Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

Movie: 2016 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts
When: 7:15, Thursday, February 3
Who With: JL, plus some good Missoula run-ins!
YTD Movie Count: 11
Snacks: popcorn and cold smoke

Reaction: So many movies! Five were up for best animated short and three more were shown as honorable mentions. A much lighter hearted blend than the live action shorts, not to say their wasn’t plenty of melancholy in the mix. Our audience had a REAL PARTICIPATOR in the row ahead of us. Full body wiggling then there were squiggles on screen, and verbally boing-oing-oing-ing along with any sound effect. Anyway, he was having fun and so was I. Here’s what we saw:
Sanjay’s Super Team – dir. Sanjay Patel, USA, 7 minutes 
Pixar-so-good! The standard bearer has done it again with this super sweet story of father, son, religion, and super heroes.
World of Tomorrow – dir. Don Hertzfeldt, USA, 17 minutes
My pic for the win! Hertzfeldt introduces a little girl with her adult clone from the somewhat distant future. They have heavy a philosophical conversation touching on love, death, class, and tech while exploring the universe.
**Update 2/20/16: Heard a great NPR interview with Don about "World of Tomorrow" and learned it's available on Netflix.
Bear Story – dir. Gabriel Osorio, Chile, 11 minutes 
Beautiful depiction of a bear family and circus sadness. After our September trip to Chile, JL instantly felt the Chilean history bursting in-between the lines here. I was slightly oblivious but the story is painful either way. This is a big contender for the prize and knows it. The audience was a little turned off by the wall of awards shown at the start.
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos – dir. Konstantin Bronzit, Russia, 16 minutes
Another bittersweet story, this time following two buds as they train in the Russian cosmonaut program. I still don’t understand why ‘cosmonaut’ was translated to “astronaut” at one point within the animation. I do know that space is a nasty quest.
Then they showed a few honorable mentions that are not nominated:
If I Was God: Very Canadian narration of a middle school frog dissection. I didn’t really feel this one.
Taking Flight: The Roxy claims it showed this to us but it did not.
The Short Story of a Fox and a Mouse: Beautifully done but not how nature works.
The Loneliest Spotlight: Pulling at my land use planner heart strings and narrated by Patton Oswalt, we see the years pass from the vantage of a street spotlight. I loved the animation of the cars moving through traffic.
Catch It: Abso-boring, full of meerkats and cliches.
Prologue – dir. Richard Williams, UK, 6 minutes
You don’t get the link for this one because I hate it so much. Yes, I know there’s a very impressive technique on display but I am here for the stories and this one is just for dudes. We got the very important notice that Prologue has male nudity and is not good for young children.

Recommendation: Let’s Go! | Let it come to you  | Let it pass
Next Up: The Danish Girl