By Tom Clift of Plus Trailers - Tom Clift's Movie Blog.
When this year’s Devours the Oscars event was announced, I immediately emailed head LAMB Dylan Fields and asked for the opportunity to write about the Best Animated Feature category. Those who know me or have read my blog would probably know that my favourite film of 2009 was Disney Pixar’s Up, a visually stunning and emotionally powerful film that affected me on a level deeper than any live action film all year. As has been the case with every Pixar film since the categories creation in 2001, Up has been nominated for Best Animated Feature; it’s competition this year includes three other critically acclaimed films and one total unknown, each of which features a different and distinctive style of animation, highlighting what has a truly been a diverse and fantastic year for animated film.
But before I get into this year’s nominee, I want to take a brief moment to discuss this category in general; specifically I want to say that despite my adoration for animated films, I am actually against the existence of the Best Animated Feature category, or at least the way that it has utilized by the academy. In one of the most recent LAMBcasts, Dylan of Blog Cabins expressed some concern about Up receiving a Best Picture nomination, arguing that it shouldn’t be eligible given that it was nominated for Best Animated Feature. Mad Hatter of The Dark of the Matinee countered with the point that just because a movie was animated (or foreign, or a documentary for that matter) doesn’t mean it couldn’t also be the best film of the year. Personally, I could not agree more.For decades, the academy has snubbed animated films. In the eighty two year history of the Oscars, prior to this year only one animated film had ever been nominated for Best Picture; that film was Beauty and the Beast in 1991. Whilst mediocre (at best) movies like Crash and Shakespeare in Love are inducted into the halls of Hollywoods highest honour, countless fantastic and seminal films such as Snow White, The Lion King and Grave of the Fireflies to name just a few have been overlooked, dismissed it seems as simply cartoons. And rather than the Best Animated Feature category giving the academy a place to finally give the medium its dues all it has done is provide voters with an easy excuse to continue to overlook some of the best films to be released each year.
Take a recent and very obvious example: Disney Pixar’s WALL-E. An ingenious, entertaining, beautiful and brave exercise in film-making, this movie was a quantum leap forward for what was already considered one of the most reliable studios in Hollywood. It appeared on more critics top ten lists than any other film of 2008; it was named as the top film of the year by critics from The Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal (and many others), and just this year, Time Magazine named the number one film of the decade. Hell, even a tiny little organization called the Large Association of Movie Blogs voted WALL-E their favourite film of the year, ahead of both the almost universally beloved The Dark Knight and that year’s best picture winner, Slumdog Millionaire.To quote Peter Travers, the film critic for Rolling Stone magazine, “If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for Best Picture, it’s WALL-E”. Surely, with all this critical acclaim, the academy must have at least honoured the movie with a nomination. And yet, on nomination day, WALL-E name was conspicuously, outrageously absent. Just as The Dark Knight was just a comic book movie, WALL-E was a just a cartoon. Of course it was nominated for and justly won the Best Animated trophy, beating out the not so heavy competition in the form of DreamWorks’ Kung-Fu Panda and Disney’s Bolt. But true gold eluded it, as it will all animated films until this category disappears, or at least until the academy is willing to embrace the art form as a legitimate manner of storytelling.
Alright, rant over (at least for now). It is time to stop dwelling on the past and instead look to the present and the future. Despite the rather bitter nature of this post so far, I am actually thrilled by this year’s nominations for Best Animated Feature and am eager to share my thoughts on each one. For only the second time in the categories history, there are five nominees as opposed to just three; add to this that there are at least three other animated films that could have very well made this list and the fact that each one of this year’s nominees features a unique and beautiful style of animation unlike any of its competitors, and we can see what a strong and varied year it was for animated cinema. So now let us take a look at each of the nominees and discuss who will be joining the likes of Spirited Away, Finding Nemo and of course WALL-E as the winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.CORALINE dir. Henry Selick
“A visual stunner that takes animated films to new heights.” – Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com
Out of all of this year’s nominees, I thought that Henry Selick’s Coraline was the most technically impressive. The meticulous stop motion animation, the incredible use of miniatures, the fantastic 3D modeling all combined with Selicks quirky gothic style gave birth to a visual feast of bright colours and marvelous creations. I thought that the story of the film was actually somewhat lacking – and to be clear, I believe the Best Animated Feature trophy should not be bestowed based solely on technical merit but on script and story as well. Never the less, the beauty of this film and the magical world that large sections of the narrative inhabit never fails to impress or entertain.
