[Image: Official Site]
Tell me you didn’t see this coming?
Your Name is a wonderful motion picture, and one of the best anime films I’ve ever seen. It’s also the highest grossing anime ever, which doesn’t validate it as a great film but, at least, will be solace to the folks who made it.
The Academy Awards revealed which films it will be nominating for best animated feature. They are: Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, My Life as a Zucchini, The Red Turtle, and Zootopia.
These are good movies, sure, but Your Name is a glaring omission. But that’s the Oscars for ya! Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for best director, Kevin Costner beat out Martin Scorsese for his Run of the Arrow knock off, and Driving Miss Daisy got more Academy votes than Do the Right Thing.
So with a track record that spotty, maybe it’s best that Your Name didn’t get nominated.
Comments
23 responses to “Of Course, The Oscars Ignored The Biggest Anime Movie Ever”
Not exactly unusual, Spirited Away is the only Ghibli film that ever got Oscar recognition and the while the Oscars have been inclined to award/have nominations for international works, it is still a very American/Hollywood celebration night. So it’s (*clenches fist* very) disappointing but not exactly surprising.
The Red Turtle is a Ghibli film though. Not solely Ghibli, there were a few studios involved notably Wild Bunch, Why Not Productions and Arte France Cinema, but definitely a Ghibli film. Also it was bloody excellent, but I am a fan of french cinema, the influence of which was very noticeable throughout.
The Oscars are pretty meaningless though, they’re famously behind the times and often award best actor/actress to the actress or actor who put in the best performance in the previous year (rather than in the film they are newly nominated for) and so on, so you’re right: it’s neither surprising nor a big deal.
The Red Turtle is not a Ghibli film. Toshio Suzuki was executive co-producer and Isao Takahata contributed some storyboards. They’re hanging their hat on the Ghibli name for publicity.
The following Ghibli films have been nominated for oscars:
– Spirited Away
– Howl’s Moving Castle
– The Wind Rises
– The Tale of Princess Kaguya
– When Marnie Was There
These days the Oscars are about giving awards to the most unplayed, unknown, artsy piece of crap Hollywood can make. Most Oscar hits are not “hits at the box office” till AFTER the awards night is over. So anything that is a huge box office hit, domestically or internationally, are often “snubbed” for the awards. So seeing popular movies like Your Name and Deadpool being left off the list for average movies like La La Land, Jackie & Manchester by the Sea. (Most of these people wouldn’t have even heard about, but they all get a lot of nominations at Oscar time)
While you are somewhat right, it doesn’t really apply to this category. Zootopia and Moana were 2 of the biggest movies (period. Not even just animated) of the whole year.
Zootopia is the highest grossing nomination out of all films nominated this year, and that’s with a 7th overall in Box Office Gross in 2016. Moana is 11th. La La Land is in the low 20s, but only got a boost when it started getting Golden Globe nominations.
The data is out there to support my claim.
Lucky it isn’t the Nickelodeon kid’s choice awards I guess? Is that what you’re saying?
Hahaha comparing Deadpool to Lala Land what on fucking earth?
You are saying Deadpool is better right?
I’d compare it to Suicide Squad which DID get a nomination… fucking somehow.
Great makeup. A broken clock and all that.
And having seen both movies, I STILL think that nomination is a laugh.
The oscars , and all awards ceremonies have always been meaningless drivel.
I don’t know how these things work but perhaps the lack of exposure and maybe it didn’t make the cut off in terms of release date.
Technically speaking, the film hasn’t been released in America so that may have something to do with it.
They ran it on a few screens in Hollywood deliberately so it qualified, but the wider release isn’t until April or something.
The Oscars are kind of weirdly rubbish but the principle of award shows makes sense: awards are for things that the industry admires, whether or not they’re popular. Normally I’d argue that award shows should be trying to avoid giving things to the most ‘popular’ nominee but then I look at the homogenity of the industry Logies compared to the popular vote. I guess no principle is universally right.
The problem with the animation category is that the Academy doesn’t give a single shit about animation, so it’s basically the Disney/Pixar Oscar.
To be fair, more often than not Pixar and Disney are reaponsible for the best animated movie of the year.
I dunno why anyone cares about the Oscars at this point. Who is this academy and why should I give two fucks about what they deem to be the best films of the year?
Seriously, it is an opinion with an award attached that everyone keeps buying into because they are sheep. The best films I’ve seen don’t have Oscars.
Ehe my name didn’t get nominated.
The problem is simply that the distribution rights for the film are with Funimation. They’re not a big company, and they couldn’t afford to get it on in enough cinemas in the US before the deadline for nominations, let alone pay a fat enough bribe to get the film nominated.
Also, Deadpool got no nominations, but the infinitely worse Suicide Squad did.
So… yeah. Let’s pretend the Oscars aren’t about who you know and you you pay.