Countdown to the Oscars: Best Animated Feature

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.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Animated Feature

The Last Cinema Standing Countdown to the Oscars is your guide to the Academy Awards. We will cover each of the categories in depth, talk about history and what the award truly means, and predict some winners. Check back all month as we make our way to the big show, one category (each as important as the next) at a time.

Best Animated Feature

The nominees are:

Encanto

Flee

Luca

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Raya and the Last Dragon

The Oscar for Animated Feature is in its 21st year, and a sameness is beginning to fall over the category. A couple studios – one studio, if we are being really honest – take up all the air in the room, and the rest are left to fight for scraps. The films nominated this year range from good to great and include one flat-out masterpiece, but the systemic problem remains.

Looking at the numbers, in the 20 years prior to this year, Pixar Animation Studios has garnered 15 nominations and 11 wins, more than half of all Animated Feature Oscars. One of the years it lost, it lost to itself (last year, when Soul bested Onward). DreamWorks Animation has had 13 nominations and two wins, while prior to this year, Disney has been responsible for 11 nominations and three wins. Combined, those three studios – and Disney now owns Pixar – represent 80 percent of all wins in the category. It is not a coincidence that they are three of the biggest animation brands in the world.

One could argue that makes them the class of the animation world and that they are, therefore, deserving of the accolades. In many cases, this may be true, particularly when it comes to some of the Pixar winners. However, what we are really talking about is money. These movies have big budgets, they make boatloads of money at the box office, and their studios can afford pricy awards campaigns. It is often by pure luck an independent animated film is produced at all.

Which brings us to the newest player in the animated feature game: Netflix. Three years running now, Netflix has had a nominee in the category, and I expect the streaming service to continue to compete for this award as long as it has interest in doing so. In the previous two years, Pixar has taken home the prize (Toy Story 4 and Soul), but the Pixar entry this year might be the least likely winner, while the Netflix film has a real chance. Perhaps, this is a changing of the guard, but it feels pretty lateral, as Netflix simply represents another major studio with nothing but money to throw at the problem of winning this award. 

Encanto – One of two Disney nominees this year, Encanto caught fire over the holidays as soon as it dropped on Disney+, and it has not looked back. The conversation about the film stretches beyond its chart-topping soundtrack and ear-wormy No. 1 hit single. Viewers are responding to its tale of generational trauma and forgiveness. Its cultural specificity has brought it much love from the communities it depicts, and its universal themes of love and acceptance have brought audiences from around the globe to this movie.

Set in Colombia, Encanto centers around a young girl, Mirabel, who tries to keep her magical family intact as their magic runs out. They have suffered greatly in the past, and the family matriarch will do anything to prevent them from suffering again, even if her actions threaten to tear them apart. It is beautifully directed by Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Charise Castro Smith and features amazing songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a stellar voice cast led by Stephanie Beatriz and María Cecilia Botero.

Flee – Encanto would be the best nominated film in most years, but this year, that distinction belongs to this Danish documentary about escaping a war-torn Afghanistan. Flee is the first film ever to be nominated in all three of the Animated, Documentary, and International Feature categories at the Oscars, and there could not be a more deserving film to hold that honor. From director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Flee is an absolute marvel, the flat-out masterpiece I referred to above.

The movie uses animation to bring to life the story of horrors and bravery told by its subject, Amin, whose true identity is withheld to protect him and his family. As a gay boy growing up in Afghanistan at the start of the revolution, the dangers are many for Amin and his family, and animation makes these threats visceral. We do not have to imagine Amin’s terror. We are allowed to see it, in full color, in a way that puts us right there with our true-life hero.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines – The cool-kid pick, directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe and produced by the Into the Spider-Verse team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, this is a movie by film lovers, about film lovers, and for film lovers. It is a family comedy dressed in the garb of a techno-apocalyptic action-adventure film. If that sounds like it crosses a lot of genres, it certainly does, and it does basically all of them well.

