Hey, <I>I</I> won that award too!
But, seriously...as we showed in our Best Of 2008, it was a very tough choice bwteen WALL-E and KFP this year. In many ways I must agree with the Annies - whose members have clearly voted for the more "entertaining" film as opposed to the "worthy" one - WALL-E is an extremely fantastic, well-crafted, original and incredible piece of filmmaking, CG or otherwise in this day and age...but then he reaches the ship and though it's still amazingly entertaining, the sense of, yes, awesomeness, shrinks away a little and the film becomes a fairly routine story, where the ending is never in any doubt. I remember even James thinking this was amazing, but also adding that he had a few caveats himself.
On the other hand, when one conjures up the kinds of films DreamWorks usually makes, not only did KFP astound as to being something new and totally different for them, but it was absurdly entertaining and extremely well-crafted in its own way. Not that I would suggest a Pixar backlash or any kind of vote rigging, but I suspect that, on this occasion, the voters decided Pixar's work was yet another dead cert home run and actually went with the more surprising vote. If KFP had come from Pixar, who would have been surprised? It coming from DWs, as it did, was a major showing that the company can make films that divert away from the lowest common denominator aspirations we usually have to sit through and reach the kind of level that, well, that can win these kinds of awards.
Lastly, the suggestion that WALL-E might be in with a shot of Best Picture is the kind of media-fueled rumor that gets us in a tizzy like this. The film got a lot of decent notices, yes, but again that's par for the course when it comes to Pixar's movies. <I>I am in no way suggesting a Pixar backlash</I>, and ultimately would probably peg my colors to WALL-E in the event of my having to vote, but I have been saying for months that I never accepted that it had a chance at Best Pic. WALL-E does not have that Beauty And The Beast factor...it doesn't, at the end of the day, have that emotional heart. I don't think KFP does either, but it's not as schizophrenic as WALL-E, which is a film of two halves, and only strives to entertain with a simple but well rendered story and characters that draw on the whole Chinese Olympic vibe of the year.
That WALL-E would be up for Best Pic is one many of those stories that keep coming back year on year. I think each year since the BAF category began (and which will likely never be broken, unfortunately) there has been talk of one film being "the one" or a "possibly" entry that could break out and feature in the Best Pic race (further confirmation that AMPAS views the BAF as something to "break out" from, the very reason no film ever will). Shrek, Shrek 2, Nemo, now WALL-E...this isn't the first time the subject has been raised, and it's almost never by the originating Studio, whom I would suspect would be reluctant to try and promote themselves in that light and then end up excluded from the BAF entirely.
So, yes, WALL-E got good notices, which led to talk of Oscar. KFP got just as good reviews, if not as widely acclaimed, but the judgment has always been history and even though we are only talking a few months, it's the perspective that eventually means the most. Even The Dark Knight, which last summer no-one would say a negative word about as they stood back in awe at the money it was making, is getting some more realistic views on the disc release. And so it is with these two films: which one, perhaps most importantly, has the repeatability factor? That's obviously a question of taste, and while mine might well be a choice to watch WALL-E again right now over KFP (by however a slight margin that may be), the masses have obviously made their point.
On Oscar night, each one is as worthy as each other to take the prize. Bolt's entry is a nod to a revitalized Disney Studios, it would seem, but won't win. Whether it is WALL-E or KFP taking home the award will simply be down to either which the voters saw most recently, which they remembered the most, and whether in their state of mind they are going to go for the one that most entertained, or the one that seems the more obvious "Oscar choice".
