The Academy Award nominees were announced on Tuesday, and it's no surprise that the latest Pixar film Ratatouille was nominated for best animated feature. It was a pleasant surprise to see Persepolis nominated, a film that is low on budget but rich in storytelling. Amazingly, the budget for that film was only $8.1 million – Ratatouille cost $150 million.
The third nominee was Surf's Up (yes, another penguin movie), which beat out The Simpsons Movie and Bee Movie, both successful films from big studios.
Ratatouille was also nominated for best musical score, sound editing, sound mixing, and original screenplay, a category not usually associated with animation.
But the animated short films are where you'll see the most variety and individuality, this is the one time of year when independent animation gets a national spotlight. You can see a nice roundup of all the nominations at the AWN website:
http://www.awn.com/oscars08
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2 comments:
Sites like Drawn! and Cartoon Brew have links to where you can view the nominated shorts. I'll see if I can find the links.
I'm hoping that Persepolis will beat out Ratatouille, but it's highly unlikely. Maybe the nomination will get it more play in mainstream theaters. That in itself would be a victory. They are certainly both deserving. Brad Bird deserves recognition for his screenplay, but I'm sure a live action film screenplay will beat him out as well. All said---great year for animation! I don't know much about Surf's Up! I read that even Sony Pictures and its producers were surprised to get the nomination.
There's a discussion going on over at Cartoon Brew about the merits of both Persepolis and Ratatouille (debate over who deserves the Oscar). Good stuff:
Link
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