Steve Pond at the Wrap does some nice investigative reporting to come up with a tiny little mystery in the world of Oscar watching – the idea that one animated movie could make the difference between three and five nominees. This was touched upon in the comments section of this post back on October 10 here at AD but perhaps it had not yet been confirmed:
But in the world of animation, “The Missing Lynx: Paws on the Run” could prove to be one of the year’s most significant releases.
The director of the Spanish movie, Raul Garcia, confirmed to theWrap on Saturday that the company had submitted the paperwork required to enter the film in the Oscar animated-feature race.
The news is crucial because for the last couple of weeks, the number of entries in the category appeared to have stalled at 15. If 15 movies qualify, the category will have three nominees; if 16 do so, it’ll jump to five.
With a number of high-profile, well-reviewed films in the running, and with “Up” and “Coraline” seemingly heavy favorites for the first two slots, a slate of three nominees would have resulted in a dogfight for the final spot between the likes of “Ponyo,” Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog,” the buzzed-about “Mary and Max,” Sony’s “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” Wes Anderson’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “9,” and the boxoffice hit “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” among others.
25 Responses for "The Key to Bumping up Animated to Five Nominees"
I hope Mary and Max gets in and that can only happen with 16 nominees.
So vivo el lince perado!
I hope hope hope this is true. Any chance for the best animated film of the year, Mary and Max, to actually make the nominees despite the fact that it isn’t being heavily promoted like the others is a good thing, IMO. It’s also the one film I think can take out “Up”, although I’d be plenty happy if Coraline won, too.
I so hope there are five nominees. Any less is so anti climatic.
coraline for the win!!!
Out of topic but Miramax is almost dead or pretty much dead
http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/11/02/end-of-an-era-miramax-president-quits-disney-all-but-shutters-the-label/
But thruth is, “El Lince Perdido” seems to be a boring, horrible movie – from buzz I’ve heard here in Spain. Can we really ask ourselves why the limitation to 3 or 5 nominees depend of the quantity and not the quality of the movies submitted?
Is there any word of a wide release for Mary and Max? I want to see it so badly. Maybe a nomination would lead to a wide release?
Judging by the poster, it doesn’t seem anything great. However, if it’s the key to getting us our five nominees, then I’ll gladly welcome it.
@ Clayton
I dont think so. It is available via VOD.
http://www.thecornercinema.com/?p=667
Perhaps I’m of a different opinion than most on this issue, but going to 5 nominees seems like a bad thing to me.
There are a number of spectacular animated films this year, but 5 nominees of 16 films is 31.5% of the animated films being nominated. There are dozens of spectacular live action films made every year, but even with the expansion to 10 films in best picture, well less than 10% of films will be nominated in that category. Over 150 films will go into wide release this year, plus all the indy/foreign films that won’t be in wide release in America.
I’m not saying that there aren’t an abnormally large number of good animated films this year. But if the same proportion of good feature films were nominated this year, over 50 films would make the cut. That would destroy the honor of being nominated for being nominated, and I can’t help but feel that a nomination should be good enough to be honored. With the shift to 5 nominees people will question whether movies were nominated “because there were 5 slots”.
I’m tired of everything having component categories. I say do away with Animated and Doc features. If they’re good enough, they will be nominated for Best Picture. Period.
It usually takes more time to make and animated feature film than a ”regular” film. That’s why it is rare to find a year with more than 15 entries in the Animated Film Category. 3 nominees is ridiculous, especially because we all know the prejudice that exists against animated feature. C’om, do you seriously believe that The Reader is better than WALL-E, that Ray is better than The Incredibles or that Atonement is better than Ratatouille. Of course not. It’s pure prejudice. And I think Disney will have to work hard to push Up to the BP nomination.
Bil W, I disagree with you. There are masterpiece animation and masterpiece docs that did not make to the Best Picture category because almost 1/4 of the Academy members are actors. Actors vote in actors film. Toy Story, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Hoop Dreams and Bowling for Columbine are MASTERPIECE. Crash, No Country For Old Men, The Departed (winners), The Reader, Atonement, Munich, Ray… are not.
Mary and Max received some high-profile nominations at the Australian Film Institute awards last week:
AFI MEMBERS’ CHOICE AWARD (general members)
* Mary and Max. Melanie Coombs
SAMSUNG MOBILE AFI AWARD FOR BEST FILM (industry members)
* Mary and Max. Melanie Coombs
MACQUARIE AFI AWARD FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
* Mary and Max. Adam Elliot
AFI AWARD FOR BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
* Mary and Max. Adam Elliot
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s voice work is EXTRAORDINARY in Mary and Max – thought I might just mention that, too.
I always thought that they should do away with Best Animated Feature and instead have a Best Achievement in Animation, similar to Visual Effects, where they award the best achievement in animation rather than the best film that just so happens to be animated.
That way, the best animated film(s) can be nominated for Best Picture and the actual animators can receive an award of their own. However, if this happens, I’m sure voters will think that this category is just basically a replica of the Best Animated Feature category.
“Crash, No Country For Old Men, The Departed (winners), The Reader, Atonement, Munich, Ray… are not.”
