Academy Awards

Just the fact that the lineup for Best Animated Feature is so unusually strong and that the Pixar entry is actually rather unlikely to win makes me a lot more interested then I usually am for the Oscars.

Though it is admittedly also kinda cool to see a movie from my country be nominated for Best Picture, even if I am rooting for Everything Everywhere All at Once over it.

I'll just be over here, fantasizing over TGM winning Best Picture, even though that definitely won't happen. ...........

Edited by LDragon2 on Jan 24th 2023 at 1:00:58 AM

Does Avatar 2 count as animated? If so, it's an animated film that got a Best Picture nomination.

No, because it has live-action in it and more importantly doesn't have superheroes in it, which in the eyes of the Academy makes it a "real" movie that actually deserves their attention.

Edited by lbssb on Jan 24th 2023 at 4:45:37 AM

So does Marcel the Shell and it's considered animated.

Okay, yeah, no clue why Avatar passes but that doesn't. Actually, Avatar's probably more animated than Marcel.

Best Animated Feature, per Wikipedia, is given to:

Have not seen either so can't really weigh in on whether Marcel is committing category fraud or not. The same article links to a tweet by the director saying additional documentation "may" have been required to confirm that the film fell within those metrics.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 24th 2023 at 4:18:33 AM

I haven't seen Avatar 2 myself, but I would bet it meets that criteria. Huh. Avatar 2 got snubbed out of Best Animated Feature, I guess.

Apparently, most of the characters are stop motion-animated shells, so I guess that counts.

The qualifications for Oscar categories can be all over the place. Tron was famously shut out of Best Visual Effects because they saw the use of computer effects as "cheating". Then it became the industry standard and they quietly walked back on that.

It all comes down to what category they submit them. It's not up to the Academy to submit the movies to what categories, is up to the studios. They can move a nomination if it doesn't fit, albeit that normally only applies to actors (certain actors being submitted for actor or supporting but deciding they don't fit the requirements), but if it was never submitted in the category in the first place they won't move it.

As far as the Academy's rules go, any movie with certain amount of animation could qualify for the animated movie category. Yes, for all intents and purposes nearly any Marvel could qualify as an animated movie due to the amount of cgi they have.

Avatar isn't nominated as animated film, plain and simply because Disney didn't submit it as such.

Hmm... I think that would depend on how they qualify "a significant number of the major characters animated". Is that characters who are animated at any point in the films runtime, characters who are exclusively portrayed in animation, or is there a certain percentage of screentime needed to qualify as an animated character?

Avatar 2 seems like it might have more fully Mo-Cap characters than fully live-action characters, but most Marvel movies have the majority of their cast portrayed in live action for a good chunk of the film.

Honestly I think it's as simple as "James Cameron could have submitted as/campaigned for Best Animated Feature if he wanted to, but he's James fucking Cameron."

I'm pretty happy with the crop of animated films this year and probably would've been bummed if Avatar 2 had knocked one of them out when it was sure to be recognized in some other category.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 24th 2023 at 6:27:15 AM

As far as Best Animated Feature goes, I'm expecting either Del Toro's Pinocchio or The Last Wish to win, I'll be pleasantly surprised if Marcel or The Sea Beast win, and tbh I'll actually be a little disappointed if Turning Red wins. Turning Red was good IMO, but the rest were clearly just better (I will say that so far of the other nominees I've only seen The Last Wish and Marcel.)

Shorts.tv will be doing its usual theatrical release of the Oscar shorts nominees on February 17th. I go see the animated ones every year. They also include some runners-up to fill the program out to about 90 minutes.

The site has descriptions of the shorts and some clips.

I like what I see for Nominations.

The Whale should have gotten a Best Picture Nod, at the very least, and Brendan Fraiser deserves the Oscar for Best Male Lead. Easily.

Thats all I have to say for the Oscars, otherwise.

A lot of people are unhappy that Nope wasn't nominated.

The Academy looked at the film and said the title.

I've seen some suspicion that it's because the film's main themes are critical of aspects of the film industry and, more specifically, its treatment of animals.

But come on though, it should at least have been nominated for best sound or something. At the very least, it deserves a nomination for its technical achievements instead of a snub.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 30th 2023 at 5:17:13 AM

I’ve been wondering if maybe that’s why She Said was skipped, since it’s about the biggest film industry scandal in decades.

I'm shocked the Academy is snubbing a film that does'nt pander towards their tastes, shocked I tell you

There’s a part of me that wants to say Sci Fi Ghetto but then again two (arguably three) sci-fi movies got nominated for Best Picture this year so maybe not.

Their anti-horror bias is even bigger than their sci-fi one, unless you’re Silence of the Lambs. I think Nope deserved a sound design nom at the very least, probably script as well. Maybe acting nods for Palmer and Yeun, who I thought were great. But I’ve only seen a handful of the nominees so far.

Edited by Pseudopartition on Jan 30th 2023 at 4:00:55 PM

Mia Goth was also a pretty notable snub for Best Actress when it came to X and Pearl, but from my understanding, they weren't submitted to the Academy anyway.

Which actually makes its more notable because the last Peele/Kaluuya horror collab was recognized by the Academy. From my understanding though Nope was polarizing in general; it took me a couple days of thinking about it to really come around to it. And, you know, its main cast is all POC and it didn't explicitly try to make white people feel bad about things.

The journalist whom she did that interview with denied that on Twitter, saying he received awards screeners. What I guess they might not have done was actually give the films the full-schmooze awards push to keep them in the conversation.