OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2012)
The Nominees Were...
Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, Brave
Tim Burton, Frankenweenie
Sam Fell and Chris Butler, ParaNorman
Peter Lord, The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Rich Moore, Wreck-It Ralph
My Thoughts: Whoa! Two OVP write-ups in one day?!? No, you aren't dreaming, this is indeed happening to you. While we may have just left the Sound Mixers, it seems appropriate that we also tackle these animated creations in the same day (okay, it doesn't really seem like a fine match-up, but it is our next category). So let's dive in, and we'll start with the one film that I never reviewed for the site, Brave.
Pixar's first foray into the Disney princess market was one of, if not the last films I saw in theaters prior to me reigniting this blog. It may be the only film from last year, in fact, that is part of the OVP that doesn't have a review for me to link back toward. I know that you are familiar with the film's plot (everyone saw this movie), but I will say that I was a lot more on the positive side than the negative side in what was an oddly mixed reaction for a Pixar film.
The movie's got a great central character in Princess Merida, a fiery redhead voiced by Kelly MacDonald and brought to life by the Pixar animators. The movie is about as beautiful as you can get for animation; over the years, Pixar has set the bar ludicrously high when it comes the color palettes that they indulge in, here a combination of red, blue, and green to capture the majesty of Scotland. The movie strolls at a brisk pace, and though it occasionally takes a stop in the land of cliches and perhaps even more disturbing, Dreamworks (the suitors of Merida seem plucked out of their animation studio catalog), it can definitely find quite a bit of magic in the way that it finds atmosphere, particularly surrounding the scenes with Julie Walters' Witch.
Tim Burton is such a sad case for film lovers. At one point one of the most inventive and creative men behind the camera, his cinematic role now seems to be to put Kabuki-style makeup on Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and make mountains of money for reinventing projects in a bloated and ill-conceived way. That is, unless he's making animation, which seems to be the only saving grace for this one-time innovator. His work in 2012 was another fun, fairly-by-the-numbers movie.
Frankenweenie's best moments are when Burton gleefully indulges in some odd sight gags. I loved in particular Catherine O'Hara's "Weird Girl" and the hilariously inappropriate way she thinks that her cat's feces is all-knowing (O'Hara, along with Oscar-winner Martin Landau, are the best parts of the vocal ensemble). The movie's lovable Sparky is also a winner, and you can't help but fall in love with the character, even if he's a little worse for wear. The rest of the film seems fairly by-the-book: weird kid finds a superpower, it's exploited, and he ends up stronger and a little more celebrated as a result.
Wreck-It Ralph was the film that I expected to be Frankenweenie's biggest competition on Oscar night (as we saw, neither ended up with the trophy), and there are a lot of reasons for that, namely that it's quite a good film. While it doesn't have the oil painting mastery that Pixar's Brave achieved, it continually pops at the audience. I cannot describe to you how much fun went into the world of Sugar Rush, and the rest of the movie plays into the details that casual video game enthusiasts would enjoy the world over. The film also greatly benefits from unusually strong vocal casting. Though one could hardly say that John C. Reilly, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch are underused these days, all of them have the voices to match the personalities of their characters, something few animated films ensure happens (they typically just hire big names and expect them to sell characters that they have little in-common with). Best of all is Sarah Silverman, who gives her best onscreen performance to-date as the pipsqueak pain-in-the-butt who is the sidekick of our title character. The film occasionally feels a little bit too "we're all special!" for my tastes, and it never has the gravitas that similarly-themed films like Toy Story and 90's-era Disney movies achieved (likely due to Disney's weird aversion to going dark in their animated films anymore), but it's still a great ride.
