Image: Netflix
Every parent knows there are generally two kinds of animated features: the ones that put in the extra work to appeal to an audience of all ages and the ones that don’t aspire to entertain anyone but the easy-to-please under-12 set. Thelma The Unicorn is, sadly, the latter.
Every parent knows there are generally two kinds of animated features: the ones that put in the extra work to appeal to an audience of all ages and the ones that don’t aspire to entertain anyone but the easy-to-please under-12 set. Thelma The Unicorn is, sadly, the latter.
- 5/22/2024
- by Cindy White
- avclub.com
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.
Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:
Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys
2023 Oscars Predictions:
Best Animated Short
Weekly Commentary: In the realm of animated shorts, the title can be as captivating as the storyline itself.
This year, Dave Mullins’ “War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko,” which is co-writes with Sean Lennon, the son of Beatles band member John Lennon,...
Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:
Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys
2023 Oscars Predictions:
Best Animated Short
Weekly Commentary: In the realm of animated shorts, the title can be as captivating as the storyline itself.
This year, Dave Mullins’ “War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko,” which is co-writes with Sean Lennon, the son of Beatles band member John Lennon,...
- 3/5/2024
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Short subjects willing to tackle tough subjects made the final cut with the Academy this year. That means audiences buying tickets to the “2024 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Animation” program should brace for poetic treatments of uncomfortable topics, ranging from incest to the Holocaust. Since the toon shorts tend to run short (just an hour to get through the noms), ShortsTV’s theatrical roster includes two additional “highly commended” titles, ending on a musical up note with “The Little Mermaid” co-director John Musker’s “I’m Hip.”
Hailing from Iran, Yegane Moghaddam’s “Our Uniform” finds a fitting style for a sartorial commentary: Using clothing as her canvas, the young director recalls how it felt to grow up in a country where girls were required to wear the hijab, or headscarf. She creatively experiments with various techniques, manipulating garments to suggest motion and drawing directly onto different fabrics (as when...
Hailing from Iran, Yegane Moghaddam’s “Our Uniform” finds a fitting style for a sartorial commentary: Using clothing as her canvas, the young director recalls how it felt to grow up in a country where girls were required to wear the hijab, or headscarf. She creatively experiments with various techniques, manipulating garments to suggest motion and drawing directly onto different fabrics (as when...
- 3/4/2024
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Known for their live action comedies Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, Jerusha and Jared Hess have, for the first time, ventured into the world of animation for their debut short as a directing duo. The film in question is Ninety-Five Senses and it’s as creative and visually driven as you’d expect, telling the story of a death row inmate who’s reflecting on his life through memories related to his senses. The film is structured across six different sections and corresponding animation styles ranging from soft, painterly visuals through to distinct, dynamic character-driven styles reminiscent of Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant. It really is a feast of a film on an aesthetic level, but it also leaves much to chew on in terms of its philosophical themes too. Dn caught up with Jerusha and Jared on the road to the Oscars to learn more from them about their experience making Ninety-Five Senses,...
- 2/15/2024
- by James Maitre
- Directors Notes
Ahead of the Academy Awards, we’ve reviewed every short film in each category: Animation, Documentary, and Live Action. Here are the Best Animated Short nominees:
Letter to a Pig | France/Israel | 17 minutes
As Haim (Alexander Peleg) tells his tale of surviving the Holocaust as a boy hiding in a pigsty from Nazis, he mentions how one of the animals looked him in the eye as though it knew his plight. The pig oinked and moved to stand between Haim and his pursuer, altering the latter’s perception and ultimately helping to turn him away. Beyond just the idea this creature saved his life, though, Haim also acknowledges the conditioned feelings within his heart for his unlikely savior. He had been taught pigs were unclean. Vicious. Lesser beings fit for slaughter. He was taught they deserved his hate.
It’s a profound realization about mankind’s propensity for bloodlust and superiority.
Letter to a Pig | France/Israel | 17 minutes
As Haim (Alexander Peleg) tells his tale of surviving the Holocaust as a boy hiding in a pigsty from Nazis, he mentions how one of the animals looked him in the eye as though it knew his plight. The pig oinked and moved to stand between Haim and his pursuer, altering the latter’s perception and ultimately helping to turn him away. Beyond just the idea this creature saved his life, though, Haim also acknowledges the conditioned feelings within his heart for his unlikely savior. He had been taught pigs were unclean. Vicious. Lesser beings fit for slaughter. He was taught they deserved his hate.
It’s a profound realization about mankind’s propensity for bloodlust and superiority.
- 2/14/2024
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Before they had a plot for “Ninety-Five Senses,” Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess knew that they wanted to lead a project that would give them the opportunity to have several animators working on the film. “We wanted to get five to six animators and the producers to be involved. So, [writers] Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer said, ‘Let’s write a story that could feature each one really succinctly.’ That’s how they came up with the five senses as the vehicle to tell Coy’s story,” Jerusha tells Gold Derby during our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video interview above).
“Ninety-Five Senses” centers on Coy, an old man who is recounting memories associated with each of his senses as an ominous event draws near. The short is now an Oscar nominee for Best Animated Short Film. It marks the first nomination for the husband and wife directors. The couple are...
“Ninety-Five Senses” centers on Coy, an old man who is recounting memories associated with each of his senses as an ominous event draws near. The short is now an Oscar nominee for Best Animated Short Film. It marks the first nomination for the husband and wife directors. The couple are...
