Oscar Nominees

Yeah, I know, it's been WAY too long since I posted. I'm sorry all.

There is, however, some interesting news to post today. The Oscars have announced their nominees. You can get the list from several places, I got mine from Ain't It Cool News.

I haven't seen most of the nominees this year, so I can't really comment on it. While I'm a film fan, I tend to lean more towards 'geeky' movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, which (sometimes understandably, considering that Dead Man's Chest wasn't nearly as good as the first movie) tend to get overlooked by the Academy. Generally, the only catagory I REALLY pay attention to is the Best Animated Movie catagory. Let's look at the nominees....

Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

I was busy when Cars and Monster House came out, so I missed out on seeing them (Both are at the top of my netflix queue, so I'll see them soon), and I missed out on Happy Feet, too. So, I can't say if these are good films or not. They LOOK like they had quality animation, at least from trailers and clips I've seen. I can't say these are bad choices. I've heard people complaining about them, but these were mostly anime fans bitter that Paprika didn't get nominated (understandably, I haven't seen it but it's Satoshi Kon--it's high quality).

It is, however, a bit sad that the best animation of the year (according to the Academy) is....CGI films. At least we didn't get an onslaught of animal films (Happy Feet seems like it's a movie BEYOND just....an animal movie. ....Well, except for the "humans are killing the pretty animals!" message the film appearantly has), but...I like computer-animated films...but that's not ALL animation has to offer. Compared to last year's list of out-of-the-mainstream, quirky, beautifully animated movies, this year is a bit of a disappointment.

Still, I'll reserve total judgement until I at least have a chance to see Cars and Monster House. I'll try to see Happy Feet, too.