OVP: Animated Feature Film (2023)

OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Hayao Miyazaki & Toshio Suzuki, The Boy and the Heron

Peter Sohn & Denise Ream, Elemental

Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Karen Ryan, & Julie Zackary, Nimona

Pablo Berger, Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estape, & Sandra Tapia Diaz, Robot Dreams

Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, & Amy Pascal, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

My Thoughts: The recent decline in Disney as a box office powerhouse (you have to go back to Toy Story 4 and Frozen II in 2019 to find cartoons that you could call unqualified hits from the Mouse House) has left a lot of openings here in recent years.  Movies like Strange World or Wish surely would've made the cut in this category in a normal year based on buzz alone, but given they were giant flops, the category is starting to look elsewhere.  I'm curious headed into this upcoming year, with two sequels to major movies (Inside Out 2 and Moana 2) if they are able to recover, but as of now, they had a few nominees that were clearly intended to be cited here, but never made it.

But Disney managed to avoid catastrophe in 2023 by at least getting one nomination, here for the slow-burn Elemental (since the pandemic, somehow their highest-grossing animated film even if it was greeted with a yawn on opening weekend).  It looks beautiful (though nowhere near as good as some of Pixar's best, but that's playing on a tough scale), and I loved the romance at the center feeling genuine to the story.  But it also is so tired at this point.  The metaphors are belabored, and literally every Pixar film since The Good Dinosaur has been some version of "parents don't understand" (Inside Out 2 looks likely to continue this trend)...does a studio that made unlikely children's classics out of a robot at the end of the world and an old man finding adventure in a floating house no longer have any other ideas?

The film of this bunch that actually made the most money was Across the Spider-Verse, a movie that when it came out was hailed as a potential Best Picture nominee, but ended up not even winning this category.  The film, like Elemental, looks great (the effects are mesmerizing), but it's also an incomplete thought.  How can you tell this is a good movie when there's no second half to it...I feel like I deserve a proper ending before I can grade it, and the increasingly manic nature of the movie, with unnecessary expositional dialogue and too many characters, feels like a "more is better" approach that doesn't bear out in reality.  I'll be real here-I feel like the people who heaped praise on this were more dazzled than impressed, because there's not enough to this for it to get the plaudits it received.

Nimona, a film that almost got lost in a series of mergers (at one point this was a Disney movie, and unlike Wish, it actually got an Oscar nomination), but I'm glad it escaped the collapse of Blue Sky.  The movie's queer plot lines are refreshing-you don't get to see this kind of representation in animated films often, though it doesn't break a lot of new ground with the plot.  I also had a bit of a crush on Riz Ahmed's Ballister, the best vocal performance in the picture.  It feels like it has more to say, which is a pity because at Netflix it won't get to do that, but this is a fun action-adventure.

Robot Dreams is not going to win any awards for being the most beautiful animation in this field (it'd come in fifth on that front), but this category isn't just about pretty pictures.  The substance matters too, and Robot Dreams is weirdly profound.  In a world where we have become increasingly isolated, and many of our friendships are conducted exclusively through text or social media, this movie captures that feeling, and the idea that what we all fear most in the world is dying alone.  It's really poignant, and of the films here, despite the cutesy design, the most mature in its messaging.

Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement to make this film, and like Robot Dreams, really isn't for children (or at least, children aren't going to understand all of this plot).  The way that the film makes a metaphor come to life (how we'd rather leave the world behind than admit someone we love is gone) is fantastic, and I left enamored on that front.  But I do think that this is lesser Miyazaki, and especially in the last thirty minutes it tries too hard to shove all of the ideas in, as if Miyazaki is making multiple movies at once.  It's quite good, and it's Miyazaki so it's going to be moving & ethereal (the score is solid too), but I wish that it had had more structure.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with The Boy and the Heron as their winner, besting Elemental, Spider-Verse 2, Suzume, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, & Wish, while the BAFTA Awards also went with The Boy and the Heron atop Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Elemental, & Spider-Verse 2.  At the time, the only one I missed in predictions was Robot Dreams, and while I predicted Suzume, my gut actually now says that something like Chicken Run 2 (which totally would've made it with a theatrical run) or the unusual approach of The Peasants (again, which would've had a better shot with a proper theatrical run) makes more sense.
Films I Would Have Nominated: This is maybe the weakest field of animated contenders I've seen since the 2000's...Oscar came up with a list that was middling, but it's not like the industry gave them much choice otherwise.  The one name I would've liked to have seen here was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a surprisingly choice and funny reimagining of the 1990's cartoon, but there's no film in 2023 that feels like a HUGE miss from Oscar.

