One Category at a Time: Best Animated Feature

With a limited number of eligible entries being submitted each year, it's usually no hard task predicting the winner of Best Animated Feature. Last year's contest may have been a nebulous one due to the vacuum created by the shocking omission of The LEGO Movie, but strange circumstances of that ilk are the exception to the rule.

This year we're back to the status quo with a bona fide lock that's entirely deserving of that designation. But first, let's briefly peruse the other nominees, which represent a diverse cross-section of styles and stories. For these four, the true value is the nomination, which will hopefully draw new audiences that might otherwise have passed them by.

Catching up with Bond, Shaun, and Ava

If distributors are going to playing coy all November long with their hottest Oscar prospects, I'm going to play catch-up during the lull.

Back in the Spring, Alex Garland's dulcet sci-fi Ex Machina was making the rounds on the arthouse circuit, earning strong notices for its heady ruminations on consciousness and artificial intelligence, and especially for Alicia Vikander's enigmatic robotic performance.

It's a thoughtful, chilling, lingering chamber piece -- and what perfectly designed, minimalist chambers they are too -- that takes a refreshingly intimate approach to subject matter that would tempt most filmmakers to go big. We already knew Garland had a penchant for subtle speculative fiction based on his adapted screenplay of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go from 2010, and his authorial voice remains intact in this directorial debut.