult film Napoleon Dynamite. This is my choice for best of the lot. This beautiful featurette combines imaginative animation which poignant, detail-rich storytelling. An elderly man (voiced by Tim Blake Nelson) relates his life story in terms of each of the five senses and we gradually learn he is facing his imminent demise. Each sense evokes a different set of memories--smell connotes his grandma's visits to the beauty parlor, hearing his dad's blasting Anne Murray records because his job at a saw mill made him practically deaf, taste is the narrator's last meal, and touch tells of his unrealized dreams and regrets in terms of being unable to touch people physically or emotionally. The story was very real, like reading a short story. I got a sense of the narrator, the father, the grandma, and the other characters.

War Is Over!
Inspired by the Music of John& Ono

War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Ono (USA): Kind of obvious and preachy, but beautifully drawn. Enemy soldiers relay chess moves through a carrier pigeon. They meet on the battlefield (of course). I don't have to tell you what happens to the beloved bird just as peace is declared. Then Lennon's Christmas song bursts onto the soundtrack and the opposite forces embrace amid the dead bodies.

The program also included two short-listed but not nominated films, identified as "highly commended." It's not clear how these two were chosen out of the remaining 10 on the short list to be tacked on at the end. I haven't tracked down all the other short-listed films, but it was surprising they did not include the Disney short--Once Upon a Studio which features just about every Disney character ever.

Wild Summon: Fascinating satire of nature films with miniature female human scuba divers replacing salmon as they encounter predators, fishing boats and an untamed open sea in their journey to their home spawning grounds. Singer-actress Marianne Faithful narrates, sounding like a female David Attenborough.

I'm Hip: A very funny short conclusion to the program with a feline singing about his cool credentials to the title song by Dave Frishberg (vocals) and Bob Dorough (initially recorded by Blossom Dearie). He encounters numerous humans who do not share his good opinion and kick him out of a series of nightclubs, restaurants, and cinemas. This was a riot and my favorite of the entire program. Directed by John Musker, co-director of Disney films such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Hercules.

I'm Hip

2023 Potential Oscar Nominated Films Seen So Far

Oppenheimer (34th Street AMC and again on Amazon Prime)
Barbie (Regal Union Square)
Asteroid City (Angelika)
Golda (County Theater, Doylestown, PA)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Regal Kaufman Astoria)
Rustin (Netflix)

The Killer (Netflix)--Tilda Swinton could nab a Supporting Actress nod
Maestro (Paris Cinema mezzanine and again on Netflix)
May December (Netflix)
Past Lives (Amazon Prime)
Poor Things (Regal Kaufman Astoria)
The Holdovers (Regal Union Square--and again on Amazon Prime)
American Fiction (AMC Empire 25--Times Square)
Anatomy of a Fall (Amazon Prime)

Nyad (Netflix)

Napoleon (Amazon Prime)

Society of the Snow (Netflix)

The Zone of Interest (Angelika)

Perfect Days (Angelika)

El Conde (Netflix)

The Creator (Hulu)

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (Disney +)

*Still: A Michael J. Fox Film (Apple TV +)
Les Menus Plaisir--Les Troisgros (Film Forum)
20 Days in Mariupol (Frontline/PBS/Watched on the Passport app)
American Symphony (Netflix)

*Beyond Utopia (Independent Lens/PBS)

*Stamped from the Beginning (Netflix)

The Eternal Memory (MTV Documentaries/Paramount +)

Bobi Wine: The People's President (National Geographic/Disney +)

Four Daughters (Amazon Prime)

Elemental (Disney +)

The Boy and the Heron (AMC Empire 25--Times Square)

Nimona (Netflix)

Short Films
Live Action
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Netflix)
The After (Netflix)

*Yellow (YouTube)

Knight of Fortune (New Yorker/YouTube)

Red White and Blue (YouTube)

*The Shepherd (Disney +)

Invincible (YouTube)

Animated
*Boom (YouTube)
Pachyderm (YouTube, again at IFC)
*Once Upon a Studio (Disney +)

*Pete (YouTube)

Letter to a Pig (YouTube, again at IFC)

*Eeva (YouTube)

Our Uniform (IFC)

Ninety-Five Senses (IFC)

War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko (IFC)

*Wild Summons (IFC)

*I'm Hip (IFC)

Documentary

*How We Get Free (Max)

Island in Between (NY Times/YouTube)

*Deciding Vote (New Yorker/YouTube)

The Last Repair Shop (LA Times/Searchlight/YouTube)

*If Dreams Were Lightning: Rural Healthcare Crisis (Independent Lens/PBS/watched on the Passport app)

*Between Earth and Sky (POV/PBS website)

The Barber of Little Rock (New Yorker/YouTube)

*Camp Courage (Netflix)

The ABCs of Book Banning (MTV Documentaries/Paramount +)

*Last Song from Kabul (MTV Documentaries/Paramount +)

*Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games (ESPN +)

Nai Nai and Wai Po (Disney +)

*short-listed but not nominated