Ratatouille

Post by **ShyViolet** » July 17th, 2007, 2:27 am

I think it does too.

EDIT: Oh, you meant Best Picture? Hmmm....I won't rule it out, but it's extremely hard for an animated film to even get nominated for Best Pic, much less win it. Beauty and the Beast was a very strange anomoly.

Other wonderful movies like The Lion King, Chicken Run, The Iron Giant, and others have all come and gone but it never happened with them.

So...it COULD happen with Rat, but all the planets would have to line up, or however that expression goes.

Well, my opinion.

(Also, Pixar would have to first submit it for Best Pic nom. They could have done that with the other much-loved films like Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, and Incredibles, but for whatever reason they declined. So I'm not sure if they'd do it with Rat.)

Post by **Meg** » July 17th, 2007, 9:01 am

Now that they have a category for animated films, I highly doubt one would get a Best Pic nom ever again. The Academy tends to view animated films as inferior to live-action. :S

Post by **spaz** » July 17th, 2007, 11:52 am

Ratatouille #1 in mid-year report

Taking top spot in a mid year report, Rotten Tomatoes reports that, according to their standards, the animated comedy Ratatouille is the best-reviewed film of 2007 thus far. The Parisian-set tale is the only animated film to make the list, which consists of 25 movies released this year. Summing up the opinions of various reviewers, the Critical Consensus assures that, “Pixar succeeds again with Ratatouille, a stunningly animated film with fast pacing, memorable characters, and overall good humor.”

if this is any indication. regarless, knowing from experience when you take movies+cg+vfx and add a pinch of Hollywood weaseldom ... never say never. the academy is a confused entity and will sway if the money it is there. they're kind of like a judge on a crooks payroll.

Post by **James** » July 17th, 2007, 12:41 pm

Ratatouille is the first animated film since Beauty and the Beast to deserve an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

But using Rotten Tomato's award for Best Reviewed Film of the Year as the standard proves good reviews aren't enough to break past live action films to those big awards. Since RT started their awards, an animated film has won the top prize 5 out of 8 times.

1999 winner - Toy Story 2
2000 winner - Chicken Run
2001 runner-up - Monster's Inc.
2003 winner - Finding Nemo
2004 winner - The Incredibles
2005 winner - Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Post by **droosan** » July 17th, 2007, 2:23 pm

spaz wrote:the academy is a confused entity and will sway if the money it is there. they're kind of like a judge on a crooks payroll.

Actually, a hefty majority of the Motion Picture Academy are actors .. who are the ones that would feel most 'threatened' if they were to compete one-on-one with 'nonexistant' animated characters (they're scared-to-death of digital 'replacements', as it is). They are the reason a separate 'Best Animated Feature' category was created in the first place. This effectively 'sidelined' animated films from being considered alongside live-action films.

I'm afraid the chances of even as fine a film as Ratatouille breaking through that barrier are very small, indeed. ShyViolet is correct in that Pixar would have to submit the film for consideration in the 'Best Picture' category .. and, if it were actually nominated there, it would likely disqualify them from consideration for the 'Best Animated Feature' category (I would assume; though there are no 'rules' which state that specifically .. but it isn't possible for a 'Documentary Feature' to also be considered for 'Best Picture', for example).

In the end, an Academy Award is an Academy Award .. the 'Oscar' statuettes are identical, regardless of the 'category'.

And there's always the Annie Awards, which are actually considered & presented by the animation community. :idea:

Post by **spaz** » July 17th, 2007, 3:08 pm

actaully the majority of the people who vote during the Oscars are relations to the member. the spouse , the kids etc. the Academy's flakiness is as inherent as it's phoney royalty. i remember when "Do The Right Thing" came out; clearly the best film of that year. it wasn't even considered in any catagory. as i said before the Academy pretends to have rules and regulations but it is as corrupt as any organization when money and fame are at stake.

Post by **James** » July 17th, 2007, 4:27 pm

An animated film can be up for nomination in both the Best Picture category and the Best Animated Film category without having to choose between one or other other. (This also applies to Foreign and Documentary Features and their individual categories as well.)

Post by **Ben** » July 17th, 2007, 6:27 pm

As the Critical Consensus points out, "Pixar succeeds again with Ratatouille, a stunningly <B>animated</B> film with fast pacing, memorable characters, and overall good humor".

If they'd just said stunning film, it might have a chance at a Best Picture nom, but now animation has been ghettoized there's no coming back.

That's why, even when DWs tried to get Shrek 2 nominated for a Best Picture, Pixar knew to just push for the Best Animated Feature, and they won for that. It was widely seen that DWs was trying to "overstep" their place and were rewarded with a loss.

I'd love to see an animated film win a Best Picture nom, but that animation "stigma" just won't get shaken loose...

Post by **Meg** » July 17th, 2007, 8:46 pm

Maybe the animation medium would get more recognition if there were more intelligent and mature animated films being made instead of stories about animal buddies that fart?

Post by **ShyViolet** » July 17th, 2007, 8:58 pm

That could be, but even making animated musicals with princesses, Hamlet-like morality plays, Chinese legends and sci-fi epics didn't earn the--pardon the expression--genre of animation all that much recognition, in fact even less than they get now. (Again, barring the BATB anomaly)

Lion King was a gigantic hit in 1994, both critically and commercially, but getting a Best Pic nom--even after Beauty got it two years earlier--was never in the cards.

You could say that they got trapped into a formula but that's exactly why they started the animal tales/adventures in the first place--to go in a new direction, tap into the Pixar outline for success as well as "get back to Disney's roots" in making cartoony comedies, etc....

Post by **ShyViolet** » July 18th, 2007, 12:36 am

Some mild spoilers for Lifted:

Post by **Ben** » July 18th, 2007, 9:12 am

How come you spoiler'd those comments, Vi? I thought they'd been seen on the forum already?

Post by **Kaszubas** » July 18th, 2007, 5:00 pm

Interesting Ratatouille review here:
http://www.filmsnobs.com/index.php?nowS ... mes&id=821
Brad Bird portrayed as "Robert Altman of animation" exploring widely different aspects and layers of social order

Post by **ShyViolet** » July 18th, 2007, 10:47 pm

How come you spoiler'd those comments, Vi? I thought they'd been seen on the forum already?

I guess I wanted to make sure in case no one saw the movie or the comments yet.

Also, does anyone else think Ian Holm and Peter O'Toole should both get some kind of recognition for their amazing voice work in Ratatouille?

Post by **ShyViolet** » July 18th, 2007, 11:00 pm

Hey Josh, I think you said earlier you really wanted to see

From IMDB: (SPOILER)