I Hate the Oscars
Seriously.
You have a movie that is easily the best rated picture of the year, yet not even nominated for best picture.
You have a award category that is complete bullshit and has a single studio winning it four out of the eight years the category has been available, all times when they were also some of the highest rated movies of the year.
You have an actor giving what was literally a role in a movie, that was MADE for him. He gets effing robbed.
Man I fucking hate the Oscars.
[UPDATE] But man oh man do I fucking love John Gruber.
I’ll put it in writing: the best motion picture released last year was WALL-E. Like 2001 — which WALL-E pays significant homage to — it wasn’t even nominated for best picture. But it effectively couldn’t be nominated — and that’s the real crime. Instead, WALL-E was nominated for and awarded the prize for “best animated film”.1
But why does this category even exist? Animated as opposed to what? Photographed? Animation is merely a technique. Cinema is cinema. The Academy’s rules state that films nominated for best animated feature are still eligible to be nominated for best picture, but don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen. The whole point of this award to establish a ghetto where “cartoons”, no matter how good, are relegated. Putting WALL-E up against Bolt and Kung Fu Panda rather than letting it compete against Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button is like requiring a 13-year-old chess prodigy to compete only against other children, regardless whether he could stand his own against adult grandmasters. It’s a dismissive pat on the head.
Ok, so I was wrong in the comments regarding being eligible to be nominated for both, but the point still stands, Wall-E not being nominated is a crime.
Tags: animation, fuckyouoscars, mickeyrourke, movies, wall-e
This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Some Pulp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Welcome to Hollywood!
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Wall-E was an amazing movie, but I don’t think it stacks up next to Slumdog Millionaire for “the award” of Best Picture. I’m glad it did win the Animated category, definitely deserved.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
how close was that “leaked” list?
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
9 / 22 correct. Chad dubbed it bullshit on the original post.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I liked Slumdog a good bit, but we’re going to have to agree to disagree, Choof.
Honestly I believe the real list for Best Picture nominees should have been:
Slumdog
Wall-E
The Wrestler (criminally snubbed by the academy, I swear they must just hate Afronosky)
Frost/Nixon
Milk
I didn’t see the Reader, but I thought the Curious Case of Benjamin Button was boring as all hell.
I really just think it’s bullshit how the Academy lumps these fantastic Pixar films that come out every year into the Best Animation category, when half the time there really isn’t any good competition. I would have rather liked to see Wall-E win best picture, not get the nomination for Best Animation, and have Kung-Fu Panda win that and give the Dreamworks Animation fellas some overdue credit.
I also think it was quite stupid how Waltz with Bashir got only a Best Foreign film nod and not a Best Animation nod. Compare this to last year where Persepolis went head to head with Ratatouille (tough choice for me as I LOVE LOVE LOVE Persepolis and Ratatouille is arguably my favorite Pixar film), and Ratatouille won, leaving Persepolis without any recognition (when it would have dominated the Best Foreign Film noms).
Bah, screw ‘em.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
rob,
I don’t want to get on your bad side, but I’m pretty sure a nomination in any form is recognition that the actor/film was of the highest caliber in it’s group.
I have to agree with Choof. Slumdog and Wall-E are not really films that you can compare. Both are fabulous, but I Wall-E won the best picture for the category that it was part of. Soon the Academy will have to make new categories when the animated movies break out of their niche and become more than “children’s” movies.
Until then you’ll just have to be mad at the Academy Rob.
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I fully agree with Rob’s frustrations. The Academy is rigged by people with connections who just want to see their fellow man do well. The industry is hella corrupt in this way, especially with Visual Effects studios.
I fully enjoyed both Slumdog Millionaire and Wall-E, each amazing films in their own way. However the work generated by top animation studios such as Pixar and Dreamworks gets totally snubbed every year, even if their story was better than that of a live action film. Yes, Slumdog has some of the best storytelling and cinematography of the year but it did not come close to the innovation of not only computer graphics but also silent storytelling techniques Pixar developed to create what is the best example of animated story telling to date. And to top that off, the rest of the industry relies if not SURVIVES on the technology generated in house at Pixar.
