Sunday

For the last several years I have gone to see the Academy Award nominated shorts--both live action and animated. This year is a first for the animated category in that as we sat watching, I overheard a lot of murmurs about how bad the nominees were. The folks watching seemed, at times, genuinely mad at the choices. Fortunately, after three very sub-par films, the final three were excellent and it seems pretty clear that the race is between "La Luna" and "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore". And, like the last couple years, following these nominees, they showed some animated shorts that were not nominees but were sort of like runners up--and the folks I talked to preferred these films to several of the nominees.

"Dimanche" ("Sunday") is a film sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada (the other being "Wild Life"). If it had not been nominated, I probably would be MUCH kinder in my review. The animation was novel (though poor) and the story went absolutely no where. While it didn't bother me, I overheard several in the audience who were angry as the film featured a lot of needless animal cruelty. Now I am not against cartoon violence (and I loved "Skylight" which was also shown that day and it featured exploding animals!), but this seemed pointless--as did the film in general. While a few bits and pieces were interesting (such as the bear and the nice sepia tones), the whole was not in the least. Frankly, I have no idea what the Academy saw in this one. I am being brutally frank, but the audience seemed to agree with me.