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I agree with this. In fact. this is the second year in a row it's come up (last year being Ratatouille*).

Pixar's the one to break the deadlock, though.

- Joel Fagin

* Yes, I can spell it. It amazes me too.

...ratatouille

Tellurider wrote:...ratatouille

That was a typo, not a mispelling.

- Joel Fagin

But why does this category even exist? Animated as opposed to what? Photographed? Animation is merely a technique.

Stopped reading here. Can't imagine the nonsense that follows.

Yeahduff wrote:

But why does this category even exist? Animated as opposed to what? Photographed? Animation is merely a technique.

Stopped reading here. Can't imagine the nonsense that follows.

Yeah, me too. Silly silly silliness. Honestly, I was tempted to stop reading right here:

I’ll put it in writing: the best motion picture released last year was WALL-E.

Silly. Just silly.

I can't possibly comment on which movie was the best of the whole year but I'm pretty sure Wall-E was better than Slumdog.

The point is that animated movies don't get a look in for best picture. They're relegated to a kiddie's table in the corner. It's like having Halo 3 refused as best game of the year because, well, it's only a shooter.

And I think it's right on that point, too.

- Joel Fagin

Personally I think it's criminal that some of the films in the Best Film in a Foreign Language catagory didn't get a look in at Best Picture. Any award ceremony that has Benjamin Button nominated for Best Picture but not Waltz With Bashir has no credibility whatsoever.

Frankly I'm just amazed that a superhero movie got in there. For best sound editing too? I couldn't make out half of Batman's lines

And for the record, I'd agree with putting Wall-E as the best movie of 2009, of the ones I saw anyway. At least a nomination..

Komiyan wrote:Frankly I'm just amazed that a superhero movie got in there.

Action movies typically get nominated for technincal awards.

We can quibble about what should've won and what should've been nominated, and while I haven't seen Wall-E, I can easily imagine it being better than Slumdog, which was only good.

But there is a very real difference between animation and live action, and it's not like a whole lot of animated films were getting best picture noms before the animation feature category existed. At least this way, cartoons are part of the discussion every year, as opposed to their previous position, typically ten miles away from the show.

As technically appealing as Wall-E was, I can see why they don't often nominate animated films.

In a nutshell, you can do everything over in an animated film, and do anything you want to do in an animated film. Those are some huge limits that live films have to work within.

Oh thank christ. I thought this thread was making an argument for Australia...

Rkolter wrote:As technically appealing as Wall-E was, I can see why they don't often nominate animated films.

In a nutshell, you can do everything over in an animated film, and do anything you want to do in an animated film. Those are some huge limits that live films have to work within.

But making animation look good is equally hard, as is writing a good enough story to exploit the lack of boundaries. Both animated and live action movies face very different challenges and neither is 'easier' than the other, so both should be considered.

Maybe Hollywood was insulted by the anti-consumerism theme!"We'll show them!"

Rkolter wrote: In a nutshell, you can do everything over in an animated film

You can do everything over in a live action film. It's called a "take."

Mr.Bob wrote:Oh thank christ. I thought this thread was making an argument for Australia...

I had a similar fear.

First paragraph or two of that article is kinda right. The rest is not.

"WALL-E" is a very good film. But it's not the best film of the last year. If you think that WALL-E is the best film of the last year then you must be some kind of animation nerd who hasn't seen too many live action movies last year, and subsequently aren't apt to say which film is the best in the first place. Frankly, WALL-E might not even be the best animated film of the last year.

Personally, I think that separate category for animated films has some merits. Like someone said, animation is the whole different world of techniques. Primarily, there are different things to be appreciated in animation than in live action. For one, in live action movie you'll never give consideration to how realistic the movements are.
Yes, borders between live action and nomination are being blurred, but that's not the reason not to have that category. If anything, it's sad that most of animated films are being made in CG because the painterly quality of classic animation is lost. CG is much more similar in quality to live action, but if there were more classic animation films made, then the reason for existence of this category would be more obvious.

Whether animated films should be considered for major awards, I personally think yes, but I'm torn about it.
I always get pissed off when non-english speaking films are being nominated for major awards. If Oscars are being anknowledged as an award for films in english language, then it has some chance for relevance. But when it nominateds non-english films, it's moving out of it's turf where it simply stands no chance, for one because it never considers african or ever asian, mid-eastern cinematography - hell it doesn't even consider entire European cinematography (and isn't too keen on following American independent film either). Films that are nominated are strictly those that are distributed in USA or slated to be distributed, and that's very small, practically insignificant part of most Hollywoody-like movies. Oscars don't stand a chance in being a relevant award for fovies in all languages, so it shouldn't try in the first place.

Similarly, if Oscars are anknowledged as an award primarily for live-action movies then it's understandable why animated movies are not included. If they claim pretense on being award for all kind of movies, then animation should be considered, but also documentary and children movies because, duh, those can be good movies too. I think, though, that it's implied that Oscars are mainly an award for adult, live-action, fictional movies in english language.

