59 days til nominations. Time for a little Disney trivia

by Nathaniel R

Disney won every single short category plus Documentary Feature at the 1953 OscarsWith 59 days left until Oscar nominations, it seems an appropriate time to remind everyone that it's not Meryl Streep (20) or Woody Allen (24) or even John Williams (50) who holds the record for Most Oscar Nominations of All Time, but industry titan and one of the most influential people who ever lived: Walt Disney. His fingerprints... or mouse glove prints if you will, are still all over showbiz, especially the business part. But we're here to talk Oscar. He received an incredible 59 competitive Oscar nominations, winning 22 of those races.

So in addition to holding the record for most nominations, he also holds the record for most wins. The last of those nominations and wins was his only posthumous honor -- Winnie Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) took the Animated Short Oscar (then called "Best Short Subject, Cartoons")...

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The 2017 Animated Contenders: "The Girl Without Hands"

by Tim Brayton

Last week, we took a look at Loving Vincent, a stunningly gorgeous animated feature taking its aesthetic cues from traditional fine arts; and this week, we're doing the same thing. Though the style in the French The Girl Without Hands is quite a long way from the rich oil portraits of Loving Vincent. Now, the inspiration is (or anyway, appears to be) Chinese ink wash painting, the art of sketching out characters and settings in a few swift, bold brush strokes with strongly-colored ink. The results deserve the same praise: this is, visually, one of the most distinctive, special, and unusual piece of cinema released this year.

This time around, the film has a narrative that can stand up to its style. The Girl Without Hands is a fairly straightforward adaptation of the Grimm fairy tale, about a young woman (voiced by Anaïs Demoustier) whose miller father (Olivier Broche) unwittingly promises her to the Devil (Philippe Laudenbach) in exchange for a river of endless gold...

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The 2017 Animated Contenders: "Loving Vincent"

by Tim Brayton

Last week, we got word of the 26 films declared eligible for Best Animated Feature at the 90th Academy Awards. That means it's time for the Film Experience's not-quite-annual look at some of the animated contenders that don't have the high profile and financial backing of a big studio affair like Coco or Despicable Me 3. Some of these might possibly be within hunting distance of an Oscar nomination; some, sad to say, won't have a chance in hell. But they're all worthy of attention.

I picked our first subject, Loving Vincent, for no particular reason other than because it's been one of my most-anticipated and because it's done quite well at arthouse theaters suggesting a good deal of interest. As such, it's with some qualified disappointment that I come to tell you all that it's... definitely not great.

 I certainly won't say it's bad. But it's kind of startlingly uninteresting as a narrative. So let's not start by talking about it as a narrative...

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26 Films Eligible for Oscar's "Best Animated Feature"

by Nathaniel R

Italy's "Cinderella the Cat" which is aimed at adults

Twenty-six films have been deamed eligible for this year's Animated Feature Oscar competition which means we'll have 5 nominees yet again (only 16 eligible features are required to trigger the maximum category size). The only mild surprise was that Leap!, Nut Job 2, and Spark were not submitted --usually, even if an American picture doesn't have a prayer in hell, the studios will submit it anyway. This year the rules are slighly different for the category as people that aren't within the animated branch can also take part in the nominating process. Consider this year a test to see if this new rule crowds the little seen but artful deserving foreign titles, that the category has become known for, out of the race. We fear that it might though we're currently predicting business as usual (three US pictures, two foreign) anyway...

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Sneak Peek Review: Pixar's “Coco”

Jorge Molina reporting from Mexico where Coco has already opened...

The main thing that unifies all Pixar movies (and a big part of what makes them so successful) is how deeply they are rooted in specificity. A movie set in the world of toys, in the world of bugs, in the world of monsters, of superheroes, of cars.

But in all their movies until now, this very specificity has been universal. We’ve all had to let go of toys, and feared monsters, and wanted to become superheroes. With Coco, Pixar dives into their first film that is truly specific, based around a world, a culture and a folklore that only exists for one particular group of people.

A group of people that I happen to be part of...

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