Oscars were quite fun today. More than anything, I had my eyes fixed on the Best Animated Film catagory. My goodness there were some SERIOUS contenders. The three strongest films I have ever seen face off against each other.
First there was Hayao Miyazaki, an artistic genius when it comes to animation. Winner of multiple Oscars in that very catagory including Spirited Away in 2000. Here comes a man who has always dominated this field and he comes to return again, to show other animators who's the boss.
Then there's Tim Burton where, after coming back from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other live action movies, works on his animated feature Corpse Bride. His famous stop motion animated films were phenominal, such as Nightmare Before Christmas and The Adventures of Stain Boy and whatnot. In Corpse Bride, the animators truly outdid themselves making the animation incredibly fluid and real. The best quality out of Tim Burton's stop motion films.
Don't get me started on Wallace and Gromit. They've dominated the Short Film catagory at the Oscars everytime, even getting recognition from Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth herself. Their popularity in clay animation knows no bounds. It was Wallace and Gromit that saved the Wensleydale cheese manufactuers from going bankrupt. Their sucess in Chicken Run proved to many that if such a great full length film like that could be made, Wallace and Gromit surely could themselves...and they did!
Now: onto my highly un-scientific statistics
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If each animated movie got an individual award for something, these are the awards I would give.
Howl's Moving Castle would win
Best Art
Corpse Bride would win
Best Animated
and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit would win
Best Plot
But of course no film wins for just excelling in one catagory. We want the whole package. It all depends on who has the most of all.
To start, we eliminate the weakest contender. But this is incredibly difficult because all the Animated Film nominees are so close. Although, I'd have to say Corpse Bride is the weakest, and here's why:
Corpse Bride was incredibly well animated. I was quite astounded. Everything was so fluid and natural, it's pratically impossible to tell if they were computer animated or not. However, that's really all Corpse Bride has going for it. Danny Elfman, composer of many of Burton's movies, wasn't really allowed to shine in this film, save for Bonejangles, and you have to watch that movie to know who that is. Elfman was the voice of Bonejangles
. Not much he was able to do. Story was okay. I think they did a good job adapting it. However, the way they put it together in the film was unequal and disordered. They focused more on small sequences rather than the big events. Jokes took up the space that should have been filled with the plot. For example, there is more screentime for Victor's monologue with Victoria about how he married a corpse than Victor deciding to marry the Corpse (Emily) at the very end. The plot was a little transparent also. A mysterious man appears in the very beginning of the film, who is immediately recognised once revealed after Victor's dissapearance. Soon after, it mentions the story of Emily, who was murdered by a mysterious man. Being there no other mysterious men in this film, it wasn't hard to link the two and yes, he is the killer
. I gave away the plot! Goes to show I've seen these movies before reviewing. Case in point, Corpse Bride is the weakest contender. Goodbye!
Now we are left with what I believe is the toughest decision the Acadamy has to face, Howl or Wallace.
Without a doubt, Howl's Moving Castle left Wallace and Gromit in the dust regarding art. Hayao''s previous film Princess Mononoke had reviewers believe that that would be his last film. The sheer amount of detail in the drawing would exhast him from ever making another. Since then, he's come out with two movies, one being an Oscar winner. The other, fated to be known when the envelope opens! The amount of artwork featured in Howl's Moving Castle cannot be touched with anything less than a 10 and a half foot pole by Wallace and Gromit.
Voice acting was awsome on both levels. However, who can forget Peter Sallis as Wallace. I couldn't imagine Wallace with any other voice. My decision would be biased regardless in this catagory so I'll skip it.
Animation: Hmm...Howl's wins on this catagory too, and I'll tell you why. An incredible amount of work went on for Howl's Moving Castle than Wallace and Gromit. Workload aside, the animation is very colorful and incredibly fluid. Even though they may have used computer animation, it is impossible to tell. Wallace and Gromit's movements were slightly choppy, but that's the style we're all accustomed to. However, after seeing the animation Corpse Bride managed to pull off, the animation in Wallace and Gromit doesn't cut the Wensleydale for me.
Plot. Now here's the biggie. This is what separates the boys from the men, the boy scouts from the samurai, the Kraft Cheese to Wensleydale. the beef stew from the Manwich. I could go on...but I'll spare you.
As good as Howl's animation an art was, the screeplay adaption from the book to the screen was poorly done. Even if you've never read the book, there are so many things that make you go, "What the hell is going on? What war?". I managed to catch, near the beginning of the movie, a group of characters mumbling about a missing prince. Very soft mumble and easily missinterpreted as realistic background noise. While I knew that the prince was missing, most people didn't until the very end, where they proceeded to go, "What? Where did that Prince just pop from?". This is the fault of Studio Ghibli for not making this movie, or at least that part of the plot, very clear. This factor actually made the movie somewhat a pain to watch in the very beginning. It got very good near the end. The very ending though was a bad cliffhanger where it left you wondering what the end really was but you really didn't care to know. This was Howl's biggest downfall.
Wallace and Gromit, the plot was original, funny, and downright fantastic. I never felt that ANY part of the movie was lacking in ANY way. All the jokes were in the right place, all the serious parts were perfect length and in the right place, beginning and ending worked perfectly, and it was downright PERFECT!...the plot I mean. This movie made me think that people really spent time on this plot to make sure it was perfect and flawless, and it certaintly was
Overall, between the two, despite the wonderful animation and the beautiful art, Wallace and Gromit gets my vote. Sorry. If the plot had been worked on a lot longer, Howl's would have been a shoo-in for the Oscar. Sadly, their poor plot was their poor downfall. My vote goes torwards Wallace and Gromit.
And (I made this prediction beforehand, truly) the Acadamy agrees with me. Wallace and Gromit win Best Animated Film being the 4th Oscar for the incredible comical genius Nick Park. Congrats.
And I'd also like to mention, underdogs can make it too. Not that I say the winner was an underdog by any means, but Brokeback Mountain was the supposed favorite to win Best Picture and I thought it was a shoo-in for the Oscar. Then, out of nowhere, the word is read, "Crash" for Best Picture. Insanity broke loose. Apparently, a movie, which had pratically won every single Oscar it was nominated for, lost to Best Picture. Amazing. The titan was shut DOWN. It's making people wonder, "something was better than Brokeback Mountain?". It like when Oprah mentions something on her show and it goes boom in instant sales...except not. No actually, it is like that. The Acadamy is Oprah (figuratively, not literally) and Brokeback Mountain and Crash are two different kinds of perfume. Although Brokeback Mountain is what the cool kid next to you uses, Oprah reaches for a perfume and grabs Crash instead saying, "I prefer using Crash and EVERYONE should buy it!" Insanity breaks loose. If Crash doesn't sell more tickets after this, I'll be surprised.
Brokeback Mountain as a perfume...sounds kinky. Ack! Wait! No! I never said that. That never happened
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It does though
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Anyway, in the words of Nick Park and Steve Box
Cracking cheese, Gromit.
The Flake who skipped May.
. In all seriousness, thank you for those that still have.
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. Eh, C'est la vie!
