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The Oscars are less than three weeks away, are you prepared? It’s not enough to simply go and see The Artist and The Descendants, and train yourself to say Albert Nobbs without giggling (though these are all things which need doing). To become a true Oscar bore you need to familiarise yourself with the niche categories too, not going so far as to bother with Sound Mixing/Editing, I’m not crazy.

To help you out I’ve tried to collect together all of the films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, with trailers or clips for those unavailable to stream. Presented without critique, simply in order of brilliance/availability online.

Fair warning, watching some of these may result in tears.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Sunday

Wild Life

A Morning Stroll (Trailer)

La Luna (Clip)

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Something odd happened to me as I watched the trailer for Titanic‘s 3D re-release: I got a bit nostalgic for a James Cameron film. The sweeping camera, the intense emotion, the inevitable sinking feeling, and a time when seeing Kate Winslet naked was a treat rather than an inevitability, all rushed back to me, 12 years after I first saw the film. Have I got James Cameron wrong? Was I too harsh when I declared him a prick?

No.

This is a 3D re-release after all, making it more expensive, more difficult to watch and therefore plain unnecessary. In essence, modern-day prickish James Cameron has taken the good work of pre-prick Cameron and retroactively pricked it up… if that makes sense. It’s as if he looked at his back catalogue, saw something of genuine quality and couldn’t help but ruin it. It’s enough to make me shake my fist in the air and shout out in a growl, “CAMERON!”, but I haven’t done that since the last general election (political!)

The trailer is below, and is a bizarre case of a 2D trailer for the re-release of an old film made into in 3D, therefore unable to showcase any of the new draw. There are also some fresh new stills, some including a pre-prick Cameron, which are also from a film over 10 years old. To repeat a joke, you can get 280,000+ more stills by buying Titanic on DVD.

In summary: I do quite like Titanic, just not in 3D please.

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In April last year we were wondering what had happened to Cameron Crowe after his latest film Elizabethtown had a less than successful release. One month later we discovered he was planning on writing and directing We Built a Zoo and now a year and a bit later it has a new name (removing the possibility of a building montage) and we have a trailer:

Well, it certainly looks like a heart-warming family film. Nice to see a film with animals in a zoo that don’t talk, we’ll just have to guess which is the sassy one.

Now if you fancy a lingering look at Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson and some animals we’ve got you covered with some stills from the film. There’s even a few pictures of Crowe himself, proof he still exists:

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Just as Rachel Weisz opens the London Film Festival in romantic drama 360, she is closing the festival with former play and romantic drama The Deep Blue Sea. As this is the closing film there is just one screening and it is all sold out. The play isn’t even on anywhere that I can find. Sorry guys, looks like we’ll all have to wait until it is released in November.

In the meantime those intelligent people are back to talk to you about the film. Be nice, smile and we’ll all pretend there’s a chance someone can get tickets to see it.

55th BFI LFF Closing Night Gala: The Deep Blue Sea from BFI on Vimeo.

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Sleeping Beauty created quite a bit of chatter at Cannes and is soon to be screening on this side of the Channel. Emily Browning fearlessly plays a young student who takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty. Elderly men pay for the opportunity to spend time with a Sleeping Beauty, doing whatever they like… apart from that. Browning’s character becomes haunted by her new job and develops a desire to know what happens to her while she in unconscious.

The film looks deeply disturbing yet oddly intriguing, similar in this sense to The Skin I Live In. Trailer and poster are below…

Sleeping Beauty is on general release on 14th October 2011.

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