This Weekend’s Film Festival Celebrates Oscar-Nominated Animation

On Tuesday, three of the five Oscar-nominated short films were released on a DVD compilation from Magnolia, which sponsors the theatrical distribution of the Oscar-nominated animated and live-action short films each year. In celebration, this week's lineup highlights Oscar-nominated animation in general. All five animated shorts will open This Weekend's Film Festival. The two films sadly not featured on the DVD release are still available on iTunes. For Saturday and Sunday, we have two nominated and two winning animated features. Since adding the Best Animated Feature category in 2002, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has given a higher profile to animated productions. With more and more animation being produced each year, the award allows films that might have been overlooked by the general public a chance to be seen by a wider audience. With the moniker of "just kids stuff" still present with some viewers in the U.S., the films featured in this week's lineup portray the wide variety of styles and content that make up the world of animated film.

The Academy Award-nominated short films were particularly good this past year, making predicting a winner difficult even for industry insiders. In the end, the prize went to Suzie Templeton's dark rendition of Sergei Prokofiev's PETER AND THE WOLF. This brilliant stop-motion production has gorgeous sets and powerful character design. Many of the previous versions of the tale have been watered down for children. But as I said in my original review, "Like the harshest lessons we learn in life, this film will leave you haunted." The two accompanying shorts on the DVD are Samuel Tourneux's CG satire EVEN PIGEONS GO TO HEAVEN and Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowsk's innovative stop-motion short MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI. For PIGEONS (a more literal translation of the title would be EVEN SUCKERS GO TO HEAVEN), a priest tries to convince an old man to buy a machine that will guarantee a trip to heaven. As I said in my original review, "This black comedy doesn’t say anything new about its themes, but in the way it does it, it puts the themes into a new and poignant light." TUTLI-PUTLI puts a young woman on a Jungian train ride that brings her face-to-face with many hidden fears. As I said in my original review, "[Lavis and Szczerbowsk] had real human eyes combined with their detailed puppets, in a process created and painstakingly carried out by artist Jason Walker, creating an eerie and evocative style that is totally original and mind-boggling."

After a trip to iTunes, you can watch past Oscar winner Aleksandr Petrov's gorgeous painterly MY LOVE and Josh Raskin's John Lennon-inspired I MET THE WALRUS. Petrov's epic romance tells the tale of Anton, a 16-year-old boy pulled between the love for his childhood friend Pasha and his lust for the older, mysterious woman Seraphina. As I said in my original review, "The grand scope of the drama emotionally captures the power of first love." Last, but not least, is I MET THE WALRUS, a film based on an interview with Lennon the producer Jerry Levitan made when he was 14. After sneaking into the rock icon's hotel room, the young man asks questions about music, peace and why George Harrison stinks. As I said in my original review, "This lively, smile-inducing, duel-layered time capsule of illustrations and found images captures the energy of the 1960s, as well as the energy of one gutsy young man."

Nominee in 2003, Sylvain Chomet's THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE is a delightful film, which in my original review I called a "nearly a perfect example of the amazingly zany anarchy that only animation can capture." Madame Souza cares for her grandson after the boy's parents' passing. Nothing seems to pull him out of his funk… until she buys him a bicycle. Over the years the boy transforms into a cycling superstar. His talent leads gangsters to kidnap him for a gambling scam. So Madame Souza travels halfway around the world with her trusted dog Bruno to save her grandson. Inside the rich world, the humorous film satirizes American and French stereotypes while presenting a very unlikely heroine in the elderly grandmother who teams with the '30s singing trio The Triplets of Belleville, using wisdom to win the day. Brimming with invention, Chomet tells his tale with little dialogue using sound and music to communicate with the audience. In addition to being nominated for Best Animated Feature, the title song was nominated for Best Original Song. TRIPLETS will have you tapping your toe and smiling large before it's through, while challenging your perceptions of what animated films can be.

LILO & STITCH was Disney last great hand drawn animated feature. Nominated in 2003, the film most likely would have walked away with the Oscar if it were not for Hayao Miyazaki. Crashing to Earth after he is exiled to an asteroid for destroying his home planet, Stitch poses as a dog and becomes the pet of Lilo and her older sister Nani. After the death of her parents, Lilo has been having some anger management issues, which only makes raising the young girl harder for her older sibling. However, housing what was intended to be the ultimate destruction machine under your roof won't make life any easier. This charming and funny animated tale rides to success on well-developed characters. Brought to life wonderfully by Daveigh Chase, Lilo is a real little girl with real problems, making her story all the more engaging. Directors Chris Sanders (also the voice of Stitch) and Dean DeBlois, craft a cast and environment that works together in fresh ways. The free spirit of this picture displays the fact that "family film" doesn't need to mean "simplistic film" as well. As I said in my original review, "LILO & STITCH is proof that when artists are allowed the freedom to bring their visions to the screen without the approval of a focus group then we the audience get a more original, compelling story that doesn’t talk down to us."

For Sunday, the lineup features two Oscar winners that not everyone embraced as fully as other winners from Pixar and DreamWorks, despite being two of the best animated Oscar winners. Aardman Animation brings its ambitious inventor and his life-saving dog from their short form home to features in the witty and whimsical WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT. Directed by Nick Park, this stop-motion animated feature finds the twosome running their humane pest control business Anti-Pesto. When an experiment to rid rabbits of the urge to eat vegetables goes awry, Wallace unleashes the giant were-rabbit, which gobbles up the townsfolk’s prize-winning produce. As always, Gromit must come to the aid of his master, who has fallen for Lady Tottington. But her buckshot-blasting beau, Victor Quartermaine, has more violent ways of dealing with the rodent problem. Written by Bob Baker, Steve Box and Mark Burton, the script is overflowing with wonderful one-liners and great gags. The detail of the clay puppets and the fluidity of their movements are amazing. But it’s the winning characters that make this film a crowd pleaser. Wallace and Gromit are one of the great animated duos, a loving master and pet, which are not just best friends, but partners. Wallace has no illusions he doesn’t need Gromit to make his inventions succeed. Accumulating into a thrilling and touching conclusion, WERE-RABBIT mixes satire of classic horror films with hilarious British glibness while never neglecting to make us care about its characters. As I said in my original review, "Wallace and Gromit are such an endearing duo that you can’t help but get wrapped up in their adventures. I want more now."

The closing film this week is animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s SPIRITED AWAY, winner in 2003. Making the top slot on my top 25 of 2002, this picture is the best film to win the Best Animated Feature. Moving to a new town with her parents, Chihiro is miserable. On their way, they wander into a village that serves as a stop over for the spirit world. When her parents are mysteriously transformed into pigs, Chihiro must navigate the strange logic of the Wonderland like realm where she must take a job at a spiritual bathhouse run by the scheming Yubaba. Overflowing with well observed human detail, Miyazaki creates a magical world where childlike logic rules. Magnificent creatures populate the realm that is filled with subtle messages about civility and protecting the environment. Representing both a Japanese perspective that appeals to a universal audience, Chihiro’s story is thrilling, charming and fantastic. It reminds us about the joys and fears of being young. As I said in my original review, "Don’t let 'family' scare you off, because I only use the term because the lead character is a child, but this film is more fanciful than LORD OF THE RINGS and ALICE IN WONDERLAND combined."

That closes another This Weekend’s Film Festival. Please tell me what you think of these films. So head out to the video store, update the rental queue, log onto iTunes, surf over to Zap2It.com or purchase the films at the below links. This is a lineup not just for the Animation Blogspot crowd, but anyone who likes fresh and exciting cinema.