In Contention
By Josh Spiegel
February 15, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Anyone who's been reading this column, or the A-List, since I've been at Box Office Prophets knows that I am extremely biased for animation. Still, as much as I love the various forms of animation (and kudos to the Academy for acknowledging more than computer animation this year), I've never been a huge fan of the Best Animated Feature category. Though the Academy has given some focus to the art of animation since the 2002 ceremony, I'm no fan of the discrimination that's inherent in creating the category. The argument, since the category was introduced, goes something like this: why should a movie such as Up (or WALL-E or Ratatouille or anything Miyazaki ever created) be nominated for Best Picture, if there's a category for animation? Why potentially honor the movie twice?
Would we say the same thing of foreign films? In the past few years, there have been a number of truly amazing foreign films that should have been considered for the Best Picture Oscar and the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar. If movies like Pan's Labyrinth, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Let The Right One In, and The Lives of Others can be considered for the Best Foreign-Language Film category, can they not also get recognition for the Best Picture Oscar? Of course, there are no rules saying that an animated film can't be nominated for Best Picture (obviously), but that doesn't mean that many voters wonder whether such movies should be nominated. What's more, there's a common view of those voters who are actors discriminating against animation to the point of ignoring it. Why honor movies that don't feature actors, they think.
Now, I could argue all day about how movies like Beauty and the Beast or Up (the only two fully animated movies to be nominated for the Best Picture award) are boosted plenty by their performers. For example, everyone rightly acknowledges (and here I include this site's Calvin Awards) that the most memorable scene in Up comes at the beginning, as we watch a montage of the married life of Carl Fredricksen and his wife, Ellie. This scene is noteworthy not just for its poignancy, but because there is no dialogue in the scene. But does that mean that the vocal performance delivered by Ed Asner is not rife with emotion? Should we ignore the film's co-writer, Bob Peterson, who provided the voice of Dug the dog? Would the movie work without those actors, or Jordan Nagai, who voiced Russell?
Certainly, any animated movie can suffer from poor vocal performances; the majority of films from DreamWorks Animation have had this fate fall upon them. Though people have lauded Eddie Murphy (and correctly, I might add) for his performance as the donkey in the Shrek movies, did anyone really enjoy the vocal performances in Shark Tale? What about Madagascar or its sequel? Of course not. I don't mean to come off as being anti-DreamWorks Animation (I love the first Shrek film, and enjoyed Kung Fu Panda), but the movies they make are meant to feature big-name celebrities. Whatever you think about Pixar, it's hard to say that Craig T. Nelson, Patton Oswalt, Ed Asner, or Albert Brooks are big-name celebrities. With the exception of the Toy Story movies and Cars, Pixar has strictly avoided the limelight, looking for the right actors.
That said, the entire Best Animated Feature category is impressive this year, not only for its diversity in animation style, but for the diversity in topic, tone, and quality. As I've mentioned, I have not seen The Secret of Kells - and, I can say with 99% certainty that you haven't either - but I intend to. The fact that it knocked out more well-known movies such as Ponyo or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and that it did so with the most bare-bones of campaigns, intrigues me. The other four nominees are all great movies to varying degrees. Coraline shows up here, in what could be considered a bit of a surprise, if only because the movie opened nearly a full year ago. Sure, Up was released last May, but it also made nearly $300 million; Coraline, while not a bad box-office performer, couldn't boast such numbers.
Of those four nominees, all stand out because they all appeal to different audiences. In fact, I'd be willing to say that only one of these movies - The Princess and the Frog - is a film that children, almost more than adults, could enjoy. Up, not just because of its first 15 minutes, is a movie that adults would understand and appreciate. Coraline is a movie that wouldn't be truly resonant with children, as the kind of angst and cynicism the title character evokes isn't usually present in eight-year olds. Fantastic Mr. Fox...well, as much as I was entertained by the movie, the best way to sum it up (perhaps a little too easily, but it's still appropriate) is that it's a Wes Anderson movie in stop-motion animation. How many little kids love Wes Anderson movies?
So, we're left with The Princess and the Frog, a movie that I unabashedly loved, if only because it made me hearken back to my childhood. One of the first movies I remember seeing is The Little Mermaid, which was released in 1989, and was the first animated feature to bring back a new golden age of Disney animation. That was followed by Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Those four films are easily and rightly as beloved as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, or Cinderella, not just for being newer, but for being as timeless. Though each of the films (Aladdin being the most obvious offender) throws in a few jokes for the adults in the audience, their messages and characters are instantly memorable.
The Princess and the Frog is a movie worth cherishing in the same vein as the other nominees. The 2-D animation, presenting New Orleans in all its colorful splendor, is charming and manages to be wistful, even to those of us who've never even been to New Orleans. This is the key to Disney magic: the idea that an audience can be truly swept away, to the point of never acknowledging a lack of familiarity with the setting. The story, culled from The Frog Prince, manages to ring true to the fairy-tale origins while seeming fresh and new. The characters are charming, especially the frog prince. As voiced by Bruno Campos, Prince Naveen is a Disney prince with - yes, it's true - just a bit of personality. The surprising charm of The Princess and the Frog is that the prince is as equally part of the story. Not since Beauty and the Beast have both leads been given more than one dimension.
I don't mean to shortchange Coraline or Fantastic Mr. Fox (nor Up, but since I've already dubbed that my favorite movie of 2009, I don't need to spend more time convincing you of its immense emotional pleasure). Both films, while being more adult, are as impressive in their animation styles as they are in their stories and characters. Coraline, as voiced by Dakota Fanning in her pre-"vampire" phase, is a brittle and spiky lead character, masking her hopes to still be best friends with her mother with sarcasm. While the creation of Coraline's Other Mother is really haunting and creepy, what you walk away from with this movie is the longing Coraline has to have things back to the way they were when she was younger, and things were simpler.
Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stranger beast, a movie with stop-motion animation that takes a lot of getting used to; even at the end, it's somewhat disconcerting and distracting to see the title character seem nearly frozen in time while having the speaking voice of George Clooney. Still, the movie's humor, charm, and story are all great reminders that, when he puts his mind to it, Wes Anderson is a brilliant, offbeat, one-of-a-kind director (yes, I'm an Anderson fan; The Royal Tenenbaums is one of my favorite movies, and I do think The Darjeeling Limited is very underrated). Clooney, Meryl Streep, and especially Jason Schwartzman (as Mr. Fox's disillusioned son) are all exceptional here; as with any Wes Anderson movie, the pace is fast, the music is quirky, and the humor is dry.
As I mentioned earlier, if you've been reading me on Box Office Prophets for a while, you know I love animation. So, you may feel like I've been on my animated soapbox for a bit too long today; still, with the expanded list of nominees this year, you can't blame me for dedicating an entire column to these nominees. What's more, with the Oscar ceremony just under three weeks away, I've got to get my last bit of praise in before we all focus on what will be nominated next year. If anything, I hope that I can convince at least one more person of the value and worth of a great animated movie. Animation is not something to fear, but something to embrace, in the film community. If actors or any other voters are rankled by the idea that movies like Up could be better than live-action films...well, ladies and gentlemen, step up your game. Do that, or maybe Toy Story 3 will be on next year's list. Here's hoping.