Who Will Be Nominated For The Animation Oscars?
Friday, November 2, 2012 at 10:10PM This year's animated feature race still feels like a mystery: Brave wasn't beloved enough to slide right into Pixar winner position; Frankenweenie wasn't popular enough despite its fun aesthetic achievements; ParaNorman was a hit but not a huge one; Madagascar 3 was very well reviewed and a huge hit but the third in a series Oscar hasn't cared for; and so on.
With 21 eligible features this year we'll have five nominees and unless either Rise of the Guardians or Wreck It Ralph (just opened) are across the board sensations, we'll have a real race.
21 ELIGIBLE FEATURES
- Adventures in Zambezia
- Brave
- Delhi Safari
- Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
- Frankenweenie
- From Up on Poppy Hill
- Hey Krishna
- Hotel Transylvania
- Ice Age Continental Drift
- A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman
- Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
- The Mystical Laws
- The Painting
- ParaNorman
- The Pirates! Band of Misfits
- The Rabbi's Cat
- Rise of the Guardians
- Secret of the Wings
- Walter & Tandoori's Christmas
- Wreck-It Ralph
- Zarafa
Three of the foreign films eligible for Animated Feature
The eligibility list includes several ubiquitous big budget blockbusters, familiar would be blockbusters that didn't quite take off, indies that are aspiring towards the same aesthetics as most animated blockbusters (i.e. comedies with funny animals), shameless commercials for merchandise (Secret of the Wings) and a handful of foreign curiousities like the gorgeous looking Le Tableau from Belgium and the latest from Studio Ghibli, the drama From Up on Poppy Hill (trailer below)
57 ELIGIBLE SHORT FILMS
Here are the 57 Semi-Finalists for Oscar's animated short race... These will be narrowed down again to a finalist list before the actual nominations in January. But congratulations to all of these filmmakers because even making it this far is quite the accomplishment.
- 7596 Frames (directed by Martin Georgiev)
- Adam and Dog (directed by Minkyu Lee)
- Amazonia (directed by Sam Chen)
- Being Bradford Dillman (directed by Emma Birch)
- Belly (directed by Julia Pott)
- Body Memory (directed by Ülo Pikkov)
- Bydlo (directed by Patrick Bouchard)
- Cadaver (directed by Jonah D. Ansell)
- Chase (directed by Tomas Vergara)
- Combustible (directed by Katsuhiro Otomo)
- Daffy’s Rhapsody (directed by Matthew O’Callaghan)
- Dell’ Ammazzare Il Maiale (Killing the Pig) (directed by Simone Massi)
- Dripped (directed by Leo Verriere)
- The Eagleman Stag (directed by Michael Please)
- Edmond Was a Donkey (directed by Franck Dion)
- The Fall of the House of Usher (directed by Raul Garcia)
- Fear of Flying (directed by Conor Finnegan)
- Fresh Guacamole (directed by PES)
- The Game
- The Gruffalo’s Child (directed by Johannes Weiland and Uwe Heidschoetter) SEQUEL TO THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT "THE GRUFFALO"
- Head Over Heels (directed by Timothy Reckart)
- Here and the Great Elsewhere (directed by Michele Lemieux)
- House of Monsters (directed by Dawn Brown)
- The Hybrid Union (directed by Serguei Kouchnerov)
- I Hate You, Red Light (directed by J.M. Walter and M.R. Horhager)
- I Saw Mice Burying a Cat (directed by Dmitri Geller)
- It’s Such a Beautiful Day (directed by Don Hertzfeldt)
- Junkyard (directed by Hisko Hulsing)
- Kara (directed by David Cage)
- Kali the Little Vampire (directed by Regina Pessoa) TRAILER BELOW
- Kubla Khan (directed by Joan Gratz)
- La Détente (directed by Pierre Ducos and Bertrand Bey)
- The Last Bus (directed by Martin Snopek and Ivana Laucikova)
- Lost and Found (directed by Joan Gratz)
- Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare’ (directed by David Silverman)
- The Maker (directed by Christopher Kezelos)
- The Making of Longbird (directed by Will Anderson)
- The Missing Key (directed by Jonathan Nix)
- Oh Willy… (directed by Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels) TRAILER...