Perhaps what hinders animations from getting the Best Picture award is due to the lack of star power behind such productions. People like to see a shining face that they can somewhat recognize squealing with glee on the podium. No on wants to see some beady-eyed hunch back with a pony tail who rarely sees the light of day due to the insane amount of commitment and intensity required to generate a production such as Wall-E.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
@Mariah
I guess I’ll just have to agree to disagree with you as well.
I should have stated that I’m not a professional movie critic, nor do I want to be.
Wall-E and Slumdog Millionaire, essentially, are both _movies_. The method for getting the story onto celluloid may be different, but they’re both films that tell a story with character development, emotion, and all that shit.
I’m no expert on the subject, but based on all the “behind the scenes” extras for animation films I’ve seen, it does take (arguably)_almost_ as much skill to record a voice track for an animated character as it does for an actor to act in a live-action film. I say almost as there is the included responsibility/task of performing physically.
Maybe this is an area Eric and/or Kyle can fill in on, but the work needed to create realistic animations of 2D or 3D animated characters seems very substantial.
Essentially, the point I’m trying to get across is that a well-done animated film is still a _film_. The category itself for Best Picture is “Best Picture”. It does not specify whether or not a film has to be live-action or animated, therefore I believe that there is no reason a film like Wall-E and a film like Slumdog Millionaire _cannot_ be compared. The methods are different, but the outcome and end product is the same: great movies.
The Golden Globes have a setup where you have Best Comedy and Best Drama Motion picture awards. In 2006 they announced they were going to implement a Best Animated feature award category. This works to an extent, but doesn’t provide that “SINGLE BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!” fanfare that the singular “Best Picture” category that the Oscars have.
My argument isn’t necessarily that Wall-E actually _win_ the Best Picture Oscar, just that I believe at the very least it should have been nominated. One could bring up the fact that Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture, but that was prior to the introduction of the Best Animated Feature category.
Wall-E did get nominated, and win a number of Best Picture awards from such institutions as the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics Association, and the Los Angeles Film Critics association. It was also nominated for best Original Screenplay @ the Oscars, included with such company as the screenplays for Milk and Frozen River.
Thinking about it more, the lack of Wall-E’s Best Picture nomination brings up another issue I have with the Academy (and the categorization of movies in general), that issue being that I don’t really think “Animation” should be considered a GENRE, period. Especially these days, where you have high usage of CGI on a number of “live-action” films (like Best Picture nominee Benjamin Button and former Best Picture winner LOTR: The Return of the King).
Heck, even Andrew Stanton (director of Wall-E and Finding Nemo), when asked how he feels about the so called “ghettoizing” of Animation films tot he Best Animated Feature category, stated that:
” It’s just a sign that times have changed. Because from the live action side, animation — and computers in general — are being used as a tool in so many movies now. The line is just getting so blurry that I think with each proceeding year, it’s going to be tougher and tougher to say what’s an animated movie and what’s not an animated movie. And what I’d love is to get to the point where someone just goes, ‘I don’t care.’ Because I’ve been at the ‘I don’t care’ point a long time now. ”
And I can’t help but agree with him.
PS. You’re not getting on my bad side, I love meaningful discussion about things I’m passionate about.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Dear Mr. Stanton,
I believe that there actually are definitive criteria for an ‘animated movie’. As long as there is no captured film and everything is created by artists (CG or classical methods), that’s an animated movie. Anything else is either a hybrid or a vanilla captured film.
Love,
Choof
P.S. Love your work
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Also for the record, Wall-E music was better than Slumdog’s.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Wall-E had live footage homes.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Then it’s a hybrid, good call
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Dear Choof,
Please categorize the following movies for me based on your own criteria:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/ (A Scanner Darkly)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243017/ (Waking Life)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/ (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)
God Bless,
Rob.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
For the record, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for best picture in ‘91. It’s not that they don’t do it, it’s just that they didn’t feel it was the five elite films of the year. They just have a drastically different viewpoint than we have because the Academy and Live-Action filmmaking is in Hollywood. This industry is pretty exclusive.
