Showtime:
Mon February 27 - 7:00 PM |
2012 Oscar
Nominated Animated Shorts
Rated: not rated
Runtime: 80 minutes total running time
The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Animated" nominees - two from the United States, two from Canada and one from England - present a variety of entertaining styles. Magic, whimsy, a fair amount of darkness (loneliness, aging, death, zombie apocalypses) and a wonderful mix of old-school cartooning and digital animation are on tap, as the five nominees are available for viewing on the big screen at Arena Theater. The films are as follows:
- Sunday/Dimanche (10 min., Patrick Doyon)
- The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (15 min., William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg)
- La Luna (7 min., Enrico Casaroasa)
- A Morning Stroll (7 min., Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe)
- Wild Life (13 min., Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby)
Pixar's feature nomination streak may have been broken this year -- its 2011 release, Cars 2, is the first of its titles not to land in the Best Animation category -- but arguably the biggest crowd-pleaser of the short films is Pixar’s “La Luna,’’ featuring two men and a little boy awaiting the arrival of the moon (7 min., Enrico Casaroasa, with a terrific score by Michael Giacchino).
From Louisiana comes the intricately designed “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore’’, enveloping the audience in the truly fantastical world of reading. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation), award winning author/illustrator William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a hybrid style of animation that harkens back to silent films and MGM Technicolor musicals. Morris Lessmore is old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time.
The prolific National Film Board of Canada sponsors a pair of nominees, the gorgeous “Wild Life,’’ (13 min., Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby) set in that country’s early 20th-century wilderness, and the bilingual “Dimanche/Sunday,’’ centering on one day’s exploits of a small boy. ((10 min., Patrick Doyon)
Rounding out an uncharacteristically North American-centric slate of animated Oscar-nominated shorts, Great Britain offers “A Morning Stroll,’’ a blackly hilarious sci-fi story about a chicken that takes place in New York City over the course of an entire century. (7 min., Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe)
Interestingly, just as many of this year's nominated features ( “The Artist”, “Hugo”, “Midnight in Paris”) hark back to old times and old cinema, so, too, do these animated shorts: “A Morning Stroll” uses title cards and iris effects, while “A Comet” (about a Brit contemplating ranching in Alberta, Canada) actually incorporates archival footage.
Total running time is 80 minutes, the short films are not rated. |
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Showtime:
Mon March 5 - 7:00 PM |
The Names of Love
(Le Nom des Gens)
Director: Michel Leclerc
Rated: R for sexual content including graphic nudity, and some language
Runtime: 100 minutes
Language: French with English subtitles
How many years has it been since you encountered someone waving a placard or wearing a T-shirt with the slogan, “Make love, not war”? Resurrected in the French satirical farce “The Names of Love,” that hippie free-loving attitude is personified by Baya Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier), the charming, carefree daughter of an Algerian immigrant and a onetime French radical who boasts that she always sleeps with a man on their first date.
“Ms. Forestier, whose performance won her a César (the French Oscar) for best actress, is the spark plug igniting a movie that has the tone and structure of early-to-middle Woody Allen, but infused with a dose of Gallic identity politics”, writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times.
The film’s original French title, “Le Nom des Gens” (“The Name of People”) is much more to the point than its fluffy English title. For this is a movie that pokes serious fun at ethnic and religious stereotyping based on names and appearances.
Arthur’s mother, Annette (Michèle Moretti), escaped the Holocaust when she was sheltered in an orphanage under a changed name; her mother’s death in Auschwitz left her burdened with crippling depression and guilt. Arthur’s French Roman Catholic father, Lucien (Jacques Boudet), who runs a nuclear power plant, served with the French Army in Algeria.
It’s also an odd-couple rom-com in which Baya hooks up with Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin), an expert on avian diseases and a quintessential square. One of the movie’s many jokes that only French audiences will get is that Arthur Martin is a French washing machine brand, a fact that everyone to whom he is introduced feels obliged to note. The movie makes many obscure political references and includes a cameo by Lionel Jospin, the French prime minister from 1997 to 2002 and two-time Socialist candidate for president.
The film won a second César Award for best writing. |
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