The film follows the titular Mitchell clan as they attempt to survive a Terminator-style rise of the machines. The main character, Katie (voiced by Abbi Jacobson of Broad City fame), is an aspiring filmmaker looking to break away from her family and become her own person. The general beats of the story will be familiar to anyone who has watched a lot of coming-of-age stories directed at kids, but the joy of the film lies in its specifics and its attention to detail. Not to mention, the animation is absolutely breathtaking.

Luca – The Pixar entry this year, directed by Enrico Casarosa, Luca is a lovely little story of boyhood and friendship and being yourself but which feels like it came out about a hundred years ago. Released in June 2021 on Disney+, Luca did what so many streaming films and shows do: It dominated the conversation for about a week after it was released, then quickly vanished as the cycle of conversation on the internet moved on.

That is no fault of or knock on the film, but rather an indication of the direction the movie industry is going, even as we transition out of the pandemic – or potentially into the next phase of it. Ten years ago, Luca would have been released wide on 3,000 screens, it would have made $200 million, and it would have been talked about and celebrated for months. We don’t live in that world anymore, and it is hard not to be a little nostalgic for a time when a good film would find an audience and generate real buzz.

Raya and the Last Dragon – This is the other Disney film in the bunch, and it came out even before Luca, released to theaters in March 2021, right as vaccines started rolling out and cinemas started to reopen. It made a little more than $130 million, and in another time, probably would have been a bigger hit. That said, directors Carlos López Estrada and Don Hall walk a fine line with the film’s story, and it does not always work.

Where Encanto succeeds in placing its story in a specifically Colombian context, Raya and the Last Dragon stumbles in attempting to be all things to all people. It is set in a fictional, vaguely East Asian land that is some parts Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and in that lack of specificity, it loses sight of the themes it truly wants to explore. The voice cast, including Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina, is fun, and the action is well executed, but one wishes the filmmakers had had a little more courage in their convictions.

The final analysis

Unless Flee can rally a lot of broad Academy support and sneak up from behind to take the prize, this really comes down to two movies: Encanto or The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Encanto is the movie of the moment, popular with everyone and very much in the zeitgeist right here and right now. The Mitchells vs. the Machines, on the other hand, taps into that part of the Academy that loves to reward artists for talking about artists. 

In the past nine years, only once has the Animated Feature Oscar gone to a studio other than Disney or Pixar. That was in 2018, when Into the Spider-Verse beat out The Incredibles 2 (Pixar) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney), so Lord and Miller know a little about beating the House of Mouse. Still, Encanto is everywhere, and it is catching fire at the perfect time with ballots in voters’ hands. Netflix will get this Oscar someday, but for now, Disney is king of the animated castle.

Will win: Encanto

Should win: Flee

Next time: Best International Feature

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Animated Feature

Zootopia is nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Animated Feature

The nominees are:

Kubo and the Two Strings

Moana

My Life as a Zucchini

The Red Turtle

Zootopia

Best Animated Feature is a studio game, plain and simple. This is the 16th year since the category became official at the Oscars, and in that time, there have been 64 nominated features. Of those 64, 31 have come from just three studios – Pixar (Disney Pixar), Disney, and Dreamworks. Of the 15 winners, not counting this year of course, those three studios have accounted for 12. The boom in independent animation has been wonderful for the industry, but if you want to win an Oscar, come with big boys or don’t come at all.

This year represents one of the few times Pixar had an eligible feature (Finding Dory) that failed to get a nomination, but Disney made up for it with a double nomination (Zootopia and Moana). Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli earned its sixth nomination with its first non-Japanese production (The Red Turtle), and Laika picked up its fourth nomination (Kubo and the Two Strings) for its fourth film, a perfect record that so far has produced zero wins. French-Swiss co-production My Life as a Zucchini is the only independently produced nominee, and not coincidentally, it is the least likely winner.