Oscar’s Choice: At the time people thought it was a contest between Spider-Verse 2 and The Boy and the Heron, and I'm so glad that Oscar had the good sense in a weak year to think "Miyazaki should have two Oscars" and gave it to the latter.

My Choice: I'm going to go with Robot Dreams, which I think is the most poignant and ultimately the film I liked the best, over The Boy and the Heron, a movie that I might've voted for given it was the only film that had a shot other than Spider-Verse, but ultimately in a vacuum I have to admit Robot Dreams is better.  Behind them are Nimona, Spider-Verse, and in last Elemental, which means in the most recent four years, I have put a Disney film in last place three times.  Dark times underneath Cinderella's castle, indeed.

And that's our Animated Feature film race.  Do you want to join me in making an animatronic friend, or do you want to fly away with Miyazaki?  Do you think Disney will get its groove back in 2024?  And was it The Peasants, Suzume, or Chicken Run 2 in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2023: Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Animated Feature Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Animated Feature Film (2002)

OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2002)

The Nominees Were...

Chris Wedge, Ice Age

Chris Sanders, Lilo & Stitch

Jeffrey Katzenberg, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away

Ron Clements, Treasure Planet

My Thoughts: Whenever you talk about the animated feature film category, you inevitably talk about Disney.  2002 is a weird year, because it's not entirely clear if Disney lost this or not (unlike 2001, 2006, & 2018, where they had a clear loss, their only three to date).  Disney had two films that were very much in contention for the Oscar and that were clearly coming from the Mouse House.  But it's worth noting that Spirited Away, a movie we'll kick off with for our discussion, was distributed by Disney, so while it wasn't a Disney feature exactly, it was a film that the studio wanted to succeed in a way that, say, Ice Age wouldn't (though, of course, because we live in a world where the entertainment industry eats itself whole, Ice Age is now also a Disney property).

Spirited Away is a remarkable movie, and possibly the high-mark of Hayao Miyazaki's career, or at least when his films went from being arthouse to being mainstream.  It was the first Studio Ghibli film to cross $10 million in the United States (based largely on its Oscar win), and made nearly $275 million on its initial run, putting it in the same company as Scooby-Doo (and ultimately out-earning both of Disney's 2002 releases).  It's honestly one of my favorite movies, so I'm not going to be impartial here (it's winning), a gorgeous, tender animation that lends to a really fascinating story and great vocal performances whether you're looking at the original or dubbed version.  I love anything related to Alice in Wonderland, and this is the best spin I've seen of the story (yes, even outdoing the original Disney film).

The other box office mammoth (pun intended) that came within the same conversation as Spirited Away was Ice Age.  Ice Age is a weird discussion point because the first film is pretty plain-there's not a lot of special going on here save for Scrat, the hilarious saber-toothed squirrel who steals every corner of the movie he occupies.  The animation is fine, the story predictable, and the vocal work is not all that inspired.  What's weird about this movie is that it launched a $3 billion franchise, which has stretched five films, as well as a Disney+ TV series.  It's bizarre to me that this was the movie that somehow did that, and proof that it used to be easier to impress enough to get a proper franchise out of your work (can you imagine, say, The Bad Guys getting a five-film franchise that approached those kinds of numbers?).  It's also a testament to just what dire straits Disney was in during the 2000's that this took up a lot of the oxygen.

I am burying this in the middle of my article because I am slightly older than a number of my followers/readers on social media, and as a result I do not have the childhood fascination with Lilo & Stitch younger Millennials do.  The movie doesn't really work-it's too thin, even if the animation has aged well, and Stitch is cute. The plot itself is so saccharine, nearly unbearable.  This was one of the last films from Disney until Princess and the Frog where the studio clearly was catching the cultural zeitgeist (you saw this movie everywhere), but it also was part of that bizarre Dark Age period between 2000-2008 where nothing that was coming out could remotely compared to the Renaissance movies that had set an impossibly high bar throughout the 1990's.  This is fine-it only works if you were a kid when you saw it, and I was a teenager.

Treasure Planet, on the other hand, works at any age and it is a damned shame more people weren't into this movie at the time.  The animation is heavenly, with the 2-dimensional drawing combined with the 3-dimensional computer animation...it's gorgeous, perhaps the only movie you can say that about from Disney (note, not Pixar) between Tarzan and Princess and the Frog.  I also thought the plot was fun, with a space spoof on the Robert Louis Stevenson tale (though I could've done without Martin Short's sidekick BEN, and I say that as an ardent Marty Short fan).  Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the lead, though, is strong, as is Brian Murray as Long John Silver.

