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Oscars 2023 Review: Best Animated Feature Nominees

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

This year makes it the first year I had the luck to see all five nominees for the Best Animated Feature. A lot of good films. Most are family-oriented but some have some adult appeal. Three are American made with one from Japan and one from Spain. Here are my reviews of the Best Animated Feature nominees:

The Boy And The Heron

Anime may or may not be to your liking. but Hayao Miyazaki makes anime films worth liking. If you’re familiar with Miyazaki, his film Spirited Away won the very second Oscar in this category. This film is his fourth film to be nominated in this category and his first in ten years when he went into retirement.

Here he ends his retirement to return with a story about a boy who lost his mother during World War II and doesn’t know how to deal with a new stepmother, an upcoming baby brother and a new school. He thinks he can fake a rock attack from a school bully to get out of his problem but a mystic heron who speaks to him has clues to how he can encounter his mother.

In many ways, this story is quite similar to Spirited Away. The path the boy Mahito takes is very similar to the labyrinth Chihiro in Spirited Away took. Both children begin the story as they face a difficult change in their life. Both children find a place that takes them to a supernatural world which they would find themselves imprisoned in and facing obstacles. Both would see imagery of beings that represent their parents or parent. In Mahito’s case, he’s led to an underground world led by a Heron and then to an image of who he thinks is his deceased moth, only to learn she’s made of water. It’s as Mahito learns he has to fight his way out of the society of parakeets that he’s able to come across his long lost mother, although she comes across as a different image.

Once again, Miyazaki succeeds in creating a world that is mystical, frightening and colorful. His films are known for capturing people’s imagination with mesmerizing imagery and dazzling colors. He’s one of few who know how to continue to innovate with 2D animation. His use of animal characters to represent the demons the child is trying to fight is present again here. With this film, it’s a human living inside a heron that is the one to guide Mahito with the ability to resolve with his new mother, fight his way out of the kingdom of parakeets and and meet his mother. The film shows Miyazaki’s magic is not lost. In fact it’s very active even after almost ten years of retirement. Miyazaki and Studio Ghjibli do it again!

This film has had a lot of awards buzz. For all the buzz in winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar, it’s seen by many as a rivalry between this film and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse as the two most likely to win. This film has won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA. It also finished second at the Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice award, won many critics circle awards and was nominated for seven Annie Awards winning two. Although the Spider-Verse film, which I will review later, has more awards, this film’s big wins show it can upset.

The Boy And The Heron is one of the few animated films this year that can impress older viewers. It has what it takes to help the audience escape into a hugely imaginative world.

Elemental

In the 21st Century, it’s the team of Disney/Pixar who has delivered the most in animated films. Their films have won this category eleven times in seventeen previous nominations. They’ve done a lot to reshape the way animated films are done starting with 1995’s Toy Story. Their impact has been noticed by how other film companies do their films. So much so, Disney/Pixar is no longer alone at the top. Now they have rivalry from Walt Disney Studios whom have experienced a 3D renaissance with their films, DreamWorks Animation who pioneered Shrek, Sony Pictures Animation, Laika Studios and Netflix Animation.

I hate to complain to those that like this film, but it’s one Disney/Pixar film that isn’t all that innovative. We’ve seen their magic with toys in the Toy Story movies, insects in A Bug’s Life, monsters with Monsters Inc., fish in Finding Nemo, feelings in Inside Out and souls in Soul. Their past films have even been nominated for the Best Pictures Oscar. Here, I get the sense I’ve seen this before. It’s a case of the four natural elements of the earth trying to co-exist but those belonging to the fire element are most shunned and she falls in love with a water man. Something tells me I’ve seen better and more innovative from Pixar.

Despite this feeling like something common of expected from Pixar, it does keep Pixar’s reputation for quality and perfection in animation intact. Once again, we see Pixar deliver quality images without a glitch. Not even the appearance of the characters has an image of something out of place. On the topic of animation, Pixar again succeeds in taking the viewer to an incredible universe. Element City is a sight to behold and a world to mesmerize audiences, just like the worlds in their previous films have done. Also the story itself is another case of how Pixar can take a serious issue and turn it into a film enlightening for the whole family. Here, it’s  the theme of systemic racism and xenophobia. It’s an intense topic but this film succeeds in sending a positive message about overcoming prejudices.