- Overcast (directed by James Lancett and Sean Weston)
- Paperman (directed by John Kahrs)
- Pepe & Lucas (Brainzoo Studios)
- Pasteurized (directed by Nicolas Villareal)
- The Pub (directed by Jospeh Pierce)
- Sammy
- Shift (directed by Daniel Trenkle)
- Reflexion (directed by Yoshimichi Tamura & Fabrice Senia)
- Slow Derek (directed by Dan Ojari)
- The Story of Pines (directed by Musa Brooker) FULL FILM BELOW
- The Tale of a String
- Traces (directed by Scott Stark)
- Tram (directed by Michaela Pavlatova)
- Wiggle Room (directed by Joe Schenkenberg)
- The Wind Girl (La Nina de Viento) (directed by Nicolas Lara)
- Wolf Dog Tales (directed by Bernadine Santistevan
- Zeinek Gehiago Iraun (Who Lasts Longer) (directed by Gregorio Muro)
We'll investigate further as time allows...
Which toons are you excited about?
Reader Comments (21)
It feels like a six/seven horse race from my view. "Brave", "Frankenweenie", "ParaNorman" and "Wreck-It Ralph" seem pretty solid, don't they? The final slot seems like it would either be "Rise of the Guardians" or one of GKIDS' small animations, "The Painting" (also known as "Le Tableau" if anybody wants to google reviews) or "The Rabbi's Cat". I've seen the latter and hope the animation branch nominate it. Since it's actually about the animation (well, painting, but you get the idea) process and what it means to be an artist should give it a leg up. That it uses a lot of different visual styles, too.
Aw Arrietty isn't eligible? Waah :/
I just hope It's Such a Beautiful Day makes the cut for Animated Short. Holy hell, it's good. And they've nominated Hertzfeldt before in 2000, for his awesome Rejected. So it wouldn't be totally unprecedented for them to recognize him. Let's hope it happens.
I was so sorry I couldn't catch LE TABLEAU at the French Cinema Festival here in Portugal. It has such impressive reviews here in Europe.
I'm willing to bet Brave, Frankenweenie and Paranorman are safe bets. But what to make of the rest? If Wreck-it Ralph hits big with the box office, it's in (its reviews look good). The last spot will go to one of the foreign entries, possibly Le Tableau itself.
Matthew: ARRIETY opened in Japan in 2010, making it ineligible for these year's awards.
The one I'm most tempted to call a spoiler is A LIAR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, that tells the story of Graham Champman of Monty Python fame.
It sounds great. And wouldn't the Academy be enchanted by the concept?
And finally (forgot to say) I'm very intrigued by the suggestion by Kris Tapley that RISE OF THE GUARDIANS could become a frontrunner to the race once it opens. Huh.
Never woulda seen that coming.
The nominees will be probably be: Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Rise of the Guardians and Wreck-It Ralph. It's possible that anything but Wreck-It Ralph and Frankenweenie could be bumped for a foreign film.
Agree with Irvin on the Animated Feature lineup. I'm thinking Wreck-It Ralph wins: huge box office and raves, and I'm not sure anything will be much of a challenge to it unless the critics really throw their support behind Rise of the Guardians
I'm hoping Brave is snubbed. What a mess. Maybe a snub would make Pixar realize that they need to get it together.
Jorge, A Liar's Autobiography has terrible reviews, one of them calling a Wikipedia page more enlightening. Too bad, it could have been interesting.
