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Eric Atreides

Best Animated Feature 2018 - Predictions

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Meanwhile, the Annecy Film Festival is going on right now. A lot of notable animated films from around the world have screened at the festival before, and many go on to be in the Oscar conversation. Just last year, Lu Over The Wall won their main award, Loving Vincent won the audience award, and In This Corner of the World won the jury award. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a potential independent candidate emerge from the Annecy competition in either this year's race or next year's race. The titles of the films in competition that haven't been submitted for contention in the Oscar's animated category yet are as follows:

 

Virus Tropical (Colombia - Santiago Caicedo)

The Wolf House (Chile - Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cocina)

Wall (Canada - Cam Christiansen)

Seder-Masochism (USA - Nina Paley)

Mirai (Japan - Mamoru Hosoda) **this is probably the biggest film here so far; this was also at Cannes earlier this year, and the director has a strong pedigree**

Funan (Belgium, Cambodia, France, Luxembourg - Denis Do)

Tito and the Birds (Brazil - Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar, and Andre Catoto Dias)

Okko's Inn (Japan - Kitaro Kosaka)

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Funan (2018)

 

 

 

I just found out that the Annecy Film Festival has chosen a winner for the Cristal award, and that winner is Funan. According to IMDb's synopsis, it is about the survival and the struggle of a young mother during the Khmer Rouge revolution, to find her 4-year-old son, torn from his family by the regime. Past winners include Oscar nominees such as Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Boy and the World, and My Life as a Zucchini. So we'll see if it manages to nab an Indie spot through distribution by someone like Gkids or Good Deed (Loving Vincent's distributor).

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So I shouldn't expect it after what happened last year, but today, I saw an anime film that I think deserves to be in contention for a nomination, and that film is Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms. It is a visually striking, thematically engrossing, melodramatic epic about motherhood, aging, and loss. It has, and deserves to have, 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (as of 7/21/18, with a measly 17 reviews aggregated). Of course, this film is distributed by Eleven Arts (who distributed A Silent Voice) instead of Gkids, and anime films distributed by Gkids seem to have an upper hand if any anime film is to be nominated at all without Ghibli, but one factor in this film's favor is that, as a counterpick, it'd be a great way for the Academy to respond to #metoo, with a female director in her directorial debut, and a refreshingly notable feminine voice. I'm rooting for it.

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4 hours ago, Rorschach said:

Incredibles 2 >> Isle of Dogs

 

I don't think both of them are outstanding movies but I honestly preferred Incredibles 2. I'm really hoping there's another really good animated film that bests both of them.

 

I feel like there's strong cases for both of them, but neither of them would be considered the best out of all the winners. I'm rooting for Isle of Dogs because I think we're due for a winner that is not from Disney or Pixar, as we haven't had one since 2011 when Rango won. That's just me.

 

Maybe Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is a surprise classic with its animation style and story and all that. We'll see.

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Yet another foreign language candidate has caught my attention: the Brazilian Annecy selection Tito and the Birds, which was also selected for the Toronto International Film Festival. The film was picked up by distributor Shout! Factory, the same one behind In This Corner of the World and Big Fish & Begonia. The plot, while being a simple one that kids could easily follow, is a little hard for me to put into words, so I'll let the trailer speak for itself.

 

 

If Shout! Factory plays their cards right, this could be the next Brazilian animation to receive a nomination after The Boy and the World. Maybe. I dunno.

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4 minutes ago, Jake Gittes said:

Would still say Isle of Dogs takes this. Weak as hell year though at least for American animation.

 

I absolutely agree. 2017 was certainly worse, but 2018 certainly  doesn't feel like an improvement. I really do feel like Isle of Dogs might trot on through to a win on the basis that it's not a sequel, that it's not based on a licensed property (sorry Spider-Man), and that the Academy certainly has a love for Anderson's films.

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https://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/animation-is-film-announces-11-animated-features-in-competition-lineup-164312.html

 

Fascinatingly, GKIDS is producing their second annual film festival, Animation Is Film (or AIF for short), in Hollywood's Chinese Theater.

 

The eleven films in the main competition are:

 

Another Day in the Life (Poland/Spain)

Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (Spain)

Funan (Belgium/France/Cambodia)*

I Want To Eat Your Pancreas (Japan)

Mirai (Japan)*

Okko's Inn (Japan)*

Pachamama (Argentina/France)

Penguin Highway (Japan)

Ruben Brandt, Collector (Hungary)

Seder-Masochism (USA)*

Tito and the Birds (Brazil)*

 

* = It's no surprise because Annecy Int'l is also a part of this festival, but the asterisk states that the film was also in competition over ar Annecy.

 

(Descriptions of the films, as well as a list of the festival competition's jury members, are available in the provides link.)

 

****

 

Sidenote: I took a look at each of these films, and one that caught my eye was Ruben Brandt, Collector. It is about a thief who steals paintings from museums, not for the money, but for his sanity. Each character is made to look like a figure that would be seen in a Picasso image, and action -- yes, action -- is prioritized. I think there is a reason why Sony Pictures Classics (The Triplets of Belleville, Paprika, Persepolis) bought it, even if they did it quietly; this film could come out of nowhere. I'm posting the trailer below:

 

 

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So I've just now become aware of what may just become an anomaly in this race. And it is a Netflix film called Next Gen.

 

 

The film was made by a Chinese production company with the animation tool Blender, and it was purchased by Netflix at the Cannes Film Festival for $30 million dollars. The synopsis: in a futuristic society, one girl, who at first dislikes robots, meets and befriends a robot who protects her through dangerous times.

 

The common consensus is that the film is overcomplicated but otherwise good. As the film came out of nowhere, Rotten Tomatoes only has four reviews compiled, three of which are fresh. I have not seen the film at this time, but it just might be something to look out for; if this gets nominated, it could cause ripple effects in the animation landscape for a long time.

 

Edit: I guess you need a theatrical release to be eligible, huh? Maybe next time, Netflix.

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full list of eligible films

Quote

“Ana y Bruno”

“Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch”

“Early Man”

“Fireworks”

“Have a Nice Day”

“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation”

“Incredibles 2”

“Isle of Dogs”

“The Laws of the Universe – Part I”

“Liz and the Blue Bird”

“Lu over the Wall”

“MFKZ”

“Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms”

“Mirai”

“The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl”

“On Happiness Road”

“Ralph Breaks the Internet”

“Ruben Brandt, Collector”

“Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero”

“Sherlock Gnomes”

“Smallfoot”

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”

“Tall Tales”

“Teen Titans Go! To the Movies”

“Tito and the Birds”

 

for predictions i'll say:

 

Early Man

Incredibles 2

Isle of Dogs

Spider-Man

Wreck-It Ralph 2

 

i dunno what the cool foreign indie animation is supposed to be this year though. whatever it is, that over Wreck it ralph 2 which i'm least confident in from that five.

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Huh. Didn't realise that Fireworks, Lu over the Wall, MFKZ and Night is Short, Walk on Girl were all being counted as 2018 films. They all (except MFKZ) got UK screenings in 2017, so I just assumed they were being counted as 2017 films.

 

Ah, well. It's not like any of them have a snowball's chance of being nominated in the first place, regardless of quality.

 

 

Anyway, I'd really like to see Mirai snag the foreign/indie spot, since I'm a big Mamoru Hosoda fan and I really loved the movie when I saw it a couple of weeks ago in Glasgow. But considering my track record when it comes to stanning for films in this category, I don't have much in the way of actual hopes that it'll make it.

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