None of this really works does it? When it comes to the Oscars, the old formulas for picking the Best Picture winner have sort of been thrown out the window this season. No film won more than one major guild honor. Sure, that’s happened before, but it doesn’t help that the only film that won a guild honor and took BAFTA’s top prize, “Roma,“ is a foreign language film.

Continue reading Final 2019 Oscars Predictions: ‘Roma,’ Olivia Colman, ‘Spider-Verse’ at The Playlist.

This is one of the better crop of animated shorts the Animation Branch has rewarded this decade.  “Animal Behavior” is quite funny, “Late Afternoon” is beautifully animated with a universal story, “One Small Step” is imaginative and “Weekends” is wonderfully impressionistic and haunting, but it’s hard to see any of them overcoming “Bao.” Pixar has an impressive history in this category and, moreover, it’s one of the most original and surprising of the bunch.

Continue reading 2019 Best Animated Short Film Oscars Predictions at The Playlist.

If you were part of the massive $182.6 million opening for “Incredibles 2” this past weekend there’s a very good chance you saw Pixar’s latest in-house animated short, “Bao,” screen right before it.  Arguably one of the more original concepts the studio has gotten behind, “Bao” centers on a middle aged Chinese woman whose dumpling come to life right before her eyes.  It’s an allegory for something else in her world, but we won’t spoil the surprise (unless you keep reading of course).

Continue reading The Secret Ingredients of Pixar’s Food Folk Tale ‘Bao’ From Director Domee Shi at The Playlist.