The Oscar nominations were announced today but for some reason, the Academy did not announce them on their live telecast this morning. What does that say?
The five nominees for Best Animated Feature were Anomalisa (Paramount Pictures), Inside Out (Pixar Animation Studios), Shaun the Sheep The Movie (Aardman Animations), When Marnie Was There (Studio Ghibli), and Boy and The World (Alê Abreu, GKids).
Also of note, Inside
Out was rightly nominated for Original Screenplay!
Best Animated Short nominees include Richard Williams Prologue, Pixar’s Sanjay’s Super Team, Don Hertzfeldt’s World Of Tomorrow, Gabriel Osorio’s Bear Story, and Konstantine Bronzit’s We Can’t Live Without Cosmos.
The Academy Award winners will be announced on Sunday, February 28th, 2016.
My quick analysis: No love for Peanuts, no love for Minions. Other notable omissions were The Good Dinosaur, and The Prophet. This is perhaps a turning point for the field as two foreign language films were nominated, two independent productions were represented (albeit Anomalisa was distributed by Paramount and Shaun The Sheep Movie is repped by Lionsgate) and only one Hollywood major is on the list (Inside Out).
This is where the category is going. It’s following the art – just as the animated shorts category did back in the late 1950s early 60s when the traditional Hollywood cartoon was declining and the more artistic shorts from Europe and by independents were favored.
And this is a good thing. This year one anime feature, two stop motion films (one clay, one with puppets), two hand drawn films and a Pixar classic. A great year for animated features – perfectly represented in these nominees.
Congratulations to all!
— Richard Starzak, Writer/Director of SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE
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