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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.

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