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.

Annie nominations kick off a crowded December

It must be December, because lists of nominations, top tens, and critics' superlatives are officially upon us. Today, ASIFA-Hollywood dropped their bloated slate of nominees for the 41st Annie Awards, and the Golden Satellite nominations were announced. If those two groups don't quite have you titillated (neither of them move the needle much in terms of influence on the awards race), then look forward to the coming days when we can expect announcements from the New York critics, LA critics, and the National Board of Review.

But back to the Annies...

In the feature film categories, Monsters University and the likely Oscar frontrunner Frozen lead the way with ten nominations. Following with nine are The Croods and Despicable Me 2 (no, I'm not inclined to count the latter's short film Puppy or its nominated TV commercial towards its total).

Speaking of shorts, the only ones to pop up both here and on the Academy's shortlist are Disney's Get A Horse! (the presumed frontrunner), the NFB's Gloria Victoria (a fringe contender if ever there was one), and the BBC's Room on the Broom (from the makers of the 2011 nominated short The Gruffalo). So make of that what you will.

Best Animated Feature

• A Letter to Momo - 
GKIDS
• Despicable Me 2 - 
Universal Pictures
• Ernest & Celestine
 - GKIDS
• Frozen - 
Walt Disney Animation Studios
• Monsters University - 
Pixar Animation Studios
• The Croods
 - DreamWorks Animation
• The Wind Rises
 - The Walt Disney Studios