- 2/7/2024
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
Barbie and Oppenheimer are just two of this year’s Oscar-nominated films created by life partners who are also creative teams
The Academy award nominations on Tuesday contained, among the plethora of announcements, intriguing evidence of the strength of familial connections underpinning major Oscar bids, with a number of the 10 films nominated for best picture containing both members of high profile relationships, working together on the same film. Barbie, the doll-inspired blockbuster that, to the chagrin of many including Ryan Gosling, appeared to be snubbed in the best actress and best director categories, even contains two of them. Star Margot Robbie and husband Tom Ackerley are co-founders of LuckyChap Entertainment, the company that produced the film, while director Greta Gerwig is up for best adapted screenplay alongside her husband Noah Baumbach.
The 2024 Oscar crop appears to have been particularly favourable to these kind of partnerships: the director-producer team behind best picture nominee Oppenheimer,...
The Academy award nominations on Tuesday contained, among the plethora of announcements, intriguing evidence of the strength of familial connections underpinning major Oscar bids, with a number of the 10 films nominated for best picture containing both members of high profile relationships, working together on the same film. Barbie, the doll-inspired blockbuster that, to the chagrin of many including Ryan Gosling, appeared to be snubbed in the best actress and best director categories, even contains two of them. Star Margot Robbie and husband Tom Ackerley are co-founders of LuckyChap Entertainment, the company that produced the film, while director Greta Gerwig is up for best adapted screenplay alongside her husband Noah Baumbach.
The 2024 Oscar crop appears to have been particularly favourable to these kind of partnerships: the director-producer team behind best picture nominee Oppenheimer,...
- 1/27/2024
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Documentary+ Acquires Oscar-Nominated Animated Short ‘Ninety-Five Senses,’ Starring Tim Blake Nelson
Exclusive: Fast channel Documentary+ has picked up worldwide rights to Ninety-Five Senses days after the film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short.
Ninety-Five Senses, produced by the “Mast” accelerator program of the Salt Lake Film Society, is directed by Jerusha and Jared Hess. The fictional film, inspired by nonfiction, tells “the story of a man facing his own mortality while reflecting on the grave mistakes of his youth. This is juxtaposed against the beauty of life and how we perceive it. ‘It may be that in the next life, we’ll have ninety-five senses,’ he muses. The film comprises five scenes, with connective vignettes, animated in six distinctive styles.”
‘Ninety-Five Senses’
It premieres today on Documentary+, which describes itself as the “leading documentary Fast channel and streaming platform.”
“The striking visual appeal and great storytelling of Ninety-Five Senses instantly attracted us to this short,” said Justin Lacob, head...
Ninety-Five Senses, produced by the “Mast” accelerator program of the Salt Lake Film Society, is directed by Jerusha and Jared Hess. The fictional film, inspired by nonfiction, tells “the story of a man facing his own mortality while reflecting on the grave mistakes of his youth. This is juxtaposed against the beauty of life and how we perceive it. ‘It may be that in the next life, we’ll have ninety-five senses,’ he muses. The film comprises five scenes, with connective vignettes, animated in six distinctive styles.”
‘Ninety-Five Senses’
It premieres today on Documentary+, which describes itself as the “leading documentary Fast channel and streaming platform.”
“The striking visual appeal and great storytelling of Ninety-Five Senses instantly attracted us to this short,” said Justin Lacob, head...
- 1/25/2024
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
How in the hell does a small, low-budget independent movie become a massive runaway blockbuster hit and pop-cultural landmark at once? While not an exact science, there are surely several different roads to success for each production. We’ve seen it in the past with My Big Fat Greek Wedding and several others. But what about Jared Hess’ viral cult classic Napoleon Dynamite? How does a first-time filmmaker restricted by a $400,000 budget and just 23 shooting days somehow manage to make a semi-autobiographical movie based on his own experiences and still strike such a major chord among the moviegoing masses?
Seriously, how did such a big-hearted underdog of a movie made on the fly become such a beloved comedic touchstone that spoke to an entire generation? After all, it’s extremely hard to make a bad movie. It’s damn a mini-miracle to make a good movie. Yet, for Napoleon Dynamite,...
Seriously, how did such a big-hearted underdog of a movie made on the fly become such a beloved comedic touchstone that spoke to an entire generation? After all, it’s extremely hard to make a bad movie. It’s damn a mini-miracle to make a good movie. Yet, for Napoleon Dynamite,...
- 6/28/2023
- by Jake Dee
- JoBlo.com
We’ve got questions, and you’ve (maybe) got answers! With another week of TV gone by, we’re lobbing queries left and right about shows including Scorpion, Lucifer, Riverdale and Scandal!
1 | Why did NBC schedule the return of the family-friendly Timeless for Sundays at 10 pm, when it is clearly an 8 o’clock show?
More from TVLineAnother Law & Order: Organized Crime Fatality?! This Job Should Come With a Surgeon General's WarningIs Taylor Swift More Prolific Than Tyler Perry? Was Survivor Tribal One for the Books? John Wick Cameo on FBI? Did Svu Trial Satisfy? More TV Qs!Is New Ghosts Lingo Too Ribald?...
1 | Why did NBC schedule the return of the family-friendly Timeless for Sundays at 10 pm, when it is clearly an 8 o’clock show?
More from TVLineAnother Law & Order: Organized Crime Fatality?! This Job Should Come With a Surgeon General's WarningIs Taylor Swift More Prolific Than Tyler Perry? Was Survivor Tribal One for the Books? John Wick Cameo on FBI? Did Svu Trial Satisfy? More TV Qs!Is New Ghosts Lingo Too Ribald?...
- 1/26/2018
- by Vlada Gelman, Matt Webb Mitovich, Michael Ausiello, Kimberly Roots, Andy Swift, Dave Nemetz, Ryan Schwartz, Rebecca Iannucci and Charlie Mason
- TVLine.com
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