April Foolish Oscar Predix Pt 1 - Best Animated Feature

by Nathaniel R

It seems almost cruel to begin a new year of Oscar punditry with Best Animated Feature since the hot trailer of the moment is Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, which probably won't be eligible. The film combines live action with its endearing stop-motion and that's mostly a no-no. The only film we remember that's been deemed eligible that did that was The Lego Movie though it's live-action section was extremely brief (and it's worth noting that it was a surrprise snub in the end).

Already in the year one possibly major Oscar contender has emerged with Pixar's Turning Red though it will face stiff in-house competition with the release of Toy Story prequel Lightyear in the summer.  After the jump a preview of Animated Features coming our way in 2022. Which of them will delight the Academy... 

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Oscar Volley: Sobbing and Fuming at the "Best Animated Feature" nominees

Team Experience will be covering the various Oscar categories in the lead up to Oscar night. Here's Tim Brayton, Cláudio Alves, and Nathaniel R...

TIM BRAYTON: Hello Nathaniel and Cláudio! I'm thrilled to have the chance to discuss this year's slate of nominees for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars with you - animation is, I think it's fair to say, the most important form of filmmaking to me, and it's always fun to share it. Whether these exact five films represent animation at its peak, well, we'll just have to get into that as we go.

A quick recap for all of us and those of you reading, here are the five nominees: Encanto, a CGI feature produced by Walt Disney Animation; Raya and the Last Dragon, a CGI feature produced by Walt Disney Animation; Luca, a CGI feature produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by their corporate owners, the Walt Disney Company; The Mitchells vs the Machines, a CGI feature produced by Sony Animation, who sold it off to Netflix. And then literally on the other side of the world, Flee, a Danish documentary about politics and identity, largely consisting of interviews that were animated in a cartoony 2D style by Sun Creature Studio. So my point, obviously, is that this isn't exactly the most stylistically or industrially diverse set of nominees this category has ever produced...

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Oscar Volley: Is Best Animated Feature already wrapped up?

Continuing our Oscar Volley series at The Film Experience. Abe Friedtanzer and Timothy Lyons on Best Animated Feature

My Sunny Maad, Belle, and Poupelle are all hoping to interrupt the Disney party in Best Animated Feature

ABE FRIEDTANZER: Most years after the Oscar nominations come out I have to play catch up on everything I've missed. That's not the case in a second consecutive season where the Oscars are later in the calendar. I have caught most of the contenders here. The mainstream American studio options are actually all great but of course I'd love to see some international choices make the cut. Belle seems like a decent bet to crack the list, and while it's a terrific film, I want to champion another Japanese movie, Poupelle of Chimney Town. I do worry that it's too under-the-radar to get enough votes, but it was the most visually striking animation I saw all year. I was also impressed by My Sunny Maad, which, like the much buzzier Flee, is about Afghanistan but is a very different experience. Maad has only been noticed by the Golden Globes, so I'm not sure what kind of buzz it has. What have you seen that you'd love to see nominated...

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Annie Nominations

by Nathaniel R

The 49th annual Annie Award nominations are basically the Disney show this year. The Mouse House squashed its competition at the annual event with Raya and the Last Dragon leading the nominations, Encanto in second place, and Disney/Pixar's Luca in third place (albeit tied with Netflix's Mitchells vs the Machines there). The most popular international titles were Denmark's Flee and Japan's Belle, both of which showed up in Best Direction, which adds confidence to our bet that they're likeliest to spoil Disney's all American party on the Oscar shortlist. Still we might have to rethink that bet that Raya and the Last Dragon is the vulnerable film. We thought it would have been forgotten by now as it wasn't greeted as enthusiastically as a few of its competitors at the time of its release.

As is our usual reaction, we don't really understand what's going on in the selections for voice acting, which aside from two great choices from Encanto (John Leguizamo and Stephanie Beatriz), usually defaults to lead work in productions where the supporting characters feature the best vocal acting. For example Kelly Marie Tran over Awkwafina in Raya ... really? Abbi Jacobson over Olivia Colman in Mitchells vs the Machines? Does not compute.

Full list of nominations is after the jump...

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FYC: "Flee" for Best Picture

by Matt St Clair

Flee, now playing in limited release, is transcendent. The animated memoir could break records by competing in three Feature categories: Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and, because it’s the Danish submission, Best International Feature. Both Collective and Honeyland recently made history recently by competing in the latter two categories simultaneously, but no film has found itself in contention for all three. Flee might accomplish this historic feat, but it should go even further by also being nominated for Best Picture.

A nomination would allow the glass ceiling for documentaries to finally break. In the ceremony’s soon-to-be 94-year history, no documentary has ever competed in the top category...

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