*Note: Full disclosure, I have not yet seen My Life as a Zucchini, which will not be released here until Feb. 24, two days before the ceremony. I will write about it in this space once I have had the opportunity to see it.

Zootopia (directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore) – Zootopia has been the animated movie of the moment pretty much the whole year. Its clever examination of race relations and prejudice teaches viewers a valuable lesson, and it is also undeniably entertaining and hilarious. Released early in 2016, as the U.S. presidential election truly was beginning to ramp up, it felt important and relevant then, and it has only grown more so as events in this nation have unfolded.

The film not only forces us to question our preconceived notions and biases, but it also wants us to question who benefits from those biases and how those people build systems that reinforce and worsen prejudice. Of course, this is all done in the style of a computer-animated talking-animal movie in which an adorable bunny (a bunny is allowed to call another bunny “cute,” but another animal …) realizes her dream of becoming a police officer.

The writing is smart, the animation is inspired, and the message is moving and necessary. Given all that – and the fact it has been a dominant and beloved force all season – you are probably looking at your winner. It would be the third non-Pixar Disney winner in the last four years, joining Frozen and Big Hero 6, and fifth straight from either Pixar or the parent company. Howard is a previous nominee for Bolt and Moore for Wreck-It Ralph, while nominated producer Clark Spencer will be making his first trip to the Oscars.

Moana (directed by Ron Clements and John Musker) – Of course, I will be rooting for the other Disney nominee in the category. If Best Animated Feature existed in the ’90s, Clements and Musker probably would already have a couple Oscars for The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, both of which they also directed together. As it stands, their only previous nomination together came in 2009 for The Princess and the Frog, which lost to Pixar’s crowning achievement, Up. Clements earned a solo nomination for Treasure Planet in 2002, though that feature was also co-directed by Musker.

Moana is the story of a young Polynesian girl, Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho), torn between duty to her people and an insatiable desire to explore the world beyond her island. When the island is threatened by a curse that will wipe out all life, she sets out to find the demigod Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) and, with his help, end the curse. As a tale of a young girl’s strength, wisdom, and independence, it is revolutionary in the Disney canon, encouraging traits in a young girl rarely encouraged by the movies or, sadly, by the world at large.

Beyond that, it is a terrific entertainment with the most gorgeous animation of the year – particularly the water effects, which are remarkable – and one of the best, most listenable Disney soundtracks in a long time. The songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i, and Mark Mancina are endlessly hummable, instantly memorable, and in the case of the showstopper “How Far I’ll Go,” out-and-out brilliant. The voice acting is on point, and the world of the story is absolutely engrossing. As I have said before, this is not only the best animated film of the year but one of the best films of the year, period.

Kubo and the Two Strings (directed by Travis Knight) – Where I find myself in the minority with my unabashed affection for Moana, I also find myself in the minority with my muted appreciation of Kubo and the Two Strings. Along with Zootopia, Knight’s stop-motion film gobbled up the lion’s share of critical kudos and has been talked about as the most likely spoiler in this category. Only the second animated film ever nominated for Best Visual Effects, the animation is undoubtedly gorgeous to look at, but on a story level, the film does not hold up.

Kubo and the Two Strings is a story of magic, tradition, and family, but the film’s default setting for communicating each of these ideas is action – action, action, and more action. Again, I would never deny Knight, who is also president and CEO of Laika, and his team bring their vision to life in a stunning fashion. Every sequence is magnificently realized and lovingly detailed. In between action sequences, though, the story bogs down, seemingly unsure what to do with itself when not engaged in a battle of some sort. As such, whatever message the film is trying to communicate is lost in the morass of combat.

The Red Turtle (directed by Michael Dudok de Wit – The story goes Studio Ghibli co-founder and animation legend Hayao Miyazaki met with the head of Wild Bunch studio and screened the Oscar-winning animated short Father and Daughter. He then asked Wild Bunch to find him that director. That was in 2008, and after finding Dudok de Wit and convincing him to make a film for the studio, the world got The Red Turtle.

