Who Will Be Nominated For The Animation Oscars?

This year's animated feature race still feels like a mystery: Brave wasn't beloved enough to slide right into Pixar winner position; Frankenweenie wasn't popular enough despite its fun aesthetic achievements; ParaNorman was a hit but not a huge one; Madagascar 3 was very well reviewed and a huge hit but the third in a series Oscar hasn't cared for; and so on.

With 21 eligible features this year we'll have five nominees and unless either Rise of the Guardians or Wreck It Ralph (just opened) are across the board sensations, we'll have a real race.

21 ELIGIBLE FEATURES 

• Adventures in Zambezia
• Brave
• Delhi Safari
• Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
• Frankenweenie
• From Up on Poppy Hill
• Hey Krishna
• Hotel Transylvania
• Ice Age Continental Drift
• A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman
• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
• The Mystical Laws
• The Painting
• ParaNorman
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits
• The Rabbi's Cat
• Rise of the Guardians
• Secret of the Wings
• Walter & Tandoori's Christmas
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Zarafa

More after the jump...

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Oscar Horrors: "What's This?!?" an Animated Visual FX Nominee

Here lies… The Pumpkin King of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the visual effects that made him dance.

The work of Pete Kozachik, Eric Leighton, Ariel Valesco-Shaw and Gordon Baker holds a unique place in the history of the Academy’s visual effects category. As the first – and as of 2012, the last – soley animated film to receive a nomination in this category, it earned the visual effects branch’s respect like none before or since. Oh sure, Mary Poppins and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? won the category in their respective years, but those trophies came predominantly for the way they integrated animation with live action. The Nightmare Before Christmas, however, earned its nomination for the way Henry Selick’s stop-motion universe came to life thanks to innovative camera techniques.

While many may think this film’s idea of “visual effects” lays exclusively at the floating ghosts and shape-shifting shadows that pepper Henry Selick’s visual palate, the Oscar nomination was more a reward for the way the cameras were developed with computer technology to help navigate the heavily-designed “claymation” world.

More on this 1993 Oscar Race after the jump...

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Linkfall

My New Plaid Pants "13 Whores of Halloween" a fun countdown of film characters: "Jules" from Cabin in the Woods, "Lucy" from Bram Stoker's Dracula and 11 more!
Star Ledger movies as political propaganda: Won't Back Down, 2016: Obama's America, and more
Pajiba a shirtless link roundup. Why haven't I thought of this? On a content related note: I hadn't heard that Ryan Gosling has left Nicolas Winding Refn's Logan's Run remake. Sad face. But I guess Ryan Gosling, who is 31 going on 32, would already be dead by Logan's Run standards! 
Hollywood Elsewhere on John Goodman's Oscar campaign problem for Flight.

 

After Elton cute and thorough interview with the star of Gayby out actor Matthew Wilkas
The Incredible Suit meets James Bond Daniel Craig in posh hotel as Skyfall takes London by storm 
Fashion It So funny newish tumblr on the costumes in Star Trek: The New Generation. Love how randomly specific the interwebs can be
In Contention looks at all the contenders in the Best Animated Feature race 
/Film gets excited by one random comment from the difficult brilliant genius Paul Thomas Anderson about Chris Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy  
Movie|Line wonders if Idris Elba will win the James Bond role in the future. But why are we talking about this? I want Daniel Craig to keep on running, shooting, fighting, travelling, stripping, and bedding those Bond girls. Don't you?
Cinema Blend ...at any rate, Daniel Craig's possibly final two Bond pictures MIGHT have linked stories, a la Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace 

Oscar Horrors: Innocence and "Monsters, Inc"

HERE LIES... the Best Animated Feature nomination for Monsters, Inc. (2001) sent to an early grave by a big green ogre. Hi, Deborah from Basket of Kisses here. The Great Oscar Animation War of 2001/2002 was fought between innocence and jadedness, between sincerity and irony, between modernism and post-modernism, or, to put it plainly, between Monsters, Inc. and Shrek. (To be fair, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, was also in the race, but I don't know anyone who considered it a contender.) The winner, Shrek, announced a tragedy of 21st century humor, in which reference and winking has won out over wit and warmth. What? Do I sound bitter?

The film's Oscar-winning theme song would have you believe that the film is about friendship -- and Sully (John Goodman),  Mike (Billy Crystal), and Boo—are lovely -- but at heart, Monsters, Inc. is about a childhood so unspoiled that there are still monsters in the bedroom closet. Fundamentally, Monsters, Inc. is about innocence.  Children are becoming more cynical, Mr. Waternoose (James Coburn) tells us, and thus harder to make scream.

They're probably watching Shrek...

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Secret Messages: You Forgot Something

Secret Messages From the Movies Returns for Season 2

Can you guess the movie? Bonus points if you know what was forgotten.