14 Toons Eligible for Oscar

Monday, November 10, 2008
By: Ryan Ball

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has identified 14 animated features eligible for Academy Awards consideration. From this list, three titles will be selected to compete for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 81st Academy Awards. Those of us who like to see a variety of contenders were hoping for 16 eligible contenders to bring the number of nominees to five.

The 14 submitted features are:

Bolt - Disney
Delgo – Fathom Studios
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! – 20th Century Fox/Blue Sky
Dragon Hunters – Futurikon/Peace Arch
Fly Me to the Moon – Summit Ent./nWave
Igor – MGM/ Weinstein Co./Exodus
Kung Fu Panda – DreamWorks Animation
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – DreamWorks Animation
$9.99 – Regent Releasing
The Sky Crawlers – Production IG./Nippon/Sony Pictures Classics
Sword of the Stranger (Stranger Mukoh Hadan) - Shochiku/Bones/Bandai
The Tale of Despereaux - Universal
WALL-E – Disney/Pixar
Waltz with Bashir – Sony Pictures Classics

Curious omissions include the French feature Fear(s) of the Dark from IFC Films, the Brett Morgan documentary Chicago 10 from Roadside Attractions, Star Wars: The Clone Wars from Lucasfilm/Warner Bros., Space Chimps from Starz Media/Vanguard and The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie from Universal/Big Idea Prods. We can only assume that these films were not submitted for consideration.

Bolt, Delgo, Dragon Hunters, $9.99, The Sky Crawlers, The Tale of Despereaux and Waltz with Bashir have not yet had their required Los Angeles qualifying run. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and meet all of the category’s other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process. Films submitted in the Animated Feature Film category may also qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories.

Nominations for the 81st Academy Awards will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 5:30 a.m. (PT) in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The Awards ceremony will then be presented on Sunday, Feb. 22 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center. The event will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.

Reader Comments

• omayya : artist : johatoon

  Monday, November 10, 2008

  i like this magazine

• shakeem winn : writer n artist : winn ltd.

  Monday, November 10, 2008

  Wall E will win of course. It is still one of the best films of the year.

• spacey : artist :

  Tuesday, November 11, 2008

  it should be Waltz with Bashir !
  even though it\'s not all key framed!

• Spe_oW : not yet

  Tuesday, November 11, 2008

  i hope the choice will be only on idéa and animation.
  No studios name or persons.

• Milena Somogyi : animation student : Veritas University (Costa Rica)

  Tuesday, November 11, 2008

  there are really good animated films for this year, I still think Wall-e was the greatest, it really amazed me, Pixar really never fails to amaze us, and it has all the definate characteristics for being the winner!

• Milena Somogyi : animation student : Veritas University (Costa Rica)

  Tuesday, November 11, 2008

  to be true it\'s really a tough decision...

• Steven Sherman : Finance Director : Decode Entertainment Inc.

  Tuesday, November 11, 2008

  I will be happy if Wall-E wins, but in my view, Waltz With Bashir is an original in every way and absolutely stunning. It\'s my favorite of the four I\'ve seen in this bunch, Horton, which I really enjoyed, doesn\'t compete with either of these two.
  
  And getting to my point, The Sky Crawlers is utterly pretentious garbage that should not be viewed while operating heavy machinery. Seriously. It sucks. I can\'t emphasize SUCK enough. I sat there waiting for something to happen and nothing does. I\'ve seen Ghost in the Shell. This is much much worse. Don\'t see it, don\'t name it. Don\'t even acknowledge its existence. Well maybe it wasn\'t that bad, but Lord, it wasn\'t good.

• Mike Fisher : Licensing chief : Disney

  Tuesday, November 11, 2008

  I hear Despereaux is going to blow everything else out of the water....Let\'s hope Universal doesn\'t drop the ball and advertises the movie.