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A Year with Three Stop-Motion Oscar Noms?
November 30, 2009 7:04 pm
After I did this interview with Canada’s National Post about trends in feature animation, I got to thinking about whether there might be the potential for three stop-motion Oscar nominations this year. That scenario is beginning to look like a distinct possibility with three top-notch contenders: The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mary and Max and Coraline. Since the inception of the Animated Feature Oscar, there have been only two stop-motion nominees, Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which took home the Academy Award in 2005. 15 comments posted in Feature Film, Stop Motion |
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Well both Mary and Max and Coraline are fantastic, but I have to give the edge to Mary and Max. I really do hope it gets nominated because it’s such a brilliant piece of filmmaking.
I’ve only see a third of those (Coraline), but truly it has been a great year for stop motion animation, something we don’t usually get as much of. Then again, it’s just been a good year for animated feature films as a whole. They’re all strong contenders. I want to see the other two…
Is A Town Called Panic out of the running already? Seriously, this year has been a dream for stop-motion. North American theaters saw no less than six feature-length theatrical releases: $9.99, Mary and Max, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, A Town Called Panic and Edison and Leo (Canadian release) — representing quite a range in design, style and tone. In 2010 and beyond, looking forward to Burton’s Frankenweenie, Del Toro’s Pinocchio, Aardman’s Pirates! and Screen Novelties’ Monster Safari (not to mention what the likes of Laika, Mark Osborne and other stop-motion luminaries are cooking up).
This year is going to be interesting, not only will there be 5 animated films nominated. There will be 5 GOOD animated Films each with a very distinct style.
And these animated films have been the best critically acclaimed films of the year. Do you think that there’s a chance to see 2 animated films nominated for best picture especially with the expanded category?
Del Toro is doing a version of Pinocchio, Blasko? Sounds interesting…
Don’t forget “A Town Called Panic,” too! Great year for stop-mo indeed!
Still, I think it’s gonna be tough for Mary and Max to sneak into the final 5. With Coraline, Up and FMF booking the first 3 (judging from the lists we made in earlier post), the last 2 spots will be a fight to the death.
I haven’t seen Mary and Max yet, but both Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline were tremendous films, each in completely different ways.
May and Max was a fine film, and the touchy true story behind it is incredible. but doesn’t stand a chance against the other two. Narration is a screenwriter’s crutch, and to say that Mary and Max overused narration is quite an understatement.
A Town Called Panic is the best of the bunch, I think : )
So far, Coraline has the best chance.
Hmmmm, wouldn’t that be cool! All three of them are great films.
While I loved all three of these films, I doubt all three will be nominated. Princess and the Frog, Up, and Ponyo most likely will be nominated, thus pushing out on of the stop motion pieces. It would be a dream come true though if the 5 nominations when to Ponyo, Secret of Kells, Mary & Max, Coraline, and Fantastic Mr Fox.
I haven’t seen Mary and Max, so I can’t say or anything…however, both Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox were great productions. They put Monsters vs. Aliens to shame in terms of storytelling. So I’m sure both those films will be nominated…I don’t know about Mary and Max, it has a fair shot seeing it’s wide open for the last two spots.
Quoting Amid from the National Post story:
“Films like Waltz With Bashir and Ponyo are becoming huge hits while Astro Boy and Planet 51 — which were CG, 3D and had celebrity voiceovers — completely flopped.”
Well, not quite.
While Ponyo was certainly a huge homegrown hit in Japan, it was a niche success at best in North America, earning $15 million. Waltz With Bashir did less than that worldwide: $11 million.
So far, Astro Boy has pulled in almost $19 million; Planet 51, $28.5 million. Certainly, they were much more expensive to produce and could therefore pose real financial problems for their studios, but the fact they flopped doesn’t mean those smaller movies were, by way of comparison, huge hits.
I had completely forgotten about Coraline because it was released so early.
But Mary and Max stands to be my favorite animated film of the year… narration aside, the (perfect) last 15 minutes just about knocks out the (perfect) first 15 minutes of Up, a very similar movie that I think is way overrated on the whole.
I almost never cry in movies and I bawled at the end of Mary and Max (the Que Sera Sera scene). Almost makes me feel guilty that our film (My Suicide, for which I served as the animation director) beat it for the Crystal Bear at Berlin earlier this year.
It MIGHT be my favorite movie of the year.