The Blackwing Diaries: Award Seasoning

Dec 15, 2009

Award Seasoning

The Golden Globes nominations came out today. Of special interest here is the list of five nominees for the Best Animated Film of 2009. And those are:

"Coraline"
"Fantastic Mr. Fox"
"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs"
"The Princess and the Frog"
"Up"

All worthy films and while the entire concept of contests for artistic achievement can be problematic, it's exciting that there's been such a healthy and varied year of releases in our profession.

Looking at the list--also a likely indicator of which titles will receive the AMPAS nod in a couple of months--it's quite a varied one in both style and story content. Congratulations are due to not only the producers and directors of these films but to the hundreds of unsung people on their crews known only to their coworkers, who in all likelihood went without a lot of breakfasts, bedtime stories, weekends and overall sleep to see their projects through. They did, and they should be proud of the results.

5 comments:

Mark Mayerson said...: I don't expect any of the award-granting bodies to share my taste, but I hope that AMPAS is a little more adventurous in its nominations than the Golden Globes. From my perspective, the major studios were treading water this year, while several smaller studios (many outside the U.S.) were doing more interesting work.; 12/15/2009
Matt Jones said...: I'd love to see CLOUDY start winning some awards. . .; 12/16/2009
Michael Sporn said...: It would be nice to see PONYO on the list of AMPAS titles. It's one of the best films of the year.; 12/16/2009
Jenny Lerew said...: Mark: the Foreign Press hasn't tended to be known for specially adventurous agregate tastes-even if their name would suggest they'd be more open for titles that are outside the mainstream.
I can't agree about treading water among the bigger companies; if every film were the same sort I'd see the point, but there really is a range there that's a kind of departure this year. To have not one but two puppet films among the five alone is kind of mind-blowing to me.
Matt: I've heard a lot of flat-out praise for "Cloudy" from my friends and colleagues. It deserved a nomination, that's for sure.
Michael: I'm frankly ashamed I didn't even think of "Ponyo", which I loved but which most of my animation pals didn't-put it down to the frenetic time of year(I'm having trouble remembering my own zip code these days).
The general response seemed to be that it meandered and was too young. I didn't mind either aspect at all. It wasn't Totoro" but personally I enjoyed it more than "Howl's Moving Castle" and much of the imagery and mood were sublime, I thought. I could do a post just about that and I probably should.; 12/16/2009
Anonymous said...: It'd sure be nice to see Ricky Nierva get a nod for Best Production Design. It's one of the best (and in my opinion) designed films of the year, animated or otherwise.; 12/17/2009