2018 Oscar Animated Shorts

I’ve spent the last couple days ruminating on my long-time movie-going habits, the ways the changes in my life inform my cinematic practices and vice versa. You could chart the ebb and flow of it all in my annual movie lists, if you knew what to look for. In some ways, my spreadsheet of film titles is as telling a diary as any other I may keep.

And so it goes with the Oscar-nominated animated film shorts. Another tradition that started in 2010, two years after I had first met a former co-worker, right around the same time we transitioned into friends. She introduced me to the short films, and it eventually became a February ritual for us.

Now I enjoy the animated shorts every year for how frequently delightful and unexpected they are, but I also love how I associate them with a person who has become one of my closest friends. We saw the 2018 batch this morning, and I want to share my reactions while they’re fresh in mind.

Overarching Thoughts for 2018

• Why did they stop including the running time on the title card for each short? If a “short” is going to last almost half an hour, I need to mentally prepare myself for that.
• Is this the first year they used additional animated “Petite Interludes” between the nominated films? I feel like they didn’t always do that, but I can’t remember if they did it last year, too. If you remember, let me know in the comments. Regardless, I don’t care for it. Title cards only, please.
• Along with the five nominated films, they always include in the package 2-3 additional “highly commended” films. Inevitably, I fall in love with one of these and question how it didn’t get the official nod. That said, I generally find the whole concept of the Oscars utter bullshit. I don’t watch the Oscars, I typically don’t like the kinds of films that win Oscars, and I don’t know why I’m surprised that I’m not on the same page as members of the Academy when it comes to these short films. For that matter, I don’t know why I abandon my Oscar contempt when it comes to this one category. It’s literally the only one I care about.

The Movies of 2017

I started tracking the movies I see in 2004, and I set my record for most films seen in a year in 2006 (41). That record stood for a decade. Until now, baby!

New record!!! Woot!!!

Two things aided my victory. First, throughout 2017, I perpetually felt in need of cheering up. So I was already going to the theater perhaps an excessive amount. And then halfway through the year I discovered MoviePass, and the flood gates really opened. I started seeing anything and everything that looked even moderately interesting. Which is how I came to see Lego Ninjago (which I didn’t especially enjoy, but it did have at least one laugh-out-loud joke).

Amazingly, even though I saw a lot more, my enjoyment levels stayed relatively high. I did not like only four movies all year. And even most of those ones had sufficient merit to where I debated giving them an asterisk. But no matter how much I admire the spirit behind efforts like The Little Hours and The Disaster Artist, I’d be lying if I said I really enjoyed watching them.

The Movies of 2016

So apparently I completely forgot to post my annual viewing list last year. Just never got around to it. Whoops.

Reflecting back on that year with this unusual level of hindsight, I think this might have been when my taste in movies started to change a little. I still primarily enjoy genre fare, but I started paying money to see films like Denial. Ten years ago that never would have happened.

Plus, think about it. 2016 brought us Batman v. Superman, Captain America: Civil War, Suicide Squad, Finding Dory, and just seemingly endless supply of major tent pole releases that disappointed me to no end. Meanwhile, I did find stuff like Denial and The Big Short kind of interesting after all.

Of course, my favorite theatrical releases that year were (in order): Deadpool, The Conjuring 2, and The Accountant. So obviously I didn’t change that much.

But my true favorite 2016 viewing experience didn’t come in a theater at all. My love for Stranger Things eclipsed everything else that year, and that had never happened before.

The System:
* Good enough; worth watching once
** I genuinely liked it
X I hated it
+ Number of repeat viewings at the theater

Theatrical List (30 titles):

The Big Short **
The Hateful Eight X
Oscar Animated Shorts 2016 **
Deadpool ** +1
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot **
Zootopia **
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice *
Captain America: Civil War
The Nice Guys **
X-men: Apocalypse *
Alice: Through the Looking Glass
The Conjuring 2 **
Finding Dory *
The Legend of Tarzan **
Ghostbusters (2016) *
The Secret Life of Pets **
Suicide Squad *
Bad Moms **
Kubo and the Two Strings **
Blair Witch
Storks *
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children *
The Magnificent Seven **
The Accountant **
Denial **
Doctor Strange **
Arrival **
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story **
Assassin’s Creed
Passengers **

Home Viewing List (24 titles):

The Propaganda Game *
Fifty Shades of Grey
MST3K: Swamp Diamonds *
MST3K: Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders **
MST3K: Viking Women Vs. The Sea Serpent
Kingsman: The Secret Service *
MST3K: Tormented **
Our Brand is Crisis *
Dolphin Tale *
MST3K: Red Zone Cuba *
MST3K: The Pumaman **
Stranger Things Sn. 1 **
Bojack Horseman Sn. 3 *
Get Hard *
Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping **
Keanu *
Ali Wong: Baby Cobra *
The Last Witch Hunter **
MST3K: The Undead **
It Follows **
Under the Sun *
ARQ *
Rifftrax: The House on Haunted Hill
Rifftrax: The Guy from Harlem *

Oh, and I was really into It Follows. If you like horror, definitely check that one out. But Bojack Horseman was already starting to get a little too dark for me.