Remember, art is subjective. Let them pat each other on the back and enjoy their shiny, new marketing tools.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
1. Hybrid – cool use of Rotoscoping
2. Hybrid – I haven’t seen this movie, but from the images I saw on IMDB & clips on youtube, it seems like rotoscope as well
3. Hybrid
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I gotta go with Rob & Kstyle on this one; A film is a film, no matter what the medium. It is my understanding that any film, no matter what the category, is eligible to win best picture. The fact that Wall•E wasn’t even NOMINATED is a big loogey in the face to Pixar and animated filmmakers everywhere.
The perception of animated films in this country is that they are movies about singing animals and slapstick gags–basically, that animation is meant for children. (As great as the Walt Disney studio was for animation and all of our childhoods, this is its tragedy.) In reality, the scope of the animated film is, and should be recognized as something much broader than this.
But, sadly, this is the perception of animation. This is what sells and this is what gets made. We’re left with shit animated films like Ice Age and Happy Feet. The tragedy is then, when a film like Wall•E comes along, which is brilliant on maybe every level there is, it gets lumped in with the shitty penguin movies for no other reason than because it’s animated. As an animator and appreciator of fine films, this is incredibly frustrating. It should be to you too.
Pixar is doing alot of good to heighten the level of animated discourse, though. The academy will come around sooner or later.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
For the record, I think Wall-E should have been nominated for Best Picture as well, I just don’t think it should have won.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I’d like to see Pixar step outside their comfort zone a bit. If they truly wanted to shake things up, then make a totally different movie next year. Make a serious movie. Challenge people a bit more. Frankly, Eric, it is quite easy to lump Pixar movies in with the crap because I think Pixar have found their killer formula and are content to stick with it. I’d like to be challenged a bit. With their talent, they might be the only ones who could totally shatter perceptions about animated films, if they only tried.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
@Choof
OK then. Now let me ask you another question:
If a movie is considered to be a “Hybrid” under your definition, does it:
A.) Depending on the quality, be eligible for only Best Animated Feature.
B.) Be eligible for only Best Picture
C.) Be eligible for both.
If you answer A, then technically are you saying that any film with any sort of Animation thrown in be considered “An Animated film” (regardless of if its hybrid or not, as there is no Best Hybrid-Animated Feature).
If you answer B, then technically are you saying that if a movie has some sort of Live-Action acting that it cannot be considered an “Animated film” (by yours and the Academy’s “definition”).
If you answer C, well…that won’t happen, as the Academy doesn’t allow films to be within both categories to begin with, as far as I know.
From the statement’s you’ve provided, am I to believe that because a film as an “Animated” film, it cannot be considered for a category which has no real requirement attached to it except for it’s nominees to be MOVIES?
@Chad
I mentioned Beauty and the Beast above, but remember that was before the Academy implemented the Best Animated Feature category. I’m sure they had the best intentions for doing so (that being to not overlook the more and more animated films coming out each year), but unfortunately it’s turned into a “ghettoization” of animated films.
Art is subjective, I’m not going to fight that, I completely agree with that. I just hate seeing extremely talented people who work ridiculously hard not get the same type of recognition as people/films that do get nominated for Best Picture.
Essentially this is all meaningless as I believe the Academy has overstayed its relevance in this age of YouTube and media being distributed faster and easier than ever, so yeah, let the studio exec’s masturbate furiously to their new shiny bald marketing idols.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:26 pm
“let the studio exec’s masturbate furiously to their new shiny bald marketing idols.”
hahahah priceless Rob!
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
@ MISSTERRR THE BEEEEJ
There’s always Brad Bird’s “1906″, but oddly enough that’s going to be all live-action.
