The Original BJ wrote
Sending thoughts and prayers we are all spared The Emoji Movie. (NINE percent fresh on RT!!!!!)
...come on, Cars 3...
I haven't seen The Breadwinner, but it looks like the most tolerable potential winner. Why couldn't have Wes Anderson have rushed Isle of Dogs out? He could've had this in the bag. But at this point, it clearly looks like Coco will have this one.
There are new rules when it comes to voting. The entire voting bloc of the Academy chooses the nominees this year. Which can only mean we're going to get a lousier crop of nominees. Considering that most Academy voters don't have time to watch all their screeners, you'd better believe animated films are going to get sent to the bottom of the pile, and likely they'll just nominate the ones they've heard of. I'm ready to make my predictions:
The Boss Baby
Coco
Despicable Me 3
The Emoji Movie
The Lego Batman Movie
The two films I've seen that really seem like they can get nominations are The Breadwinner and Loving Vincent. The latter has it's screeners out already and I think the former has done well at festivals. Plus it's a G-Kids film and they've absolutely bossed this category in terms of nominations - only one fewer than Pixar.
In this Corner of the World would make for an excellent nominee. It's pretty much a less bleak version of Grave of the Fireflies. (Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty sad and harrowing! But it at least ends on a hopeful note.)
The only one of these I have seen is Ethel & Ernest a very old fashioned, pleasant and moving portrait of a couple over the course of their lives.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
26 films have qualified for the Animated Feature Oscar, which means we'll have 5 nominees this year.
But, for the life of me, I have no idea what four of the nominees will end up being. (I'm assuming Coco is a certain nominee, and the likely presumptive winner.) The studio side of the slate features a lot of middlingly received sequels -- which haven't tended to get nominations -- and the artier efforts have been really under the radar -- even compared to many of the nominated foreign/indie efforts that have at least made some impact in their theatrical releases.
The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales
Birdboy: The Forgotten Children
The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Captain Underpants The First Epic Movie
Cars 3
Cinderella the Cat
Coco
Despicable Me 3
The Emoji Movie
Ethel & Ernest
Ferdinand
The Girl without Hands
In This Corner of the World
The Lego Batman Movie
The Lego Ninjago Movie
Loving Vincent
Mary and the Witch’s Flower
Moomins and the Winter Wonderland
My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea
Napping Princess
A Silent Voice
Smurfs: The Lost Village
The Star
Sword Art Online: The Movie – Ordinal Scale
Window Horses The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming
