Originally Posted By mawnck Inside Out Anomalisa Boy and the World Shaun the Sheep When Marnie Was There Inside Out SO has this in the bag. It's also been nominated for Best Original Screenplay, believe it or not. I can't argue with the nominees - I liked The Boy and the Beast more than Marnie, but Beast was somewhat spoiled by a very silly ending. And of course Strange Magic was robbed!!!!!!!! but the twerps at Disney didn't even submit it, so there you go. (I SWEAR to you that it's going to be a certified cult classic one of these days. You heard it here first.) Anomalisa is a stop-motion psychodrama written by Charlie Kaufman. It's very good and a bit harrowing (and, BTW, it has a very explicit sex scene), but I think the critics are getting a little carried away in their praise of it. It definitely has the whiff of overwrought, over-clever stage play about it (which is exactly what it was adapted from). In any case, it's a serious downer, so the Academy rank-and-file ain't a-gonna vote for it. The Boy and the World is a very esoteric, artsy-fartsy hand-drawn feature from Portugal, in which a young boy takes a journey through the Portuguese textile industry in search of his father. It's very pretty, but terribly confusing, and a bit lugubrious in its messaging. Shaun the Sheep is Aardman, and is, of course, funny as hell. The Academy loves to nominate stop motion (but then not give it an award). And you've seen Inside Out. If you haven't, then you need to do something about that. The two I though might get a nom but didn't are The Peanuts Movie, and the big disappointment of the year, if not the decade, The Prophet. The former is perfectly fine family entertainment, just too slight to muscle its way into the nominee list. The latter has some wonderful individual segments, but the bridging stuff is so hippy-dippy-dopey and so cheap looking that it's borderline painful to watch. The fact that it didn't get a nom despite its stellar credits list buttresses the theory that it's NOT all political after all. And now, the animated shorts (with asterisks by the ones I haven't seen yet): Prologue* Sanjay's Super Team World of Tomorrow Bear Story* We Can't Live Without Cosmos I assume most everyone saw Sanjay, since it was attached to The Snubbed Dinosaur. It's … cute. Not nearly as cloying as Lava. We Can't Live Without Cosmos is about two super-enthusiastic close-friend astronauts in training for a mission, and I don't know what else I can say about it that won't be a spoiler. It's fantastic. And World of Tomorrow is a viciously satirical Don Hertzfeldt cartoon, in which an adult clone from the distant future travels back in time to meet her "original" (who is a very little girl, too young to understand the nightmarish future she's being shown). It's even better, and gets my vote from the three I've seen.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I watched part of Shawn the Sheep on an airplane recently and really enjoyed it. I especially liked how I was able to watch and understand the story without having to plug in my headphones! It had some really clever storytelling Although I assume it had no chance of winning, I'm surprised that The Good Dinosaur wasn't even nominated. It was certainly a financial flop, but is this the first time that a Pixar film hasn't been nominated since the category began? Or is that another 'honor' taken by Cars 2?
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I'm surprised that The Good Dinosaur wasn't even nominated. Good lord I wasn't. I thought it was easily the worst mainstream movie I subjected myself to this year. (Unless you consider Strange Magic mainstream - and I don't even think it was THAT much better than Strange Magic.) That's not to say it was BAD - I didn't actually see most of the mainstreamers this time - but I did think Spongebob was an overall better movie if that means anything to anyone. I suspect, based on the trailers, I would've liked Hotel Transylvania 2 (and possibly even Home) better as well. The Animated Feature nomination process has spit out some real headdeskers in the past, but it should be clear now that they aren't playing favorites. The movies that get nominated are the ones they actually thought were the best, no matter who made them. I mean, just look at the major American studio's releases this year, and then count how many of them actually got nominated. You can do it on one finger.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>...but I did think Spongebob was an overall better movie if that means anything to anyone.<< Oh dear. I didn't see it myself, but I didn't think it could have possibly been *that* bad!
Originally Posted By TheRedhead I'm not afraid to say it either - SpongeBob was a better movie than Good Dinosaur. Good Dinosaur also felt as useless and unecessary as Hotel Transylvania 2. Home hurts.
Originally Posted By mawnck >Home hurts. Ah. I kind of figured it would. I'll no doubt watch it someday. In the distant future. When I'm WAY more bored than I am now.
Originally Posted By mawnck By the way, 2016 is getting off to a rip-roaring start. Check out the Tomatometer on this gem that hit theaters yesterday. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/norm_of_the_north/">http://www.rottentomatoes.com/...e_north/</a>
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance Lol I so called that one. I saw the preview for that and it felt like a joke. Who would go through with making that movie!!??!
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Wow! I agree that it looked pretty terrible, but I didn't know it was actually possible to score a 0%. Granted there are "only" 34 reviews at this point, so that number could change, but that's still pretty overwhelming
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance You know you're in for a loser when they use the joke, "I'm not fat, I'm just big boned."
Originally Posted By basil fan I won't assume it's the worst animated feature of all time, but the previews were enough to tell you it was very, very bad. You could see several derivative elements in those 30 seconds, along with the low quality of the CGI. Nor was there one funny bit. Did anybody here actually see it? The Greatest American Hero <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/etc/fed.html">http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/...fed.html</a>
Originally Posted By mawnck >I won't assume it's the worst animated feature of all time It can't possibly be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpakCBzdhV8
Originally Posted By FerretAfros That does look pretty bad! I would have to think that some other recent ones would be in the running, including the Wizard of Oz remake, and the one with all the mascots from grocery items
Originally Posted By ecdc >>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpakCBzdhV8<< Why did junior high students decide to do an animal remake of Tron?
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance I'm trying to think what movie is the mascots from grocery items?????
Originally Posted By FerretAfros <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROQ9nplxIY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...Q9nplxIY</a> In hindsight, I guess that doesn't look so completely terrible (but it's still a long way from being "good"). It's just amazing to see the voice talent and real product mascots that went into this mess; surely someone along the way knew what it was going to become, right?
Originally Posted By mawnck >>In hindsight, I guess that doesn't look so completely terrible It's entertaining ... but it's COMPLETELY terrible. It's also totally inappropriate for kids. (Apparently they figured if "Roger Rabbit" could get away with it ...) Most of the mascots they wanted, they couldn't get. After dumping tons of money into the thing with little to show for it, the investors finally pulled the plug. It got released direct-to-video by the completion bond holders about two years later - with many scenes still obviously unfinished.
Originally Posted By basil fan Wait...is that Champion thing a real movie? It looks like it was made on somebody's ipad during study hall. Star Wars Glitches <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.whatsisgalore.com/glitch/swglitch.html">http://www.whatsisgalore.com/g...tch.html</a>