ParaNorman, on the other hand, is not afraid to get a little bit dark, and this makes all the difference for the movie. As an audience member, I could not have been less-excited to be entering this film. I was seeing it because I wanted to go to a movie with my parents, and was not at all expecting to be surprised or impressed by the movie, but boy how wrong I was. The movie's best feature, aside from hiring Anna Kendrick and Casey Affleck, both perfect as vapid-and-unusual teenagers, is the way that they keep the film just dark enough so that you believe that Norman's adventure could end badly. What made a film like The Lion King or The Little Mermaid so compelling is not the great story structure (that helped), but because the villains seemed a solid match for the heroes and because there were a lot of uncomfortable truths that the audience had to encounter (how our past comes back to hurt us, how we'll make stupid sacrifices for love that may cause irreparable damage, and in this case, how misinformation and mob mentality can cause far more damage than good). The film tackles some tough, hard subjects for a children's movie: it's difficult not to see the allegory on display about how Agatha was wrongly persecuted for being different and the eventual gay connection at the end of the film. Lots of films and television series discuss being different (Glee does it every week!) but few do it in a way where the audience can see themselves in the mob and not just in the eyes of the persecuted. That takes guts, and on-top of a fast-moving plot and some unique animation, that's something ParaNorman's got.
We finish our write-up with the film no one expected to make it as a nominee, The Pirates: The Band of Misfits, a film that at the beginning of the year everyone assumed would be a nominee (with Academy favorite Peter Lord at the helm), and then it disappeared once the film made only a small profit (particularly compared with the Pixar and Disney tsunami). The movie is fun, and thoroughly British, though it rarely makes much sense. The movie pivots quite frequently from the fun of the Pirate of the Year Awards to the insanity surrounding Imelda Staunton's Queen Victoria. Though I saw few animated films aside from the nominated five in 2012, it's hard to believe that this nomination, though certainly interesting, was an appropriate way to the surprise on Oscar nomination morning.
Pixar's first foray into the Disney princess market was one of, if not the last films I saw in theaters prior to me reigniting this blog. It may be the only film from last year, in fact, that is part of the OVP that doesn't have a review for me to link back toward. I know that you are familiar with the film's plot (everyone saw this movie), but I will say that I was a lot more on the positive side than the negative side in what was an oddly mixed reaction for a Pixar film.
The movie's got a great central character in Princess Merida, a fiery redhead voiced by Kelly MacDonald and brought to life by the Pixar animators. The movie is about as beautiful as you can get for animation; over the years, Pixar has set the bar ludicrously high when it comes the color palettes that they indulge in, here a combination of red, blue, and green to capture the majesty of Scotland. The movie strolls at a brisk pace, and though it occasionally takes a stop in the land of cliches and perhaps even more disturbing, Dreamworks (the suitors of Merida seem plucked out of their animation studio catalog), it can definitely find quite a bit of magic in the way that it finds atmosphere, particularly surrounding the scenes with Julie Walters' Witch.
Tim Burton is such a sad case for film lovers. At one point one of the most inventive and creative men behind the camera, his cinematic role now seems to be to put Kabuki-style makeup on Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and make mountains of money for reinventing projects in a bloated and ill-conceived way. That is, unless he's making animation, which seems to be the only saving grace for this one-time innovator. His work in 2012 was another fun, fairly-by-the-numbers movie.
Frankenweenie's best moments are when Burton gleefully indulges in some odd sight gags. I loved in particular Catherine O'Hara's "Weird Girl" and the hilariously inappropriate way she thinks that her cat's feces is all-knowing (O'Hara, along with Oscar-winner Martin Landau, are the best parts of the vocal ensemble). The movie's lovable Sparky is also a winner, and you can't help but fall in love with the character, even if he's a little worse for wear. The rest of the film seems fairly by-the-book: weird kid finds a superpower, it's exploited, and he ends up stronger and a little more celebrated as a result.
Wreck-It Ralph was the film that I expected to be Frankenweenie's biggest competition on Oscar night (as we saw, neither ended up with the trophy), and there are a lot of reasons for that, namely that it's quite a good film. While it doesn't have the oil painting mastery that Pixar's Brave achieved, it continually pops at the audience. I cannot describe to you how much fun went into the world of Sugar Rush, and the rest of the movie plays into the details that casual video game enthusiasts would enjoy the world over. The film also greatly benefits from unusually strong vocal casting. Though one could hardly say that John C. Reilly, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch are underused these days, all of them have the voices to match the personalities of their characters, something few animated films ensure happens (they typically just hire big names and expect them to sell characters that they have little in-common with). Best of all is Sarah Silverman, who gives her best onscreen performance to-date as the pipsqueak pain-in-the-butt who is the sidekick of our title character. The film occasionally feels a little bit too "we're all special!" for my tastes, and it never has the gravitas that similarly-themed films like Toy Story and 90's-era Disney movies achieved (likely due to Disney's weird aversion to going dark in their animated films anymore), but it's still a great ride.