On Lady Bird

I’m officially old. I know because I spent most of Lady Bird identifying with the mom instead of the teenager, even when she wasn’t such a great mom.

Image from IMDb

Halloween Postscript

Because I apparently bring this blog out of mothballs exclusively for Halloween fare these days*, I figured I might as well follow up on last year’s epic Simpsons Treehouse of Horror odyssey. If a bit late.

Treehouse of Horror XXVIII (2017)

Opener: There are no credits or couch gag in order to make room for “The Sweets Hereafter,” a marginally clever CGI short that’s practically a separate act of its own. The Simpsons family is depicted as sentient Halloween candy (except for Lisa as a nutritious apple) hoping to survive the night in the trick or treaters’ bowl. Bart as a Butterfinger is a neat in-joke (and also leads into a sick burn on the divisive chocolatey treat), but my favorite is Maggie as a ring pop.

Stories: 1) The Exor-Sis (Maggie gets possessed); 2) Coralisa (Coraline parody using CGI that attempts to kinda-sorta look like stop-motion animation); and 3) MMM… Homer (in which the Simpsons patriarch accidentally discovers his own flesh is the most delicious meat of all).

Favorite quote:
Ned: “I’m afraid that little devil needs an exorcism!”
Rev. Lovejoy: “I’m afraid they didn’t teach me those at Pepperdine.”

Notes: Overall this is a ho-hum episode (the middle segment seems like a particularly wasted opportunity), but it does score some points for extra-cool stunt casting with the guest voices. I like that they invited Neil Gaiman himself to voice Snowball while skewering his work. But, in my opinion, the best call-out is when Ben Daniels (aka Father Marcus on Fox’s The Exorcist show) shows up to yell “Demon get out!” precisely three times at Possessed Maggie.

I think the gag mostly worked for me because I only just recently started watching season one of the re-envisioned horror franchise, and I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would. After suffering through a handful of episodes of both Minority Report (2015) and Lucifer, I felt tolerably convinced that Fox would just convert Exorcist into yet another generic police procedural. But happily it’s a little more interesting than that.

 

* Seriously, it’s been almost two years since my last non-Halloween post. I probably give the impression that Halloween is my favorite holiday, but it isn’t. I do like it a whole lot, but as a rather boring adult, I can never think of any cool ways to celebrate anymore. This year I didn’t even dress up to get a $3 boo-rito from Chipotle, which is how I phoned it in for 2016.

Happy Halloweekend 2017

Disney has re-released The Nightmare Before Christmas for a limited engagement at Regal Cinemas just for this weekend through Halloween. Even though I consider it really more of a Christmas movie, I still decided to make this my primary Halloween celebration this year. Below are some random thoughts:

Perhaps my favorite scene in the movie

• There are much more memorable tunes and visuals throughout the film, but what I love about “Poor Jack” is that you almost think that Jack will actually learn something from putting everyone through this massive ordeal, but NOPE! As the lyrics continue, you realize he’s learned NOTHING, and it’s amazing.
• I’ve watched it on television a thousand times, but it took re-visiting it on the big screen to realize that Zero’s glowing nose is actually a light-up jack-o-lantern. Huh. Neat.
• The whole Harvey Weinstein scandal and #MeToo and just all of that recent business really casts a new light on Sally’s relationship with Dr. Finkelstein.

Yikes.

• A few years ago I went to Disneyland in October, and I felt chagrined to discover that the Haunted Mansion ride had been given a Nightmare Before Christmas makeover. Make no mistake:  If this movie had its own ride, I’d be the first in line. But the whole point of the trip was to get drenched in nostalgia, so I felt bitterly disappointed that I couldn’t experience the Haunted Mansion of my childhood.
• Only one sobbing, terrified child at my screening. I had estimated there would be about three.

Treehouse of Horror Roundup 26-27

Like most other Americans, I spent the last couple of days consumed with a different sort of nightmarish joke. But life and the days of November march on, and now that it’s ten days past Halloween, we need to wrap this up.

It felt good to laugh and get one last sweet taste of Halloween for the year. I even ate some candy — gummy bears — to mark the occasion. And The Simpsons managed to let me end on happy note by providing two mostly solid episodes. I’m glad I took this ride with you all.

Treehouse of Horror Roundup 22-25

And now we enter the modern era…

Timely News

I’m not sure how much progress I will make on my Treehouse of Horror quest over the weekend. While you wait, enjoy this announcement.

The Simpsons is renewed for a 29th and 30th season.

Treehouse of Horror Roundup 19-21

It only just occurred to me tonight (10 and a half hours into this roundup) that I could have made things interesting by collecting and crunching some Simpsons data as I watched. What percentage of Halloween segments focus on each character? How often are Kang and Kudos central to a plot rather than mere background? How many times does each character actually die onscreen? What a missed opportunity!

Well, I guess I could just start over.

…

Yeah, no.