I’m intrigued by the results of this weekend’s Annie Awards honoring the top animated films of the year. Up took home the two biggest prizes, for Best Animated Feature and Best Director, which was certainly to be expected. But it’s interesting to note that two other entries topped Up in overall wins with three: The Princess and the Frog (Animated Effects, Character Animation, and Voice Acting) and Coraline (Character Design, Music, and Production Design). Meanwhile, Fantastic Mr. Fox won the writing award.
Given that Up, Princess, Coraline, and Fox are all also nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar (along with surprise nominee The Secret of Kells), does this mean that this year’s Academy contest is actually closer than we think? I’m not so sure. It’s true that in the last two years, the Annies were dominated by one film (Ratatouille won 9 of the 10 feature-film categories two years ago, while Kung Fu Panda swept all 10 last year). But the Academy does seem to have a Pixar bent as of late: The company won the Oscar four out of the last six years, including last year, when WALL*E scored the trophy after going 0 for 7 at the Annies. Though the animation community was more divided this year, I fully expect the Academy (which nominated Up for Best Picture, after all) to hand Pixar its fifth win.
Image credit: Disney/Pixar
It’s really a shame too, since Mr. Fox was IMO the best animated film of the year. Up was just good, started off great, but lost me towards the end, and I feel they’ll win just because its Pixar, not because it’s a better movie. In a year where a Pixar film wasn’t competing, I think Mr. Fox would take home Oscar gold.
I very much agree about Up. The first 15-20 minutes of the movie are some of the most poignant I’ve ever seen and are completely masterful. The rest of the movie was operating at a much lower level and did not come close to achieving the same sort of emotional impact. Fantastic Mr. Fox, on the other hand, felt exiting and original to me the whole way through. I would love to see it get a win, even though I don’t expect it to happen.
I disagree. I preferred Up over Fantastic Mr. Fox. However, I thought the best animated film of last year was The Secret of Kells. The drawings in that film were amazing. They reminded me of Miyazaki (?).
2009 was a great year in general for animation on the big screen, but when it comes to Best Animated Feature, the award has to go to Up because it was the most complete animated film of the year. It didn’t go too over the top like Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox, nor did it feel like it pandered to its younger audience members like Princess and the Frog and a countless bunch of others did. Up was easily the most complete film of the bunch, and that’s why it will win the Oscar and give Pixar another great win.
I still can’t believe that Kung Fu Panda swept the Annie’s Last year. It boggles my mind, I mean it was a decent film, but better than Wall-e in every way (according to the Annie’s at least) I think not
What was so great about Wall-E? That movie bored me to tears. I can see why it didn’t win any Annie awards last year.
I really don’t care if you are one of the 20 people who didn’t like Wall-e. That doesn’t mean the slightly better than mediocre film Kung Fu Panda should have SWEPT and won 10 awards.
What was so great about Wall-E? Then what WAS so great about Kungfu Panda either?
Animated Effects went to PRINCESS AND THE FROG?? Over UP?!? That one scene of the balloons popping out and launching the house up should have won this award for Up alone, over the entire rest of P&tF. Then again, any award group that gives all its trophies to Kung Fu Panda over Wall*E is kind of not worth validating.
I think you just have a biased against 2D films.
Princess and the Frog was absolutely beautiful without “3D”!
Though I’d probably put my money on “Up”, I wouldn’t take the Best Picture nomination to mean that it’s a slam dunk.
I remember a few years ago, “Pan’s Labyrinth” won a few technical awards early on in the broadcast and had gotten a healthy number of nominations, which seemed to indicate it was favored by Oscar voters – only to lose “Best Foreign Language Film” to “The Lives of Others.”
“The Lives of Others” only had one nomination that year (Best Foreign Language Film). I could imagine “Fantastic Mr. Fox” sneaking in there and winning the Best Animated Feature award.
I think this was due more to the relevancy of “The Lives of Others” than anything else.
This has to do with the way the voting is done in Foreign Film. Most of the voters are older, retired men. They don’t really respond to films like Pan’s Labyrinth. I wasn’t surprised to see The Lives of Others win because it was much more relatable to the voters in that category.
Both of your points are well taken. (Although I didn’t know that the people voting for Foreign Language Film were apparently a bunch of socks-with-slipper-wearing Floridians.)
I was just saying that a major Oscar nomination for “Up” (meaning Best Picture) isn’t necessarily a guarantee that it’ll win its “subcategory” (Best Animated Feature) the same way “Pan’s” didn’t win its “subcategory” (Best Foreign Film).
Mindy, I think your comment on how voting works in Foreign Language might be flawed. I am not sure how the five nominees for the Foreign Language are determined from the single film per country semi-finalists, but I am pretty sure that all the Academy votes in all categories to determine the actual winner (slipper wearers or not). Therefore, every Academy voters would have had a choice to award Pan’s or Lives of Others. Perhaps they thought with being able to award Pan’s in other categories, they needed to show some love to Lives of Others in the Foreign Language category. Tough choice, though, in my opinion as both films deserved much praise.
RubyBaby,
I think you’re getting what I’m trying to say (in an admittedly convoluted way).
“Pan” was rewarded in other categories, so that may have contributed to “Lives of Others” getting the Foreign Film win…people wanted to reward it, and that was the only place. (I was actually upset and confused when “Pan” lost, but then I saw “Lives of Others” and it was ok.)
“Up” has a Best Picture nom (a semi-historic achievement in itself, since it’s only the second animated film to do so) as well as a handful of other nominations (including a likely win for Best Original Score). If Academy members want to show “Mr. Fox” some love, it’s not completely unbelievable to me that they’d give it the “Animated Feature” prize, since “Up” already has its “win” by being included in the Best Picture race.
That being said, I’d still put my money on “Up.’
There is a select group of voters that nominate films for Best Foreign Language Film and gives the award.
This group lost all their credibility last year when Kung Fu Panda swept the awards beating WALL-E in every category. Did that give Kung Fu Panda a shot to beat WALL-E at the Oscars? Heck no. Just as Up has nothing to fear from Princess and the Frog or Coraline. Heck, Pixar should be happy they even won any awards at all from this group.
Up is the best picture of the year. I am as annoyed as anyone when a company seems to dominate an award. But if anyone deserves to, it’s Pixar. Besides anyone who thought that Kung Fu Panda was better than WALL-E is smoking something disgusting. Foreign film needs an article more than animated film. Could there be a major article on animated films this past year, because they really kicked some major ass and proved that a “Best Animated Film” can also be the “Best Picture” I hope Up wins one of the two I really do that movie was perfect on all levels and I don’t think I would ever be able to trust a person who didn’t like it.
Up better win.
i saw “Mr.Fox” alone, I was the only person in the theater, such a shame it was a great movie. The visuals were beautiful.
Maybe some voters will think, “Oh, Up got a Best Pic nom so let’s give it to something else in animation because getting a BP nomination is rewarded enough.” But I don’t think there’ll be enough with that thought to see the animation Oscar go to, say, Fantastic Mr Fox (nice to see it get the Annie for writing). Nope, think it’s Up all the way.
PS: Should it really have been such a surprise to see Secret of Kells in the Oscar race given it had already scored a nom at the Annies? I would have thought there was some crossover between animation branch members at the Academy and those that put forward the nominations for Annies, or am I wrong?
I meant “reward enough” not rewarded! Must re-read comment before posting.
I think the average Academy voter has no idea what makes good animation and they just check off Pixar no matter what.
It does appear actors really like Fox but not enough to push it past Up.
You guys don’t seem to understand the voting process of the Academy Awards. There is a special group that votes for Best Animated Feature Film. There is another special group that votes for Best Foreign Language Film. There is another special group that votes for Best Documentary, etc. Usually these groups consist of voters within that category. For example, animators vote for Best Animated Feature Film. Documentarians vote for Best Documentary, etc. The only category where everyone votes is for Best Picture. That’s it. So there isn’t any “average Academy voter.”
Lee, I am not sure you are totally right, nor am I now sure of my understanding. It would be helpful, perhaps, as this comes up time again, if someone at EW could clarify?!!
I did find this info online however… “actors nominate the performances of actors, directors the work of directors, and so on through most of the categories. (There are a few — documentaries, foreign films, certain technical slots — that do things a bit differently to deal with the demands of a particular medium.) Then the entire organization votes on those nominations.” The reference to “entire” regarding the voting from nominations seems to say that all the Academy voters then get a chance to vote for the winners from the pool of five (or sometimes three) nominees across the categories.
Actually, Lee, you’re incorrect here. It’s true that each discrete branch of the Academy votes TO NOMINATE films only within their own field (and all vote to nominate Best Picture), but on the final ballot, all Academy members vote for all fields. There have been recently instituted rules that voters for the short films, docs (and maybe foreign language) have to have SEEN all the nominees at special Academy screenings in order to vote for those categories on the final ballot, but all Academy members are eligible to vote in every category if they follow those rules.
Fantastic Mr. Fox for thew win!
I loved “Up” and “The Princess and the Frog” and find it hard to choose between them. Both had great stories, and wonderful voice acting. I loved Up for its eye-popping visuals. I like “Princes” for its visuals, too, but also because the music was so wonderful. Tough choice.
Shouldn’t “9″ have gotten the Animated Effects award? The plot of that movie was pretty blah, but there was no denying how visually dazzling the animation was.
I loved this movie and whatever happens,happens. the 1st few min says a lot in this film. It’s something that I can enjoy as much as my kids and is my best picture for last year.