Sunday, February 07, 2010

Animation nominees for the Academy Awards

Not too long ago the nominees for the upcoming Academy Awards were announced. James Cameron's 'Avatar' is the biggest story of the year as it is now the highest grossing film of all time both worldwide and at the US domestic box-office! And it isn't slowing down anytime soon! James Cameron now owns the #1 and #2 spots with 'Avatar' and 'Titanic' by a huge margin!

It was a great year for amazing special effects films, and for animation in general. However, in the end there is only one true category for movies that are actually animated in frames by artists and not from state of the art motion and performance capture technology. This year saw films running the gamut from classical 2-D, to stop-motion, and 3-D animation! The nominees for the best animated feature length and short films this year are:

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
CORALINE
FANTASTIC MR FOX
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
THE SECRET OF KELLS
UP!

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
FRENCH ROAST, Fabrice O Joubert
GRANNY O'GRIMM'S SLEEPING BEAUTY, Nicky Phelan & Darragh O'Connell
THE LADY AND THE REAPER, Javier Recio Gracia
LOGORAMA, Nicolas Schmerkin
A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH, Nick Park

It's also another milestone to realise that Pixar's 'Up!' has also been nominated in the the Best Film category this year which has expanded to include 10 nominees. While this decision was made by the academy to include more audience favourite films in order to draw a larger television audience when the show airs, it is only the second animated film to ever be considered in this category since Disney's Beauty & The Beast!

While most of the other feature animated films alongside 'Up!' have been widely marketed, one may not be so well known as it hasn't been widely released in North America yet. That one is 'The Secret of Kells' which hails from Ireland! You can see the trailer here:


Also, anyone interested in checking out the short films that were nominated can find them at this link.