Oh no, here we go again with exclaiming YOUR opinion as fact. I think you know quite well, Joao, that you’re in a very small minority on A LOT of those films, including such unanimously acclaimed films as “No Country for Old Men (yes, the very definition of masterpiece this decade), and “The Departed.” I’d go further and tell you how much I adore “Atonement” and “Munich,” but it’s irrelevant.
For the record, Sony Classics picks up “Mother and Child”.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118010743.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
I saw Mary and Max the other day, it is absolutely wonderful. There has to be five nominees so that it at least stands a chance!
Oh, and if winning Best Actor for voice work was possible, PSH would win for his work as Max.
Pete Hammond thinks the Weinsteins are angling to get Michael Cera some Golden Globe noms for Youth in Revolt.
http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2009/11/youth-in-revolt-contender.html
What about $9.99? It’s not a terrible film by any means, but it’s animated and not bad. No chance of getting nominated but surely it could booster the nominations up to 16, therefore making a five nominee group (for the first time?)
@Chamboosy $9.99 was eligible for last year’s Oscars.
The thing with the expansion of the category to five is that if the Academy continues nominating kiddie animated films and perpetuating the stereotype that animation is strictly for kids (bright, colorful, bouncy), then it really won’t matter. But now that they are extending to five, they can nominate some more adult fare, perhaps the most mature line-up they have ever had. Sure, we would have “Up” and “Coraline”, but they aren’t necessarily for small children and are just as much for adults (“Coraline” especially).
But perhaps this is just wishful thinking. I still remember that atrocious montage for animation earlier this year, and not once did we see “Waltz with Bashir” or anything remotely aimed at adults.
”Oh no, here we go again with exclaiming YOUR opinion as fact. I think you know quite well, Joao, that you’re in a very small minority on A LOT of those films, including such unanimously acclaimed films as “No Country for Old Men (yes, the very definition of masterpiece this decade), and “The Departed.” I’d go further and tell you how much I adore “Atonement” and “Munich,” but it’s irrelevant.”
The Natural, I don’t think No Country For Old Men is a masterpiece. Fargo is a masterpiece. No Country is miles away from Fargo. Atonement is just a big British period soap-opera with a not so good rythim of action. Actually, There Will Be Blood is much better than No Country. If a dark film was gonna win that year, It should have been There Will Be Blood. Munich has just nothing special. Could’ve been a much better film. Goodfellas is a masterpiece. The Departed is not.
Departed, No Country and especially Crash are a few of the most overrated films of the decade. There are others Best Picture nominees that are overrated – Seabuscuit, Master and Commander, Tootsie (this especially overrated), Lost In Translation (good, but not a masterpiece as many people think) ….
Joao Garcia,
It seems that you rule out NCFOM and The Departed as “masterpieces” (a pretty subjective term) just because you don’t consider them as good as their directors’ previous efforts. Just because you don’t consider NCFOM and The Departed to be as good as Fargo and Goodfellas, doesn’t mean other people don’t consider them to be masterpieces. Heck, I’d probably say I prefer Fargo and Goodfellas to No Country and The Departed as well, but I still consider the latter two to be two of this decade’s very best films…
And I don’t think Seabiscuit is overrated, because I feel it has gotten a pretty bad reputation since it undeservedly racked up all those award nominations the year it was in contention. It was the Frost/Nixon, Michael Clayton of its year, the one that kept being nominated but never winning anything because it obviously didn’t deserve to.
From the Academy Awards Rules governing the Animated Feature Film category:
All submissions sent to the Academy will be screened by the Animated Feature Film Award Screening Committee(s). After the screenings, the committee(s) will vote by secret ballot to nominate from 3 to 5 motion pictures for this award. In any year in which 8 to 15 animated features are released in Los Angeles County, a maximum of 3 motion pictures may be nominated. In any year in which 16 or more animated features are submitted and accepted in the category, a maximum of 5 motion pictures may be nominated.
1. The committee(s) will view all motion pictures entered and mark all entries 10, 9, 8, 7 or 6 with the guidelines of 10 (excellent), 8 (good), 7 (fair) or 6 (poor). Those productions receiving an average score of 7.5 or more shall be eligible for nomination.
2. If only one production receives an average score of 7.5 or more, the committee(s) shall recommend to the Board of Governors that a Special Achievement Award for Animated Feature Film be made to that production.
3. If no production receives an average score of 7.5 or more, the committee(s) shall recommend to the Board of Governors that no award be made for Animated Feature Film for the current Awards year.
Given these rules, even with 16 eligible films, there may still be only 3 films nominated if their scores suck. The key word is MAY. As in a maximum of 5 films MAY be nominated. It’s quite possible that 3 or 4 films rise to the level needed to be nominated. Look at all the songs eligible for the Original Song category. Even with all of those, some years still only get 3 nominees. So let’s not get our hopes up gang.
Devin,
Frost/Nixon and Michael Clayton were critically acclaimed films – just check Rotten Tomatoes. Seabiscuit was Oscar-friendly but not exactly a critic’s darling. I called it overrated just because it got in instead of City Of God (that was nominated for Directing, Screenplay, Editing and Cinematography), which is a brilliant film. City of God is one of the best of the decade. It1s a violent film that is much better than NCFOM and Departed. I think my expectations over those 2 films were so high when I finally watched them that I got a bit disappointed because I was expecting them to be more than they are.
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