Jason

Overrated, a term people use when they liked a movie less than other people did. That was my experience with La La Land, but I prefer to just say I was disappointed with it. I'll use the phrase critically overrated for films critics like but audiences don't, but that clearly isn't the case here. It is off-topic - because there's also no compelling evidence that a backlash against Hollywood was a significant factor in Hillary not being elected. The regional and demographic changes in voting patterns, as well as the concerns directly expressed in polls, both suggest that Trump supporters were mainly driven by a number of concerns and priorities other than sticking it to Hollywood. So there's no reason to think that a less insular Hollywood would have made a difference in this election, close as it was.

I haven't seen Sing either, but even if I had seen it and loved it I wouldn't think it was nomination-worthy. It's clear overall opinion puts it in the mediocre range.

Given that the others are Ratchet & Clank, Warcraft, and Assassin's Creed, I feel like that's an unconscionably low bar.

This is an interesting idea. It's certainly possible, although the type of voting system used by the Animation Branch is relatively resistant to tactical voting, especially since the lowest score that may be assigned is 6/10. So if this occurred, it would have required a large number (almost certainly a majority) of members to have decided to give The Lego Movie a lower rating than they otherwise would have. I considered this. It's certainly possible. Problem is, there have been only nine stop-motion animated films submitted from 2004-2015 (out of 192 submissions), and seven of those had strong enough critical reception that it's expected they would be nominated on that basis alone. Of the remaining two, Boxtrolls was nominated but wasn't far out of the expected "required" level of critical reception, and did receive a raft of technical nominations at the Annies. Even if both Kubo and Zucchini are nominated, they're both strong enough in their own right that it still can't be known if the Animation Branch has a real bias in favour of stop-motion, or just that the stop-motion films submitted have almost all been excellent films regardless. I almost want to say we need some not-so-good stop-motion films for the sake of science. The point regarding character animation is a good one. It's something that can't be quantified and fed into a spreadsheet, but I do think it's likely to be of importance to the Animation Branch. Likewise the point regarding non-Ghibli anime, one of only about five "surprise" missed nominations since 2005 from the standpoint of critical reception is Paprika. If Your Name misses a nomination despite the strength of its critical reception, I'd consider weaknesses in character nomination or a (even weak) bias against anime to be more likely than lack of awareness, given viewing requirements by the nominating committee. Anyway, great write-up.

I am still trying to figure out what this means. Not sure how this works for a movie, but I feel like something that when squared results in Zootopia still ought to be good. This is actually very helpful. Morbid curiosity abated, I'll pass on it without regret.

Crap. There's a part of me getting morbidly curious about Angry Birds now. And I just realized even though I can't rent it on Google Play, I can rent it from Cineplex. But I probably shouldn't.

La La Land. Secret Life of Pets and IDR are also among my worst five of the year. Granted, I generally try not to watch movies I don't think I'll like, which is why I haven't seen Angry Birds or Passengers. I would consider watching Angry Birds for the sake of completion (of animated 2016 films), but it's only available to buy, not rent.

I'm really new to this whole movies thing. Most years of my life I've seen like one to two movies in theatres, and not much more than that at home. Never looked into much detail about how movies are made. Never paid much attention during awards season either, at best I'd have some awareness of the Best Picture and Best Animated Feature nominees/winner. So when awards season rolled around this year, I realized I didn't actually know what excellence in a lot of categories meant, including Best Editing. I did Google it to find out the basics of what editing is (and other categories), but that's not the same as actually having an ability to intuitively distinguish the good from the not-so-good. Not kidding, watching Tele's montage was my first "oh, that's really good" editing moment - loved how he grabbed shots from completely different films and made them flow together. As for Zootopia, it being in the 15-20 range from any of the animation fans here would make me (very) sad, but from Tele it's a bonus.

I think Frozen was pretty obvious too. But 2011, 2012, and 2014 were definitely not as obvious. Also, I think activity in this thread died down at least partly because it became so obvious that Zootopia was going to take it.

Likewise, if it's not obvious by now, I like every single post in these lists regardless of whether or not I agree because I appreciate the perspectives and the write-up even when I don't agree (or more often, have no personal opinion because I haven't seen the film). Particularly liked the Gods of Egypt write-up, it really is a guilty pleasure - there are parts/aspects of it that are pretty awful, but the entertaining parts of it were entertaining enough for me I had that feeling of "you know, I'm liking this a lot more than I thought I would." Also, I haven't seen Civil War yet, but that write-up resonated with me because I was warned against watching it by a friend who liked it but said a non-fan like me probably wouldn't, and alluded to some of the things Baumer describes in more detail. I also got a laugh out of Baumer saying he's not sure how he made it to end of it, because my parents really did both fall asleep before the half-hour mark, and woke up about an hour later and left. Was actually a lifetime-first for my mom, she's the sort of person who is super-hyper and can't nap even when sleep-deprived.