A marvel of hand-drawn animation, Dudok de Wit’s style is recognizably his own, while still maintaining that certain Studio Ghibli charm, no doubt aided by the presence of nominated producer Toshio Suzuki. The plot, such as it is, follows the life of a man who gets shipwrecked on a deserted island and makes a life for himself there. To reveal anything further would be to dispel some of the film’s magic, though the trailer does a pretty good job of that anyway. The Red Turtle is intentionally slow and contemplative, but even at 80 minutes, it feels long, like a magnificent short idea stretched out to feature length.

My Life as a Zucchini – *See note above

The final analysis

Zootopia is the juggernaut here, the billion-dollar grosser from one of the biggest studios in the world. It won the Golden Globe and the Producers Guild award for animated feature, and it has picked up numerous critical accolades. Kubo and the Two Strings is the underdog from the little stop-motion studio that could. Its triumph at the BAFTA Awards over Zootopia and Moana certainly raises questions for the Academy. Could this be the year Laika finally breaks through? I wouldn’t bet on it. Expect Disney’s recent run of dominance to continue, though not necessarily for its best new film.

Will win: Zootopia

Should win: Moana

Should have been here: Finding Dory

Tomorrow: Best Animated Short

New movie review: Inside Out

Joy takes the wheel in Inside Out, the new film from Pixar Animation Studios.

Pixar Animation Studios has been around for 20 years and 15 films now. A new Pixar movie is reason enough to be excited as a few of the studio’s films belong in the conversation for the best of the last two decades – Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3 are firmly on this level. Even still, the description of Inside Out, which opened in theaters this week, had me practically vibrating with anticipation. Up helmer Pete Docter is back in the director’s chair for a look at life from inside the mind of a young girl.

This movie has been on my radar for years, and there are certain problems that come up when expectations run so high for so long, not the least of which is a genuinely great film falling short of those absurdly high expectations. For me, that is the case with Inside Out. I cannot look at it objectively. My mind has built up for years everything this movie could be, everything I wanted it to be, and though it is not those things, it is my fault, not the creators’.

Told from the point of view of a little girl’s emotions – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear – Inside Out is about the pain and poignancy of growing up and how embracing life means appreciating the highs and the lows. The film is bold, visionary, and on point. It will play like gangbusters to its target audience – which is children, by the way, regardless of the rapturous praise bestowed on the film by adult critics – and it communicates an essential life lesson creatively and simply.

The girl is Riley, whose family moves from rural Minnesota to San Francisco as her father tries to start a new company, presumably in the tech industry. She has to start a new school, a situation in which Fear (voiced by Bill Hader) is working overtime. She adjusts to a new house, which Disgust (Mindy Kaling) is all over. She resents being brought halfway across the country away from everything she has ever known, which is when Anger (Lewis Black) takes over. Through it all, Sadness (Phyllis Smith) touches everything it sees. Yet, the overriding emotion is Joy (Amy Poehler).

Inside Out is an ode to the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed optimism of youth and a plea to children everywhere to hold on to that outlook as long as they can. However, this is a knowing film, and the screenplay by Docter, Josh Cooley, and Meg LeFauve recognizes that growing up and getting just a little jaded is inevitable. Sadness is real, as are fear, anger, and disgust, and there is nothing wrong with feeling any of them. Each combines to make Riley who she is and to make us who we are.

The message is elegant, important, and not too far removed from similar themes in Up or Toy Story 3. Where the problem comes – and none of what I am about to say should distract from the fact that I think this is absolutely a must-see film – is in its plot, which revolves around Joy and Sadness trying to find their way back to the headquarters of Riley’s mind with the rest of the emotions.

As it progresses, the plot seems to exist less to develop the themes of the movie than to keep viewers’ attention while the themes develop around it. Joy and Sadness travel through Riley’s memories, imagination, and subconscious as Joy leads the way with an unending supply of hopefulness. In their journey, they meet Bing Bong (a sensational Richard Kind), Riley’s imaginary friend from childhood whom she no longer remembers, though he remembers her.

It is all great fun, there are a number of wonderful gags, and Bing Bong’s arc is deeply felt and emotionally satisfying. Yet, at its core, Inside Out just seems a little safe. The life of the mind is a massive amusement park with endless possibilities, particularly in animation, but Docter and company seem hesitant to go on the scariest rides.

There is an alternately delightful and suspenseful sequence in which our heroes travel through the Hall of Abstract Thought and begin taking on abstract shapes and dimensions themselves. Gorgeously rendered and brilliantly conceived, it is the kind of sequence the film could use more of, but I feel I am in the minority here and can understand why.

An existential journey through the labyrinth of the mind would be an impressive and daring feat of children’s filmmaking, but I cannot be sure many people would want to see it. Inside Out, as it is, is magnificently resonant and endlessly relatable. It argues that youth is a glorious time of innocence that is over far too soon. We watch as Riley’s memories literally fade away off the screen, and we are sad for her because we know what she is losing, but we are also sad for ourselves and the things we have lost and cannot recall.

The credits end with a simple, if impossible, plea from the filmmakers: “Dedicated to our children. Don’t grow up. Ever.” Of course, we all must grow up and grow old, but the spirit of the message is pure. If youth is joy, then it cannot hurt to keep joy at the wheel as long as we can. Because if we do, then no matter the destination, we are in for one amazing ride.

See it? Yes.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Animated Short

Best Animated Short nominee The Dam Keeper was directed by Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi.

Each day as we make our way to the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, Last Cinema Standing will take an in-depth look at each of the categories, sorting out the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Check back right here for analysis, predictions, and gripes as we inch toward the Dolby Theater and that world-famous red carpet.

Best Animated Short

The nominees are:

The Bigger Picture

The Dam Keeper

Feast

Me and My Moulton

A Single Life

Among the cooler, little-discussed trends in the last decade or so has been the resurgence of the animated short to accompany feature films. Major studios such as Dreamworks and Disney-Pixar have used their celebrated animated films to release equally impressive shorts, while the rise of digital animation has allowed smaller production houses to jump in the game with their own shorts.

John Lasseter, who oversees all of Pixar’s productions won his first Academy Award for Tin Toy, an animated short that was loosely adapted and expanded into Toy Story, which you may recognize as the film that launched the Pixar empire. Walt Disney, who won 22 Oscars, won 12 for Animated Short, including seven consecutive awards from 1934 to 1940.

Walt Disney Studios is in the mix once again this year, as it is almost every year, but a big studio is no guarantee of an Oscar anymore with talent from around the globe producing stunning work in a wide variety of animation styles. The nominees this year come from the U.S., the U.K., Norway, and the Netherlands. They range from just two minutes long to 18, but they all have something vital to say about the world we live in and how our interactions with people can have long-lasting effects.

The Dam Keeper (directed by Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi) – I am not certain how anyone could see this film and not name it the best animated short of the year. With no qualifier, this is one of my favorite films of 2014. In just 18 minutes, The Dam Keeper manages to tackle tough subjects such as loneliness, isolation, bullying, the environment, and forgiveness while still telling a touching story about friendship and featuring the most beautiful animation of this group.

In a world populated by anthropomorphic animals, a small pig operates a giant windmill that keeps a poisonous cloud of pollution from overrunning his village. Every morning, he wakes up and gets the windmill spinning to protect the town, then he heads to school, where he is physically and emotionally bullied by his classmates for not being as attractive or smart or popular as they. Despite the abuse from his peers and the indifference of his teachers and other adults, the pig performs his duties to preserve the lives of an ungrateful populace.

