Animated Oscar Predictions Update: Czech Republic Enters the Fray, 'Tintin' Buzz and Two Drop Off

Before writing this article, I had 18 contenders for this year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar. So, when Steve Pond at The Wrap posts an article saying the Czechoslovokian animated feature Alois Nebel will be entering Oscar’s animation race as well as the foreign-language race I was thinking, Great… 19 possible contenders. We’re definitely looking at five nominees this year. Then, record scratch… Pond only sees the potential for 16 nominees with the Czechoslovokian film included. So what was I missing?

Discussing the category with Pond he tells me a source he trusts has informed him The Lion of Judah is looking like it won’t make the cut due to missing the requirements somehow and he also heard GKIDS’s A Cat in Paris is looking like it won’t have an Oscar qualifying run before its April 2012 release date. The information on The Lion of Judah is new to me and isn’t official yet and as for A Cat in Paris I was told specifically by a GKIDS representative that along with Chico & Rita, both “will get LA qualifying runs and be submitted for Oscars this year.”

That still leaves one film I had on my list that Pond has heard won’t qualify or even be submitted, Universal’s Hop. Fair enough, it shouldn’t be considered, it’s an animated/live-action hybrid, but then I have to wonder why The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks – Chipwrecked! remain on the list? Yet, they do. So here is what we’re looking at now…

Already Released

Coming Soon

Question Marks

So, as you can see, yes, I have dropped The Lion of Judah out of the running. The film hit limited theaters back in June so if they haven’t figured things out yet I have a hard time believing they ever will. I’ve added Alois Nebel, am keeping A Cat in Paris in the running and have also dropped Hop from the list. So as of now we’re still looking at 17 contenders, which means five nominees. The big question will be what the Academy does with The Adventures of Tintin, Happy Feet Two and Mars Needs Moms! as they consider whether these three performance capture features are eligible for consideration. I am assuming they will get the go ahead, especially considering Steven Spielberg directed one and the other is a sequel to a film that already won Best Animated Feature.

Speaking of Tintin, a friend that runs the French movie website CinemaTeaser emailed me yesterday following a screening of the film for the French press to say, “[It’s] wonderful. Don’t know if you know the comics, but it’s really faithful to Herge’s spirit… Visually, it’s stunning [with] action sequences that every ‘action director’ will be jealous of.”

He continued adding, “It’s everything [Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull] should have been… It’s fast paced, intelligent, extremely funny (the slapstick humor reminded me of The Pink Panther), and [Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis] give incredible performances as Tintin and Haddock. They’re exactly as I wanted them to be, being a fan of Herge’s books. And trust me, on the silver screen, they do not have dead eyes. It’s pretty incredible as Spielberg managed to be photo realistic and at the same time, very ‘comic-booky’ in the looks of the character.”

Glowing praise from a fan of the books, which makes me wonder how it will play for me, which is to say someone that knows nothing about Herge’s comics.

As for Alois Nebel, let me tell you a little about it.

The film is an adaptation of a graphic novel by Jaroslav Rudis and Jaromir 99, directed by Tomas Lunak and set in the summer of 1989 and centers on the title character, a lonely train dispatcher at a small railway station on the Czechoslovak border. His quiet existence, however, is often disturbed by visions of ghosts and shadows from the dark times of the World War II until one day, a stranger appears at the station and takes him on a journey to resolving his nightmares.

I have just added 29 images from the film to a gallery right here and have included one trailer directly below and you can watch another right here.

The animation looks wonderful and instantly makes me think of it as a black-and-white Waltz with Bashir, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Feature at the Oscars in 2009 and won Best Foreign Language Film at the 2009 Golden Globes. It also makes me think of 2008 Best Animated Feature nominee Persepolis.

The interesting thing with Alois Nebel is I don’t know how it can immediately be considered a contender but questions remain regarding The Adventures of Tintin, Happy Feet Two and Mars Needs Moms!. Alois Nebel was acted out by actors in costume and on set and then traced over by animators. How is that any different from performance capture? In fact, isn’t that even less performance capture and more live-action? I’m so confused.

Continuing the confusion, here’s a new trailer for Alvin and the Chipmunks – Chipwrecked!, which hits theaters on December 16. How the first two films managed to gross over $804 million worldwide still remains a mystery to this day, but I guess if that’s what the people want then you’ve got to give ’em more of it.

Beyond that, yes, I have updated my Best Animated Oscar predictions, but I still wouldn’t look at these as gospel. I think we’re still about a month away from the Academy issuing the first list of contenders for the Animated Feature category and until that time it’s hard to really get a feel for things when you don’t know what will be in and what will be out. So, for now, here’s my new top five and you can check out the complete list of 17 contenders here.