I'm going with:
Brave
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Le Tableau
Frankenweenie
alt: The Pirates!, The Rabbi's Cat, From Up on Poppy Hill
Julian: But, I have a question. Will the Academy care enough about the messages of Wreck-It-Ralph to blindly hand it the win? With something that has the "strictly universal" juice of a Pixar, it becomes a no-question win. But beyond the easiest thematic level, Ralph might be to Video Games as Breathless is to Film Noir. A fairly comedic (the wiki page mislabels Breathless as a pure drama, when I could, generously, call it a dramedy) criticism of a form, setting up themes to be explored with more depth later. Not exactly universal, considering Ralph's form is video games, and that's likely to confuse the older members of the Academy. I'm placing it down, right now, to being one of two options. Either 1. A dash to the finish between the more universally themed ParaNorman and Frankenweenie with either as a plausible winner or 2. Rise of the Guardians taking it.
I'm starting to feel Wreck-It Ralph, The Painting, Brave, Frankenweenie, and The Rise of the Guardians for the five, though I'd be argued into swapping out ParaNorman for either of those last two films.
As for the win, it seems that it's going to have to be Brave, though part of me is hoping for some sort of surprise since Pixar doesn't always have to win it, and it shouldn't take a Cars-level tragedy for them not to default.
Jorge, be careful citing Kris Tapley's opinion on 'Guardians.' He has been predicting the film, but he himself finds it rather thin (though visually stunning). Not a resounding endorsement...
I think that voting blocs will play a role in this race this year. There are three contending Disney/Pixar films, which could cause problems for one or more of them, a number of GKIDS films, and there are two horror-themed films, Frankenweenie and ParaNorman. Surely, votes will be split. I am suspecting a well-liked film or two will be left out in the cold with ParaNorman seeming the most likely victim to me at this point.
at this point i'm not sold on rise of the guardians as a threat for the win, but i'll keep it predicting it for the nod since it's Dreamworks and they'll campaign hard and as we all know Annie awards are terribly biased towards DW movies (don't forget they got 2 nominations last year)
and i don't think Paranorman will be nominated... i mean, most people already forgot it. Universal will need a HUGE campaign if they want it to make the cut.
predicted lineup:
Brave
Frankenweenie
Wreck-it Ralph
Rise of the guardians
The painting (or Zarafa)
John T: I didn't make my bets on the nom, but I'd put it down to:
Secured for nom:
Brave (will NOT WIN. There just isn't enough passion for that, mostly because of the average reception and the amount of times (6) that Pixar has won in this category.)
Frankenweenie (Like I said, it might be a win contender, depending on the reviews on Rise of the Guardians)
ParaNorman (This is one of the two most likely win contenders, depending on the reception of Rise of the Guardians)
Wreck-It-Ralph (like I mentioned, even if, because of all the raves, it's locked for a nomination, if the whole Academy votes on the Animated Feature winner, it IS NOT A WIN CONTENDER. Unless ONLY the animation branch votes on the winner, the very old Academy will likely feel alienated by aspects of the concept and portions of the thematics and vote for something else.)
On the last slot, we have five contenders, three commercial contenders and two art-house:
Madagascar 3 - least likely
Rise of the Guardians (with the right reviews, this MIGHT be the second Animated Feature win for an in-house Dreamworks Animation production (the only in-house production that's managed a win at this moment is Shrek), if only as a burnt symbolic offering for not handing a win to How to Train Your Dragon. If it's too thin, the Academy might continue to wait on Dreamworks.) - 3rd most likely
The Pirates! Band of Misfits - 4th most likely
The Painting - most likely
The Rabbi's Cat - second most likely (I say the art contenders are the two most likely because the commercially minded sections of the Academy might well have wasted all their votes on the four major commercial offerings.)
Frankenweenie might not win because it's considered a bomb but people here have made a good point that the video-game format of Wreck-It Ralph may not win them votes with the older members of the Academy (whose generation pre-dates Pong).
Volvagia, have you seen Wreck-It Ralph? It's supposedly nothing about the video games. They're just a means to an end. I don't see it being a huge turn-off for even the stodgiest of Academy members and even if it were, I reeeeally don't think a zombie film is going to fare any better. As someone says above, people have forgotten about ParaNorman already.
