Jack’s Award Focus: 19 Animated Films up for Oscar Consideration
Several Academy members after marathoning cute wisecracking cartoon animal movies.
Following on the heels of the many foreign films up for consideration by the AMPAS, we now can consider nineteen different titles in the Best Animated Film category, including big titles such as Despicable Me 2 (the highest grossing non-Marvel movie of the year so far) and Monsters University.
Some years may have more entries than others, but what’s interesting is that there are films up for consideration that have not been released yet – this shouldn’t seem unusual, due to how the foreign considerations seem to work, but when one considers how the committee on deciding and narrowing the films looked at films they may have not seen yet is sort of remarkable.
And as in past years, films may also be up for consideration in other categories, such as best screenplay or even best picture (Toy Story 3 and Up are previous bread-winners of such nominations, though of course they are quite rare – before Up only Beauty and the Beast had such an honor, though screenplay nominations are not un-common), provided they meet requirements.
All films, including the ones not released yet but in the coming weeks in the US, must have at least a one-week qualifying run in Los Angeles to be considered at the Oscars. And also of note, according to the press release on these pre-nominations, is that there have to be at least eight animated films released in a calendar year in Los Angeles County in the US in order for an Animation category to be “activated” as it is.
For me, the category will likely be wittled down to mostly the big titles - Despicable Me, Pixar, maybe Epic and The Croods will be represented – with room for perhaps one or two titles that are more independent like The Legend of Sarilla. The Wind Rises, Hayao Miyazaki’s reported swan song, would be a strong contender just on principle of the man’s talents, or for a cuter selection Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs too (the only title curiously absent, to my knowledge, is Studio Ghibli’s other offering, From up on Poppy Hill, unless if that was somehow in consideration last year).
Here’s the full list of nominations. Let us know in the comments below what you would like to see nominated or even win. The nominees will be announced the morning of January 16th, the awards on the night of March 2nd.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2”
The Croods”
Despicable Me 2
Epic
Ernest and Celestine
The Fake
Free Birds
Frozen
Khumba
The Legend of Sarila
A Letter to Momo
Monsters University
O Apóstolo
Planes
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie – Rebellion
Rio: 2096 A Story of Love and Fury
The Smurfs 2
Turbo
The Wind Rises”
