Animated Feature Contender: Rio 2096

Tim Brayton will be looking at several of the contenders for Oscar's Animated Feature race. He previously reviewedThe Wind Rises, Ernest & Celestine, Frozen, and Letter to Momo. This week: Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury.

At times, one is reminded to despair for the English language. We have before us a certain Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury, named in the original Portuguese Uma História de Amor e Fúria, a superior title on two levels. One is that the “Rio 2096” business is an inelegant distraction. The other and more important thing is that in almost every Romantic language, the words for “story” and “history” are the same, and plenty of writers have gotten mileage out of that fact through the years. At any rate, describing Rio 2096 as something that’s both story and history at the same time is merely accurate. Whereas describing it as something that takes place in Rio de Janeiro in 2096 is accurate-ish, though it reeks of marketing to an audience that remembers when “adult animation” and “used-up future” were basically synonymous, back in the 1990s.

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7 Things You Need to Know About the 289 Eligible Oscar Contenders

As you may no doubt have heard AMPAS released the list (included below) of 289 Feature Films which have qualified for Oscar consideration this year in all categories beyond the specialties with complex eligibility rules (documentary, animated, foreign film, shorts). Here are seven things you should know about the list. 

Most Will Come Nowhere Near a Nomination
This list is 289 pictures long but typically only 25-30 feature films each year (excluding, again, the specialty categories which play by different rules) receive nominations of any kind with a few key pictures hogging the goods. In 2012 only 22 pictures won nominations (!) with Lincoln, Life of Pi, Les Miz, and Silver Linings hogging the goods whereas the wealth was spread out more in 2011 when 32 pictures were nominated in some capacity.

Too Easy
This year five films will be nominated for the Best Animated Feature title but only 19 animated films are eligible. Can you imagine if it was that easy proportionately for features, animated or otherwise, to win Best Picture nominations? If it was we'd literally have 75 Best Picture nominees this year since 289 films qualified. Instead we'll have a more sensible number, somewhere between 5 and 10 according to current rules, the number determined by how many films can rustle up enough high ballot support in the Academy membership. MORE TRIVIA AFTER THE JUMP

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Year in Review: Box Office Bonanzas

YEAR IN REVIEW FESTIVITIES BEGIN NOW! 
Cue: confetti, trumpets, fainting women, ornery cinephiles, and orgasmic actressexuals™. This is Part One of Millions! Hundred$ of Million$

We'll start with the commerce and work our way to the art. So herewith the tops in various money categories for your mental ledgers.

Top Per-Screen Arthouse Opening
BLUE JASMINE $102,011 (6 Theaters)
Runner Up: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS $101,353 (4 Theaters)
* Disclaimer both AMERICAN HUSTLE & FROZEN beat these numbers but those were fake-outs clearly on their way to wide mainstream moviehouses, rather than intended as platform specialty films.

Woody Allen's 'Streetcar meets Madoff Scandal' hit started even stronger than his biggest modern hit Midnight in Paris. It didn't end up making as much but then Blue Jasmine was a fair bit more depressing and riches to less riches is elemental to its DNA. Meanwhile the Coen Bros, like Woody Allen but with more regular crossover potential, can always bank on a hardcore fanbase to sell out those initial shows.

Katniss, McConaughey & McCarthy, Iron Men and Naked French Lesbians after the jump

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Animated Feature Contender: The Wind Rises

Tim Brayton will be looking at the key contenders for Oscar's Animated Feature race. He previously reviewed Ernest & Celestine, Frozen, and Letter to Momo. This week: The Wind Rises.

It’s easy enough to expect great, career-capping things of the final film of any important director even when it was largely an accident of timing that it worked out that. And when the director in question has openly announced his retirement with his film still fresh in theaters, that makes it that much more tempting to view it as some kind of Overt Statement. In the case of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises, it’s a bit hard to say what an Overt Statement might actually consist of, but we can get this out of the way and then relax: there’s nothing about this that feels like a grand farewell to an artform. Far from being a summing-up, it’s probably the least characteristic film of the director’s canon, except in one respect: it makes the fascination with flight and objects in motion, a concern in every single movie he’s made (if only in a very small way), the central driving force of its plot.

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Decoding the Golden Globes animation nominees.

Tim here. In hacking through the Golden Globes nominations this morning, Glenn asks, "The Wind Rises good for foreign language, but not animated? I'm going to assume they don't allow cross-over or else that's bit wacky." And indeed, (only animated films in English" is exactly the rule that the HFPA follows, though that doesn’t, to my mind, make it any less wacky.

Also a rule for the Golden Globes: there have to be 12 films submitted for consideration to trigger a five-wide set of nominees; anything less than that tops out at three. Makes the Academy’s own “16 candidates equals five nominees” rule seem measured and thoughtful, doesn’t it? In the seven years that the Globes have given out this category, their picks have only lined up exactly with Oscar twice. With the Academy looking to fill five spots to the Globes’ three, this will be the second time that they don’t even nominate the same number of films, though there’s always the possibility that the Academy will simply add two more films to the Globes list. Which, just to remind you, consists of The Croods, Despicable Me 2, and Frozen.

Despicable Me 2

DIFFERENCES OF OPINION

2007: The Globes nominated Bee Movie and The Simpsons Movie; Oscar went for Surf’s Up and the Globe-ineligible Persepolis.

2009: The Globes nominated Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Oscar nominated The Secret of Kells.

2010: The Globes nominated Despicable Me and Tangled. There were only three Oscar nominees.

2011: A virtually unrecognizable pair of lists. The Globes gave the award to The Adventures of Tintin, also nominating Arthur Christmas and Cars 2. The Oscars replaced those with A Cat in Paris, Chico & Rita (both ineligible at the Globes), and Kung Fu Panda 2.

2012: The Globes nominated Hotel Transylvania and Rise of the Guardians. The Oscars nominated ParaNorman and The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

This tells us first that the Oscars are far more likely to break for less mainstream fare (not a sentence you get to say everyday), which is good news for The Wind Rises and Ernest & Celestine. I’m not all sure what to make of the Globes ignoring Monsters University; it's hardly an inspired franchise effort, but that's equally true of Despicable Me 2.

At any rate, Frozen should take this handily, and the Oscar race will still be a face-off between that film and The Wind Rises. Keep your eyes on this space, because we’ll be taking a look at that Japanese import today.