The Best Animated Feature category is an absolute mystery to me at this point, but I have a list of 18 contenders prepped and ready so it makes no sense in keeping them hidden any longer, especially on top of the news GKIDS has picked up Chico & Rita and will give both it and A Cat in Paris Los Angeles qualifying runs and be submitted for the Oscars this year.
If you’ll remember two years ago, GKIDS was a late arrival in the race with The Secret of the Kells, which went on to earn a nomination in a field of five in 2010 before losing to Pixar’s Up. Which brings us to one of two big questions for this year…
First to this bit of GKIDS news.
The studio will release both Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris in Los Angeles before opening Chico in New York on February 10, 2012 and Cat sometime in April. I had prepared to add the studio’s Mia and the Migoo to the list of contenders, but was informed it is ineligible due to its French release date at the very end of 2009. Too bad.
However, wile Mia and the Migoo is out, the same production studio in Folimage has A Cat in Paris in play. This film has already played a series of festivals from Berlin to Seattle and has been adored at each stop. After reading the synopsis and watching the vibrant French trailer I’ve included here I can’t wait to give this one a look:
Dino is a cat that leads a double life. By day, he lives with Zoe, a little girl whose mother, Jeanne, is a police officer. By night, he works with Nico, a burglar with a big heart. Zoe has plunged herself into silence following her father’s murder at the hands of gangster Costa. One day, Dino the cat brings Zoe a very valuable bracelet. Lucas, Jeanne’s second-in-command, notices this bracelet is part of a jewelery collection that has been stolen. One night, Zoe decides to follow Dino. On the way, she overhears some gangsters and discovers that her nanny is part of the gangsters’ team.
I’m hoping to get my hands on a screener soon.
As for Chico & Rita, it has been making the festival rounds since first screening at Telluride in 2010. It won for Best Animated Film at the 25th Goya Awards and has been recognized elsewhere along the way. Set in 1948 and following its two protagonists from Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas as Chico, a young piano player, and Rita, a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice, strive to unite in music and love. It looks like a rather fascinating feature based on the trailer (which I’ve included to the right) and will undoubtedly be a major contender considering its unique style of animation.
All of this brings us around to the category’s controversy, just what is and isn’t animation? As you’ll notice when you visit my official prediction page for the category I note the rules for the Best Animated Feature Film category which state: “Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique.” This brings attention to three films: The Adventures of Tintin, Happy Feet Two and Mars Needs Moms!
Over at Deadline, Pete Hammond addressed this very issue a couple of days ago saying the Academy has sent a letter to the filmmakers of these three films “asking them what their ‘intent’ was in the use of the [motion/performance capture] process before deciding whether those films qualify.”
As far as this controversy is concerned, I tend to agree with Hammond when he writes: “Based on the Academy’s past actions, it is likely that all [three] would qualify, and it would seem unlikely that the Academy would take on Oscar winners Zemeckis, Miller and Spielberg on this issue, especially since their previously stated intentions have been that they are working fully in the animated format.” Consider the fact past films including The Polar Express, Beowulf, A Christmas Carol, Monster House and Happy Feet were all eligible for nomination, with the latter two getting the nomination and Happy Feet actually winning. So as far as I can tell, what reason would they have for keeping them out?
Of course, should they be left out that would change things rather dramatically. The new Academy rules say any year in which 8 to 12 animated features are released in Los Angeles County, either 2 or 3 motion pictures may be nominated. In any year in which 13 to 15 films are released, a maximum of 4 motion pictures may be nominated and in any year in which 16 or more animated features are released, a maximum of 5 motion pictures may be nominated. As of right now we’re looking at 18 eligible films, enough for five nominations. Should these three be declared ineligible we’re looking at only a maximum of four nominees and when you look at the field it’s hard to pick which four or five that would be.
An obvious pick for the top five, if you ask me, is Gore Verbinski’s Rango. With an 88% at RottenTomatoes it is the highest ranking critical success on the board. However, things get tricky when you begin to take into account audience opinion. Rango is far from the most successful animated film at the box-office so far this year. With only $123 million domestically it sits at #5 behind Cars 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Smurfs and Rio. And if you want to look at critical favorites you have to turn to Disney’s Winnie the Pooh with a 91% RottenTomatoes rating, Rango is second with Kung Fu Panda 2 third (83%).
As we all know, this is hardly a category hell bent on box-office and critical numbers. Just last year The Illusionist was one of the three nominees behind juggernauts Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon.
So where does that leave us? What do we know about films such as The Adventures of Tintin, Puss in Boots, Arthur Christmas and Happy Feet Two other than Puss in Boots is a spin-off from a one time Oscar-winning franchise that has lost a lot of favor in the eyes of critics and audiences and Happy Feet Two is a film following up an Oscar-winning feature, but the year it won it was up against Pixar’s least loved effort to date (ironically it’s up against its sequel this year).
Finally, while questions of motion/performance capture persist I am left to wonder why those films are questioned when films such as The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks – Chipwrecked! and Hop will seemingly be eligible despite the fact they are essentially live-action films with animated characters. It goes back to my question back in 2009 when I asked “Should ‘Avatar’ Be Considered for Best Animated Oscar?” Based arguments filmmakers make for films such as Tintin and/or The Smurfs and you tell me how Avatar isn’t the same thing.
So, with all that said, here are my top five predictions based on knowing pretty much nothing:
- The Adventures of Tintin (dir. Steven Spielberg)
- A Cat in Paris (dir. Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol)
- Happy Feet Two (dir. George Miller)
- Rango (dir. Gore Verbinski)
- Chico & Rita (dir. Tono Errando, Javier Mariscal, Fernando Trueba)
You can browse my rankings for the field of 18 contenders right here, but this category is one where I don’t have any comments on the individual contenders just yet. Only rankings. This is one category I am going to have to see all the films and know who is in and who is out before I can have any kind of definitive opinion on one or the other. So, for now, it’s merely rankings and, again, you can click here to see those.
