The list of animated films eligible for the Best Animated Film Oscar has been released, and 16 films are potential nominees:

The list includes lots of movies with talking critters: Disney’s “The Wild,” DreamWorks Animation’s “Flushed Away” and “Over the Hedge,” Paramount Pictures’ “Barnyard,” Sony Pictures’ “Open Season,” Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Ant Bully” and “Happy Feet” and 20th Century Fox’s “Ice Age: The Meltdown.”

>Other titles that made the cut include Disney and Pixar Animation’s “Cars,” Fox’s “Everyone’s Hero,” Sony’s “Monster House” and Universal’s “Curious George” as well as Warner Independent Pictures’ indie offering “A Scanner Darkly.”

Several films from abroad also qualified: Director Luc Besson’s “Arthur and the Invisibles,” set for release from the Weinstein Co. and MGM; Satoshi Kon’s “Paprika,” from Sony Pictures Classics; and Christian Volckman’s “Renaissance,” from Miramax Films.


That’s a lot of movies; more importantly, it’s a lot of CRAPPY movies, don’t you think?

1 COMMENT

  1. At least they have enough to fill out the category this year: Cars, Scanner Darkly, and Over The Hedge were all very good, and I have heard good things about Flushed Away and Monster House. If only the other categories had such a good ration of quality movies to rubbish.

  2. I’m a big booster for Scanner Darkly (which I’ve seen) and Renaissance (which I haven’t), if only to get away from the glut of 3D-animated dross we’ve been inundated with over the last decade. I hadn’t heard of Paprika ’til reading this post, but Satoshi Kon’s always making interesting stuff; his Tokyo Godfathers and Millenium Actress were both especially good, so I’m looking forward to this new release.

  3. Paprika and Renaissance were both fantastic. I got the chance to see them at this year’s Chicago International Film Fest and thought they were both great. Renaissance might win with more money from Mirimax behind it. , but Paprika never will. Quite odd and not enough marketing push.

    Other than those 2 and Scanner, that’s a pretty sad list.

  4. This frustrates me, not only because there’s such a crap-to-quality ratio, but also because A Scanner Darkly is getting the nod while Linklater’s 2001 rotoscoped masterpiece Waking Life was passed over in the very first year that the “Best Animated Feature” category existed, ostensibly because purists maintained that rotoscoping, especially the computer-aided kind they employ, isn’t “true” animation. (Nevermind that Disney has been rotoscoping since nearly day one.) I’ve still not had a chance to see Scanner, and I’m sure it’s pretty good, but still, what’s the standard?

  5. I don’t know, but as much as I liked Waking Life the animation in Scanner is much more… refined. As well, the film’s far more accessible than Linklater’s earlier effort. Friends who love Waking Life loved A Scanner Darkly and friends who despised Waking Life really enjoyed A Scanner Darkly. I haven’t actually run into anyone who didn’t like Linklater’s second try at rotoscoping (though I’m sure there’s plenty out there).

  6. >I’ve still not had a chance to see Scanner, and I’m sure it’s pretty good, but >still, what’s the standard?

    Well, honestly, there may not be a strict standard. When it comes to what movies from the long list get to the short list of actual nominations, that’s a matter of a bunch of individual opinions, and opinions change with time, after all.

    Way back then, WAKING LIFE was one of the films on the long list for the first Animated Feature Oscar, but didn’t get a nomination. In the intervening time, there have been plenty of folks who’ve declared that a travesty. So maybe there’ll some amount (perhaps on a subconscious level) of contrition involved with how SCANNER is viewed now. Certainly, lots of Oscar nominations (and awards) seem to be motivated as much by a ‘y’now-that-person’s-work-from-last-year-should’ve-been-nominated-but-wasn’t-I-can-make-it-up-to-him/her/them-by-voting-for-his/her/their-work-this-time’ feeling.

    Or maybe SCANNER won’t make it off this long list to get a nomination. We’ll know soon enough!