Hrrm…
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Just gonna jump in here real quick. It seems that (not infrequently) the following scenario arises:
1.) An established something or other has a specific way of handling whatever it claims to be good at.
2.) Some worthwhile, rational thought seems to conflict directly with the core foundations of the establishment.
3.) Conflict arises, and the modern rational thought is either thwarted (return to 1) or accepted (proceed to 4).
4.) A documentary about the conflict gets nominated for an Oscar, but loses to an animated film about a caterpillar who can’t find his shoes.
5.) Eventually, proper balance is restored and everything works out as it should, except for a couple of really old people who will complain until they die.
6.) Repeat
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
By 4 I mean that once people realize how ridiculous they’ve been, there’s sometimes compensation for the repressed party (here, animated full-length feature films). In 5 I believe that someone will be forever pissed off about whatever happens.
Also, Wall-E kicked ass, and I got all misty at the end.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Well this got out of hand…
All I was attempting to do with my “definition” is say that these “blurry lines” he spoke of aren’t that hard to decipher. It’s clear when a large majority of the movie was created by filming individuals acting or by a group of artists creating the content digitally. I recant my previous definition, it was uneducated and not well thought out.
Here is the Academy’s definition of an Animated Feature Film, taken from Rule 7 of oscars.org’s rules & regulations:
An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of at least 70 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.
Also stated in Rule 7 under section III-F:
Films submitted in the Best Animated Feature Film category may qualify for Academy Awards in other areas, including Best Picture, provided they comply with the rules governing those categories.
Guess I pick C.
@Kyle I was wrong about Wall-E, seems according to the Academy it counts as animated.
Edit: Fixed link to Rule 7
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Choof, I already had admitted to being wrong, and linked to rule 7 in the update to my original post above.
It still holds true however, that even though a film CAN be nominated for both categories, it has NEVER happened. Having a Best Animated Feature category still seems silly, as its a category based off of the technique, not a genre (such as Best Documentary).
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Missed the edit
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
I brought up this whole discussion in my Visual Effects Theory and Application course tonight and it resulted in my teacher calling me an ass. He is kind of a prick himself and misinterpreted my words which i handily turned against him for some ultimate pwnage. Anyways, it was a touching moment for me to have JTB open and read aloud the quote Rob put up from John Gruber. This might be one of my favorite posts of all Juice time.
February 24th, 2009 at 12:08 am
I don’t think there should be an animated category either.
Having said that, I would not have expected or wanted Wall-E to win. Nominated, perhaps, but since I haven’t seen all of the other nominated films so I can’t make that call. Remember, they can’t nominate everything that’s “good” for the year. So, please, if you think it should have been nominated then pick one of the films that was nominated and tell why Wall-E deserved it more.
The truth here is that Pixar dominates the scene. It’s so hard to get into animated feature film making. As you guys have pointed out, it’s very difficult. So, imagine pitching a new film to a studio, with you having no Pixar-level experience to back it up. You’re asking them to gamble on a newb turning out what is admittedly a very hard thing to get right. What that means is that Hollywood is mostly live-action film makers, some CG special effects guys, a few animators. The Academy doesn’t pretend to represent the “people.” There’s no fair. Don’t blame a live-action industry from favoring live-action. It’s what they know and what they appreciate.
If I was asked to rank technological advancements for the year I guarantee you I’d be biased towards realtime graphics. I don’t blame them at all.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:38 am
@Beej
Upon further reflection, if I had to pick one of the five movies nominated to be removed and replaced with Wall-E…
I’d pick Frost/Nixon.
That’s right. Frost/Nixon. Why? Simply put, while the whole “Frost interviews” scenario hasn’t really been done justice before, a movie about Richard Nixon has. That movie? The aptly named “Richard Nixon”, to which the actor portraying Nixon from THAT movie DID win the Best Actor award for that year. That’s not all though. While it was entertaining in parts, I found it to be largely mundane outside of the “generic suspense” I found to be permeating throughout the film.
