My Award nominations: Animated Feature

Somebody didn't want to open until ONE week before the Oscars, so I had to hold off on this category. But now that I've seen all the contenders, precious few as they are, I can finally publish my picks for Best Animated Feature of 2013.

One Category at a Time: Animated Feature

Last year saw what many assume to be the closest race in the twelve year history of this category, as Brave edged out Wreck-It Ralph. Even with two great movies like those in play, I still thought at the time that it had been a thin year for animation in 2012. Boy, was I unprepared for the sorry state affairs this year, which claims arguably the weakest list of animated releases to date. Accordingly, the resulting Oscar lineup contains two films that shouldn't be in the awards conversation at all, two films that should be in the conversation but would not have made it in a stronger year, and one film which is still widely unseen!

Frozen leads Annie Award winners

Frozen won five ANNIE Awards tonight including Best Animated Feature, further solidifying its stranglehold on the Oscar. But as the ANNIEs have been more prone to doing in recent years since adjusting their voting system, the wealth was spread out a bit. Monsters University won a pair and The Croods won three. Even The Wind Rises surprisingly popped up as the winner for Best Writing.

Over in the Short Subjects category, Oscar frontrunner Get a Horse won the day, so make of that what you will. Seems like as decent an Oscar prediction as any.

Check out the feature film winners after the cut.

Review - Frozen

Casual moviegoers with kids to entertain for an hour or so can be forgiven for thinking that the latest animated effort from Walt Disney Studios is little more than a slapsticky romp about an impish snowman. That is, after all, the only clue they've been given by the TV ads and movie posters, but those only represent the tip of the proverbial ice berg. With Frozen, Disney actually makes as earnest an attempt as they have in the last 15 years to recapture the magic of their 1990s musical heyday, with a Broadway pedigree cast and not one, but two new Disney princesses front and centre.

The story, written by Shane Morris and co-directors Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck, is based very loosely on Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, although its vague Scandinavian setting seems to be all that was retained from Anderson's original 19^th century fable. This re-imagining tells of two princesses in the fictional land of Arendelle. Elsa, the eldest and therefore first in line to inherit the crown, was born with the magical ability to form ice and snow with the slightest gesture. Anna, the youngest, adores frolicking in the indoor winter wonderlands her sister can conjure, until a near-death accident convinces their parents that the girls should be separated and Elsa's powers kept under wraps.

My Award nominations: Original Screenplay

Read about my favourite Original Screenplays after the cut.

Review - Wreck-It Ralph

Spinning off of an imaginative, Monsters, Inc-like concept about a community of video game characters living within the same arcade, Wreck-It Ralph may seem at a distance to be little more than a nostalgia trip for parents and a seizure-inducing distraction for their kids, but the marketing is a mirage. While it starts out merely as a clever homage to the arcade culture of the eighties, it transitions into something more substantial and compelling before its ingenious but admittedly thin premise has the opportunity to wear out its welcome. You need not be a gamer in order to relate to this beautifully spun tale about seeking acceptance and discovering self-worth, which is frankly the best movie Walt Disney Studios has given us since its 1990s heyday. It's like the Pixar movie we never got last year (what is this Cars 2 of which you speak?).

We all know what it's like to be in a rut; that feeling of desperation that comes from going through the motions of a dissatisfying routine, the frustration of being doomed to your “lot in life” when you desire so much more. Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) understands it all too well. He, the villain of an antiquated arcade game called “Fix-It Felix Jr.”, has been performing the same Sisyphean grind for 30 years. Ralph wrecks the building, Felix (John McBrayer) fixes the building. Felix is rewarded with medals and admiration from the tenants, Ralph is tossed in the mud and made to sleep on a heap of discarded bricks all by himself. Sunrise, sunset.