And Then There Were Five (Finally)

Big news for the Best Animated Feature award: For the first time since 2001 (the year Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" won) there will be FIVE nominees for Best Animated Film!  This is the list of eligible films, I've highlighted the ones that I feel have the best shot at a nomination:

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”
“Astro Boy”
“Battle for Terra”
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
“Coraline”
“Disney’s A Christmas Carol”
“The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
“Mary and Max”
“The Missing Lynx”
“Monsters vs. Aliens”
“9”
“Planet 51”
“Ponyo”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“The Secret of Kells”
“Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure”
“A Town Called Panic”
“Up”

Right now the favorite to win is "Up."  Mainly because it looks like Pixar has a good chance at (finally) getting a Best Picture nod with that film, and ask any person who tracks the Best Foreign Language Feature race how that usually goes.  Once in awhile a foreign film will get nominated for Best Picture.  It usually shows up in Best Foreign Language Film too.  The Academy will always go the conservative way and give the foreign film Best Foreign Language Film whether it deserves Best Picture or not.  This is an easy way to "spread the love around," so if "Up" does get nominated don't be too surprised if that fact alone makes it an automatic winner in this category.  Still, competition looks stiff, so it's going to be interesting what happens.

P.S. While I would love to see "A Christmas Carol" nominated over "Coraline" chances are the Academy will pass since they showed little love for Zemeckis's previous animated outing "The Polar Express."

The Sound of Animation

We've had a great year for animation, but one aspect of these animated films that are rarely being discussed is the music.  Believe it or not, not ONLY has animation managed to one-up many of the live action movies this year in terms of quality, but the soundtracks are also more memorable then most of the live action films.  Of course Michael Giacchino looks like a shoo in to get a nomination for his (yet to be released on CD) score for "Up," but let's face it: That nomination - while justified - will be there just to rack up the nominations for Pixar.  Below are some of the OTHER animated scores that deserve to recognized by the Academy (but most likely won't):

Astro Boy

Coraline

Ponyo

Up

Personally, if I had to award an Oscar to a score this year, it would be for "Ponyo."  Thankfully the score of "Ponyo" IS available on CD...for those willing to play the import game.  For those who WANT to play the import game but don't know how, here's a good place to start.

Behold: Astro Boy

After the box office failure of "Speed Racer" I'm hoping that wither the upcoming live action "Dragon Ball: Evolution" or animated "Astro Boy" will be a financial success, as I would like to see more anime films turned into live action movies. Sadly, while the movie may still be good, my first impression of "Astro Boy" is fairly weak. With a non-exciting image...

...with an even duller trailer...



...well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see on this one. Chances are it will turn in some profit due to the lack of movies choices next year due to the Writers Strike. I have to admit one thing though: For better or for worse, it looks EXACTLY like the comic books!

Coming October 23rd, 2009