Now Wall-E: Absolutely FANTASTIC first half of a film. The amount of emotion and character portrayed without any spoken dialog is just astounding. The sense of loneliness one obtains just from observing the barren Earth Wall-E inhabits is incredibly well represented. Then take into account the amount of emotion you, the viewer (in general, not necessarily you, Beej), have for a FUCKING 3D ANIMATED ROBOT…and yeah, one could say that the crew @ Pixar did a pretty good job as far as getting the viewer to care about the main character.
Yes, the second half of the film, wasn’t nearly as ambitious (in a cinematographic sense) as the first half, but as John Gruber states in the post I linked to in my OP, Slumdog Millionaire didn’t necessarily have the most smoothly put together ending either (dudes die, protagonist wins game show, gets girl, PROCEEDS TO DANCE NUMBER). I thought Wall-E’s second half was more than satisfactory.
Now, with regards to your earlier comment about how Pixar could really be (to paraphrase) “shattering perceptions about animated films, if they only tried.” Well, in all honesty, I think they’ve already accomplished the shattering of perceptions of animated films. The one thing about all Pixar movies is that they’re all “All-Ages” films…but in the direct meaning of the term.
The movies work for people of ALL ages. More often then not these days, a movie (or any other form of media such as music or video game) with the label of “All Ages” denotes an immature, child like experience. What Pixar accomplishes with their films is a TRUE all-ages experience, with the enjoyment of their movies independent to the age of the viewer. They’re movies that grade school children can go and enjoy. They’re movies that high school kids can go and enjoy. They’re movies that college kids can go and enjoy. They’re movies that young adults can go and enjoy…etc.
To give some examples:
The Incredibles gives most people a pretty exciting Fantastic-Four analog (I would go as far as saying better than both Fantastic Four movies easily). It also includes some kinda-subtle social commentary on the modern family and topics such as middle school graduations.
Ratatouille, has at its core a plot revolving around a rat named Remy who is looking to become a gourmet chef. Some of the more “adult” humor can be found for example in the scene where Linguini and Collette are pretty much embracing for the first time…Linguini says something along the lines of “I have a small…problem”. At that VERY moment, the eyes of Collette look down very quickly, suggesting that Collette’s character thinks Linguini is talking about him having a tiny dong piece. This isn’t going to be a detail picked up by most children, but should be painfully obvious to most adults. It’s actually one of the most genius scenes I’ve ever seen in a film because of it’s ambiguity. Children aren’t going to be (or shouldn’t be) aware of the true meaning of Collette’s eye movement, but anyone over the age of 16 is going to pick up on it. I could also go into the deeper meaning of Ratatouille with it being an reflection of the history of Disney disguised as a “cutesy film about a rat who wants to be a chef”, but I’ll save that for a later post.
Back to Wall-E:
Essentially what ends up being a romantic comedy in outer space between robots ends up being a clever reversal on the story of Noah’s Ark. Wall-E and Eve corral a bunch of fat humans and more or less “lead” them back to Earth, to which we are led to believe (from the ending credits) that modern civilization begins to take root again. There’s also the obvious Adam and Eve analogy as well, with Eve being this female gendered robot trying to nuture this “plant” in what essentially is her robot “womb”.
Then for crying out loud, how can one overlook the loving homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, or do you have another film that started off with 40 minutes of silence outside a couple of grunts (and in this case, robot whistles and beeps).
For a supposed “kid’s flick”, there’s quite a LOT of depth to be appreciated by a mature viewer, easily more so than Frost/Nixon, and…you know what, I’ll say it, easily more so than any movie of last year (totally my opinion on that one).
Sure one can argue about the politics inherent in the Academy. One has to wonder if the current situation in California regarding Prop 8 had any kind of influence in the Academy’s voting for any categories which Milk was nominated. Now I’m a pretty strong supporter of equal rights and marriage for gays and lesbians, but I really do not believe topical politics should have that much of an influence on the judging of subjective art.