Blueprints: "Coco"

Feliz Día de los Muertos! To celebrate, Jorge looks at how the script for Disney’s “Coco” mixes two languages the same way the movie interconnects cultures.

I’ve written a couple of pieces in this site before about Coco. It was an extremely intimate and touching experience to be able to see my native culture represented to accurately and lovingly. It is a movie that perfectly captures the spirit of Mexicanism, of our fragile and ever-present relationship with death, family, and tradition. 

I saw the movie twice in theaters: once in its original English, and once in its Spanish dub. While I consider the dub to be a better version (but that perhaps has to do with the way I’ve always experienced animated films), the English one made me consider a new aspect of the film: the way it handled Spanish. It’s a movie explicitly set in a different country; one where a different language is spoken (unlike say, Brave). How can the script incorporate this essential cultural element without making it seem unauthentic? It turns out, they do it muy bien.

Click to read more ...

25 Films to Compete For "Best Animated Feature" Oscar Noms

WELL WELL WELL

Just last night we were speculating about what might be on Oscar's eligiblity list for Animated Feature and today, two weeks ahead of schedule (according to when they usually announce that is),  the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has gone and revealed the list. Perhaps we should have bought a lottery ticket?

Five of the 25 titles listed after the jump will go on to Oscar nominations in January...

Click to read more ...

Which lower profile films might surprise in the Oscar Animated Feature race?

by Nathaniel R

Early Man was one of the earliest titles released. Will Oscar remember it? They do love Aardman filmsAs Oscar watchers know it requires only 16 eligible animated features to trigger a 5-wide shortlist of nominees for Best Animated Feature. That number is fairly easy to hit, making this category rather more like the Tony Awards than the Oscars or Emmys, in that it's drawing from a very limited pool. You have, statistically, quite a good chance of getting nominated if you exist. The Academy generally reveals the eligibility list between November 6th and the 15th.

Obviously we know that high profile films from studios and animation houses like Pixar (Incredibles 2), Disney (Ralph Breaks the Internet), Warner Animation (Smallfoot, Teen Titans Go!), Fox Searchlight (Isle of Dogs), Universal (The Grinch), Sony Animation (Into the Spider-Verse, Hotel Transylvania 3), Aardman (Early Man -- which was just nominated for the European Film Awards), and Paramount (Sherlock Gnomes) will be hoping to snag one of the five coveted nominations but what of the lower profile titles? History suggests that one or two of them could muscle their way into the shortlist ahead of an arguably less inspiring American option...

Click to read more ...

Middleburg: "Ruben Brandt" Collects and "Widows" Thrills

Day two of the Middleburg Film Festival

Friday kicked off with a special "sneak" of Stan & Ollie (which, more on tomorrow) and then two more movies which went like so...

Ruben Brandt, Collector
From the opening shot of this animated film from Hungary you know you're in for an idiosyncratic lark. We're humorously crosscutting between an ultra fast moving train and the molasses crawl of a snail on the tracks. Then we're inside the train with Ruben Brandt, a famous psychotherapist who is promptly attacked by a little girl with a very sharp bite who is dressed suspiciously like Diego Velázquez's  "Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress". I say 'dressed like' because it's hard to make the connection at first...

Click to read more ...

Posterized: Warner Animation and "Smallfoot"

by Nathaniel R

The animated comedy Smallfoot opens today. It has a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, so a mixed response from critics but we expect audiences will like it since they're not always so picky about animated films. Plus the concept is cute and there are lots of big stars to promote it.

Let's take a quick visual perusal of Warner Brothers theatrical animated films. Warner Brothers is such a massive corporation that their subsidiaries are legion and "Warner Animation" as it is now is not exactly like "Warner Bros Animation" of the 1990s or what not but you catch the drift. The various animated subsidiaries of Warner Bros tend to have specialized in TV animation and direct-to-dvd titles which is one of three key reasons that the company has yet to land an Oscar nomination in the Best Animated Feature Film category. The second reason is quality. And the final reason is just bad luck. Surely their best film The Iron Giant would have been nominated had the category existed in 1999. And the snub of exceedingly clever blockbuster The Lego Movie ...well everything was NOT awesome when that happened, don't you agree?

How many of their 12 theatrically released animated features have you seen? The posters are after the jump...

Click to read more ...