Which of these animated films take the fifth spot in the Oscar race?

by Nathaniel R

Our final Oscar predictions continue with Animated Feature. Though we've learned never to wholly trust consensus in this race (that shocking omission of The Lego Movie!) we're assuming that Spider-Verse, Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs and Ralph Breaks the Internet will be nominated. One spot is free. 

In Ye Olden Times (i.e. a couple of years ago before Oscar opened this category up to all voters, instead of just animators) we'd assume that that would be it for the mainstream titles and we'd also get Early Man (animators love Aardman films) or Japan's Mirai in there. But under the new rules we have to assume that The Grinch is a strong possibility since it's a massive hit (#7 of the whole year). But will anyone really put it at #1 on their ballots with Incredibles 2 (even more successful and more beloved) right there for the taking? Ruben Brandt Collector is memorable and stands out from the foreign pack in aesthetics but a qualifying release only was a bad move on Sony Pictures Classics part and it likely won't have been widely seen enough to garner many votes. Early Man didn't have the impact that Aardman films usually have (it's the lowest grossing of their features) so we're going with Mirai since it hails from a respected filmmaker, it honors Japan's robust industry, and it was boosted by that Golden Globe nod.

Related:
Animated Oscar chart | Reviews of Other Longshot Contenders Not Listed Above: MFKZ, Tito and the Birds, On Happiness Road, The Night is Short Walk on Girl, and Lu Over the Wall

Can You Ever Forgive the Box Office?

by Nathaniel R

Dear readers, we don't know why we relay the box office charts each week because they can be depressing. Films that should be giant hits are not and vice versa. With great regularity. We've learned to adjust our expectations so that now films that seem like giant hits made for adults are actually just modest hits if you compare them to year's past and so on. But for what it's worth here are this week's charts... 

Weekend Box Office Estimates (Nov 9-11)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1  Dr Seuss the Grinch $66 on 4141 screens *NEW* Posterized	1 🔺 Can You Ever... $1.4 on 391 screens (cum. $3.6) Review, Podcast

Click to read more ...

Posterized: Dr. Seuss and "The Grinch"

by Nathaniel R

The children's book author Dr. Seuss (also known as Theodore S. Geisel) is such an icon part of popular culture that he's even had his own postage stamp. But did you know he was also a screenwriter? In addition to the screenplay of the fantasy family film The 5000 Fingers of Dr T (1953) he wrote the script for the Oscar winning documentary Design for Death (1947) which was a documentary about Japanese and what led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Far outside the wheelhouse that was! But mostly when it comes to the screen when we think of Dr Seuss we think of the once-perennial TV airings of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

 The bulk of screen adaptations of Dr Seuss's work have been in the short film format which makes sense, given the short visual books he wrote. Of the many shorts based on his work the following were all nominated for Oscars: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943), And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1944), Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950 - OSCAR WIN), and Gerald McBoing! Boing! on Planet Moo (1956). One short based on his work,  Daisy Head Mayzie (1995), was Emmy nominated.

But with the release of The Grinch (2018) today, let's look back on all the feature films (and the three most prominent TV specials) that are Dr Seuss related. How many have you seen and will you be seeing The Grinch? The posters are after the jump...

Click to read more ...