FANTASTIC MR. FOX dir. Wes Anderson
“Mr. Fox's old-fashioned, hand-crafted animation is one of its main attractions” – Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
Based on the beloved children’s novel by Roald Dahl, whose stories were a staple of countless childhoods including my own, indie darling Wes Anderson took all of his directorial sensibilities from his live action work; the symmetrical framing, infantile characters and a wonderfully dry sense of humour, and applied it to his first animated feature. The film has a rustic charm courtesy of the jerky stop motion animation, and the entire movie has a wonderfully tactile quality that computer animation simply cannot equal. Fantastic Mr. Fox is Anderson’s best film in years, Pixar’s biggest rival for this year’s award, and most importantly, a delightful and clever movie that can be enjoyed be audiences of all ages.
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG dir. Ron Clements & John Musker
“The animation, sparkling and graceful, also ranks as the studio's best traditional work in ages” – Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle
Walt Disney Animation’s first traditionally animated film since Home on the Range in 2004, The Princess and the Frog is old school Disney at its finest; toe-tapping musical numbers, beautiful animation, entertaining characters and a touching romance sure to set many a little girls hearts a flutter. For generations Walt Disney has transported children and adults alike to wondrous worlds, with perhaps more classics to their name than any other studio in Hollywood history. Neither the story nor the animation in The Princess and the Frog is particularly groundbreaking, but in terms of sheer good old fashioned fun and whimsy, the people over at the House of the Mouse has proven that they have no lost their touch.
THE SECRET OF KELLS dir. Tomm Moore
“This movie is an absolute triumph of design” – Jeremy W. Kaufman, Aintitcool.com
Yes, believe it or not, I have actually seen The Secret of Kells, the animated film that raised many an eyebrow when it was announced as a nominee, beating out several more prominent titles including Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Studio Ghibli’s Ponyo. I found the story to be rather uninspiring (and essentially missing an entire third act), but the films animation is absolutely fascinating. Based in shapes and spirals, the bright colour palette and ingenious use of layering is not dissimilar to cartoons like The Powerful Girls or Clone Wars, but the Celtic-inspired design gives The Secret of Kells the appearance of a moving tapestry, an intriguing and mystical hand drawn film that highlights the enormous variety that can still be found in 2D animation.
UP dir. Pete Docter
“Another masterwork from Pixar, which is leading the charge in modern animation” – Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun Times
In a world where most computer animated children’s film focus on slapstick humour and inane pop-culture references, Pixar Animation Studios demonstrate yet again that a kid’s film can be so much more. The animation is, as you would expect, gorgeous, but more than any other film nominated, it is the story and the characters that stuck with me from Up. People will rave about the opening ten minutes of this film for decades as one of the most heartfelt, touching and brave sequences in any movie, let alone one aimed at children. From there, Up transforms into a fun filled adventure story with exciting, colourful visuals to match. It is a movie that anyone can enjoy, and it belongs right at the top of the list of Pixar’s greatest achievements.
As you all know, I feel that the award should go to Up; whilst I thought that Coraline was probably the most impressive film from an animation standpoint, once you take into account story, character and all the other aspects of a film (animated or not), Up seems to me to be the clear winner. I should also point out that logically it must win, given that it was the only Best Animated Feature nominee to also be nominated for Best Picture (it’s something of a token nomination, a way to fill up the five additional slots, but it still stands to reason that they think it’s the best animated film of the year). Then again, I don’t necessarily expect the academy to be bound by the laws of making sense. If Up doesn’t win, I would imagine the award will go to Fantastic Mr. Fox and its name director Wes Anderson.Finally I’d just like to talk briefly about a couple of films that I feel were overlooked. I haven’t seen Ponyo, but anime legend Hayao Miyazaki’s two previous films - Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away - were both nominated (with Spirited Away winning the award in 2002), so I’m a little surprised it didn’t get a nod. I also thought that Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a fantastically entertaining movie, and while it didn’t have the same emotional depth as Up or most of the other nominees, I would highly recommend checking it out. And last but certainly not least, the patriot in me is a little disappointed that Australia’s Mary and Max didn’t get a nomination as it was another one of my favourite movies of 2009.
But I certainly don’t want to downplay the worthiness of any of the actual nominees, as all five are brilliantly crafted films that show just how diverse and impressive a storytelling tool that animation can be. As 3D and computer technologies improve, I believe we are going to see more and more incredible stories realized on screen, led of course by the folks at Pixar. Meanwhile, in the wake of the financial success of The Princess and the Frog, Disney have ordered two more 2D animated films to be completed in the next few years, whilst the financial performance of Coraline and the critical acclaim of Fantastic Mr. Fox seems to ensure that stop motion animated will also remain a presence on our screens. I believe that we will continue to see fantastic animated films year after year after year, perhaps better than many live actions films. Whether one ever wins Best Picture is up to the Academy.