ParaNorman, on the other hand, is not afraid to get a little bit dark, and this makes all the difference for the movie. As an audience member, I could not have been less-excited to be entering this film. I was seeing it because I wanted to go to a movie with my parents, and was not at all expecting to be surprised or impressed by the movie, but boy how wrong I was. The movie's best feature, aside from hiring Anna Kendrick and Casey Affleck, both perfect as vapid-and-unusual teenagers, is the way that they keep the film just dark enough so that you believe that Norman's adventure could end badly. What made a film like The Lion King or The Little Mermaid so compelling is not the great story structure (that helped), but because the villains seemed a solid match for the heroes and because there were a lot of uncomfortable truths that the audience had to encounter (how our past comes back to hurt us, how we'll make stupid sacrifices for love that may cause irreparable damage, and in this case, how misinformation and mob mentality can cause far more damage than good). The film tackles some tough, hard subjects for a children's movie: it's difficult not to see the allegory on display about how Agatha was wrongly persecuted for being different and the eventual gay connection at the end of the film. Lots of films and television series discuss being different (Glee does it every week!) but few do it in a way where the audience can see themselves in the mob and not just in the eyes of the persecuted. That takes guts, and on-top of a fast-moving plot and some unique animation, that's something ParaNorman's got.
We finish our write-up with the film no one expected to make it as a nominee, The Pirates: The Band of Misfits, a film that at the beginning of the year everyone assumed would be a nominee (with Academy favorite Peter Lord at the helm), and then it disappeared once the film made only a small profit (particularly compared with the Pixar and Disney tsunami). The movie is fun, and thoroughly British, though it rarely makes much sense. The movie pivots quite frequently from the fun of the Pirate of the Year Awards to the insanity surrounding Imelda Staunton's Queen Victoria. Though I saw few animated films aside from the nominated five in 2012, it's hard to believe that this nomination, though certainly interesting, was an appropriate way to the surprise on Oscar nomination morning.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Annie Awards, the most prestigious animation-only awards in the industry celebrated their 40th year with the 2012 contenders, and it should be noted that the Annie Awards A) allow more than five nominees and B) have a bizarre aversion to Pixar. That said, all five of our nominees, plus Hotel Transylvania, Rise of the Guardians, and The Rabbi's Cat (one of three GKids films in 2012, along with The Painting and From Up on Poppy Hill) were all nominated and lost to Wreck-It Ralph. The Golden Globes cut ParaNorman and Pirates to put in more populist fare in the form of Hotel Transylvania and Rise of the Guardians (Brave was victorious). Overall, in a year that was stunningly competitive both for nominations and for the eventual win, I suspect Rise of the Guardians was probably damn close to winning the fifth nomination, though I would make an argument for Painting, Poppy Hill, or Transylvania as well.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I don't feel like I saw enough animated films to say this is "the five" or that there is a movie I missed that should have been included. I have From Up on Poppy Hill and The Painting on my Netflix queue, but should I add Hotel Transylvania or Rise of the Guardians? Let me know in the comments.
Oscar’s Choice: In an absolute nailbiter, Pixar's Academy sway brought Brave a trophy over just-misses Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph. This was a very close one though, even though historians may just chalk it up as another Pixar gimme.
My Choice: Let's start at the middle: Wreck-It Ralph takes the bronze, because it doesn't quite get to where Brave and ParaNorman go. I'd put Frankenweenie in fourth, followed by Pirates. This is a tight one, tighter than I intended at the beginning of the write-up for the win (I find that by writing my true, unbiased opinions start to form more fully), but I'm going to stick with ParaNorman as the victor, with Brave close behind.
And those are my thoughts about the Animated Feature films of 2012? Do you agree with me that ParaNorman should have been Brave's biggest competition at the Oscars, or do you side with Frankenweenie or Ralph? And who do you think was the strong sixth place trying to displace Pirates (and is it worth me checking out)?
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