2018 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

The animated shorts showed a wide variety of styles and dealt with some serious matters, but included some healthy comedy as well.  The subjects included separation of parents and children, issues of aging, the challenges of divorced parents and connections of parents to children even after the parent’s passing.  My own favorite was the pure comedy in the bunch.  This was called Animal Behavior.  The premise involved a therapy session for a variety of animals all with personal problems being led by a pit bull therapist.  The cast includes a leach with needy tendencies, a bird who ate his own brother out of selfishness, a praying mantis who can’t get dates because she has a thousand offspring, a pig who can’t stop eating and an ape with anger management problems.  There is also a cat who is obsessed with keeping clean and constantly licks herself.  This was easily the funniest of the bunch.  Another very notable film was One Small Step about a young girl who dreams of being an astronaut and is encouraged to follow her dream by her father even after he has passed away.  I am hoping that Animal Behavior ends up as the winner.