Yesterday was the deadline for the voting for the 92nd Oscars nominations, with the nominations revealed next Monday (January 13) - and the awards will be presented on TV on Sunday, February 9. As a member of the Academy, Shorts and Animation branch, I got to vote on nominations for live-action shorts, animated shorts, animated features and also live-action features (aka "Best Picture")
Due to my busy schedule, and the shortened voting season, I wasn't able to watch any of the live-action shorts in order to vote in that category. The live-action shorts are much longer than the animated ones (though "longer shorts" sounds a bit like an oxymoron) so it's often difficult to see all of those films.
The Academy warns us not to reveal our preferences for the nominations - however, the deadline for nominations has now passed, and there are so many members in the Academy (about 8,000) I doubt that revealing my selections will take away any of the mystery over who will win the gold statuette.
So here are the films that I selected for feature animation - I've already discussed these films here as my favorites, so this probably won't be a shock to my regular readers:
"How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World", a new sequel from my favorite series with beautiful art and story; "Klaus", by Sergio Garcia with brilliant 2-D animation; "Missing Link", a very funny, clever film from Laika; "I Lost My Body", a very strange but compelling story of a hand searching for its body; and "This Magnificent Cake", a film that came out of nowhere for me. It wasn't until the night before I voted that Signe Baumane alerted me to this gem. I immediately watched the film online and was blown away by the style, great sound and wonderful characters. It's about the colonial evil perpetrated by the Belgians in the Congo during the 1880's, which is a bizarre coincidence because I'm also now reading "King Leopold's Ghost", about the same ugly events.
For animated shorts, the shortlisted films I liked were: "He Can't Live Without Cosmos", by the great Russian director Konstantin Bronzit; "Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days", a beautiful film by Regina Pessoa; "Mind My Mind", by Floor Adams from Holland; "Sister", by Siqi Song; and my all-time favorite, "Hors Piste", a very wacky Tex Avery-style rescue film. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on "Hors Piste".
In the live-action feature category, I chose: "Parasite", a dark comedy from Korea; "Yesterday", a beautiful comedy from Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle; "Booksmart", directed by the brilliant actor Olivia Wilde (she's got a big career ahead of her); "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood" by you-know-who, a little too long but genius; and of course, "Joker", by Todd Phillips of "The Hangover" fame.
So, those are my choices - watch for the announcements coming soon on January 13th. And then we can all see how I did. Now below is my cartoon for the week:
Thanks,
Bill P.
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