2012 Awards Season: Oscar Highlight: Best Animated Feature

February 9, 2012

With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Animated Feature Film, which is surprisingly competitive this year, especially compared to most years. There's no Pixar film nominated, one of the best-reviewed cartoons was snubbed, the winner at the Golden Globes and PGAs was also snubbed, and two of the nominees were virtually unknown films before they were announced. It could be hard to pick a winner.

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

A Cat in Paris
Tomatometer Score: 100% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: None
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: One
Annie Wins: None
Notes: No. Despite having 100% positive reviews at the moment, this film has almost no chance of winning for a couple reasons. Firstly, while its reviews are perfect at the moment, there are only six of them on Rotten Tomatoes. It has been all but ignored by other Awards Season voters with just one Annie nomination so far. And it is by far the most obscure of the five films nominated. If it were the only non-digitally animated film, then maybe it would stand out more, but Chico & Rita is earning more buzz and it has the advantage there as well.

Chico and Rita
Tomatometer Score: 92% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: None
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: One
Annie Wins: None
Notes: This film is only slightly less obscure than A Cat in Paris. At least it will have a limited release before the Oscars. Chico and Rita has better reviews than the three mainstream releases, but weaker than the few reviews A Cat in Paris has. It too has been mostly ignored by Awards Season voters thus far and it would be a upset if it won.

Kung Fu Panda 2
Tomatometer Score: 81% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: PGA
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: Twelve
Annie Wins: Two
Notes: This film has almost no chance of winning the Oscar. It has the weakest reviews and has no major wins to help it stand out and unlike the next two films, it wasn't even nominated for a Golden Globe. Granted, none of the five nominated films won at the Golden Globes or the PGAs, so there's not one dominant film here, but that's faint hope. There really nothing about this film that makes it stand out against the competition.

Puss In Boots
Tomatometer Score: 83% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globes and PGA
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: Nine
Annie Wins: None
Notes: This film also feels like a long shot. It has the second worst reviews of the five nominees, it hasn't won a major award, it was even shut out at the Annies. It's not the weakest film in the list, but its chances of winning are probably in the high single digits or low teens.

Rango
Tomatometer Score: 88% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globes and PGA
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: Nine
Annie Wins: Four
Notes: This film has the best reviews of the three wide releases on this list, it had the most wins at the Annies, and picked up both Golden Globes and the PGA nominations. It is likely going to be the winner, but it is the weakest presumptive frontrunner I've seen in a long time. Last year, all three nominees would have been the frontrunner over this film.

Conclusion: The film that should win the Oscar is Winnie the Pooh, but it wasn't nominated. The Adventures of Tintin won two major awards this year already, which would normally make it the frontrunner, but it too wasn't even nominated. (On a side note, its reviews were hardly Oscar-worthy, so that wasn't as big of a snub.) This leaves Rango as the favorite in this category, but there's more uncertainty than in years past. If I were to pick a long shot with a shot, it would be Chico & Rita.


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Filed under: Awards Season, Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda 2, Rango, Winnie the Pooh, Chico & Rita, Une vie de chat