...Prior to the 2018 Oscar, I saw the theatrical exhibition of the 2018 Oscar-nominees Animated Shorts, the 5 n9m8nees
People should watch out for these. Over the past 8 years or so, something called "Shorts.TV" (upper-tier cable channel, perhaps?) has packaged the shorts into 4 feature-sized programs, most often running at your local indie/arts cinema. There's usually 2 for Documentaries, an Animated program (usually with a toon or too added, and listed as, "commended", to fill-out the show), and a Live-Action version. Godsend for people like me, who are really interested in these, but could never have an opportunity to see them if you're not on the coasts. They usually leave leaflets in the lobby, to make note of your favorites (sure, it says "vote for...", but I suspect it's really just another way to engage market research input more than anything. I always like this, because Animation is my thing, and I always like to look through the nominees to see who's gonna get screwed if "The House of Mice and Luxo lamps" had an entry this year. And I am glad to note, over the last few years the entries in both the short animation and animated features are more varied (with a better chance of giving an Oscar to verious "little engines that could"). Also, remember to check animation-industry sites like Cartoon Brew.com occasionally; they often post great shorts from various, "non-mouse-oriented" sources, and a few do end up getting nominated.
...Okay, problems at my end led to me, first, having to put a first draft up, then being too late to put my revision up. DD synopsized it nicely. There are indeed three Oscar-noddee shorts programs, this Animated one, a Live Action non-documentary shorts one that I didn't see... and a Documentary Shorts one+, which for whatever reason didn't come up to Surf City. I think I.ve seen that, where the Documentary Shorts program is shown, it may also be split into two programs - of three-four shorts each, with some extras filling it out? " concerned-worthy " documentaries tend to be lengthier, just as 'toons tend toward conciseness. The Academy's cut-off length for being considered a " short " is thirty-five minutes!
...This year's winner was " Dear Basketball " a short based on a writing-reminiscence that Kobe Bryant wrote at the time of his retirement. It's main animator was Glen Keane, a big cheese in Disney's 90s hot streak. It sort of seemed to me when I saw it to be something waiting to be incorporated into some " inspirational " TV commercial where Kobe tells some kid to follow their dream - I didn't entirely ideally see it either, coming into the auditorium a little late. I was put to mind of that Nineties KRS-One " Basketball is the revolution " commercial. A quite lengthy BBC-financed Roald Dahl adaption and a Pixar short were two other " big-time " ones --- two others were more " indie " I suppose.
WLL, the two docs that were all that was in "Documentaries B" were longer: Knife Skills was 40 minutes, Heroine(s) was :39. Also, soooooo much more uplifting than in previous years. I remember coming out of "Documantaries A" saying, I think I've just seen the best documentary nomination in 10 years...and, it won. Huzzah! (sorry about the extra italics...this new format does that to me sometimes, and no editing will fix it).
...Okay, even longer then, thank you. That takes that program past the 75-minutes mark that tends to be the agreed-upon ".minimum " length for a feature film nowadayze - And essentially the length of an hour-long commercial TV film minus the' comme'ls - Yeah, as if. - The BBC-Dahl flick I mentioned has been shown, and DVD-released, in Jolly Old in its full 2-part length of just over an hour - What I saw was labeled " Part 1 " - so!!!!!!!!!!! lydipper, post: 18231638, member: 6720"]WLL, the two docs that were all that was in "Documentaries B" were longer: Knife Skills was 40 minutes, Heroine(s) was :39. Also, soooooo much more uplifting than in previous years. I remember coming out of "Documantaries A" saying, I think I've just seen the best documentary nomination in 10 years...and, it won. Huzzah! (sorry about the extra italics...this new format does that to me sometimes, and no editing will fix it).[/QUOTE]
