The State of the Race: Best Animated Feature

Not all movie fans love the Oscars.  There's a lot wrong with how the Academy chooses and rewards the best of the best each year.  Politics, weird rules, and a conservative voting body usually end up showering glory on safe bets instead of rewarding riskier fare.  I share many of these complaints, but I still always look forward to Hollywood's biggest night with an unhealthy anticipation, usually holding onto some minute sliver of hope that The Social Network or Hugo might prevail, only to have my hopes dashed.

So, though the big show is months away, it's never too soon to start prognosticating, and with the recent release of the fantastic ParaNorman, I thought I'd dive into the Best Animated Feature race, just as I did for the 2010 crop shortly after starting Such Moving Pictures almost two years ago.  My, time flies.

The Sure Thing
Pixar has more or less had this category on lockdown since it was introduced more than a decade ago, with only Monsters, Inc. and Cars failing to take home the trophy (and Cars 2 not even nominated).  This year, Brave is sure to get a nomination, and even this far out, with so many other animated films still unseen, it's hard not to consider Pixar's Scottish fairy tale the front-runner.

Though Brave received a less enthused response than your usual Pixar film, it still met with solid reviews and made a lot of money.  Plus, after Toy Story 3 and Cars 2, it was great to have a new world from the creative geniuses at Pixar.  Sure, the story is more Disney than Pixar, more interested in tugging the heartstrings rather than stimulating the intellect (most Pixar joints manage to do both simultaneously, to brilliant effect), but my, if Brave doesn't stick those emotional moments.  Thanks to a great score by Patrick Doyle, a wonderful voice cast, and some of the most gorgeous animation ever to hit the big screen, Brave weaves a tight, neat tale that leads many viewers to reach for a hanky.  And the Academy just eats that shit up.

Perhaps the biggest question concerning Brave is whether the film can garner some additional nominations.  Pixar usually gets five or six nominations per movie (again, the Cars films are notable exceptions), but Brave seems unlikely to score a nod for its screenplay.  It could factor into the Best Original Score, Best Original Song, and Best Sound Editing, all categories that numerous Pixar movies have factored into.

The Safe Bet
ParaNorman is getting a lot of love right now, and for very good reason.  Directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell have made a thrilling, funny, beautiful ode to horror films, specifically zombie flicks, in their tale of an odd boy who speaks to the dead.  The stop-motion animation is charming and weird, often recalling the dreamy weirdness of German Expressionism, and the voice cast is perfect, with Kodi Smit-McPhee nailing Norman's wounded loner persona.  Hopefully the talented young actor gets an Annie nod for his great work.

There really isn't much standing in ParaNorman's way.  Genre movies rarely hit with the Academy, but the animated race is an exception.  The Corpse Bride and Coraline scored nominations in their respective years, so ParaNorman could easily follow in their footsteps.  Perhaps the biggest threat is the sheer number of supernatural animated flicks this year, with Frankenweenie and Hotel Transylvania (more on those later) still to come, as well as Rise of the Guardians.  Still, with a love for B-movie horror in its cinematic DNA, a hilarious script, and gorgeous animation, ParaNorman should make it into the race, and possibly give Brave some healthy competition for the win.

The Strong Contenders
Aardman is one of the most respected names in animation, and this year, the studio delivered another funny, great-looking movie with The Pirates! Band of Misfits.  The film, based on the books by Gideon Defoe, was a riot, with lots of great gags and a wonderful leading performance by Hugh Grant as the glory-seeking Pirate Captain.  The film could benefit from goodwill toward the studio, especially as a return to the stop-motion animation the studio is known for after a CGI departure for last year's hilarious (but not nominated) Arthur Christmas.

While I personally was bored to tears by The Lorax, it's definitely in the awards conversation, especially considering its boffo box office performance.  The Dr. Seuss adaptation was gorgeous to look at, but as is often the case with the author's catalog when bringing it to the big screen, there was too little story to stretch to feature length.  The result was an often boring, plot-thin tale that carried its environmental message far too heavily.