Evan: The core theme of the Ralph story is fairly basic, yes, but it still seems like there's probably quite a bit of medium analysis going on and it might be that Ralph's story is really the means to that end and critics are underplaying that angle because they want to help convince the 50+ crowd to take a chance on it. Also, two notes: 1. Even though it's a bit faded right now, ParaNorman is getting released on Blu-Ray and DVD in late November, which will help with the campaign. 2. The Romero-style Zombie is 44. The only thing that could scare about it now with such a long life-span is the creative application of gore. 3-D gaming, which rose along with the concept of the "video game for adults", is 16.
It's not about how old a concept is (and if it were, arcade games are at least 30 years old; not sure why you're talking about 3D gaming), but how Oscar-friendly it is. To me, Wreck-It Ralph capitalizes on a bit of that "childhood nostalgia" that the Toy Stories used so well, and it has a heart-warming message. Then, to top it all off, it's a Disney film, which helps it in the nominations phase if not beyond,
I'd actually place the odds of ParaNorman being snubbed higher than those of it winning the Oscar.
For Best Animated Feature, my high hopes for the foregin animated films are The Rabbi's Cat and From up on Poppy Hill. The reason for Rabbi's Cat is it won a César award for Best Animated Feature and a animated film of France who wins it, gets nominated for the Oscars. My reason for Poppy Hill is it is Studio Ghibli's comeback and their first film with GKIDS, also it won The Japanese Academy Awards for Best Animation. The main reasons for both of them is GKIDS has annouched that after their run for the Oscars, they get a wide release next year and any animated film that is released by GKIDS and has a wide release after the Oscars always gets nominated. For The Painting, I respect the art, but has some live action in it and GKIDS hasn't have plans for a wide release after the Oscars. I also discovered that when their are five nominations for Best Animated Feature, there is going to be a patern. So, there will be one stop-motion animated film and that is Frankenweenie, due to it is the most stop-motion film with attention. Under it will be From up on Poppy Hill and The Rabbi's Cat and below that are the only CGI animated films that will make it are Rise of the Guardians and Wreck-It Ralph. The reason, Rise of the Guardians just won the Hollywood award for Best Animated Film and I am predicting that will win 2013's Best Animated Feature. For Wreck-It Ralph, people love this movie (despite the disappointment of some of the plot) and it is like Toy Story with Video Games. For Brave, I thought it was okay, but not Pixar's greatest. I think it will only get nominated for Best Original Song "Touch the Sky". The reason why I don't want it to be nominated for Best Animated Feature is it is not Pixar's greatest and director Brenda Chapman had a meltdown after the premier of the film due to Pixar kicking her off as the head director and not making her the first female Pixar director (she latter call Pixar a sexist animation company after that).
For Best Animated Short, my predications for it are 1. Combustible by Katsuhiro Otomo, the reason is I saw images and they look lovely, ever time a Japanes film is nominated for Best Animated Feature or Foregin Laguage Film there is another film nominated for Best Animated Short (it depends if the animation is good and if there is a anime short in the race for the Oscars) and is the one of the best ones I can pick that can make it. 2. The Gruffalo's Child by Uwe Heidschotter and Johannes Weiland, the reason is it is a sequal to a Academy Award short film The Gruffalo and when it comes to animated short films made in the UK and had just got nominated for Animated Short. Always watch out for the sequal and they may be good as the first film (Wallace and Gromit for example). 3. It's Such a Beautiful Day by Don Hertzfeldt, the reason is at first I wanted to have Oh Willy as one of my predications, but decide to go with this one cause it is made by a Academy Award nominee. 4. The Missing Key by Jonathan Nix, the reason is it looks really good and a well done 2D animated film and it might win it. 5. Paperman by John Kahrs, the reason is people are talking about this short that was showed with Wreck-It Ralph and might win it too.
Hey, Combustible's runing time is 13 minutes.