The Oscar Project
This was an interesting little film and I'm glad that something in the stop motion animation style was nominated this year. The Whistler Film Festival website lists it as "A nostalgic animated short about the complicated relationship between a father, who travels often for business, and the son he leaves behind." It truly is a wonderful little film with some of the most fluid stop motion animation I've seen in a long time. In several scenes it is difficult to tell that it is stop motion at all unless you really pay attention.
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I was extremely excited to see "Garden Party" once I heard about it from the nominations. The trailer (which I included below) is absolutely stunning and had I not known that the film was animated, I likely would have assumed it was some sort of documentary about frogs living in pools and backyards.
After watching the film however, "Garden Party" is SO much more, and yes, the rest of the film looks just as good as the trailer!
I think it is safe to say that "Lou" is the first of the 2017 Oscar Nominated films I saw. This short film was presented before showings of Cars 3's theatrical release starting in June of 2017. Since I have kids that are the right age to love pretty much anything Pixar sends our way, we trekked out to see this one in the theater (actually as part of a double feature with Despicable Me 3 at the drive-in.
As with most Pixar entries into the animated short film category, this one quickly jumps to the top of the list and when I first saw it, I had a strong feeling "Lou" would take home the Oscar this year. The story is simple and easy to relate to. A bully on the playground is taking other kids' toys, he must learn his lesson with the help of...well, Lou. The characters are a little goofy, but at the same time very genuine with easy to understand motives.
When I first heard of this film, I was researching potential short listed nominees for a few categories in late 2017, around Christmas. I was instantly impressed and hoped it would receive a nomination.
You might think there wouldn't be much to say about a film that's less than five minutes long, but there are definitely some layers to pull back in this one. As I mentioned in the first post, I'm doing write-ups for each of the films nominated this year and "Dear Basketball" is the first one I completed, so please enjoy.
There is a long rambling story that I could tell about how I got to this point, but I'll try to give you the short version...
I've been looking for a personal quest for some time, something I can look forward to when the rest of life gets too hectic. I was inspired by the work of Chris Guillebeau who went on a personal quest to visit every country on earth before he reached the age of 35 (I think). He made it a few years back and has moved on to other things, but that idea stuck with me. My own quest had to be something that I was passionate about but that was also achievable with my current means. For several years, even before hearing about Guillebeau, I had a dream to spend a year traveling the country, attending a sporting event on every day of the year. Seeing how I have a wife and kids at home and I'm not independently wealthy, that was a little out of the question, so I kept looking. |
AuthorI'm just a film buff who wants to watch great movies. Where else to find the best, than the list of those nominated by the Academy each year? Archives
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