OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2022)
The Nominees Were...
Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar, & Alex Bulkley, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
Dean Fleischer Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan, & Paul Mezey, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Joel Crawford & Mark Swift, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Chris Williams & Jed Schlanger, The Sea Beast
Domee Shi & Lindsey Collins, Turning Red
My Thoughts: I spend a lot of time talking about how this race's existence is questionable, and certainly whether five-wide contests are required for this field. Even in a robust year for Animated Feature, there are maybe 25-30 films that are eligible here, meaning one in every 5-6 films gets selected (compare this to the potentially thousands of supporting actresses in a given year competing for the same number of slots). But I'll totally own that, sticking to only three nominees, I'm definitely stuck between 5-6 contenders for this lineup, two of which Oscar managed to pick for his nominee's.
One of those is one of the most unlikely surprises I've had in years at a movie theater, a sequel to a film I was ambivalent to begin with, Puss in Boots. In a packed theater (Puss in Boots ended up making $484 million despite well under-performing opening weekend, a good lesson that not all opening weekends are destiny), I was enchanted by the film in a way I haven't been by any other movie in the Shrek franchise. Inventive animation, lovely music, and great storytelling, and strong vocal work from Antonio Banderas, Florence Pugh, and John Mulaney (plus a genuinely frightening villain!), this is a total winner and kind of puts the rest of the franchise to shame.
I personally think that Luca is the greater sin from a visual perspective over which Disney film needed to be in theaters more, but from a financial perspective, it's hard not to think of Turning Red at this point as their biggest error-in-judgment, giving it over quickly to Disney+. This is honestly something of a snore for me. Pixar has been going to the "parents just don't understand" so often in the past ten years (despite it weirdly not being a big deal for early films like Toy Story and Monsters Inc that built the studio), and this doesn't have anything new to say. The music is appropriately late-90's, but even the animation feels like it's borrowing from some recent Netflix animated films (specifically Mitchells vs. the Machines), and considering this is Pixar, they should at least get the animation correct.
Speaking of Netflix, after years of trying the studio finally got the statue in this category (and then buried the movie on their platform right after the ceremony, proving that no one knows what's going on in the streamer that red envelopes built). I'll be totally honest-I liked this movie a lot better at the time than it plays in my memory. The animation is glorious, and I was enamored with Desplat's melodic score (though not his songs), but it's so dull in terms of the story. We've heard Carlo Collodi's fairy tale so many times at this point if you frequent cinemas (there were three takes on it alone last year!), and it just reads as dull. Can't we just watch the original Disney one, and maybe tackle a less rehashed fairy tale next time?
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On was surely my biggest surprise of the year (and also the oddest theatrical experience I've had in a while, where I saw it in an empty dinner theater that I felt for a lot of the time might have been a front for the mob, and I had just accidentally assumed it was an actual dinner theater). It uses both leads Jenny Slate & film royalty Isabella Rossellini well in the vocal department, and has a beautiful commentary about our shared humanity through the eyes of an optimistic snail. The film isn't perfect (I think it struggles with what to do with the handsome documentarian when Marcel asks about him), but that's just being picky (and honestly you won't care while watching it).
Our final nomination is the "out of nowhere" nominee that happens virtually every year, this time for another Netflix animated film called The Sea Beast. The animation here is weird-I was far more drawn to the castles & sea battles in terms of the beauty of the animation than the actual dragons, which would normally be where the animators shine. The story should break the tie over whether or not it's good, and it does, but not in Sea Beast's favor. The characters have no depth, and play as caricatures throughout. I left bored, though I kind of get the appeal for anyone who hadn't already seen How to Train Your Dragon.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Pinocchio for their win, and kept Oscar's lineup intact except instead of The Sea Beast they substituted in Inu-Oh (is this any good...I've never seen it). BAFTA only goes four-wide, so they just went with the Oscar lineup (including winner) minus The Sea Beast. This leaves us in a weird area for sixth place, because there's no clear contender. At the time, I was predicting Wendell & Wild, because Henry Selick had done well in the past with Oscar, but was also torn between My Father's Dragon (until this point, Cartoon Saloon had never missed) or Lightyear (the first Toy Story universe film to not get in with Oscar). I'd buy any argument between the three over who was in sixth place, to be honest.
Films I Would Have Nominated: Like I said, 2022 was a really good year for animation, and I'm not entirely sure whom I would've replaced in a five-wide field (I'm still debating on a three-wide field). For sure I'd have brought in The Bob's Burgers Movie, but Strange World (don't give me that look-it's a good movie that y'all abandoned), The Bad Guys, and Wendell & Wild are all strong choices, and I'm not sure which will be in my lineup at the end of the day, but they're better than most of these contenders (I think maybe I'd skip The Bad Guys because the animation was the most prosaic, but on a different day it could be Wendell).
Films I Would Have Nominated: Like I said, 2022 was a really good year for animation, and I'm not entirely sure whom I would've replaced in a five-wide field (I'm still debating on a three-wide field). For sure I'd have brought in The Bob's Burgers Movie, but Strange World (don't give me that look-it's a good movie that y'all abandoned), The Bad Guys, and Wendell & Wild are all strong choices, and I'm not sure which will be in my lineup at the end of the day, but they're better than most of these contenders (I think maybe I'd skip The Bad Guys because the animation was the most prosaic, but on a different day it could be Wendell).
Oscar’s Choice: I'm not exactly sure how it suddenly became the year where everyone decided Guillermo del Toro needed another Oscar, but with Disney out of commission, that's where we landed.
My Choice: There's only two contenders I care about here, and I'm going to shockingly pick Puss in Boots over Marcel, despite my otherwise antipathy to the Shrek world. Behind them we'll do Turning Red, Pinocchio, and The Sea Beast, in order.
And that's our Animated Feature film race. Do you want to stay with Guillermo's stop-motion universe, or would you like to go on an adventure with myself and Puss in Boots? Why do we think that Disney hit such a low a year after they nabbed three slots for the first time? And between Wendell & Wild, My Father's Dragon, and Lightyear, who was in sixth place? Share your thoughts below!
Also in 2022: Sound, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2022
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