Read BEFORE posting Trades & Request
The Academy has not generally cared about anything animated coming out of Japan, even while professional critics have glommed on to a handful of directors they love. Nothing from Ghibli got any attention until they got picked up for distribution by Disney (from Spirited Away onwards). Between Ghibli, Pixar, and Disney Studios, the animated category is mostly Disney in competition with itself. The Oscars aren't very meaningful for animated features.Spirited Away won, and since then 5 other anime have been nominated, all were Ghibli except one, The Red Turtle, which was a collaboration between Ghibli and someone else if I remember correctly.
the animated category is mostly Disney in competition with itself.
^Aye, Disney just competing against themselves. The other noms are a patronising pat-on-the-back, usually, but honestly the best-animated films of the year are never even usually nominated. While I think of the Oscars as having some more validity than some other awards due to Editors nominating the Editing award, Sound Mixers nominating their award, and so on, it doesn't seem like animators are the ones whose voices are being heard when it comes to animation. (A lot of your picks are good choices imho, @TM2YC , though honestly many of the Disney/Pixar/Ghibli films are very good films, too. I raged against Zootopia winning, for example, until I saw it...damn good film!)Of the last 16 years, Spider-Verse has been the only non-Disney/Pixar winner
I guess it depends on personal tastes, but for me this was a relatively weak year in film. Always stuff to enjoy, to be sure, but I think seeing very different films have success in very different awards shows is an indication of how few real standouts there are. Normally I hate the Oscars for leaving out so many films while heaping awards on just a couple. Well, the nominations are still very limited this year, but I can't say there are a ton of great films left out for once...
My annual Oscars, Baftas and Golden Globes Letterboxd list: https://letterboxd.com/tm2yc/list/2023-oscar-bafta-golden-globe-nominations/
I've only seen 11 of them so far but I've got 6-weeks to have a good go at seeing them all... and see how close I get.
I'll have to check those out...almost all the docs that even were nominated flew under the radar for me.They all missed out two of the best documentaries of the year
Nope has popped up in some podcasts I listened to as 'just missing the list'. I think people felt it was a mixed bag; typical Jordan Peele with a great concept that doesnt stick the landing.but yeah I can't think of any narrative films that I've seen this year that should've been there. Then again I don't think I've watched all that many new films this year. I've not seen Nope or Northman yet but they seemed to get good reviews and aren't there?
I'm hoping that All Quiet on the Western Front gets best picture.
Well, I think it would be a pretty big surprise at this point if that’s not exactly what happens.^Wow, that's awesome. That said, you should listen to Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh talking about their struggles in the industry too, and how they almost quit (or did, in Quan's case) multiple times because they weren't being allowed to make 'real' movies. I think the story behind and within Everything Everywhere All At Once is a pretty inspiring one, too.
I always want to see wins (and nominations!) get spread out much more than they do anyway, so for me, All Quiet... winning best foreign film and EEAAO winning best picture would be pretty cool.
^How'd you see F@ck This Job? I literally just saw the trailer for it but it still has limited release options...seems like Vimeo rental is the only one for me.