For our fourteenth Rundown article, we briefly give you our predictions. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Animated Short Film as well as general commentary about the race. Wednesday, we’ll cover Best Animated Feature.

Best Animated Short Film

Winner Predictions

• Affairs of the Art
• Bestia
• Boxballet
• Robin Robin (WL R) [New] (PP R) [New] (TB R) [New]
• The Windshield Wiper (TL O)

Runner-Up Predictions

• Bestia (WL R) [New]
• Boxballet (PP R) [New] (TB O)
• Robin Robin (TL O)

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Wesley Lovell: If I had a ballot, Bestia would be on it. The Windshield Wiper fits in second. I really didn’t care for Boxballet and Robin Robin was fairly commonplace. That said, I can imagine Oscar voters falling for Robin Robin just because it’s small and harmless. That said, they’ve gone for more obscure selections before and I’d love to see Bestia win. I just think they’ll go for The Windshield Wiper instead because it wasn’t such a complex subject matter like Bestia is.
Peter J. Patrick: The cute Robin Robin about a bird raised by mice should win this easily with the intriguing Boxballet about a ballerina and a boxer its toughest competition.
Tripp Burton: I’m not sure how voters might vote this year, but the combination of Aardman and Netflix seems to make Robin Robin the most likely winner.
Thomas La Tourrette: It was a weak year for the animated shorts. None were outstanding for emotional impact, nor did any wow with story line or animation work. Robin Robin has been the perceived frontrunner, though it was one I admired more than liked. The Oscar has often gone to the longest short, and this is twice the length of any of the others, but the story of a robin raised by mice just felt too long and odd, with musical interludes that did not help. It is from Aardman studios which has done well in the category, but this is not one of their stronger offerings. Boxballet, the tentative and almost wordless love story between a boxer and ballerina, held my interest but had an odd ending. The fact that it is Russian probably means that it has no chance of winning at this point. Affairs of the Art was strange, and I just did not care for its style of animation. Bestia had good stop-motion animation and succeeded in being disturbing, but one should not have to read about the short before seeing it to totally understand it. It could win for its statement about the horrors of the Pinochet era in Chile, but voters may find it just too weird to honor. The Windshield Wiper boasted some gorgeous computer-generated animation, but its varied short vignettes on “What is love?” left me unfulfilled. Still, it is the film that stays with me most, due to the imagery. It probably comes down to one of these two, and I will go with Windshield Wiper over Robin Robin, but won’t be thrilled by either outcome.

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