{"id":9657,"date":"2019-02-18T16:49:55","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T21:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=9657"},"modified":"2025-05-02T17:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T21:45:16","slug":"oscar-nominated-animated-short-films-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=9657","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films-2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films- 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

Directors Alison Snowden, David Fine, Domee Shi, Becky Neiman, Louise Bagnall, Nuria Gonzalez Blanco, Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Pontillas, Trevor Jimenez<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #869<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Animal\"Bao\"\"Late\"One\"Weekends\"<\/p>\n

Reviewed February 18, 2019<\/p>\n

Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was amazing to have the honor of viewing the five short films nominated for the 2018 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at my local art theater.<\/p>\n

Far too often dismissed as irrelevant or completely flying under the radar of animated offerings, it is time to champion these fine little pieces of artistic achievement.<\/p>\n

Each of the five offers a vastly different experience, on par with or even superseding the full-length animated features. Still, each offers inspired or hopeful messages or dark, devious, and edgy stories.<\/p>\n

The commonality this year is that four of them feature parent-child relationships.<\/p>\n

Below is a review of each of the shorts.<\/p>\n

Animal Behaviour-2018 (Canada)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The weirdest in the group, Animal Behaviour, is also the most humorous and the best, but only by a narrow margin.<\/p>\n

We witness a therapy session led by a prim and proper dog with his issues. In attendance are a blood-sucking leech, a praying mantis, a cat, a pig, and the newest attendee, a gorilla. All are happy to participate except the gorilla, who sees the session as a waste of time.<\/p>\n

As eating jokes, butt jokes, and other adult humor encases the camaraderie each character develops a clear identity and the gorilla learns, in comedic fashion, that he does require therapy.<\/p>\n

This short plays out like an intelligent television sitcom. Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bao-2018 (USA) (Won)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most mainstream of the contenders, Pixar’s creation Bao, is cute and heartwarming and an ode to motherhood.<\/p>\n

A perfect Mother’s Day offering, the story tells the tale of a Chinese mother who imagines one of her delicious dumplings as her son. She takes him to soccer practice and rides the bus together, but they are inseparable.<\/p>\n

As the dumpling matures, he wants to be alone, see friends, and eventually meets a young woman and proposes marriage. The mother is aghast and, in a state of panic, swallows the dumpling!<\/p>\n

Depressed, she is awakened by her real son, and the two form a sweet bond made from respect and love. The story is blooming with colors and nuanced with kindness, so it is easily the crowd favorite. Grade: A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Late Afternoon-2018 (Ireland)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some will undoubtedly find Late Afternoon a bit of a downer, but I found its honesty uplifting and fraught with creativity. Each afternoon, a caring nurse visits an older woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The nurse is kind, and her actions\u2014serving a hot cup of tea or giving the woman a book to read\u2014trigger memories of her youth with so much promise lying ahead of her.<\/p>\n

Eventually, she can recognize that the nurse is her daughter.<\/p>\n

The short is filled with compassion, and while melancholy, it is also inspiring, not to mention the creativity immersed in the colors and design. Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n

One Small Step-2018 (USA\/China)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most conventional in the lot, One Small Step, will be perceived as empowering to women and a story of both loss and courage.<\/p>\n

A Chinese-American girl is raised by her patient and caring single father in California. She is taught to reach for the stars, and he kindly repairs a shoe of hers and secretly stores it away.<\/p>\n

Over the years, she has been determined to become an astronaut. While she loves her father, she often takes him for granted. She is denied admission into a prestigious school and, depressed, gives up her dream.<\/p>\n

When her father dies suddenly, the girl redoubles her efforts and finally becomes a successful astronaut in dedication to her father.<\/p>\n

The short champions energy and a never-give-up attitude. Grade: A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weekends-2018 (USA)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weekends is my second favorite of all the shorts, a bare runner-up to Animal Behaviour.<\/p>\n

The most complex and confusing, the short also features the most interesting hand drawings and artwork with a surreal and beautiful touch.<\/p>\n

A child of divorce spends his weekdays with his mother and weekends with his father. His mother is depressed and lets the house languish while his father lives a metropolitan bachelor-style life.<\/p>\n

When the mother begins dating an abusive man, the boy is terrified, imagining birthday candles that turn into the frightful man. The mother wears a neck brace, which implies physical abuse.<\/p>\n

The short is moving and hits home on a personal level. Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films- 2018 Directors Alison Snowden, David Fine, Domee Shi, Becky Neiman, Louise Bagnall, Nuria Gonzalez Blanco, Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Pontillas, Trevor Jimenez Scott’s Review #869 Reviewed February 18, 2019 Grade: A It was amazing to have the honor of viewing the five short films nominated for the 2018 Academy Award for Best … Continue reading Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films-2018<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[364,6782,6786,37,6780,6785,6781,6779,6783,6784,160,6787],"tags":[365,6791,6795,54,6789,6794,6790,6788,6792,6793,161,6796],"class_list":["post-9657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-movie-reviews","category-alison-snowden","category-andrew-chesworth","category-animatedfilms","category-becky-neiman-cobb","category-bobby-pontillas","category-david-fine","category-domee-shi","category-louise-bagnall","category-nuria-gonzalez-blanco","category-shortfilms","category-trevor-jimenez","tag-2018-movie-reviews","tag-alison-snowden","tag-andrew-chesworth","tag-animated-films","tag-becky-neiman-cobb","tag-bobby-pontillas","tag-david-fine","tag-domee-shi","tag-louise-bagnall","tag-nuria-gonzalez-blanco","tag-short-films","tag-trevor-jimenez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9657"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21414,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9657\/revisions\/21414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}