The Nominations Are In

Okay, so the list of films that can be nominated for the Academy Award for "Best Animated Film" have come in, and they are:

Chicken Little (Disney)
Howl's Moving Castle (Disney)
Valiant (Disney)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (DreamWorks)
Madagascar (DreamWorks)
Robots (Fox)
Steamboy (Triumph Films)
Gulliver's Travels (Pentamedia/Weinstein Co.)
Hoodwinked! (Pentamedia/Weinstein Co.)

Looking at that list I realized something: This has been a REALLY sucky year for animation! I'm sorry, but practically none of these films are Oscar worthy material. Out of all those movies, "Wallace & Gromit" is easily the best movie of the bunch, so I guess I'll be rooting for that one to win. Of course, "Howl's Moving Castle" may also get nominated, simply because it looks artistically good (even though the movie falls apart in the last twenty minutes). I guess either "Chicken Little" or "Madagascar" will get nominated just because they both made some serious money (and the Academy LOVES films that make money). Of course, I'm not getting any hopes up for these films.

Call me crazy, but last year the Academy SEVERELY screwed up when they nominated "Shark Tale" for an Oscar and not the Oscar worthy "The Polar Express!" That slip up made me so mad, I almost didn't watch the Oscars last year (and if "Fahrenheit 9/11" got nominated for Best Picture, then skipping the Oscars would have been a sure thing). If I had to pick three of these films to nominate, it would be "Wallace & Gromit," "Howl's Moving Castle," and "Steamboy" (with "Wallace & Gromit" winning the gold statue). Somehow, I think the award is going to go to "Madagascar." It just seems like the crazy type of thing the Academy would do. Here's hoping I'm wrong though.