It is heady stuff for a cartoon, but it shows just how powerful these shorts can be, stoking feelings of rage, despair, and pain, all for the plight of this little human-like pig. Anyone who has ever been bullied like this knows what it is to feel like nothing you can do will ever make it stop, like the pain will never go away. It is a sad truth that many children live with every day, but most suffer in silence because they are convinced they deserve this, so they walk around invisible to everyone until they truly are gone. The Dam Keeper understands this, and that alone is worth celebrating.

Feast (directed by Patrick Osborne) – As the Walt Disney Studios entry this year, Feast was released to theaters to play before Animated Feature nominee Big Hero 6. It tells the story of one man’s life as seen through the eyes of his faithful, hungry dog. The animation is gorgeous, as one would expect from a Disney production, and the story is straightforward and touching.

Rescued from an alley by the man who becomes his owner, the dog sees the world through the lens of the table scraps and canned food he receives. As the man’s life changes, so does the dog’s food, for better and for worse. What is remarkable about this film is how effortlessly Osborne, working from a story by Nicole Mitchell and Raymond Persi, is able to tell a deeply affecting tale about depression in the background of one adorable dog’s never-ending feast.

A Single Life (directed by Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, and Job Roggeveen) – A brilliant little story that goes by in a flash, I only wish it were longer, but its brevity is the point. A woman receives a mysterious vinyl record. When she plays it, she finds that if she speeds up the record, she can fast forward through her life. If she plays it backward, she goes back in time.

It does not have the fanciest animation of the bunch, but it is clever, entertaining, and surprisingly poignant. In just two minutes of run time, Blaauw, Oprins, and Roggeveen lay out the case for stopping to appreciate the music rather than trying to skip ahead to the good parts because no matter how long it plays, the record will come to an end.

The Bigger Picture (directed by Daisy Jacobs) – Two bickering adult brothers argue over who will care for their dying mother. Though it is clear they were never close, the longer their mother clings to life, the wider the gap between the brothers grows. It is an honest, low-key examination of how strained family relationships can be altered by the death of a loved one, and its story will be familiar to anyone who has experienced a similar situation.

The immediately striking animation is among the most unique and innovative I have seen in recent years, as Jacobs uses six-foot-tall painted characters in life-size sets to tell her story. By filming on live sets, Jacobs imparts a tactile feel to the film that makes the world seem lived in and imperfect, while at the same time giving depth to the frame that is lacking in most non-computer-generated animation. The style is at first startling in its oddness, but ultimately, it is key to creating the reality of the story.

Me and My Moulton (directed by Torill Kove) – Me and My Moulton is about a girl who comes from “the weird family.” You know the one. They don’t dress like everyone else, eat like everyone else, or live like everyone else. For all intents and purposes, they are regular folks. They just seem odd to the outside world, and when you are a child coming of age, there is nothing worse than seeming odd to the outside world. They live above a “normal” family, and all day, the girl wishes her family were more like the downstairs neighbors.

The animation will remind some of children’s cartoons such as those you might find on PBS, and the story of learning to love who you are and where you come from certainly takes its cues from that style of cartoon as well. Kove is the only director in this group who is a previous nominee. She has three nominations in total, and she won this award for her 2006 animated short The Danish Poet, which employed a similar hand-drawn style. The Academy clearly likes her work, but Me and My Moulton is probably at the back of the line this year.

The final analysis

If anything other than The Dam Keeper or Feast wins this award, it will go down as one of the most shocking upsets of the night. The Dam Keeper is the most deserving on both a story and an animation level. Despite wins for big studios in the past, the Academy is rarely swayed by the big names behind a production in this category, usually awarding the best work – a novel concept, I know – but Feast would not be an unworthy winner.

The Bigger Picture won the British Academy of Film and Television award for short animation, but like Boogaloo and Graham in the live action short category, it did not compete there against any of the other Academy Award nominees. The innovation of The Bigger Picture may be enough to sway voters, and the film certainly has an emotional core, but this one probably comes down to the two American films in the lineup, The Dam Keeper and Feast.

Will win: The Dam Keeper

Should win: The Dam Keeper