Oscar Nominations 2021: 7 of 9

1. The Power of the Dog, Dune, Belfast, and West Side Story
2. King Richard, Drive My Car, Don't Look Up, and Nightmare Alley
3. CODA, Licorice Pizza, Being the Ricardos, and The Lost Daughter
4. The Tragedy of Macbeth, Encanto, No Time to Die, and Flee
5. Tick, Tick... Boom!, Parallel Mothers, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and The Worst Person in the World
6. Cruella, Spencer, The Hand of God, and Lunana: a Yak in the Classroom

Cyrano

1 Nomination

• Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran (Little Women, Darkest Hour, Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Turner, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) & Massimo Cantini Parrini (Pinnochio)
  

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Mendelsohn, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Dolan, Joshua James

 

Oh shit. This had no right being as bad as it was. I love Joe Wright, and I just can't figure out why he did this. I cannot believe that people were talking about Peter Dinklage possibly getting an Oscar nomination. Sure. If Russell Crowe deserved an Oscar nomination for Les Misérables. This Cyrano exists in some kind of no-man's-land nation that is fighting an unnamed war, and not one moment of it is believable in any way. The entire thing feels artificial. This is made even more absurd by singing and dancing. Like, maybe this could have been something if it did not also ask us to take these characters singing and dancing seriously, but then it does. The characters erupt into song in ways that feel completely unmotivated. Worse still, Peter Dinklage is a terrible singer... I just don't understand what this movie was doing. This movie is laughably, almost hilariously, bad. I want to say something else about this: if you adapt Cyrano de Bergerac into a musical, then you make a transposition: Cyrano must cease to be a poet. Cyrano's poetry exists in this film in addition to the songs, and so the poetry is supposed to be the most beautiful thing in the movie, but of course what needs to be the most beautiful thing in the movie is the music. If you're going to adapt this text into a piece of musical theatre, then you make Cyrano into a singer. He must be a singer with a beautiful voice but an ugly face while Christian, his rival, can't sing a lick but looks beautiful. Or you make Cyrano a lyricist and Christian a singer. Something. But this Cyrano doesn't use the form at all. Instead it tacks tacky songs onto a very old plot for one of the worst movies of the year.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #57 out of 59

The Mitchells vs the Machines

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature
  

Director: Michael Rianda, Jeff Rowe

Cast: Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Michael Rianda, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman, Beck Bennett, Fred Armisen, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend

I know that everyone loved this movie, and I really wanted to like it, but it was not for me. I just absolutely cannot get behind the old narrative that family is everything. Family is not everything. This dad is a dick to his daughter all the while she is growing up, and then the robot overlords come and there is a near apocalypse, and suddenly what this girl learns is that... even though her dad has been kind of a dick and not cared about her interests for the last decade, her family really is the most important thing in the world. Like... ok, but that seems like a rather facile point of view. To be fair, Mitchells has many good jokes, and the animation style is quirky and fun. It deserves its nomination, for sure. I just didn't care for the movie.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #52 out of 59

Luca

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature
  

Director: Enrico Casarosa

Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Marco Barricelli, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Sohn

On the other hand, I really liked Luca. This is really, really cute. I think I enjoyed this more than it really deserved, but it has some awesome moments. Luca is pretty obviously an allegory for sexuality. The kids are really aquatic fish monsters, and they show their true colors when they get wet. But Casarosa's treatment of this is charming. The non-fish-monster girl is hilarious and adorable, and the film really got me a couple of times. There's a true clutch-your-pearls moment at the end of act two that had me shook. I enjoyed this a lot.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #27 out of 59

Raya and the Last Dragon

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature
  

Director: Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada

Cast: Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Izaac Wang, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, Sandra Oh, Jona Xiao, Lucille Soong

I have to confess to being a little surprised that this film made the final cut for nominations in this category. This was a very strong year for animated features. I saw many more than I usually see because I've been on kind of an animation kick, and I kind of expected Hosoda Mamoru's Belle or Patrick Imbert's Summit of the Gods to appear in this slot. Both were better than Raya, although it is fine, and it has dragons – I love dragons. Instead, the Academy went with a second Disney movie (for the record, this doesn't happen very often – more usually each studio gets one nomination). But Belle and Summit of the Gods are both excellent films, so I guess they just went with the big name. In any case, it's an also-ran here. It can't win a thing. Not against Encanto, dragons or no dragons.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #43 out of 59

8. Spider-man: No Way Home, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Free Guy

9. House of Gucci, Coming 2 America, and Four Good Days

Raya and the Last Dragon

This starts off really terrible. Lots of sentiment and deep meaning and faux feelings that don't really mean anything since we've only just met everyone.

It gets a lot better as it goes on, and the film introduces characters other than the very earnest and boring protagonist. The side characters are delightful, and the adventures they all go on make Raya and the Last Dragon well worth watching. The worldbuilding is great, and the fight scenes are all really, really fun.