It’s interesting with the awards clout this year. In almost every type of awards with the Best Animated Feature category, this film has not won but found itself a nominee or finishing second or third. The big shocker was at the Annie Awards. They earned six nominations at that awards but not Best Feature!

Elemental offers nothing really original or innovative for a Disney/Pixar film. It does, however, still keep alive Pixar’s reputation for delivering top notch animation, dazzling effects, and a good story. Pixar keeps on delivering!

Nimona

This is a unique story of how a defamed knight is rescued by a troubled shapeshifter girl who is just the friend he needs. This is one story that will catch you off guard as two unlikely people become the best of friends and what each other need to overcome their biggest obstacles. For Ballister, it’s to get his reputation, his freedom and his honor back. For Nimona, it’s the false image of her being seen as a monster: an image going back 1,000 years ago and bestowed by Gloreth. Both have social alienation in common. One is looked upon as a monster. The other is regarded with contempt for being a commoner trying to be a knight.

It’s also about a villain who will do whatever she can to control things and make things their way. She doesn’t want a commoner like Ballister as a knight while the queen is willing to break down that barrier. So she secretly gives Ballister the sword that will kill the queen. She also tries to keep the myth of Nimona being the black monster alive to all those in the town. Just as the truth is revealed, the Director won’t quit and will deliver one last seize of power.

Just like Elemental is great at creating Element City, Nimona does a great job in creating the kingdom. It’s a town that mixes in the tradition of knighthood with the technology of the modern world and the common imagery of future worlds. It’s also a place that will capture your imagination as you watch.

This is a story that’s great and entertaining. This is the third film from Big Sky Studios to be nominated in this category. This is also the third straight year an animated film shown on Netflix is a nominee in this category. Seems like Netflix has become a challenger for top animated films. Last year, they delivered the winner: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio. Looks like Disney and DreamWorks have a future threat on their heels!

Nimona is an excellent enjoyable animated film. It offers a unique story that will have you laughing, dazzled and entertained.

Robot Dreams

Usually in this category, it’s common to have an independent nominee or two. This year, the independent nominee is the French/Spanish film Robot Dreams. It’s worth checking out if you are up for something different.

This is a charming two-dimensional story of a lonely dog in New York who’s lonely. He decides to buy a robot to be that friend. It works that summer as the two have a great time after great time. Then the robot is stuck in the beach and the beach doesn’t open until June 1st. During that whole time, the dog patiently waits while trying to make new friends. The robot still lies on the beach with colorful dreams and hopes of reuniting again. Then things take a turn for the shocking come spring. This leads to the happy ending you didn’t expect with the Earth, Wind and Fire song “September” reminding them both they’ll still be together one way or another.

This is not the first time an animated film without dialogue has been nominated in this category. This is one film that relies on facial expressions, body language, and the various images and sounds to tell its story. It does an entertaining job, especially in the various scenes it has and the switches from dreams to reality. The addition of music also adds a boost to the film.

This is a great creation from Spanish writer/director Pablo Berger. For this film, he hired French animation director Benoit Feroumont whose works include The Triplets Of Bellville and The Secret Of Kells. It’s a fun story that turns New York to look like Zootopia. The film is full of humor, a good mix of original music and past hits, of a few sad moments and even a couple of shockers. You might think you won’t like a story with no dialogue but it works from start to finish. Not a boring moment.

Robot Dreams is the independent threat in this category. It’s a fun story of friendship, the long wait, an unexpected change and a different kind of happy ending.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

Five years after the first movie, the Spider-Verse is back! Once again, Miles Morales is the central Spider-Man. This time, there’s a Spider-woman in his life named Gwen Stacey who’s also a teenager like him. While the first Spider-Verse film was more comedic, this film was more dramatic. It’s not just the villains they have to fight, but they also rival each other. Animosity between the Spider-people start and disunity and even Gwen’s expulsion happened. Meanwhile Miles and Miguel become enemies.