While The Secret World of Arrietty sadly isn't eligible for the Oscars, Studio Ghibli may yet be in the race with From Up on Poppy Hill, about a girl who raises signal flags in a harbor each morning, and how doing so affects her life and the lives of others in the town and at sea.  GKIDS is considering a qualifying run for the film before a proper theatrical release next year, and if it does, the film could follow in the footsteps of Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle (the former won while the latter was a nominee).

Dreamworks did pretty well for themselves last
year, netting nominations for Puss in Boots and Kung Fu Panda 2.  This year, their sequel is Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, which proved to be far funnier and sweeter than I expected.  The film features an all-star voice cast, including new-to-the-franchise Jessica Chastain, Bryan Cranston, and Frances McDormand.  The film may be a bit too silly when compared to its competition, but perhaps by paying homage to Edith Piaf, it can snag a slot?  Chances are Dreamworks will be hedging its bets on Rise of the Guardians.

Unlikely
Ice Age: Continental Drift gets to occupy this category all by its lonesome for the time being.  The franchise has long since worn out its welcome (critically, that is), but since each entry brings in a ton of money, we'll have to continue suffering Manny and friends for at least another entry or two.  I hate to lower myself to such an obvious, bad pun, but bad puns are the stuff that dreams are made of, and Ice Age's Oscar prospects are extinct.  If they were ever alive.  Dinosaur shit.

Sights Unseen
A lot of the year's most promising animated fare is yet to come, so let's tackle them from most likely to be nominated to least.

At the top of the to-be-released heap is Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, the director's black-and-white stop-motion feature-length adaptation of his live-action short film from many years ago (how's that for a hyphenated adjectival parade?).  The film looks like a welcome return to form for Burton, who has recently disappointed with bloated, colorful misfires like Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows.  Burton is back to his Vincent Price-worshiping days, paying homage to classic horror flicks in his instantly recognizable style.

Dreamworks' Rise of the Guardians looks better and better with each new trailer, and with its holiday release date, it's clear that the studio is hoping for big things.  The film follows a group of childhood heroes such as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy who enlist Jack Frost's help to protect children from a mysterious, dangerous new villain who wants to attack their dreams.  The movie looks gorgeous, and the voice talent is top-notch, with a cast including Hugh Jackman, Jude Law, and Alec Baldwin.

Gamers finally have a movie to champion with Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, which eschews adapting an existing game in favor of featuring a bunch of cameos from other games while creating original ones for the film.  Bowser, Zangief, and Q*bert are just a few of the cameos in the trailer, and hopefully the film will feature even more.

Wreck-It Ralph has a great premise, but I wonder if the video game world will prove too esoteric to the aged Academy.  Many of them won't even appreciate the cascade of references and in-jokes,  meaning that the film could land with a resounding flop when it comes to the Oscars.  Then again, if the animation and writing are good enough, the unfamiliar source material will hardly matter.  Still, I'm predicting this one will be a hit with audiences and critics, but not so much with the Academy.

The trailers for Hotel Transylvania are much better than I'd expect based on the premise and talent involved, but it still looks like the most likely to be an Unlikely.  With ParaNorman and (probably) Frankenweenie paying beautiful homage to all things supernatural, including the horror genre, Hotel Transylvania will have to settle for being sheer entertainment, which is perfectly alright.  And it can rest in the nigh-assurance of being the highest grossing of the three.

Those Weird Ones You've Never Heard Of
Every year, it seems, there's a nominee or two that come out of nowhere to get nominated.  It can be hard to keep track of what's eligible and what's not, so it's always nice when the Academy releases its list of eligible animated films.  We're not to that point yet, but it looks like GKIDS (the studio that got Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris into the race last year) have a couple offerings, aside from From Up on Poppy Hill.  Expect to see at least one or two of these titles in competition whenever that list does materialize: The Rabbi's Cat, A Letter to Momo, Le Tableau, and Zarafa.  And that's just what we might see from GKIDS; other even more-unheard-of films might surface in the coming months.


Without being sure of what GKIDS is offering, my prediction for the Best Animated Feature line-up currently looks like this:

Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Rise of the Guardians

with Brave as the winner.