Animation
Movie Reviews: 2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Films
LIVE ACTION The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Croatia) 4 stars out of 5 It’s 1993 in Eastern Europe and military personnel have stopped and boarded a passenger train, demanding to see everyone’s papers. Tension builds as the officers get closer and closer to the compartment we’ve become familiar with, including a family and […]
Movie Review: Robot Dreams
4 stars out of 5 This film should not be confused with the 1984 flick Electric Dreams starring Virginia Madsen and Maxwell Caulfield, nor with the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, basis for the 1982 movie Blade Runner. However, it does involve animals, robots, dreams, and the 1980s. Robot […]
Movie Review: 2022 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films
Robin Robin (United Kingdom)3 stars out of 5This is the mainstream nominee, from Aardman Studios (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run) with voices by Gillian Anderson and Richard E. Grant. And though it’s cute — a bird growing up in a mouse family! Oh and it’s Christmastime! — this is real kid-oriented and nothing particularly special. […]
Movie Review: 2020 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films
Dcera (Czechia) 3.5 stars out of 5 Daughter/dad story #1, told in an intriguing, dark papier-mâché-esque style. Grown-up daughter reflects back on her relationship with her father back in the day. Impressive, though I had a little trouble following the exact details of this one. Hair Love (USA) 3 stars out of 5 Daughter/dad story […]
Movie Review: The Boy and the Beast
4 stars out of 5 That’s the movie biz for ya: Somebody wins an Oscar for an animated short about a bear, and suddenly everybody’s churning out bear-themed cartoons. Except, this one is feature length, from Japan (anime!), and has dialogue (with English subtitles). Am not entirely sure why I went to see Beauty and […]
Movie Review: 2016 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films
Hey, I like cartoons, who doesn’t? And then at some point you’re told, no, they’re not cartoons, they’re “animated shorts” and should be taken seriously. Stop smiling, kid! I caught Bambi vs. Godzilla very early on, on TV, but it didn’t register as a separate art form or anything. Was just a funny little cartoon. […]
Jack Silbert, curator