The trouble with this film is twofold. In the first place, the "message" of the film, which is hammered home about ten thousand times. You have to trust other people, guys. This is the only way politics can work. We get it. It's not a terrible message, of course but must we hear about it so many times? It's like I was back watching The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and being told I needed to have faith. Yep. Thanks. The other big problem with Raya is Raya herself. The last dragon is cool as hell, and silly and fun. Raya is not. Raya has a huge chip on her shoulder. She's angry and bitter and continually trying to make other people miserable. One of the lessons she needs to learn in the film is that she needs to lighten up and loosen up, of course, but it makes the beginning of this film hard to watch. Who would want to be friends with this young lady?

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 8 of 12 (Animated Features)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7.
Part 8 of 12:

How to Train Your Dragon 2

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Dean DeBlois

Cast: Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, America Ferrera, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Djimon Hounsou, Kristin Wiig, T.J. Miller, Kit Harington

This was just so dang cute, and the dragon who is the star of these films is so gorgeously designed that when he's on screen it is impossible to look at anything else. He's sleek and lovable and charming and who wouldn't want one for her very own? The movie itself is exciting, too. There are hundreds of new species of beautifully drawn dragons, and the plot is moving and sweet without being cloying or absurd. I expect this to win this year, even though I liked Big Hero 6 slightly more. For those of you who want me to say something about The Lego Movie's big snub here, read on.

Will Win: Animated Feature

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #26 out of 80

Big Hero 6

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Don Hall, Chris Williams
Cast: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Maya Rudolph, Daniel Henney, Alan Tudyk, James Cromwell, T.J. Miller, Genesis Rodriguez, Damon Wayans Jr., Jamie Chung

I loved this movie. It's smart and exciting, and beautifully shot. It is also a straight-up action movie, even though it is a movie for kids. And it's filled with science, so that kids can understand just how much fun science can be – and even more, how great it would be if we were using science to do good in the world instead of simply attempting to make more money. The characters are wonderful, and the main creation (his name is Baemax) is lovable and huggable (see above) and is perfectly voiced by Scott Adsit. This is an excellent film. I should say that my favorite animated film of the year was Ari Folman's The Congress, which isn't animated for its entire length, (so I guess it doesn't count?), but this is my favorite of the nominees for sure, and one of my favorite films this year.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Feature

My Rating: #17 out of 80

Song of the Sea

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Tomm Moore

Cast: Lucy O'Connell, David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Fionnula Flanagan, Pat Shortt, Lisa Hannigan, Jon Kenny

This is the first of this year's nominees that I haven't seen. Ho hum. It just never played up here in the hinterlands, and it was in Los Angeles too early for me to have seen it there. This was animated by the same folks that brought us The Secret of Kells (also a nominee, for the 2009 season), and by all accounts it is beautiful and everyone loves it. Its appearance on nomination morning was a surprise to many (although not to me), because almost everyone was betting that The Lego Movie would get a nomination for Best Animated Feature. Why everyone liked The Lego Movie is a bit of a mystery to me, but it should have been quite clear that it couldn't have gotten a nomination. It isn't stop-motion animation at all. It's a kind of hybrid thing that pretends to be stop-motion but is actually traditionally animated. The Animation Branch does not value strangely animated pictures: remember The Adventures of Tintin? Or Waking Life? It does love traditional, beautiful, and especially hand-drawn work, which Song of the Sea certainly is. This could win in an upset.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Feature

My Rating: Not Yet Rated

The Boxtrolls

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi

Cast: Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan, Ben Kingsley, Jared Harris, Dee Bradley Baker

I was sort of bored by this. Its themes are very similar to last year's Ernest et Célestine, and it just wasn't as visually intriguing as I wanted it to be. It's cute and charming in a grotesque sort of way (its grotesquerie is definitely part of its attraction), but it is never really more than that. And its plot is sentimental and clichéd. I was disappointed. It's a shame because I really liked Jorge R. Gutierrez's The Book of Life, and it could have had this slot. It was imaginative and beautiful, and the plot was intriguing and clever and had a healthy ironic perspective on itself. Oh well.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #60 out of 80

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語)

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Takahata Isao

Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Darren Criss, Lucy Liu, Beau Bridges, James Marsden, Oliver Platt, Dean Cain, Daniel Dae Kim, George Segal, John Cho

This was another bit of a disappointment. I've written about this movie already here; its animation is lovely, but the story just isn't that intriguing. One sort of knows how it is going to go before we ever get anywhere. It's an old tale, so that makes a kind of sense, but it just reiterates old clichés about living in the woods and not living in the city, and that we ought to let our children be what they want to be instead of forcing them to be what we want them to be. Important sentiments, no doubt, but not sentiments that need to be told in a film that is longer than two hours.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #53 out of 80