Our final nomination is Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, also a hit, and weirdly a movie that decades later would spawn a sequel.  Of the movies, this leaves the least impression in the memory, which is weird because it's one of the more unusual films of the bunch.  The choice not to give the horses their own language, and instead have them speaking the language of horses (the only animal that "talks" in the movie is the titular Spirit, and only through narration), is kind of cool, making it have an art film aesthetic that you wouldn't have expected from a commercial play.  Unfortunately, it doesn't do anything with this idea, and is quite dull.  Points for trying, I guess?

Other Precursor Contenders: This was in the era before the Golden Globes had a nomination for Best Animated Feature Film, and as a result our only significant precursor is the Annie Awards, which for some reason nominated Monsters Inc despite that film premiering in early November (i.e. it should've been a 2001 nominee).  Spirited Away won, beating Monsters, Ice Age, Lilo & Stitch, and Spirit.  In terms of sixth place, I genuinely have no idea.  I don't know if The Cat Returns was eligible with Oscar, and honestly they hadn't gotten to the point where they nominated animated films with little following (that started to happen more by the end of the decade), and the only other remotely strong hit was Return to Neverland, which was ill-received by critics.  Maybe The Wild Thornberrys Movie, which was nominated for Best Original Song, so it could be on their radar?  Honestly, the better question is which films get cut if it was only three nominees.
Films I Would Have Nominated: This was a terrible year to have five films nominated, and so I'll just say we should have edited rather than add new names to the list.

Oscar’s Choice: Spirited Away is a win that aged so well that many assume it was a foregone conclusion in 2002.  It was not.  Ice Age was the frontrunner given its box office, and the bad politics of what a Spirited Away victory would send to the clearly flailing productions (Treasure Planet and Lilo Stitch) that Disney wasn't seeing a victory for (and weren't as critically/commercially-acclaimed as their 1990's counterparts) made it an underdog.  However, AMPAS had the good sense to "put the performance above the politics" and give Miyazaki his only trophy in this category (to date).

My Choice: It's Spirited Away, and it ain't close.  One of the best films to ever win this award.  Behind it is Treasure Planet, Ice Age, Spirit, and Lilo & Stitch, in order.

And that's our Animated Feature film race.  Does anyone really want to make the case that it should be something other than Spirited Away, or are we all good saying Oscar made the right call here?  Do you think of this as a "Disney loss" if we're keeping track of when the studio missed?  And genuinely-who was the sixth place option here, as I have no clue?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2002: Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2002

Past Best Animated Feature Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

2005: Animated Feature Film (2005)

OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2005)

The Nominees Were...

Hayao Miyazaki, Howl's Moving Castle
Mike Johnson & Tim Burton, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Nick Park & Steve Box, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

My Thoughts: I apparently lied last week when I said we were done with the three-wide races from 2005, as this was back in the day where we saw animated features only have a trio of nominations on occasion (anyone wonder if that might be the case for 2020, ending a decade-long streak?).  All of these films were considered quite good at the time, and had solid critical reviews, so let's revisit to see if they hold well upon revisit.

Corpse Bride was Tim Burton's big return to the animated realm (after making the iconic The Nightmare Before Christmas), and it's cute in a Tim Burton way-this was the tale end of Burton making fun, popcorn horror films in the 1990's/2000's, before Alice in Wonderland made his movies basically unwatchable, and it shows in how game the picture is, with a fun central musical number in "The Remains of the Day."  The movie plays overlong, and the in-plain-sight villain is easy to pick out the moment he comes onto the screen, but it's a sweet romance, one with lovely macabre twists, and gorgeous animation.

Possibly the funniest of these three movies is Wallace & Gromit, directed by Nick Park who for a time was just impossible to beat at the Oscars for Short Film.  This movie adds in a faux-horror element as well, though it's never intended to be a particularly scary motif (Burton's feels like it's supposed to be scarier).  The humor in this is a little dated, if only because Park has gone to this well so often, and also the pop culture references read as overdone.  That said, you're still going to laugh even if its silly & repetitive, and the animation is unique to Aardman.

The final nominee is Howl's Moving Castle, the only one of the films I didn't see at the time.  This was Miyazaki's followup to Spirited Away, an impossible task (how do you followup your best film?), but I think he did well with the new directions of the plot.  Like all Miyazaki films, the plot gets it a little convoluted and heavy toward the end, but the animation is brilliant, particularly the title abode, and it really feels on a different level than the other two films in terms of the screenplay's depth.  Sometimes too long, sometimes too intent on underlining its larger points, but it's a worthy installment in a master director's resumé.

Other Precursor Contenders: Well, my friends, we are now at the point with this category where the Globes & the BAFTA Awards did not have nominees-both categories started at the 2006 Oscars, and so we don't have those precursors to name-check.  The PGA did have this category in 2005 (it was the first year of the category), though it's worth remembering that this body almost completely ignores non-US/UK productions, so you don't see Howl's Moving Castle, and instead Wallace beats Corpse Bride, Chicken Little, Madagascar, and Robots, with the Annie Awards nominating all of Oscar's choices (giving the win to Wallace) as well as Chicken Little and Madagascar.  While it might make some sense to lean into Chicken Little since it's Disney & this category almost always nominates Disney (2005 & 2011 are the only years that Disney/Pixar had movies out but didn't make it in), I have to assume that the gargantuan box office of Madagascar was up next on the shortlist.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I am happy there were only three nods here, and Oscar picked all three of the ones I would have gone with, so I'm good.

Oscar’s Choice: This felt like a tighter race at the time than it does on reflection-Wallace and Gromit wins, arguably over what might end up being Tim Burton's best shot at an Oscar?

My Choice: I actually changed my ranking a little bit here upon revisit (that happens-movies age & all that), but my winner remains the same-Howl's isn't Spirited Away, but it's an achievement in its own right and deserved a sequel Oscar.  I'll follow that with Corpse Bride and then Wallace & Gromit.

There you have it-the Animated Feature category.  Are you with me stanning Miyazaki in the corner, or are we all enchanted by Aardman giving Wallace & Gromit the feature-length treatment?  Any guesses on how BAFTA/the Globes might have changed this up (they're usually close to each other, but never carbon copies)?  And do we have any consensus on the critically-indifferent but seismically successful Madagascar movies?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2005: Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2005

Past Best Animated Feature Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

OVP: Howl's Moving Castle (2005)

Film: Howl's Moving Castle (2005)
Stars: Emily Mortimer, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal, Josh Hutcherson, Blythe Danner
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I will (on occasion) get someone who will be stunned when I haven't seen a movie.  This gets old faster than you think (despite putting near daily reviews on this blog, I will admit that I don't actually get to watch a movie every day, and even at that rate, I still would have gaps in my viewing history), but there are movies that pop up enough that I know that seeing them is actually going to help me a bit, going from a look of fake shock to an unamused expression of "oh, John has an opinion on another movie."  One of those titles is strangely Howl's Moving Castle, the only major Miyazaki film that I haven't caught since the director "went mainstream" in the US with his studio's Oscar win for Spirited Away.  The fact that I loved the 2002 movie and didn't see his immediate followup at the time is a little odd, but I was in college, and was getting paid to see specific movies each week for my school paper (and if I wasn't paid to see it, I had to pay for it from my consistently empty wallet).  So here we are, fifteen years later, finally catching it as we start to put a close on the 2005 Academy Awards.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, like so many by Miyazaki, has a lot of plot, so stick with me for a second.  Sophie (Mortimer) is a young woman who runs a hat shop.  She is one day whisked across town (literally, they fly) by a traveling wizard called Howl (Bale), who lives in a giant floating castle. At the shop, she encounters the rude and cruel Witch of the Waste (Bacall), who puts a curse on her, turning her into an old woman (Simmons).  She goes to find Howl, but is forbidden from speaking the reasons or the why's of her curse to Howl, since he might be able to break it.  However, once she gets there she finds that Howl is a lost soul, someone who tries to stay away from the world rather than be brave, and is involved in his own curse with Calcifer (Crystal), who is a wisecracking fire demon (a thing, apparently).  Together, they go after the Witch of the Waste, but in doing so realize the true creature they must battle is Madame Suliman (Danner), another witch who has actually stripped the Witch of the Waste of her powers, and has been doing so to a depleting number of witches and wizards.  They end up doing so by essentially breaking all of the curses, and saving the kingdom in the process.

That last sentence takes about forty minutes.  One of the bigger problems with this film is that there's, in fact, too much plot.  This isn't always an issue, and especially with animation it's kind of a refreshing issue to have (in recent years, one of the bigger crimes of mainstream animated films has been creating ridiculously one-note supporting players that feel phoned-in by the writers), but it's there.  The film's thick story works for long stretches, but then randomly Howl is flying around as a monster or he's unnecessarily vain or we have to see the piles-of-flesh Witch of the Waste degraded yet again as she extends a thin tangent.  It needs trimming, is what I'm saying.

But otherwise I have little to complain about, as while this lacks the automatic magic of Spirited Away, it's visually splendid and filled with genuinely interesting performances.  Leave it to only Hayao Miyazaki to have two of the big headliners of 1940's cinema (Lauren Bacall and Jean Simmons) unite for the only team some fifty years after they regularly headlined pictures.  The film looks gorgeous.  I'm never a fan of the way that Miyazaki makes hideous imagery onscreen with select characters, and there's some problematic aspects to the way he depicts overweight people here, but overall his moving castle is a vision.  And like I said, the film's story works in large spurts.  The back story is complete, the characters well-drawn, and the conclusion pretty satisfying.  In the US, this would have surely required several movies to get through, but thankfully this is our one story with these characters.  As such, it's also the type of movie that we used to obsess over and recreate, in a world before prequels & sequels did that for us.

OVP: Animated Feature Film (2013)

OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2013)

The Nominees Were...

Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco, and Kristine Belson, The Croods

Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, and Chris Meledandri, Despicable Me 2

Benjamin Renner and Didier Brunner, Ernest & Celestine

Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Peter del Vecho, Frozen

Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki, The Wind Rises

My Thoughts: All right, the OVP is now briefly back to films that you've actually seen (well, three of them anyway).  After a quick dalliance with the Short films, we've got a crop of five animated films, including one of the most successful movies of all-time to tackle and so let's get to jumping.

I debated whether to start, end or shove Frozen into the middle, but in keeping with the theme of the short films, I'm going to once again start with the film you were most likely to have seen.  The tale of Anna and Elsa was a MASSIVE success for Disney (one I have a feeling even the Mouse House didn't expect would be quite so big after the decent but not gargantuan returns of Princess and the Frog and Tangled).  It's hard not to see why-the movie is a pure joy from beginning to end, with catchy numbers, female empowerment, and in a twist most adults would have seen coming (but probably scarred children for life), an evil handsome prince.  The comic timing of all of the actors involved worked perfectly (Jon Groff, Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, even Josh Gad-the cast list reads like it was selected for a Pixar film with such care put into every actor onscreen, not filled with stunt voices), and it helped that they all could actually sing in a film that unabashedly loves that it's a musical.  There are certain touches here and there I would have changed (Kristoff is the only character that really expands his personality enough to match wits with a Belle or Aladdin from old school Disney where character development was more important), but overall this was one of the most gleeful experiences I had last year at the movies.

I'm going to admit right now that I don't really get the appeal of the Despicable Me films.  This movie was a MASSIVE hit as well (nearly hitting the $1 billion mark worldwide), and clearly there's a likability in the characters (particularly the Minions, who like the Penguins in Madagascar or Scrat in the Ice Age films, are operating in a whole different level of enjoyability than the rest of the movie), but the film as a whole leaves me cold.  The story notes are too predictable even for a children's film, and the plot I found a bit patronizing and offensive in a heteronormative way (isn't Gru enough for these three girls-does he have to also find a woman to complete his family?).  The movie also was too long and not particularly funny when the Minions weren't onscreen.  Overall, this seems like an odd movie for AMPAS to break its streak of not nominating the sequels to films that it didn't honor the original with a nomination.

The Croods was the other major blockbuster with a nearly $600 million take (though it’s worth noting that The Wind Rises made $130 million internationally, which is pretty damn awesome for a foreign language film, though on Saturday we’ll be discussing a foreign language film with an even greater international take that many of you probably haven’t heard of), but unlike Despicable Me 2, I have to say this film ages better in my mind.  The plot is still silly and the color palette seems like it was chosen by a four-year-old with a 64-pack of Crayolas, but the lighting is sublime (Roger Deakins, y’all), and the action sequences are riveting.  This is the sort of film that probably I would have liked better if I had seen it on the big screen (the only of these five nominees that I didn’t), as its excess would have seemed impressive rather than busy, but I didn’t and films need to be able to play well in both avenues these days.  Still, though, a better film the further you get away from it and not an unworthy nominee considering the dearth of competition.

