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Perhaps more than any of the other 23 categories, the Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts come with the promise of fresh, risk-taking perspectives. The medium of animation is truly limitless, and for being so constrained within the mainstream, there is something liberating to view the artistic shorts explore, push and reinvent themselves for the betterment of their own narratives. […]
The Oscar-nominated Live Action Shorts program as a whole, though the most uneven of the three Shorts categories, is a winner. A meditation on danger, safety and choices, it presents itself to the viewer only occasionally with judgement. The strongest argument for the short film format is right here in front of us within this programming. […]
This year’s slate for Best Documentary Shorts provides insight into the world’s desperate need for justice and the hope it drags behind it. Is that too bleak? Too cynical? Would you prefer hope to be leading rather than limp and full of grass stains? So do the five films nominated this year. They urge us to embrace hope of any kind, even if it’s reactionary. […]
Most of the 2019 Oscar-nominated films have screened at FilmScene in the past year, including four of the five nominees for Best Documentary Feature. The filmmakers behind two of these acclaimed and ambitious docs joined FilmScene audiences months before the Academy Awards lauded their achievements. Bing Liu, director of Minding the Gap, and RaMell Ross, […]
Plenty of politics play into the Oscar nomination process (often leading to some dubious selections in the Best Picture, Director and acting categories), but there’s one aspect of the Academy Awards circus that consistently feels pure and even altruistic: the spotlighting of short films. FilmScene is screening the Oscar-nominated short films in the animation, live […]
After dozens of forays to FilmScene and local multiplexes in 2018, crunching countless popcorn kernels in anticipation of celebrating the best of the best come February 2019, it was both anticlimactic and disappointing to see a line-up of Best Picture nominees that included the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody, Vice, Green Book and Black Panther. […]
Wildfires rage in the hills surrounding a small Montana town in the 1960s. A father, humiliated by his boss while working at a golf course, joins a group of firefighters battling the blaze for weeks on end at $1 an hour. His wife resents her husband’s pride and temporary desertion of his family, and becomes […]
Oscar Shorts FilmScene — through Thursday, Feb. 23 Blue Carpet Bash FilmScene — Sunday, Feb. 26 at 6:30 p.m. For decades, now, the office Oscar pool has been won or lost by whomever can score an uneducated guess in the three Short Film categories: Animated, Live-Action and Documentary. But this year’s fifteen nominees are not […]
For the final installment of our Oscars Round Up series, Pat Brown gives his take on a film with a staggering 10 Oscar nominations. Second only to ‘The Revenant,’ ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ has gotten the nod in categories from Best Picture and Best Director (George Miller) to Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Design. […]
The LV film team has been loving this series, highlighting Oscar nominees in advance of Sunday’s awards ceremony. First, John Rigby discussed ‘45 Years,’ next was Warren Sprouse’s ‘Theeb‘ review and, yesterday, Matthew Byrd checked in with his take on ‘Brooklyn.’ Today, Jaret Morlan (who wrote the piece on Sunday’s Oscar watch party for Issue […]
This week, the LV film team is exploring a few of the nominees for Sunday’s 88th Academy Awards. John Rigby kicked off the series with his review of ’45 Years,’ and yesterday, Warren Sprouse discussed the Jordanian nominee, ‘Theeb.’ Third in this series is Matthew Byrd’s review of ‘Brooklyn.’ The nominee for Best Picture, Best […]
The LV film team offers up a peek at some of the nominees for the upcoming Academy Awards. Be sure to read the first in this series, John Rigby’s review of ’45 Years.’ Also, check out the article from Issue 193 on the Englert/FilmScene Hollywood Live! party. Today, Warren Sprouse reviews Best Foreign Film nominee […]
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