Oscar Nominated Short Films 2014: Animation

Thanks once again to Shorts International for pulling together the Oscar nominated animated shorts this year, along with a couple of honorable mentions. It's a high quality group, as you can imagine, with interstitials enlivened this year with a running dialogue between two veteran animated actors, a seen-it-all ostrich and a blasé giraffe. These two tell insider stories about other animated actors, which were really funny - a nice surprise.

My take on the shorts:

"Get a Horse!" *** from Disney starring Mickey and Minnie, USA. This one I had seen before "Saving Mr. Banks" as I recall. It starts out as a classic-looking 'thirties slapstick tale of a bully in a motor car, then morphs into a full-color feature when the hijinks bust through the screen. The dialogue was apparently lifted from vintage cartoons (Disney himself is credited), and it did capture the look and feel of the old classics. However, it suffered from a lack of ideas beyond the usual knockabout, and the chases from black and white to color and back again were not original enough to keep the thing afloat.

"Mr Hublot" ***** from Luxembourg/France. In a steampunk world (see above) a mechanical man adopts a mechanical dog, with unforeseen consequences. For me, this was by far the most original and enjoyable of the shorts presented. Bravo!

"Feral" ** from USA. In a minimalist drawing style we see a feral child retrieved from the woods, who then uses the same survival tactics in the civilized world that he learned in the wild. The style and the story kept me at a remove from the piece.

"Possessions" *** from Japan. In a richly Japanese decorative flat style we meet a traveling tinker who takes refuge from a storm in a haunted house, where his skills are put to the test. It was entertaining and sweetly instructive.

"Room on the Broom" ** from the UK. Based on the children's book, it's an entirely predictable tale of a witch who collects a few friends and hangers-on in her travels. For the very young at heart.

The honorable mentions were amusing but not stellar. My favorite was from France, "A la Française," where we are treated to the full cast of characters at the Versailles of Louis XIV, all played by chickens. Also appearing is a near-photographic entry from Pixar, "The Blue Umbrella," which suffers from a lack of content, and "The Missing Scarf," from Ireland, which tackles some big themes in a short seven minutes.