Why Watch? With the celebration of classic movies currently going down at the Oscars, it was the perfect year for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore to share its love of silent films, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a familiar cartoon tune. No wonder it was nominated for Best Animated Short. What former Pixar employee William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg have done here is nothing short of amazing. They’ve used the newest technologies to create a wondrous, incredible, transportational fantasy story that reaches back to the roots of motion picture history. It’s a movie that’s imagination is only trumped by its beauty. What will it cost? Only 14 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

Why Watch? This Oscar nominated short film features a crazed, angry old woman telling a terrifying twist of a favorite bedtime story to a granddaughter that is frozen with fear. Black comedy at its best, mixed animation styles that look great together, and insight into how pissed off the Metamucil Crowd can get. Watch it before bedtime! (Or right now. Or both.) What will it cost? Only 6 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

Political correctness is the bane of the artistic community, or so it would seem. It appears as though you can’t do anything in this world without upsetting anyone, and once they’re upset you must do backflips to appease them. Well, I’m here to say: fuck the blind. Just kidding, I’ve got nothing against the blind. But a recent news articledoes have me up in a furor. Aardman Animation, the company behind Wallace and Gromit and the upcoming feature The Pirates! Band of Misfits, are ditching already completed work on a joke about lepers because some people might feel bad. Are you serious?

Why Watch? This animation work from Brendan Cook is directly pulled from the dreams your nightmares have. The US is on the cusp of discovering internationally-loved musician Gotye (specifically the infectious, xylophone-heavy “Somebody That I Used To Know“), and this video for “Hearts A Mess” is a cinematic display of animated work that would cause Tim Burton to lose bodily function. It’s a darkly dreamlike voyage with a group of monsters marching through a digital wasteland, and Gotye’s haunting, pierced vocals help the short subdue the eyes, ears and the brain. Get ready to avoid work all day re-watching this and looking for more of Cook’s and Gotye’s work. What will it cost? Only 5 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

Why Watch? Because if you send text messages or use Facebook, someone is making a profit off your information. This short, in the vein and style of last year’s Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus is as informative as it is shocking, and as educational as it is visually impressive. Perhaps it’s even more important on a day like today, or maybe it’s the kind of information we should all be armed with no matter what. What will it cost? Only 3 minutes. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films

Why Watch? You’ve been cut off before, right? Director/animator Nick Khoo decided to channel the aggression that comes with traffic into a short that he made, somehow, only using After Effects. It’s a sharp, funny adventure into horn-honking frustration, sweet retribution, and it all comes with a bow on top of an ending. What does it cost? Just 2 minutes of your time. Trust us. You have time for more short films.

Why Watch? The end of the year is a time to reflect, and this outstanding music video let’s us remember everything from the Big Bang to…the end. And what a splendid thing it all is. The animation has a youthful sense of fun to it (especially when a monkey discovers weapons and murder), and the constantly rotating, fabric-covered globe is inspired. What does it cost? Just 3 minutes of your time. Trust us. You have time for more short films.

Why Watch? It’s a little late for Christmas, and this doesn’t come from Bill Watterson himself, but the sentiment here is glorious. Fans of “Calvin & Hobbes” should rejoice at this sweet reminder and tribute to the best comic strip of all time, using some familiar frozen faces. Plus, the filmmakers give us some insight into how they made it. What does it cost? Just 1 minute of your time. Trust us. You have time for more short films.

Why Watch? It’s the story about a snowman with no arms on an adventure to find some. It echoes Rankin & Bass, and it’s pleasantly low-budget the way the first South Park Christmas videos were. Plus, it’s delightful and only a little bit creepy. Enjoy the ending! Happy holidays! What does it cost? Just 8 minutes of your time. Trust us. You have time for more short films.

Why Watch? Can you create animation in real-time? It’s a fascinating question and a challenge that clearly comes from a unique mind. Instead of hand-drawing every cel or stop-motioning objects you move a centimeter at a time, Katy Beveridge decided that she could create animation using the natural, real-time flip book effect of something you probably have on your porch right now. The result here shows the method’s limitations, but it also manages to produce an oddly mesmerizing effect. What does it cost? Just 2 minutes of your time. Check out The Bicycle Animation for yourself:

Why Watch? The less said about this one, the better the experience, but suffice it to say that the animation is vibrant and incredibly bald. It’s a long strange twist into the mind of a man locked up in a padded room, desperately afraid of being forced out. And, of course, the man in the little white coat who will try his best to rip him violently out of his safety zone. What does it cost? Just 7 minutes of your time. Check out Get Out for yourself:

Why Watch? Early Tim Burton, late Vincent Price, and a stop-motion nursery rhyme for the gruesome ones. This 1982 team-up between Burton and Price was one of the director’s last short films before landing the directing gig for Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and going down the path we all know he followed. It came 11 years before The Nightmare Before Christmas, but the tones and design concepts are all there (just no Henry Selick). Instead of a skeletal hero, it’s a little boy who wants to turn his dog into a zombie. What does it cost? Just 6 minutes of your time.

