Brown Blog Films

So, anyone planned their Oscars’ night party yet? No? What do you mean it’s become a bit of a non-event? And you can’t stand Hugh Jackman – even after his song and dance entrance last year?! (30 Rock fans will be delighted to know its Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin for next year)

Anyway, whilst listening to a run down of the best films of the year so far, the Oscars was mentioned and who is in the running for best picture. Now historically, animation has rarely had a look in but this year, a change of heart over at the Academy might just change that. Is this the year animation can catch the big prize?

A quick glimpse at the past winners and losers reveals that the first and only animated film nominated for Best Picture was Beauty and the Beast in 1991 (which was beaten by Silence of the Lambs). Last year, there wasn’t even a nomination for what i would consider one of the most critical and commercial animation successes in recent years, Wall-E, despite being nominated in 6 other categories. Incidentally, Wall-E and Beauty and the Beast tie for the most Oscar nominations for an animated feature. When it comes to Best Picture, animation and comedy seem to be the black sheep of the movie awards business – modern day juggernauts such as Braveheart, Titanic, Million Dollar Baby and last years Slumdog Millionaire are near shoo-ins.

Since 2001, the Academy introduced the Award for Best Animated Feature, won in its first year by Monster Inc…..oh…..Shrek. The masters of this award are (of course…) Pixar – all 7 animated features they have made since 2001 have been nominated and 4 of these have won. There seems to be two general opinions on this award – firstly, that the award shines the light on animation spurring on studios to invest in and produce more and more animated features with the knowledge that animated features nearly always do well in the box office. On the other hand conspiracy theorists and alike are convinced this is a fob-off award so they don’t have to be nominated for Best Picture (of course, the rules state that films could be nominated in both categories).

Animation producers riot at the Oscars, Mr Incredible, Baloo the Bear, Woody and 7 dwarfs all seen suspiciously leaving the scene

For the last 70 years, there have only been 5 nominees for Best Picture (last year, it worked out as a less than 2% chance of getting through). This year however, a new rule has been made for the category – the nominations will jump from 5 up to 10 films, a first since 1943. The official line is that this will bring the Oscars back to the golden days of the 1930’s & 40’s. The silent hope is that this will bring back the ratings after poor showings in recent years;-). It is a suspicious move considering that after last years event, the Academy took a lot of flak over Wall-E & the Dark Knight not being nominated (yet, good films as they may have been, The Reader and Milk did get the nod…). This can only be good news and surely animation will feature this year – UP (I am bit biased I must say…) or maybe Coraline?

A great example of Oscar PR courtesy of Pixar!

Despite never getting best picture nods, on the face of it, there do seem to be a lot of nominations for animated features – there’s quite a few with 3 or more – but invariably, they seem to be for best score/song/sound (I’m quietly OK with this as animated soundtracks are generally exciting, imaginative and innovative but knowing how much work goes into the animation side alone, it does seem like a sorry state of affairs). Best example I could find of this was The Lion King which received 4 nominations, 3 for Best Original Song and 1 for Best Original Score – OK, they won two Oscars but technically, thats all they were ever able to win! And not a mention of picture….

More promising is the fact that 5 animated films have scored Best Screenplay nominations (all of them Pixar films of course….Wall-E/Ratatouille/The incredibles/Finding Nemo/Toy Story). To me, that would suggest that Academy members do appreciate animation for something other than their technical achievements.  So maybe the Academy is finally copping on after ignoring The Jungle Book (didn’t even get best song for Bare Necessities….), Toy Story, The Iron Giant and fobbing off a host of others with best song awards. Or could this be the closest Ed Asner (well, kinda…) et al come to a gold statue?!

In other Oscar related news, this year there could be 5 nominees for Best Animation feature (as opposed to 3).  Again, it can only be a good thing.

Surely in these dark, depressing days of financial doom and gloom, something fun and bouncy should win Best Picture?? UP isn’t all smiles but I’m sorry, Jai Ho just don’t do it for me…..

PS – Dates seem to vary from place to place – some list them as the year of the actual show while some list them as when the film was actually released!  I’m not a Oscar buff so had to rely on the internet…and there lies my downfall