Best Animated Film: 2003

[Okri]

I enjoyed the moose duo more than I expected,.

Forgive me if you already know this -- a problem with getting old is, you no longer know how many things are still common knowledge, and which have slipped into arcane territory. Were you aware the moose were Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis, reprising their McKenzie Brothers characters from SCTV? The two were a hugely popular part of the show back around 1980/81 (they even made a pretty bad feature, Strange Brew), two Canadian doofuses who sit around drinking beer and making stupid observations. As a Canadian resident, I figure you'd want to tuck this bit of information away. (The history of the skit, by the way, is interesting: as I understand it, Canadian law at the time required, in any show shot in the country, a certain percentage of purely Canadian content. This is what Thomas/Moranis came up with, which surely made the country regret the existence of the law.)

No, didn't know that. That law is still around in various guises, actually. It irritates people but I kinda like it.

[Mister Tee]

Lest you folks think I've been ignoring this thread: I'm another who never saw Brother Bear back in the day, thus couldn't comment. (Looking back, I see I was far less rigorous about completing the ballot when this category was new -- also still haven't seen Jimmy Neutron, Treasure Planet, Surf's Up! or even that Pirates! movie) A combination of baseball, election angst and, recently, mid-level health woes have kept me from seeing it, till last night.

It's one of those stories whose general trajectory you can figure about 10 minutes in. (SPOILER: I'm guessing what okri means by making the most difficult part of the story fit for kids is 1) it glides over the moment of revelation with a song instead of full confrontation and 2) having Kenai essentially take over he parent role?) And Phil Collins music is a heavy burden for any film to (pardon me) bear. But the film zips along pretty well, there's a decent bit of goofy humor (the rams fighting the echo was silly in just the way I most enjoy), and it helps to have a major actor/future Oscar winner as your primary character.

I enjoyed the moose duo more than I expected,.

Forgive me if you already know this -- a problem with getting old is, you no longer know how many things are still common knowledge, and which have slipped into arcane territory. Were you aware the moose were Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis, reprising their McKenzie Brothers characters from SCTV? The two were a hugely popular part of the show back around 1980/81 (they even made a pretty bad feature, Strange Brew), two Canadian doofuses who sit around drinking beer and making stupid observations. As a Canadian resident, I figure you'd want to tuck this bit of information away. (The history of the skit, by the way, is interesting: as I understand it, Canadian law at the time required, in any show shot in the country, a certain percentage of purely Canadian content. This is what Thomas/Moranis came up with, which surely made the country regret the existence of the law.)

As for the primary contest: I don't think the choice between Triplets of Belleville and Finding Nemo is one easily made. The first -- what? 20 minutes or so? -- of Belleville is absolutely acid-trip inspired; had it continued in the vein/at that level, it would have been an easy choice. And there were certainly solid elements to the rest of the film. But, by the final reel, it turned into another evil spies/mad chase scene, which felt considerably more routine to me. It seems to me the impulse to automatically rate it over a PIXAR effort is to play the underdog game, which I understand but try not to indulge too reflexively.

I don't know what Finding Nemo would look like to me now, after just too many goddamn-cartoons (TM), including from PIXAR (not to mention its female star having come under fire). At the time, the studio was still in the bloom of its youth, and Nemo just came across as fully fresh, emotional, visually striking, and often laugh-out-loud funny. I don't see as as corporate product at all, and, at the time, I think I'd probably have voted for it. Today? Let me mull it over a bit longer.

[Sabin]

OscarGuy wrote
Without having seen Triplets of Belleville, then Finding Nemo is an easy choice. Brother Bear is ok, but it's definitely inferior Disney output and remains one of the reasons this is considered Disney's fallow period. Finding Nemo is hilarious. It's simple, but it really was a wonderfully fun movie and sometimes that's enough. Definitely not top-tier Pixar, but certainly middle-tier.

I would watch The Triplets of Belleville. I think you'd really like it.

[OscarGuy]

Without having seen Triplets of Belleville, then Finding Nemo is an easy choice. Brother Bear is ok, but it's definitely inferior Disney output and remains one of the reasons this is considered Disney's fallow period. Finding Nemo is hilarious. It's simple, but it really was a wonderfully fun movie and sometimes that's enough. Definitely not top-tier Pixar, but certainly middle-tier.

[Reza]

Then there's William Powell, nominated for My Man Godfrey rather than The Great Ziegfeld. Was that the correct choice?

Without a doubt his performance in My Man Godfrey is far greater than his Flo Ziegfeld.

[Big Magilla]

I was thinking an open discussion rather than a poll or maybe a discussion followed by a poll with the names that have been mentioned rather than one person throwing up a poll with names he handpicked.

For example, starting with Spencer Tracy in San Francisco being moved to support in 1936, my inclination would be to nominate him in lead for Fury with Charlie Chaplin Modern Times, Ronald Colan in A Tale of Two Cities, and Charles Laughton in Rembrandt also under consideration.

Then there's William Powell, nominated for My Man Godfrey rather than The Great Ziegfeld. Was that the correct choice?

Who would benefit from Luise Rainer's move to support? I'm thinking Jean Arthur in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Ruth Chatterton in Dodsworth, Katharine Hepburn in Mary of Scotland, Myrna Loy in After the Thin Man, Rosalind Russell in Craig's Wife, and Sylvia Sidney in Fury would all be worth considering.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
I think if we're going to do this, we need to say who we would have nominated instead and who we would have replaced if we were to move the nominee to the other category.

I would suggest we vote on likely who would have been the beneficiary of the open slot. I am personally more interested in that conversation because it allows for a longer conversation about the various intricacies of the race, which we're all very well suited to do. We're all still free to hold to conviction that someone truly outside the box might have been the beneficiary. For example, nobody predicted that Edward Norton would be nominated for American History X.

Although I do like Finding Nemo, it is nice to see The Triplets of Belleville in the lead here.

[Sabin]

Okri wrote
I just saw Brother Bear so I can vote honestly in these polls. It’s cute. I enjoyed the moose duo more than I expected, rolled my eyes at the attempt to recapture “Circle of Life” in the opening sequences (though the animals in the Northern Lights were nicely rendered)… but it’s squarely aimed at kids. There is one storytelling beat where I couldn’t imagine how they would make it kiddie and they somehow managed to do it. I don’t want to call it cowardly filmmaking, given that it is for kids… but man it comes close.

My thoughts to a T. It's well-intentioned family filmmaking but it's just so mild. Every bit of it feels like it's calculated to safely hit a double: body transformation, animations, Phil Collins music. It's pretty remarkable that this was Disney's non-PIXAR release of the year. This is clearly a studio with a leadership problem.

[Big Magilla]

Voted for Triplets of Belleville. Could not get into Finding Nemo no matter how many times I tried.

I don't think we should be hijacking Okri's thread with an off-topic discussion for lead vs. supporting so if anyone wants to continue it, please start a new thread.

A few thoughts on that, though. It's not a black-and-white issue.

When the supporting categories were put in place the rule of thumb was that lead actors (as designated by the studios) were only eligible for lead consideration while those designated as supporting players on studio rosters could be nominated in either category. Thus, Spencer Tracy and Luise Rainer were nominated in lead for their supporting performances in San Francisco and The Great Ziegfeld respectively, while Stu Erwin was nominated in support for his lead role in Pigskin Parade at the 1936 awards.

Fay Bainter was the first designated supporting player to be nominated for a lead performance in 1938's White Banners while at the same time becoming the first player to be nominated in both lead and support in the same year.

MGM was the first studio to pull a real switcheroo in 1939 when they campaigned Olivia de Havilland in support for her co-lead role in Gone with the Wind while listing Greer Garson in lead for her limited role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The thinking behind the switch was that Leigh's was the clearly defined lead female character in her film as was Garson in hers while de Havilland was the second most important female character in hers.

I may be missing someone, but I don't think it would be until the 1970s that this kind of thinking became the norm.

In looking at Reza's examples, other things come into play.

Pacino had the largest role in The Godfather and really should have been nominated in lead, but I don't think it's an easy fix just to switch the two. There would have been massive category fraud charges leveled at nominating Brando in support after his casting and over-the-top billing was the curiosity factor that drew many to the film in the first place.

O'Neal's placement and win can be blamed on the eradication of the child acting award that went out with Hayley Mills' win for Pollyanna.

Fletcher's placement was due to a lack of strong contenders in the lead category in 1975.

I think if we're going to do this, we need to say who we would have nominated instead and who we would have replaced if we were to move the nominee to the other category.

[Reza]

I had another idea for a category that might be more participatory. What if each year we voted on which performances that were nominated for supporting should have been considered leading performances, and vice-versa? This has been a constant annoyance for more than two decades.

Good idea....and for starters both Brando (The Godfather) and Louise Fletcher (Cuckoo's Nest) should have been nominated in the supporting category while Tatum O'Neal (Paper Moon) and Al Pacimo (The Godfather) were both leads.

[Sabin]

Okri wrote
I’m not an Oscar completist. Life’s too short, too many great films/books/experiences. And the first decade of the animated film category generally reaffirms that stance. So many mediocrities get nominated and if that’s the best on offer, do we really need this category? As I mentioned in Sabin’s Pixar thread, I do ultimately think this category is worth it for the number of strong films that get nominated…. Eventually. But not yet.

Yup. I'm happy to pick up the slack with the next year.

I had another idea for a category that might be more participatory. What if each year we voted on which performances that were nominated for supporting should have been considered leading performances, and vice-versa? This has been a constant annoyance for more than two decades.

Anyway...

I've never seen Brother Bear. I've had more than enough time to do so but I'll drag myself to it in the next day or so because honestly, if I'm not going to watch and write something about Brother Bear, what's the point?

I haven't seen The Triplets of Belleville in years but it will be getting my vote in this category after I do so (unless I just become the biggest fan of Brother Bear in the world). I remember being totally transported by it even though I can't remember everything about it totally. I have seen Finding Nemo recently and I quite like it but it suffers from some very mediocre storytelling choices that nobody remembers. And yet the first act is great and the ending where Nemo tells his father that he loves him packs a punch. It's far from an undeserving choice, and if this category didn't exist it might have been the first Pixar film to breakthrough into Best Picture which also wouldn't have been undeserving. It had a huge audience impact, it's a gorgeous piece of filmmaking, and it's an emotional piece of storytelling that sadly isn't quite as engaging as it should be in the second act. But in all likelihood, I'll be voting for The Triplets of Belleville.

[Okri]

I’m not an Oscar completist. Life’s too short, too many great films/books/experiences. And the first decade of the animated film category generally reaffirms that stance. So many mediocrities get nominated and if that’s the best on offer, do we really need this category? As I mentioned in Sabin’s Pixar thread, I do ultimately think this category is worth it for the number of strong films that get nominated…. Eventually. But not yet.

The Annie Awards went for Millennium Actress and Looney Tunes: Back in Action along with the Oscar trio. The latter is goofy fun, but Looney Tunes works best in short doses with commercials, hyperactive children and sugary cereal. I remember Damien giving it four stars and thinking it was one of the five best films of the year, though – and that a goddamn cartoon attained his appreciation will always be endearing. Millennium Actress might actually be my choice. I want revisit it before declaiming that, but I found it was a surprisingly mature film about memories and expectations thwarted.

I just saw Brother Bear so I can vote honestly in these polls. It’s cute. I enjoyed the moose duo more than I expected, rolled my eyes at the attempt to recapture “Circle of Life” in the opening sequences (though the animals in the Northern Lights were nicely rendered)… but it’s squarely aimed at kids. There is one storytelling beat where I couldn’t imagine how they would make it kiddie and they somehow managed to do it. I don’t want to call it cowardly filmmaking, given that it is for kids… but man it comes close.

I should rewatch Finding Nemo before voting. I won’t, though. I’m somewhat mystified that in the year of Return of the King, this was the biggest hit (I never understand the box office). Some truly marvelous animation throughout and the father-son relationship is genuinely moving. But I remember the second half being a little… rote? Maybe I’m being unfair.

I should rewatch The Triplets of Belleville as well – and I remember really liking that one (it hovered near the bottom of my top ten of 2003, though 2003 was an awful year and I cheated to include Angels in America). I don’t love Chomet’s other films (more to complain about later) but this one worked for me. Completely charming with style to spare. It’s a weak category, so an easier vote than it might have been in other years.