Welcome to this year’s edition of Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, where we will break down each of the 23 categories, analyze the films, and make some guesses at their awards prospects.
Best Animated Feature
The nominees are:
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Last year, we talked about a potential changing of the guard in an Animated Feature category that has long been dominated by Disney and Pixar. Netflix was finally able to break the near stranglehold those two giants of animation have had on the category, taking Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio all the way to the win. But, still, let’s take a look at the last 11 years of winners by studio:
2012 - Pixar
2013 - Disney
2014 - Disney
2015 - Pixar
2016 - Disney
2017 - Pixar
2018 - Sony
2019 - Pixar
2020 - Pixar
2021 - Disney
2022 - Netflix
Obviously, one year does not a trend make. But two? Now, that would be a story. There is no Disney nominee this year. Pixar is back in the running with Elemental, and Netflix has returned to defend its crown with Nimona.
But, what’s that little blip in 2018? It’s Sony, the only studio to prevent Pixar and Disney from an unbroken 10-year streak of dominance. And, wouldn’t you know it, Sony is at it again with a sequel to the very film that took home that Oscar. If Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse can follow up on Netflix’s win last year, then maybe we can really start talking about that changing of the guard as more than just theoretical.
The Boy and the Heron
If this is legendary director Hayao Miyazaki’s swan song, then he has pulled out all the stops. The opening sequence, depicting a hospital fire and the surrounding chaos, is one of most beautifully executed scenes of the year, animated or live action. That said, there is an element of Miyazaki bingo to this film, right down to the gaggle of old grannies, the prominence of the natural world, and the protagonist’s journey to a strange, unknown land. By the end, it feels as if Miyazaki is reaching for something quite profound. I’m not sure he gets there, but maybe he’s simply reaching beyond me.
Elemental
Take this however you want, but I would call Elemental mid-tier Pixar. Now, Pixar is one of the great American movie studios of all time, so its middle tier can stand alongside just about anybody else’s top tier. And, undoubtedly, worse Pixar movies than this have won this very prize.
This Romeo and Juliet story of a fire person and a water person (it’s a city of elements, you see) falling in love is sweet and lovely to look at and has some interesting ideas about being the child of immigrants. Still, there is an emotional richness lacking here that can be found in abundance in the studio’s best work. I am, perhaps, being a little too harsh – especially since I enjoyed this movie – but such are the perils of setting the bar so high.
Nimona
From what I can tell, this film makes a lot of people feel very good and very seen. That’s great. Everyone deserves to see themselves at the movies. I celebrate that fully. It didn’t work for me. It’s great to see gay love stories on screen. We need more of them. But, this movie is at once too complicated and too simple for its own good.
It follows a commoner who becomes a knight and falls in love with another knight before he is framed for regicide and goes into hiding, where he meets a little girl who is excited by the prospect of villainy because she is secretly a shapeshifter who has been outcast from society. Confused yet? That’s not the half of it.
There’s a nice message in here, but the plot mechanics are working overtime to keep the audience involved when a deeper connection to the characters would have worked just as well. I also found the animation itself unpleasant to look at, but I’m sure there’s an animation expert out there who can tell me why I’m wrong.
Robot Dreams
When I tell you the two films I cried the hardest at this year were this and All of Us Strangers, you will understand that this is a five-hanky tearjerker. This wordless tale of a dog and his robot companion touches on themes of loneliness, isolation, love, loss, and grief, all while reclaiming Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September” as the out-and-out banger it so clearly is.
I attended an advance screening of this film where director Pablo Berger spoke and answered questions afterward. One audience member stood up and said that he had been through a devastating breakup recently and that this movie healed him. It seemed as though Berger may have heard similar things at other screenings. It’s not hyperbole. It’s a truly powerful little story, and if not for a certain superhero, this would absolutely be competing for best in show in this category.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
And, what do you know? Here’s a certain superhero now. Into the Spider-Verse, the Oscar-winning first film in this series, was a phenomenon that took everyone by surprise. We’d rarely seen animation like that. The complexity of the storytelling was unparalleled. The diversity of the cast was commendable. It was a true work of art, which meant expectations for this followup would hover somewhere around the top of the stratosphere. How could any sequel live up that kind of reputation?
Well, Across the Spider-Verse not only lives up to it but surpasses it in nearly every respect. The storytelling is even more complex. The cast of characters is even deeper. And, the animation is some of the finest computer-generated imagery ever produced. It is a triumph. If there is one flaw, it is that this is half a movie, doing quite a bit of table setting for the chapter to come, but it is possible to overlook that flaw when the rest of the work is so transcendent.
The final analysis
Some voters may feel compelled to recognize Miyazaki for his final film. It’s also his biggest domestic hit by a country mile, and that’s not nothing. Still, it seems unlikely that anything is going to take down Spidey. Sony has a cultural force on its hands with these movies, and not even the combined forces of Miyazaki, Pixar, and Netflix, not to mention a robot with a dream, are going to stand in the way.
Will win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Should win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Should have been here: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
A note about my favorite snub: Director Jeff Rowe’s Mutant Mayhem is so much fun. I’m not saying it’s high art, though the animation style is tremendous, but it has the gonzo energy of a Lord and Miller production like The LEGO Movie or The Mitchells vs. the Machines. All popular entertainment should be this exciting and strange.
No comments:
Post a Comment