Of course, we all know that Oscars suck so why should we be annoyed about it anyway.
***
Slumdog Millionaire was an ok movie, entertaining and heartfelt, I'd definitely reccomend it. It was not the best, luckily, otherwise it would be a really poor year. The "mix between Hollywood and Bollywood sensibility" angle is overplayed because film has nothing of Bollywood sensibility at all, except for one hommage at the end. That film is top to bottom Hollywood movie, regardless of where it's made.
It bothered me how, compared to the book, they added a lot of stereotypical genre elements, thinking, probably, that audience wouldn't be interested in seeing a movie without romance and thriller and stuff. Stronger moment of the book, how his entire life is sublimed into one moment, is downplayed in favour of "true love" and "gangster wars" and that kind of stuff.
It was a very obvious candidate for Oscars though, because:
a) it's a sentimental rags-to-riches story and those always get Oscars and
b) it flatters Oscars and audience for it's multicultural nature. Now they look like some kind of erudites. Now they think that they know what living in India is like.

"Benjamine Button" was not too good, overall week and unconvincing. When there's no excessive violence, that little edge that Fincher's movies had is gone. It seems like bringing in Brad Pitt was his main concern, because only with Pitt his films actually get noticed. You should have heard female audience in theatre when he appeared as a young man, there was one collective "aaaahhh" and that seems to be about the only point movie has.

Vicky Christina Barcelona was far superior movie to both of those. All Hollywood writers should watch it in vain hope that they'll one day actually learn how to write. I thought there were much more impressive roles than Penelopa's in there, though.

McDuffies wrote:For one, in live action movie you'll never give consideration to how realistic the movements are.

Not entirely true.

McDuffies wrote: Whether animated films should be considered for major awards, I personally think yes, but I'm torn about it.
I always get pissed off when non-english speaking films are being nominated for major awards. If Oscars are being anknowledged as an award for films in english language, then it has some chance for relevance. But when it nominateds non-english films, it's moving out of it's turf where it simply stands no chance, for one because it never considers african or ever asian, mid-eastern cinematography - hell it doesn't even consider entire European cinematography (and isn't too keen on following American independent film either). Films that are nominated are strictly those that are distributed in USA or slated to be distributed, and that's very small, practically insignificant part of most Hollywoody-like movies. Oscars don't stand a chance in being a relevant award for fovies in all languages, so it shouldn't try in the first place.

Similarly, if Oscars are anknowledged as an award primarily for live-action movies then it's understandable why animated movies are not included. If they claim pretense on being award for all kind of movies, then animation should be considered, but also documentary and children movies because, duh, those can be good movies too. I think, though, that it's implied that Oscars are mainly an award for adult, live-action, fictional movies in english language.

Eh. A movie just needs to get the attention of elite Western audiences, particularly American. Typically these will be serious American fictions, but the occassional Crouching Tiger or Beauty And The Beast really doesn't hurt the integrity of the Awards. Anytime you award the best anything, it's from a specific frame, so while an African film might be excellent to Africans and even the few Americans who've seen it, it's preclusion doesn't destroy the facade by any means.

IVstudios wrote:

Rkolter wrote: In a nutshell, you can do everything over in an animated film

You can do everything over in a live action film. It's called a "take."

Not when that take involves blowing up the set.

Komiyan wrote:

Rkolter wrote:As technically appealing as Wall-E was, I can see why they don't often nominate animated films.

In a nutshell, you can do everything over in an animated film, and do anything you want to do in an animated film. Those are some huge limits that live films have to work within.

But making animation look good is equally hard, as is writing a good enough story to exploit the lack of boundaries. Both animated and live action movies face very different challenges and neither is 'easier' than the other, so both should be considered.

So... if they face very different challenges and neither is easier than the other... it's like comparing apples and oranges? Thus why they have a catagory for best animated. Maybe they should have similar other catagories though - best actor in an animated film, best actress in an animated film, etcetera.

Rkolter wrote:

IVstudios wrote:

Rkolter wrote: In a nutshell, you can do everything over in an animated film

You can do everything over in a live action film. It's called a "take."

Not when that take involves blowing up the set.

True of the big explosive scenes (sometimes*), but for the small stuff, like say they notice halfway through shooting scene that a character is wearing his glove on the wrong hand, they just switch hands and shoot it again. If it's not caught until late in production then you may have to completely rebuild a set and setup a re shoot. A huge hassle no question, but it's usually still fixable if it's important enough. If halfway through animating something you catch the same thing you might have to redraw and recolor a couple hundred to a few thousand cells.

*The introduction of CG has changed it on both sides. You can green screen in an explosion into a live action scene. They sometimes even use it to change lip movements to fix a line. With animation for some stuff it can be as simple as updating the model or as annoying as having to completely reanimate a scene.)

Rkolter wrote: So... if they face very different challenges and neither is easier than the other... it's like comparing apples and oranges? Thus why they have a catagory for best animated. Maybe they should have similar other catagories though - best actor in an animated film, best actress in an animated film, etcetera.

Nah. At this level, for best picture, it's less about the technical aspects and more about execution, storytelling, how it comes together as art, which is where live action and animation are very similar.