Best Picture (Animated)

Ok, the year isn't even over yet but I'm going to go out on a limb and make some predictions for best animated picture. As far as I know, all the likely candidates have already been released so I can make a year-end prediction in November.

Then I can worry about starting Christmas shopping.

There are five obvious candidates for the nomination, the CGI films, Robots, Madagascar and Chicken Little and the stop-motion films, Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromet: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Only three can be nominated. Wallace & Gromet seems like a shoe-in. Shorts featuring the same characters have already won two Oscars. I think that Corpse Bride will also be nominated on the basis of its stunning visuals.

That leaves one slot for the three CGI pictures. I haven't seen Chicken Little yet but all of the reviews complain that much of it is unconnected gags. That seems consistent with the previews. I don't think that it will get a nomination.

Madagascar and Robots are both fun movies with rather thin plotlines. Of these, I think that Robots has the stronger plot. Also, it is a much greater technical achievement. One of their goals seems to have been to out-do Pixar in complexity of animation. Madagascar, on the other hand, looks like it was done on the cheap. My daughter, the computer animator, says that they took some shortcuts in the animation.

So, our nominees are Robots, Corpse Bride, and Wallace & Gromet.

I don't think that Robots will win. There just isn't enough plot.

Wallace & Gromet has a really good chance given their previous wins but it is really a kids movie. There are asides for adults but the movie is aimed at kids.

Corpse Bride is harder-edged. While the lesson in Wallace and Gromet is that hunting is bad, the lesson in Corpse Bride deals with women being independent rather than depending on a husband. Also, the visuals in Corpse Bride are much better.

Corpse Bride gets my vote but I will not be surprised if Wallace and Gromet wins.



note: I'm getting a lot of spam comments so I now require registration. I may have to turn off comments completely.