The Oscars came and went, and I actually stayed up all night to watch them; in the UK, they aired between 1 30 and 4 30 in the morning. It was a very predictable ceremony this year: most of the wins were surefire and inevitable (although „The Act of Killing” should have won Best Documentary Feature, and nobody can convince me otherwise). Here’s what happened with the animation-related categories:
Best Animated Feature- Frozen (Disney), directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Disney’s „Frozen” won this one (my stated preference was Ernest and Celestine, but the chances of it winning were somewhere in the area between zero and minus infinite). The filmmakers had probably rehearsed their Oscar acceptance speech many times before. Frozen was the night’s only winner (co-)directed by a woman, in any category, which is a fairly sad statistic for the year 2014. It was also the first winner for Disney since this category was invented in 2001, although of course Disney has plenty of Oscars otherwise. We already know that the film will be soon turned into a Broadway musical, which is a move calculated from its very writing stage, I would assume, so overall this has been a huge success for the company and it serves to cement its return as the dominating force in animation, in the US and worldwide. However you feel about Frozen (I moderately liked it, but found it overrated), it’s here to stay and it will probably be remembered as one of Disney’s classics, as well as their first CGI film that was Disney through and through („Wreck-It Ralph” was good, but essentially a Pixar formula). And Disney Princesses aren’t going anywhere: in 2018, we are to be introduced to Polynesian princess Moana.
In any case, I wouldn’t trust the Academy to recommend good feature animation to me. Remember when „Happy Feet” won the Oscar? In a year when Satoshi Kon’s „Paprika” wasn’t even nominated? Yeah.
Best Animated Short- Mr Hublot, directed by Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares
This is where my predictions went wrong, as I wouldn’t have pegged „Mr Hublot” as the winner in this category; I assumed it would go to „Get a Horse”, but I suppose it went elsewhere to balance any impression that the Academy is handing over everything to Disney; my other guess would have been „Feral”. I haven’t seen all the nominees, but I have seen „Mr Hublot” , a technically accomplished film with a cute, conventional story. This is perfectly in tune with the usual tastes of the Academy, which tends to reward competence rather than excellence, and in the animation categories it tends to go for „cute”.
Best Original Song- Let It Go, from „Frozen”, performed by Idina Menzel
A deserved win- Let It Go was the most talked-about movie song in a while now, and the Best Original Song is not just about music- it’s about a song that fits in the film perfectly and captures its spirit. And Disney made a wise choice: instead of pushing a „pop” version of the song performed by a House of Mouse celebrity (like it was the case with Mulan’s „My Reflection”, for instance, sung in the film by Lea Salonga, but otherwise known as a Christina Aguilera tune), they promoted the film’s original performance, by Broadway veteran Idina Menzel, more than the cover by Demi Lovato. Menzel got to sing at the Oscars as well, but her performance was, sadly, a bit lackluster, certainly not the best I’ve heard from her. Perhaps she’s bored of singing this song already; perhaps she was upset at being re-baptised Adele Dazeem when she was introduced by John Travolta. In any case, the other nominated song from an animated film, Pharrell Williams’s „Happy” provided the most fun moment of the evening, when Pharrell, in red boots and a ridiculous hat, danced with some of the nominated actresses.
