Here’s one interesting thing about the nominees in the Oscar Animated Short category: only one of the five isn’t fixated on death.
This year, Oscar voters came up with a slate that includes a morbid fairy tale that scares a child senseless; a tug-of-war between the Grim Reaper and a surgeon in which our sympathies don’t lie with the good doctor; a noir that finds some familiar heroes tangling with a serial killer; and a deadly crime spree that ends in a deadlier apocalypse.
Plus one that deals with coffee, not mortality.
Academy members who want to vote in the category have to attend one of four special screenings at AMPAS theaters, where they’ll see all the films on the big screen and then cast ballots on their way out the door.