MusicChat
It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.
Humbersi
The first must-see film of the year.
Fleur
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
bob the moo
Catching up on the Oscar-nominated shorts from last year brought me to watch this film which is on Vimeo (I assume unauthorized). It is a surprising film to find in the pack for the Academy Award – I have not yet seen all of those nominated, but for sure this is by far the weakest I have seen from the pack. The plot sees a young boy watching his superhero cartoons while his father does his morning prayers. Forced to join in, the boy retreats into a fictional world where the gods are superheroes fighting to protect him. The name of the character is the same as the director/writer, and the end credits suggest it is based on real personal experience.This is the bit that surprised me the most, because if the film is so personal, why does it have almost no heart. Technically it is all well and good, with typically impressive animation from Pixar, but there is nothing really beyond this and the movement. The narrative is very simple and it delivers its idea but doesn't draw us into the characters or make us feel for them. Without comparing it to other films, and looking at it on its own merits this is true, but to put it alongside World of Tomorrow or Bear Story only highlights this weakness further. We don't make a connection with the boy or his father in the film, nor is there a real sense of danger or wonder in the action section – so when we come together in shared understanding at the end, it doesn't have any impact other than being very functional along the same lines.The animation is slick and professional of course, but otherwise there is really very little to the content of the short and it left me cold. The only reason it even stuck in my mind was that I kept pondering how it had gotten into the final pack of shorts up for an Oscar.
Dave McClain
"Sanjay's Super Team" (United States, 7 min.) – Probably the most widely seen of these five Oscar nominees, this animated short played in American theaters as a featurette before showings of "The Good Dinosaur". It's about a young Indian boy who's watching his favorite superhero cartoon when his father turns off the TV and brings the boy over to join him in prayer to the Hindu gods. As his dad prays, Sanjay daydreams a story in which the Hindu gods are superheroes. The story is based on the childhood of the film's director, Pixar animator Sanjay Patel. The film is a creative, colorful and entertaining meditation on the generation gap between fathers and sons and how that gap might be bridged. "A-"
tavm
This Disney/Pixar short was shown before their The Good Dinosaur. It tells of a young Hindu boy more interested in his superheroes then in his dad's religious symbols. Then we see images of the boy's imagination going wild when he's imagining what his dad's artifacts are like as superheroes. I'll stop there and just say that part of me was confused as to what was going on but I got the gist of what the director was trying to convey. It's quite touching when the ending moment comes but I'll probably have to watch this again someday in order to really get what is going on when what happens in this short start happening. So on that note, Sanjay's Super Team is at the least, worth a look.
pyrocitor
Pixar is so synonymous with quality that they've nearly hopped their way into the dictionary definition of the word. Regardless, their preceding short films are ultimately even more reliable (and certainly more daring) than their features - the perfect palate cleanser before the sumptuous main course. In this way, Sanjay's Super Team is an intriguing exception. While its headliner, The Good Dinosaur, supplies glimpses of stunning imagery and the occasional cute bit disappointingly mired in a tiresomely overfamiliar plot and some dubious creative choices, Sanjay is no mere palate cleanser. In only seven minutes, the short vastly outstrips its feature companion (and most of the rest of the year's films to boot) in terms of fun, rampant creativity, inspired thematic depth, and stupendously realized visual flair, all bottled with all the trademark Pixar heart anyone could hope for. Refreshing as it is to see a culture and religion seldom represented in American cinema headlining a Pixar product, the film's premise is even more courageous. Unafraid to tackle and depict religion (already a tenuous prospect - remember when Frozen rewrites trimmed every mention of the word 'God'? Hurm), Sanjay goes one step further, and toes the line of courting (unwarranted) complaints of appropriation or misuse of religious iconography for cashing in to the super hero craze. Such criticism would utterly miss the point. Instead, director Sanjay Patel has his childhood self reimagine Hindu gods as superheroes for the sake of brilliantly, peerlessly exploring methods of connecting with tradition and making sense of spirituality. It's a remarkably mature and unjudgmental conceit, and equally resonant and conducive to important discussions for children and adults alike. And there's not a note of preachiness - I dare you to find any film unpacking the relationship with religion as energetic or bursting with fun. The gorgeous, shimmering incarnations of Vishnu, Hanuman, and Durga (breathtakingly blending traditional 2D animation with contemporary 3D work) meld the quirky reworking of tradition of Nina Paley's excellent Sita Sings the Blues with the slick crash-bangery of Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and the result is gleefully choreographed, visually stupendous mayhem. But fun as this divine smash-up is, the tender, subtle scenes between young Sanjay and his father are what really hit home. Rather than dismissing Sanjay's passion for TV superheroes as a "false gods" binary with his father's spiritual worship, Patel is sensitive to the enrapturing appeals of each for different individuals at different stages of life. There's no clichéd climax of Sanjay's father wrathfully banishing his son's 'blasphemous' passion; instead, the image of the father wistfully sighing, defeated, as he returns Sanjay's remote control conveys volumes of nuanced emotional depth feature directors ache to convey. And that's all without mentioning the inevitable denouement which aces the Pixar balance of raw sentiment without an ounce of the saccharine. No, you're crying - shut up. All this in a seven minute animated prelude brimming with more progressive ideas and heart than arguably any of the year's features - not too shabby indeed. This might seem second nature for the company who made their name tapping into the emotional potential of a lamp, but to see such a uniquely personal and human story brought to life with such bombastic tenderness is arguably more impressive. If Pixar is strapped for sequel bait after the upcoming Cars 3, Toy Story 4, Finding Dory, and The Incredibles 2 (yeesh), I'll certainly be the first in line to watch the full-length rendition of Sanjay's Super Team. -10/10