Why Watch? The short that gave birth to CGI animation at Sony. In the early 2000s, the studio decided to test its ability to put together a completely CGI animated film, and the result/challenge was The ChubbChubbs! – a goofy animated story about a night club janitor on an alien planet that is called to the higher task of saving his people from a roving band of monsters (after he’s warned by Jar Jar Binks that they’re coming). It’s funny in a ridiculous, under-dog sort of way, and it represents the first movement into territory that’s now a decade old for the company. For more historical context, this won the Oscar in 2003 after seeing theaters…in front of Men in Black. What does it cost? Just 5 minutes of your time. Check out The ChubbChubbs! for yourself:

Why Watch? Set to a playful score, this short features a pop-up book world water-colored beautifully and filled with a drunk who has more bottle caps than spare change to his name. Fortunately, he finds a piece of paper under his normal bench, a curious adventure begins, and several types of artwork blend to create something wonderful. What does it cost? Just 8 minutes of your time. Check out Drawing Inspiration for yourself:

Why Watch? Breath-stealing animation that draws from comic books and video games in equal measure. Animator Jesús Orellana definitely knows his stuff. With this short (which feels huge), he’s created an entire universe right down to the last dust fiber. It tells the story of a cyborg deployed in a wasteland of a future to restore Earth’s eco-system. As you might guess, she’s not the only one out there, and things get ugly. What it lacks in story, it makes up for in style, action and ambition. What does it cost? Just 8 minutes of your time. Check out Rosa for yourself:

Why Watch? Surreal, mesmerizing work from a Pixar veteran. Erick Oh doesn’t have a ton of movies under his belt, but he’s working with the best animators in the business, and it’s shorts like these that prove is worth as a strong and steady (if not bizarre) team member. Here’s where I would normally include a synopsis, but if you can figure out what the hell is going on here, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, simply enjoy an outlandish, towering imagination brought to life through moving art – an explosion of complexity born from a simple apple. For more fun and more art, check out Oh’s blog. What does it cost? Just 1 minute of your time. Check out How To Eat Your Apple for yourself:

Why Watch? A horse, a cowboy, and a Native American (as the title suggests), run from a bear, launch a few cows into space and run around like idiots. If you aren’t already privy to the insane splendor of A Town Called Panic, this short film is a great introduction. But what can you expect? Colorful stop-motion made with children’s toys, surreal randomness, and head-slapping humor. Drink an energy drink and try to keep up, please. What does it cost? Just 5 minutes of your time. Check out A Town Called Panic: Cake for yourself:

Why Watch? We’re winding down Muppet Week on SFOTD with a short film that isn’t obviously influenced by Jim Henson‘s creations. It’s a different style (fluid animation), and it’s not the same tone (darkly sardonic), but this short work from Patrick Smith features something that a lot of creatives have battled with: the internal struggle of the artist with his art work. In this case, they’re puppets. That take control. Would it be fun to see this done with Beaker? You bet. What does it cost? Just 6 minutes of your time.

Woody Woodpecker, the insane, animated avian menace originally voiced by Mel Blanc has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Let that sink in for a moment. A cartoon character has the kind of recognition that your parents won’t ever give you. And he’s about to have more. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the ancient icon is about to have new life in a new movie project from Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me, The Lorax) and Universal. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, the writers behind Blades of Glory, are in negotiations to create the story. Even though the character hasn’t been seen in film since a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, he’s been on television as late as 2002. Theoretically, there’s a cross-sectional audience for his wacky antics. But what kind of story can they build around him? My hope is that he has to team with Michael Jordan to play an interstellar game of basketball for the fate of humanity. This, of course, comes weeks after the Universal head admitted they made shitty movies. Just for fun, here’s my favorite of the old Woody Woodpecker cartoons, and yes, it’s solely for the fact that he opens a bottle off a dope’s giant buckteeth. What a maroon:

Pixar is a company that has developed a very focused vision. They put creators first, they put human drama over visual spectacle, and then they knock the visuals out of the park anyway. For a while I’d been following along with all their releases in a state of near delight, enjoying each film they put out more than the one before it, and I started to think that they were as close to infallible as a movie studio could get. But then they put out Cars 2, which was kind of an overlong mess of juvenile humor set in a pun driven, unrelatable world. This wasn’t the Pixar I loved, this was for kids! But with Brave they seem to be getting back to the basics of what makes them great; stories that can be appreciated by kids and adults alike. Here we have a young girl who is different than everybody else, who doesn’t want to be what the rest of the world tells her a young girl should be. She’s driving at something that everybody is telling her she can’t do. She’s in danger, must rely on herself, and she must rise up and become something she never thought she could if she’s going to survive a great adventure. That’s more like it. That sounds like a prototypical Pixar movie, to a tee. Check out the trailer for yourself: