Oscar Nominations 2022: 7 of 9 (Animated Features)

 This year's nominees:

Pinocchio

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Guillermo Del Toro, Mark Gustafson

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Gregory Mann, David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, Ron Perlman, Burn Gorman, Cate Blanchett, Tim Blake Nelson, John Turturro

I loved this movie, and I think it's the best animated film of the year, but it is a Guillermo Del Toro movie, not a Disney Pinocchio tale. Del Toro's film is a very interesting and constantly surprising meditation on death, grief, loss, and the violence of war. Especially intriguing is the Blue Fairy's opposite, a terrifying and wise sphinx figure whom Pinocchio meets in the afterlife. This is also a film with songs, and I have to say that I think I would have liked it better without the musical elements, but it didn't damage my affection for Del Toro's engaging take on this old story. I am predicting this movie to win best animated feature, but I have to say I'm skeptical of my own prediction. Everyone was expecting Pinocchio to do much better on nomination morning than it did. Nominations were predicted for sound, adapted screenplay, and other categories, but it only managed this one. Even music-branch-golden-boy Alexandre Desplat missed a nomination for his Pinocchio score. All of the nominees for best animated feature this year are only nominated in this one category. This is unusual. I think, in the case of Pinocchio, it indicates that the Academy likes it a lot less than critics did. This might mean that Marcel can pull off a win.

Will Win: Animated Feature

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #13 out of 67

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

Cast: Jenny Slate, Fleischer Camp, Isabella Rossellini, Lesley Stahl, Thomas Mann, Rosa Salazar

I really liked this. I liked Marcel when he was a YouTube sensation – I don't know how many times I watched that video – and I liked him again now. This is a very intriguing pandemic movie. It feels like a pandemic movie, like something made to cope with loss and grief. This is what the animated feature category is about this year – coping with mortality and trying to come to terms with grief and loss. Marcel has a very cute way of doing this, and this film is super charming. I was sort of surprised to hear how emotional people got over Marcel, though. It just didn't do that for me. In terms of the academy and its short film and animated feature branch, this movie is quite an anomaly, and it signals a new approach in considering animation. I think five years ago, this movie would not have been legible as an animated feature. This nomination, though, really opens things up for how the branch is understanding and honoring work in animation, and I think this is very positive.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #27 out of 67

Puss in Boots: the Last Wish

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Joel Crawford

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Harvey Guillén, Wagner Moura, Florence Pugh, Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone, Samson Kayo, John Mulaney, Da'Vine Joy Randolph 

This is really fun! It's also gorgeously animated, with a witty and cleverly changing set of styles, used in various ways and for different effects. In case you haven't understood the theme, this too is a mediation on death. Puss is, for the first time, terrified for his life, and the film deals with death humorously for a time (perhaps the way most of us do) before moving into quite serious territory. The Last Wish, unfortunately, moves inexorably toward easy clichés and toward melodramatic solutions to its very intriguing problems, but for most of its runtime this is a fun, handsomely animated film, and Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas are great.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #38 out of 67

Turning Red

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Domee Shi

Cast: Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Orion Lee, Wai Ching Ho, Ava Morse, Hyein Park, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Tristan Allerick Chen, Mia Tagano, Lori Tan Chinn, Lillian Lim, James Hong, Sherry Cola

I've already written about Turning Red. If you follow my Instagram, you probably know that I'm obsessed with red pandas, and so I was very ready to be in love with this. It is, indeed, very good, and I had a pretty great time with it. For me, Turning Red is, like many children's movies these days, about the child who is weird, whose desires and impulses don't accord with those of her parents', and who finds herself strange even to herself. [I explore this concept of the queer child as central to recent animated features in chapter five of my new book – link below.] I definitely liked how this movie was about turning against tradition, about deciding to follow a different path. It does have some weird choices in it, though. I am not sure why it's set in the past, and especially not sure why they didn't draw the red panda to look more like the way a real red panda looks – they have beautiful black bellies and black boots, but the animated character is all red. Mostly, this movie makes a very strange homophobic choice that just didn't sit well with me. The movie's still good, but that moment stuck with me and I had trouble letting it go.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #46 out of 67

The Sea Beast

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Chris Williams

Cast: Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jared Harris, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Kathy Burke

This nomination was a total surprise, and I really don't know how it came to be, because this movie is a complete retread of How to Train Your Dragon. I've already seen How to Train Your Dragon, and this is the same damn plot as the first one except that they're sea dragons instead of flying dragons. Now, I'm sure that lots of kids like this movie. It's cute enough, and it's harmless. But I was annoyed with it, despite my affection for Karl Urban's handsomeness and my love for Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #50 out of 67

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Elvis

2. The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

3. Avatar: the Way of Water, Triangle of Sadness, The Whale, and Babylon

4. The Batman, Women Talking, Living, and Aftersun

5. To Leslie, Blonde, Glass Onion, and Causeway

6. Argentina, 1985, Eo, The Quiet Girl, and Close

More posts coming soon:

8. Animated Shorts

9. Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Empire of Light, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, RRR, and Tell It like a Woman

I'd love it if you checked out my new book Love Is Love Is Love – out March 24!