Previewing the animated features of 2014

Tim here. It’s the last edition of my weekly animation essay for 2013, which would ordinarily be the best time for a year-in-review piece. However, the year has been so rough for animation (remember Escape from Planet Earth? Are you happy about that fact?) that it seemed better just to quickly move beyond it and pretend it didn’t happen. Let us instead look with clear eyes and hopeful hearts to the future, and take a quick preview of the animated features that will be scattered throughout 2014. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but if I missed anything big, feel free to point it out in comments.

Films to maybe hold out hope for:

-The Lego Movie (February 7). The concept, and the cameos by DC superheroes, scream “branding exercise”, but with Phil Lord and Chris Miller on-hand as writers and directors, there’s reason to be hopeful. The duo has gone 2-for-2 so far with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street, and that’s not a track record to idly dismiss. Besides, the trailer reveals that its laziest sins (a “Chosen One” narrative, celebrity voice cast) looks to be applied with a more playfully ironic touch than usual. And the random sense of humor looks different from the usual family fare, at any rate: the bit with Wonder Woman’s invisible jet gets me every time.

Dragons, Boxtrolls and more after the jump

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41st Annie Award Nominations

Tim here, with a quick bit of news: the International Animated Film Society has announced the nominees for the 41st Annie Awards. Unsurprisingly, it's heavily tilted towards big studio fare, with Despicable Me 2 dominating the list with eleven nominations, Monsters University and Frozen with ten nominations apiece, and The Croods just a breath behind with nine.

In the short categories (Best Animated Special Production, Best Animated Short), three of the films on the Oscar bake-off list made the Annies' cut: British TV special "Room on the Broom", the Canadian "Gloria Victoria", and Disney's tech-heavy new Mickey short, "Get a Horse!"

The full list of nominees is here. For now, I'll leave you with the nominations for Voice Acting, entirely men aside from Wiig. (The corresponding TV category is 100% male)

• Paul Giamatti as the voice of Chet - Turbo  
• Terry Crews as the voice of Earl – Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2  
• Kristen Wiig as the voice of Lucy – Despicable Me 2
• Steve Carell as the voice of Gru – Despicable Me 2  
• Pierre Coffin as the voice of Minions - Despicable Me 2
• Billy Crystal as the voice of Mike – Monsters University 
• Josh Gad as the voice of Olaf - Frozen

And the seven films in contention for Best Animated Feature:

• The Croods
• Despicable Me 2
• Ernest & Celestine
• Frozen
• A Letter to Momo
• Monsters University
• The Wind Rises

We can probably expect Oscar's list to consist of some combination of four or five of these.

The 2013 Animated Feature Oscar hopefuls

Tim here, officially taking over the Film Experience animation beat to share with everybody some news: the final list of 19 features submitted for consideration for the Best Animated Feature Film Academy Award has been announced. There's no guarantee that all 19 will end up qualifying - The Smurfs 2 is on the list, and there seems little reason to assume that it won't follow its predecessor in being disqualified - but as long as 16 make the final cut, we can look forward to 5 nominees in the category. Meaning that every animated feature released in the United States will have a 1 in 3.8 of receiving an Oscar nomination, which are not the most appropriate odds of receiving a prestigious, internationally prominent award.

We'll spend more time in the weeks to come going over all of these titles individually, but I thought it would be a good time to do some immediate sorting. Rather than just dumping the list on y'all, I decided to break it down into groups based on where the film came from and what its prospects might be going forward.

Frozen looks lock'ish

American studio releases with a good chance for a nomination
The Croods (DreamWorks Animation)
Despicable Me 2 (Illumination Entertainment)
Frozen (Walt Disney Animation Studios) - based on the recent wave of warm reviews, it's looking like the biggest lock of them all
Monsters University (Pixar Animation Studios)

American studio releases with little or no chance for a nomination
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (Sony Pictures Animation)
Epic (Blue Sky Studios)
Free Birds (Reel FX Creative Studios, dist. by Relativity Media)
Planes (DisneyToon Studios)
The Smurfs 2 (Sony Pictures Animation)
Turbo (DreamWorks Animation)

High-profile foreign productions with strong distributor backing
Ernest & Celestine (GKIDS)
A Letter to Momo (GKIDS)
The Wind Rises (Studio Ghibli/Disney)

O Apostolo is a stop motion feature from Spain

Foreign productions about which I know nothing
The Fake (South Korean, unknown distributor)
Khumba (dist. by Millennium Entertainment)
The Legend of Sarila (dist. by Phase 4 Films)
O Apóstolo (Spanish, unknown distributor)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Movie - Rebellion (dist. by Aniplex of America)
Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury (Brazilian, unknown distributor)

UPDATED OSCAR CHART

Links. The Top Three Best Whatevah!

Serious Film does an all time 5 best cinematography ballot. The best ever?  Hmmmm. Well they're all stunning at the very least
TFE Facebook my 3 favorite film scores off the top of my head. I was surprised as you to scribble John Williams there but what can you do. You give props when due. Yours?
The Film Stage Hayao Miyazaki's retirement is truly final this time (failing eyesight *sniffle*) and The Wind Rises gets an Oscar qualifying release
The Playlist Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac is now two films that will run five hours in total. UGH. I am exhausted by movies wanting to be TV series. Be your best self. Be a  MOVIE. 90-110 minutes is ideal! (Same goes for TV with unrelated stand-alone episodes. That's dumb. You're not a movie, be a TV series.)

Bloody Disgusting James Cameron loves Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity. Of course he does!
The Studio Executive is starting a snarky series on 'How to Be A Film Critic'. I don't qualify for the first three how to succeed suggestions (wealthy parents, influential friends, unethical bastard behavior) which only leaves me with the fourth (cock-sucking... also known as sleeping your way to the top), which I have no objection to. But no one famous/influential/wealthy willing to make my career has ever rung me up to ask. #shameless
Yahoo Movies new trailer to August: Osage County 
The Dissolve The Harry Potter world will continue on screen with a (presumably endless) spinoff series Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. For my reaction to this news, I can only share the brilliant tweet of another...

There has got to be a better way to get British actors work without having to give us more Harry Potter movies.

— Paolo Miguel Kagaoan (@paolocase) September 12, 2013

 

Must Read (If You Haven't Yet) 
What Was, Is, and Will Be Popular in the New York Times Magazine. A fascinating long read discussing the impossible to define notion of popularity in our fractured pop culture be it television, movies, music, opera, museums, or anything really. Candy bars, even! For example I seriously haven't even heard of the actress that they claim personifies modern TV fame (Pauley Perrette? Who dat?) and I don't know if you've heard but I like actresses a little. The essay has also got awesome sidebar goodies... did you know that "Bella" is the most popular name for both cats and bitches now? (Damn you Twilight). There's even a cute little point about 1000 "likes" on facebook putting some kind of artistic wind in your sails for struggling indie "popularity" in our fractured world, so The Film Experience is almost there. Like us.

Today's Awesomest Review
Cinematic Spectacle Lee Daniels' The Butler  review/reaction in gifs. I lol'ed and it's just so true. Also: perfect punchline.