This weekend when you see Toy Story 3 --it's safe to assume you'll be there? -- you'll first see a new Pixar short called Day & Night (2010). Don't be surprised if it wins an Oscar on February 27th, 2011. I don't want to spoil one second of the short because it's so inventive, fun and technically /conceptually strong. It's often all of those things simultaneously. You're in for a treat.Despite Pixar's reputation as an Oscar hog, they're more Streep than Hepburn; They're nominated frequently but they win less than people have imagined.
Unless you're talking about animated features in which case, yes, yes, they win that a lot. They've won it 5 out of its 9 years. But they also lose ridiculous contests like Monsters, Inc vs. Shrek... despite the math being Monsters, Inc > Shrek by 1000 to 1. Argh. That one will haunt me forever.
Pixar Shorts Oscar History
Winners: Tin Toy (1988), Gerri's Game (1997), For the Birds (2001). They win the animated short category but once a decade.
Nominees: Luxo Jr (1986), Mike's New Car (2002, the only one of their shorts using movie characters to be nominated), Boundin' (2003), One Man Band (2005), Lifted (2006), Presto (2008)
Ignored: The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. (1984), Red's Dream (1987), Knick Knack (1989, one of my personal favorites), Jack-Jack Attack (2005), Mater & The Ghostlight (2006), Your Friend the Rat (2007), Partly Cloudy (2009)
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9 comments:
When I first saw the title of this post, I thought for a second that you were talking about that godawful-looking "action" "comedy" with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz that's coming out this summer. Thank God my eyes deceived me.
HAHA. oh, i'm sorry to have even put that in your head.
I'm so glad there will be a good short before TS3. An "A" huh? Do you think it's in your top 3 of Pixar shorts?
I assume there is an embargo on TS3. Will you post a grade the day it opens?
Also, TBA always means you've seen the film or sometimes that you're planning to?
James T -- it always means that either i'm seeing it that day or i have seen it.
I saw TS3 yesterday. so i'll try to discuss tomorrow.
The Pixar shorts are nice but can be rather boring and tedious. Some are better than others. A lot of the ones that are tie ins with the features, like Your Friend the Rat, are fun in context but are better as special features on DVDs than separate films, explaining why most weren't nominated for Academy Awards.
yeah, i'm not crazy about the ones made based on their movies. Those feel way to much like Disney's run this successful thing into the ground m.o.
but so many of the other ones are special.
Day & Night blew me away. I spent the five minutes it was one with my mouth literally hanging open at the inventiveness and then, in true Pixar form, it smacks you upside the head with poignancy. So very well done.
I genuinely thought Day & Night was a trailer for a new Pixar movie. Throughout the whole thing I thought two things: "AMAZING" and "Wow, this trailer is really long and story-revealing". But then I realized it was a short at the end.. Haha but it was definitely breathtaking and deserves to be rewarded.
I agree that "Jack-Jack Attack", "Burn-E" and "Dug's Special Mission" are better as "special features on DVDs than separate films" - they don't exist without the feature film context but IMO "Your Friend the Rat" and "Mater and the Ghostlight" are still great shorts and they might have been nominated (you might enjoy them without knowing "Ratatouille" and "Cars").
I can't understand why the Academy didn't nominate "Knick Knack" or "Red's Dream" but it rewarded truly awful "Tin Toy" (Pixar's worst movie to date).
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