When the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 25, there will only be three films competing for votes in the Best Animated Feature Film category.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that they received only fifteen eligible animated films for consideration for this year’s Academy Awards, so according to the Academy’s rules, only three of these films will be nominated. If sixteen films had been accepted, Academy rules stipulate that five films could have been nominated.
Among the films that have been accepted by the Academy this year are Toy Story 3, the year’s highest-grossing film, along with other popular animated fare such as How To Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Shrek Forever After and Megamind. Less successful films eligible for nomination include Alpha And Omega, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore, Idiots And Angels, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole, My Dog Tulip and Tinker Bell And The Great Fairy Rescue.
There are four films that have been accepted on the condition that fulfill the requirement of beginning a one-week run at a Los Angeles theater by December 31 – Tangled, The Illusionist, The Dreams Of Jinsha and Summer Wars.
I don’t think that there’s anyone out there who thinks that one of the three nomination spots will go to Toy Story 3. Based on just ratings at Rotten Tomatoes, it would probably be safe to assume that The Illusionist, Idiots And Angels, My Dog Tulip and, oddly enough, Tinker Bell And The Great Fairy Rescue all have shots at the other two nominations. Of course, there are the wild cards Tangled, Summer Wars and The Dreams Of Jinsha all of which haven’t screened for critics yet, though I don’t think that Tangled has a hope for a nomination.
Personally, I would love to see The Illusionist get nominated, as I thought director Sylvain Chomet’s previous film, The Triplets Of Bellvue, was robbed of the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2004 by the far inferior Finding Nemo. Not that I think that it, or any other film for that matter, has a chance of beating Toy Story 3, but there always seems to be a well received foreign title in this category and I would guess that The Illusionist is probably the best choice for it.