Ernest & Celestine is another film that is made a lot better by its animation-I love the way that the drawings don’t seem complete and digitized to within an inch of its life: you’re clearly watching an animated film, and it’s almost like you’re lost in an unfinished Monet picture book.  The plot of the film is a bit disjointed and I didn’t like the dream sequences (this film doesn’t wear well in the old noggin in the same way that The Croods does, though I do remember the brilliant artwork being the best of these five films, which is saying something up against Croods and The Wind Rises).  All-in-all a worthy choice to fill out a slim five-wide field, but not as special as it was initially made out to be.

I started with Frozen and will end with The Wind Rises, the only other film of the quintet that remotely had a shot of taking the win with the Oscars (though honestly, there was no chance it would lose considering that Box Office).  The movie is one of Miyazaki’s best, in my opinion, and its message, while interesting and controversial at the time, still seems quite resonant a few months later when the knee-jerk reactions and nitpicking have subsided.  Of the five films, this is clearly the best scripted film and the most fascinating plot.  Honestly, as I’m writing this I’m not sure if I’ll give this film the award or Frozen, but there’s a lot to offer here that would make the unthinkable (skipping Olaf!) seem pretty reasonable: I love when filmmakers take a principled stand in their work while staying grounded deeply in something artistically interesting and beautiful, and that’s what Miyazaki does here by questioning the very idea of war.  It’s a really special movie, and if he truly is retiring, this is a great way to exit the stage.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes avoided all of the fuss around five nominations and stuck to three, so they went with nearly a carbon copy of Oscar (skipping the two foreign language films), with Despicable Me 2 and The Croods losing out to Frozen.  The Annie Awards usually find room for everyone, and they did here, along with Monsters University and A Letter to Momo.  Pixar was probably in sixth place, and its absence both with HFPA and AMPAS (the first time one of their films missed both) makes me curious: is Pixar just an automatic win if it gets nominated (see Brave winning when it could just as easily gone with Frankenweenie or Wreck-It Ralph), but the Academy gets super choosy when it misses critically on the gimme noimination?

Films I Would Have Nominated: I didn’t see Letter to Momo and didn’t like Monsters University, so I’m fine with this list, though I have difficulty believing that Momo wouldn’t trump Despicable Me 2 in my mind (if anyone’s seen it share your thoughts in the comments).

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar finally gave Disney a prize in the category it somehow had missed in since the start: Frozen trumped The Wind Rises.

My Choice: In 2009 I went against the grain and gave Coraline the trophy over Up….but I just cannot quite get there again.  Frozen is the most fun I had in theaters in 2013, and that has to count for something, particularly when the score and casting are so damn entertaining.  I’m going to give it the trophy by a hair’s breadth (damn it-why didn’t I figure out a way to include ties in the OVP?!?), with The Wind Rises right behind.  Coming after are Ernest, Croods, and way in the back, Despicable Me 2.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  When you get objective, is it hard to pick Frozen over The Wind Rises, or are you Team Olaf for life?  Are you part of the (clear minority) of filmgoers that doesn’t care for the Despicable Me films?  And what animated film was the overall best of 2013?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2013: Live Action Short, Animated Short, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score,  Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2013

Past Best Animated Feature Contests: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012

OVP: The Wind Rises (2013)

Film: The Wind Rises (2013)
Stars: Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masahiko Nishimura, Stephen Alpert (oddly enough, I think this is the first time that I have seen a Miyazaki film with the original cast)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

The Wind Rises frequently points out that an artist gets “ten years of being truly creative” as a key plot point of the film, and yet Hayao Miyazaki has proven for decades that this simply isn’t true.  One of the greatest directors of our time, his work has enchanted and inspired countless audiences for decades.  Even if you’re not a fan of anime (I know very little outside of his work), you can instantly rattle off a favorite of his films.  Most rely on Princess Mononoke (at one time the highest-grossing film in Japan) or the Oscar-winning Spirited Away (my personal favorite), but you’d be forgiven if you mentioned any of the eleven movies he’s made.  Few directors have this kind of track record, which is why I approach reviewing this, his final film (after a self-imposed retirement), with a bittersweet intent.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie, like all of Miyazaki’s films, is not what you’d expect at first glance.  The movie is his first to be about a real-life historical figure, Jiro Horikoshi, who dreams of creating airplanes his entire life.  The film continues through his life, with him saving a young woman during the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and then later falling in love with her at a resort after suffering personal setbacks.  All-the-while, he finds himself becoming better and better at designing planes.  The final scenes show Jiro losing the love of his life to tuberculosis, while his first successful plane is launched.  The title scene occurs in the final moments, with the wind rising both on his career and, more importantly, the gust of his wife dying, which he can sense from a distance.

The movie, though, isn’t just a beautiful love story-it also gets into the trickiness of the morality of war.  The Wind Rises has been attacked by almost all sides of the political spectrum (the movie has been called out both pro and anti-war activists, and quite frankly made almost everyone form an opinion...which undoubtedly was a good thing).  Only four years old when the war ended, Miyazaki clearly felt a deep impression from it, as this feels like his most personal of films.  The movie’s stance on the war seems to be, from my impression, fairly pacifist.  We are regularly given over to Jiro’s fascination with creating air machines, and yet we are regularly reminded that he wants to build them for beauty, not for battle.

It’s also hard not to see the persistent reminders of the devastation of war all around the film.  For those not familiar with Japanese history, the earlier sequence when the earthquake invades the countryside could be confused for a wartime battle or even the Hiroshima bomb, it is so devastating and destructive.  Miyazaki putting this unavoidable catastrophe so early in the film and then juxtaposing it with what we know will be coming soon (a man-made catastrophe) absolutely haunted me as a viewer.  Frequently we get films that show us something truly catastrophic about battle and the harshness that it inflicts on those who fight-rarely do we see a war film that questions the very war itself, and why we start them in the first place when scientific discovery or economic harmony or medical research would be such a better, unifying way to live.

These are themes that you hardly expect from an animated film, and I love that Miyazaki doesn’t even pretend that this is for children.  Frequently his movies will have adult themes but children’s motifs to anchor them-think of the generational conflicts and the critical nature of pollution in a movie like Spirited Away.  This is not a film that children should see, and not because of sex or violence.  It’s because it is a movie that requires you to think and respond like an adult.

I was highly critical of this film’s release schedule, and remain so, as I think the film could have been a stronger player in last year’s awards debate (it’s better than half of the Best Picture nominees), and at the very least should have been mentioned in the same breath as those films.  However, I’m so glad I got to take this final journey with Miyazaki in theaters.  The animation is splendid, soft and radiant, and the movie unfurls so much better in a packed theater.  I highly recommend anyone who still has the chance to catch this in theaters (though from personal experience, Miyazaki’s films rarely lose their luster when at home, so at the very least add it to your Netflix list if you are a rural cinephile).

And those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Where does The Wind Rises rank in your personal Miyazaki canon?  Do you think that it should have been a stronger presence in last year’s Oscar race?  And what are your views on the hot-button issues that it tackles?  Share in the comments!

A Dozen Mini Reviews

I keep an excel spreadsheet of all of the different ideas I currently have for this blog, with a list of all of the upcoming posts planned and ideas for series and topics I want to encounter on the site.  I also keep a list of recent (or not so recent) films that I have seen that I want to discuss on the blog, and I am going to be honest right now-the list has gotten too long.  I've got eight OVP films that I will give a proper long review to, and I feel that it would be an injustice to not give Blue is the Warmest Color, which months later is still sitting with me in an incredibly personal and grand way, a full review, but these twelve movies are all probably at the point where I should give them the paragraph treatment and move on (with apologies to all of the filmmakers for not giving your work more due consideration).  Here are a dozen movies (alphabetically) that I have recently encountered, along with their rating on a 5-star scale (spoilers ahead for any and all films):

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Thoughts: I continue my mild obsession with Rooney Mara with this film, which from the commercials looked like Terrence Malick-lite, which is basically what it was.  The film struggles to make sense of its mumbling plot and performances (Mara as a woman trapped in the life of her girlhood is probably the best in show), but the film takes too long to get to its point and lacks Malick's sense of depth and grandeur. (2/5 stars)

The Conjuring

Thoughts: Though it isn't quite at the same level as something like Cabin in the Woods, this was easily the best horror film I saw in 2013, and has excellent work from all involved, particularly Lili Taylor as a mother possessed by a demon.  The art direction of this movie was absolutely wonderful (where was that Oscar nomination?!?) and I loved that, like Cabin, it's smart enough to occasionally hold back in trying to get its scares. Definitely one of the better films on this list. (3/5 stars)

Frances Ha

Thoughts: I don't actually think that Gerwig is ripping off Lena Dunham here, but I do see the comparisons between the two.  Gerwig's movie is more rife with kinder people, though she captures the boundless optimism and limited worldview of Generation Y quite well.  Kudos have to go to a scene-stealing Adam Driver (can he just be in everything from now on?) and to whomever thought up the idea of a random weekend trip to Paris in the script room. (3/5 stars)

Mud

Thoughts: Academy, take note.  This is what excellent Matthew McConaughey looks like, not the performance that you're about to give him an Oscar for (actually, if we want EXCELLENT McConaughey, may I suggest this link).  I loved the world-weary optimism of his Mud, so consumed by a burning desire to justify his actions (a love that's only surface-level for Juniper), and the way that this film managed to make broad daylight just as suspenseful as the middle-of-the-night.  Kudos also on a great ending and to the casting director on landing a bunch of actors who are on hot streaks at the moment. (3/5 stars)

Now You See Me

Thoughts: Caper films are literally my favorite genre to watch at the movies-there's nothing I love better than figuring out a mystery, so I was going into this movie with high hopes.  However, like most caper films, I left thrilled but a bit disappointed.  The casting decisions ran from strong (Woody Harrelson is so great in everything lately) to tired (I love Michael Caine more than life itself, but did he really need to play yet another stodgy British aristocrat?), and the plot got very hackneyed toward the end and the twists were too easy to spot.  (2/5 stars)

One Direction: This is Us

Thoughts: I don't care what anyone says, I love One Direction.  Love, love, love.  I won't even pretend this is a strong documentary or insightful or anything of that nature...though it does explain why Harry Styles will be the Justin Timberlake quite nicely.  I'm fangirling here, and I still give it (3/5 stars).

Pacific Rim

Thoughts: I had a few thoughts during this film.  One, how did this not get cited for Best Visual Effects-between this movie and the ultra-classy effects happening in Man of Steel there should have been no room for Star Trek into Darkness.  Two, what the hell is up with this plot?  Which screenwriter got high and thought we should have giant robots fighting giant aliens?  Because this is someone who I want to party with, and who should probably never be let near a movie studio again.  And finally, which straight woman/gay guy on set kept demanding that Charlie Hunnam be in various states of undress, as I owe them a thank you card? (2/5 stars...though Charlie's abs get infinity/5 stars).

The Place Beyond the Pines

Thoughts: I was live-texting this film with my brother and when I told him a few weeks later than Dane DeHaan and Ryan Gosling were both close to making my personal list for best supporting actors of 2013, he was surprised because he thought I hated the film.  Apparently I only texted during the middle third, which I found tired, unfortunate, and filled with cliche (can someone put a kibosh on hiring Ray Liotta in anything ever again at this point...I'm just sort of done with it, and even when he's good like in Killing Them Softly other actors could do better and we're all just wishing we were watching GoodFellas).  Bradley Cooper is no good as a former lawyer who becomes a cop to...I have no idea why he became a cop, and I genuinely paid attention during that part.  Gosling was great as an aspiring hood and DeHaan even better as his delinquent son. (3/5 stars)

Ponyo

Thoughts: I figured with us working on the 2009 OVP, I needed to see one of the biggest competitors for the 2009 Animated Film nominations, and being a Miyazaki fan I thought it was my duty to peruse. I have to say that I left feeling pretty disappointed-I've seen some Miyazaki that I adored (Spirited Away), but this felt too contrived and simplistic for me.  And I HATED that final song (which I couldn't get out of my head for days). (2/5 stars)

Spring Breakers

Thoughts: The Bling Ring went into similar territory with much finer results-please see that instead if you haven't.  Franco was the best part, but anyone who thinks this is better than his work in Milk needs to put down the cocaine, and can we all just admit that Vanessa Hudgens should not be cast in anything ever again?  When you're acting next to Selena Gomez and still seem like a background character with absolutely no panache, you have problems. (1/5 stars)

Stories We Tell

Thoughts: Surely very insightful, and quite an interesting combination of personal discovery and the complications that arise from family, but I didn't feel it.  I tried, and feel quite stupid for not feeling it, and I found it very interesting, for sure, but the final thirty minutes seemed too much like Polley was covering up some of her family's dirty laundry and I thought she should have turned the lens on herself sooner.  The last joke was a riot, though. (2/5 stars)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Thoughts: The Conjuring and this movie are the two films that I feel the worst about short-shifting (and are coincidentally the two films that I liked the best), but I've been putting off writing this review so long that I feel like I wouldn't do it justice without a re-view, and that's not in the cards for a while.  A thoughtful, difficult treatise on the permanence of death and the way that we become haunted by our pasts and our loves as we age.  A must see film, a Palme d'Or winner, and the only movie I've ever seen that made having sex with a catfish seem erotic. (4/5 stars)

Those are my thoughts on these films-what are yours?  Did you have a favorite in the bunch?