Tuesday 12 January 2010

UP AND AT 'EM: WHY ANIMATION MATTERS IN THIS YEAR'S OSCAR RACE...

We're happy to be proven completely wrong on this but for the time being, fuck it, let's make a prediction: on 7th March 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, an animated film will NOT win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Now, under usual circumstances this wouldn't exactly be the scoop of the century, but the fact is that 2009 was a pretty bumper year for high-end, mainstream animation at the multiplex. On the other hand, early live-action favourites such as the Rob Marshall musical Nine (currently lumbered with a meagre 45% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones have underwhelmed critics, while others have simply fallen by the wayside (including, ironically, John Hillcoat's wonderful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.) And with the record breaking success of James Cameron's mo-cap epic Avatar still perplexing the hell out of just about everyone, Hollywood's suddenly found itself in a bit of a Jake Sully-style identity crisis just in time for awards season.

The last time an animated feature even came close to picking up the coveted gold-plated statuette was in 1992 when Disney's Beauty & the Beast became the first ever animated film to be nominated for the main award. Sadly, despite securing nominations for 6 Oscars in total, Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise's retelling of the classic fairytale had to settle for just 2 wins on the night, Best Score & Best Song, losing out in the Best Picture category to that year's juggernaut winner Silence of the Lambs. (In truth, the "Lambs" landslide wasn't completely unexpected in what was, overall, a weak year - also in the running were bland gangster epic Bugsy and dull-as dishwater Streisand drama Prince of Tides, both of which failed to excite audiences... JFK got the final nod, but its controversial subject matter was never going to go down well with traditionally conservative Academy voters.) Anyway, it was the start of something, and in the same year that Beauty and the Beast hit theatres, Pixar and Disney inked the deal which led to the production of the world's first fully computer generated feature film, John Lasseter's stone-cold classic Toy Story.


So much so that in 2001, the Academy Awards were forced to present an award for Best Animated Film Feature for the very first time. In its inaugural year, Dreamworks were triumphant with box-office smash Shrek (a franchise devalued with each and every instalment, like Lethal Weapon or Indiana Jones.) However, critics of the new award argued that by effectively ghettoising animated films within its own category, the Academy had severely damaged the chances of an animated feature being taken seriously in the main Oscar race. And so far, they've been bang on the money. Not one single animated film has been nominated for Best Picture since, which is a shame because the selection this year is, well, brilliant.

All in all, a total of five films will go head-to-head in the final shortlist for the Best Animated Feature category. Up's nomination goes without saying - it's almost unthinkable that Pixar would be excluded from the category they've helped to define since its inception (Pixar have 4 wins out of 6 attempts in this category: Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E.) Similarly, it would be a massive shock if both the marvellous Coraline and Fantastic Mr Fox don't get nods for Henry Selick and Wes Anderson respectively, given the critical acclaim shared by both this year. Also expect Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki's gorgeous Ponyo to feature somewhere - weirdly, the last time 5 films were shortlisted for the Oscar was in 2003 when Miyazaki's Spirited Away took the prize (competition wasn't exactly fierce, the other nominees being Lilo & Stitch, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Ice Age and Disney's epic flop, Treasure Planet.) There could also be recognition for the traditional Disney animation Princess & the Frog (the first hand-drawn effort from Disney since Lasseter took over the reigns at the House of Mouse albeit one that's disappointed at the box-office) and Sony's 3D sleeper Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.


All things considered, this will be the strongest ever year for Best Animated Feature nods, which could spell bad news for Up, easily the front-runner in this category given its pedigree. With so much competition there's a real chance the vote will be split between some very good, very classy movies. Check that list again. It's 100% ace.


Of course, there have been some good live action films. In the last couple of weeks, Kathryn Bigelow's searing Iraq war thriller The Hurt Locker has emerged as the front red-hot front-runner, gobbling up pretty much every major critics prize it's been competing for. No doubt about it, this one's a heavyweight and probably the film to beat this season. Similarly, we reckon Jason Reitman's contemplative comedy/drama Up In The Air is a solid bet to take home something - the movie's had glowing reviews across the board and Reitman has previous following his last nod for Juno. The film's getting a lot of love from US critics right now and let's be honest, taking into account sterling work in Fantastic Mr Fox and The Men Who Stare At Goats, it's been a pretty positive year for George Clooney, who's sitting pretty for a Best Actor nomination. And then there's that giant James Cameron-sized elephant in the room. The one strapped with machine guns and pot pourri. Say what you will about Avatar, even the most cynical moviegoer would deny that it's now gone from folly to bona fide pop culture phenomenon. The 3D Smurftravaganza could even be The Hurt Locker's main competition depending on how sentimental the Academy's feeling this year.


However, despite a few big hitters, the usual crop of adult dramas has been, on the whole, disappointing. That could be why the Producers Guild of America has resorted to including genre movies such as Star Trek and District 9 in its final shortlist. Neither film has generated any prior awards buzz despite proving to be genuine crowd-pleasers and yet there they are, both standing tall, Na'avi-style, on the list. With 10 films making up the shortlist this year, Pixar have to confident that Up, one of the few non-arthouse movies that every major critic seemed to like, will have an opportunity to gatecrash the nominations and bag itself a Best Picture nod, regardless of how it performs in the Best Animated category.

So is Oscar finally ready to give Best Picture to an animated feature? No. No it isn't. Not unless your animated feature's called Avatar. But Up's very inclusion may well be enough to split the vote and cause an upset on the big night. Why? Because as far as Oscar is concerned, for the first time in years, animated films really matter.
Result.

(Btw, if you're looking for an outside bet, you'd do worse than put a few on Precious - full title: Precious: Based On The Novel Push by Sapphire - a movie that has buzz coming out of its ears.)

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