Comments on: This Way Up

By: Review of the Crowdsourced Short “Live Music” ‹ Short of the Week

Review of the Crowdsourced Short “Live Music” ‹ Short of the Week — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:38:08 +0000

[...] really just elicits a “meh”. Compared to top flight independent CG right now like This Way Up or One Rat Short the animation does not hold up. Furthermore the storytelling is simplistic and [...]

By: Andrew S Allen

Andrew S Allen — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:27:53 +0000

I'm surprised Varmints from Studio AKA didn't make the list. I haven't seen the full film, but I know it's been well-received at many festivals and was nominated for a BAFTA. Also, the 24-min length and subject matter are a perfect fit for the Oscars.

By: Sondhi

Sondhi — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:44:34 +0000

I think that is the one I’m rooting for as well, It’s the best story, but it still feels like a rather slight effort for such an award. Still holding out hope for Maison Cubes, which, based off of the “The Diary of Tortov Roddle”, I think I’ll like the best.

I’m not a huge animation-head, I leave that to Andrew and Ian, but was there anything this year that should have been nominated? What about the BAFTA noms?

By: Nils

Nils — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:34:57 +0000

I hope that Lavatory-Lovestory will win. Such a sweet story and I like the tradional animation style.

By: Sondhi

Sondhi — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:09:22 +0000

There can be debate on which is the best, but I think we can agree that the field is pretty slight, especially compared to last year. Gotta see if I can find some of the live-action nominees.

By: Notluke

Notluke — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:04:27 +0000

Yeah, Cubes is the one I haven’t seen as well. Shame the full version isn’t posted online, as it looks most interesting, regardless of the Annecy trophy.

I love most Pixar shorts (I could watch For the Birds and Geri’s Game over and over again), but Presto not so much, despite the expected technical mastery. The film seemed to be afraid to actually put trust in its own delightful premise. It should have been chock-full of, for lack of better word, “spatial” gags — and maybe it was, but I found it impossible to judge through the way-too-quick editing. Simple slapstick is all that registered for me. The jokes in This Way Up may not always be the freshest but at least I could tell what the jokes were.

Oktapodi is fun and clearly a labour of love, but feels very slight, even compared to the other two comedic CGIs.

Lavatory-Lovestory is easily my second favourite, but I couldn’t get over a few storytelling ambiguities: Why does the heroine throw the first bouquet away in anger? Did her admirer want to be found at the end (his actions don’t quite make sense either way)? Etc.

By: Sondhi

Sondhi — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:08:22 +0000

Yeah I have to agree with the review too, it had some great things going on, but it didn’t seem visually coherent.

Thanks Notluke for the link, the BBC Film Network definitely rocks. You think this is the best of the nominees though? Presto! is very good, though Pixar’s greatness is getting boring now, and I was not prepared to like Lavatory/Lovestory since I’m not a fan of Bronzit, but it really surprised me.

Plus, it’s the one I haven’t seen, but I have to assume Maison en Petit Cubes has to be the fave after winning Annecy.

By: Notluke

Notluke — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:20:54 +0000

Two more things that probably warrant mentioning:

1) The film got an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short yesterday. (And although I, like you, was rather underwhelmed by it, I still consider it actually the most deserving of the nominees, or at least of the four I had seen. The Academy chose poorly this year.)

2) For those without an American iTunes account, the film is supposed to be back on the BBC site after Sundance ends:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A43425308