Go for it.

Yeah, I know about his other meltdown, think it had something to do with 10 Cloverfield Lane or some other movie in March? I think I read all of the weekend threads that happened beginning with Zootopia's OW after I joined. In any case though, like Andy said, CJohn has had multiple emoting meltdowns.

This is the meltdown that happened in March-ish?

I haven't watched The Artist. But it doesn't matter, this was absolutely hilarious, I actually burst out laughing. Baumer saved his best for last.

That thread is from before my time here. I just came across his Interstellar post. For that alone, I approve of his list. No matter how many Pixar films I come across later.

I probably should have explained that here rather than in the Your Name thread? Anyway, I agree, they didn't promote it at all, as far as I know (and I did check) they only screened it in Los Angeles for one week and that's it. They're also clearly not banking on an Oscar nod as part of their release strategy, unlike SPC and The Red Turtle, where it's positioned perfectly to benefit from an Oscar nod. I still think Your Name has a decent chance is because of the Animation Branch's selection process. Participants in the nominating committee are required to have watched two-thirds of the submissions (and there's at least half a dozen films with even less promotion), and the nominating committee assigns an average rating to all films. In theory, that means a film watched by fewer members won't be hurt as long as those members rate it highly, unlike FPTP or even ranked balloting. In practice, that does appear to be the case based on previous nominations. Average RT rating compared to other submissions has been by far the strongest predictor of a nomination, box office or distributor effects are essentially non-existent when taking that into account. Your Name is among the most highly rated of this year, along with Kubo, The Red Turtle, Zootopia, My Life as a Zucchini, and Moana. At least one of those has to miss, I'm going with My Life as a Zucchini because I don't have anything go on other than RT ratings, with distributor effects appearing to be non-existent, and none of those films receiving a large number of technical nominations from the Annies. (Appears to be a predictor independent of average rating.) The one other thing I think Your Name has going for it is that in the only North American city it was screened in, the local critics association awarded it Best Animated Feature.

Zootopia (will win) Kubo and the Two Strings Moana The Red Turtle Your Name Alts (in descending order of likelihood): My Life as a Zucchini April and the Extraordinary World Finding Dory

Omg, I just clicked on the IDR spoiler.

Not me, but I burst out laughing when I read this, so you get a "like" for that. Guilty conscience? I almost want to check your post history for the past 24 hours. Anyway, already commented in the CC thread, but I think these new rules are great. Especially the policy on tagging spoilers in other threads until home video release. Thanks!

His review here:

Beauty and the Beast Your Name Coco The Red Turtle Dunkirk Star Wars Episode VIII The LEGO Batman Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Wonder Woman Despicable Me 3

Wild Bunch, Studio Ghibli's The Red Turtle Film Slated for January 20 in N. America Initial release on Jan. 20 will only be New York and Los Angeles. It will expand on Jan. 27, might still be very limited. But as one of the more likely nominees for Best Animated Feature, thought I'd make a thread for it. Update, nominees announced:

Saw this last night, really glad I did. Was only one of two people in the theatre, which is by far the smallest number I've ever seen and I've gone to see movies on weekday mornings before after several weeks in release. It's really a shame so few people are seeing this. Marketing team really did screw up. Not saying I'd know how to do better, but I showed the trailer to some friends and they all read it completely wrong. (Looks like a sappy movie for kids, but not very entertaining etc.) I saw the trailer a few times this year and had no intention of seeing this until I saw the reactions here. (Thanks!)

Liked it but didn't love it would be the quick version of my thoughts as well. Don't really have much to add to what's already been said in this thread, essentially I really liked the musical/technical aspects but thought the characterization was weak, although I don't feel as strongly about it as Tele or cannastop. Glad I liked the musical parts though, this was actually the first live-action musical I've seen. I like animated musicals, wasn't completely sure that would translate to live-action. I posted a longer 'review' in the RTM thread for what it's worth. One thing I would add here though - I don't know why someone not liking a movie like La La Land has to be described as "backlash". Maybe there are some people here who are suspected to be deliberately contrarian, but the fairer explanation in my view would just be that not everyone has the same taste. Also, worth repeating since I don't know how many eyeballs the review thread is getting at this point: did anyone notice the camera going very slightly out of focus at the more fantastical moments like the opening number or planetarium scene? I thought that was clever, but it was so subtle I wasn't completely sure. Haven't seen any commentary on it here or elsewhere.