This is not a story of a beginning, middle and an end. This is a beginning, middle and a cliffhanger obviously to set up for the third Spider-Verse movie. The film can get confusing as there are so many Spider-men and Spider-women and they don’t all meet. The film does its best to keep it all intact and keep us the viewer understanding the story

For me, the highlight of the film has to be the mix of various styles of animation. When I go see an animated film, a great animated film is not just about the story. It’s also about animation that dazzles the eyes. Writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller learned some new animation styles after working in The Mitchell’s vs. The Machines. Lord and Miller along with the direction team made a smart move when they decided to have a different artist do each different universe. Six different animation styles were used in this film. They all make for a delight to watch as the story progresses over time.

The awards buzz has been quite something for this film. I mentioned during The Boy And The Heron that this is their biggest rival. For the Animated Feature category, Spider-verse has won the Critics Choice award, the Producers Guild Award and the Annie Award as well as the six other Annie categories it was nominated in. It has won numerous critics circle awards and their sound mixing and visual effects have won awards of their own competing against many live-action films. It has a good chance of winning the Oscar here but I know in this category, they’re not too friendly to sequels. And the first Spider-verse film won in 2018.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse keeps the excitement from the first Spider-Verse movie alive. It also has its own drama and a new batch of dazzling animation styles, and a cliffhanger that makes us hungry for the next Spider-Verse film!

And there you go. My look at the films nominated in the Best Animated Feature category. I saved my Should Win and Will Win picks for my blog of Oscar predictions tomorrow.

Brazil’s Olympic Legacy

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Brazil Olympic
Brazil’s athletes have won a total of 108 Olympic medals in 14 sports.

 

Whenever an Olympic Games happens, I usually publish a blog relating to the host city or the host country. In this case, I’ll be focusing on Brazil’s past Olympic success and it has a lot. Brazil has won a total of 108 Olympic medals: 23 of them gold. That ranks them 33rd for all-time medals at the Summer Olympics. That’s also the most of any South American nation.

OFF TO A START

The very first Olympic Games Brazil sent an Olympic team to was the Antwerp Games of 1920 and they debuted with a bang, literally. Brazil won a gold, silver and bronze in various shooting events. The gold going to Guilherme Paraense in the rapid fire pistol event.

After the Antwerp Games, Brazil’s Olympic results consisted of woes up to World War II. They sent a 12-athlete team to Paris in 1924, a 67-athlete team to Los Angeles in 1932 which I will focus later on, and a 73-athlete team to the Berlin Games of 1936. All of which resulted in not a single medal won. Nevertheless there were some rays of hope. The biggest being from swimmer Maria Lenk. Just after finishing out of the final at her event in Berlin, she would set a world record in her event. She made history as the first Brazilian swimmer ever to hold a swimming world record. The Maria Lenk Aquatic Centre which was built for the 2007 Pan Am Games and will host three aquatic sports for Rio 2016 was named in her honor.

HARD TIMES FOR 1932

One of Brazil’s most famous Olympic stories is not exactly a positive one. It involved their Olympic team in 1932 as the world was going through the Great Depression at the time. Brazil was also hit hard during the Great Depression and their Olympic team were also feeling the heat. In order to raise funds for the team, the athletes would sell coffee beans at every port their ship, the Itaquicê, would dock at. Once the shipped docked at San Pedro, the authorities at the Port Of Los Angeles charged Brazil $1 for each athlete they let off the ship. The Brazilian team first let off the athletes with the best medal chances and swimmer Maria Lenk who would become the first Brazilian female to compete at the Olympics. However it wasn’t all over. The Itaquicê then sailed to San Francisco to sell more beans to fund the other athletes. It was successful enough to give the water polo, rowing and athletics athletes enough funds to compete. However the lack of funds meant 15 athletes could not live out their Olympic dreams and thus sail back to Brazil on the Itaquicê. The best result for the team was a 4th place in rowing.

SLOW BUT SURE IMPROVEMENTS

Adhemar
Brazil’s first Olympic great: triple-jumper Adhemar Ferreira da Silva.

After World War II, Brazil would get better in sports at the Olympic Games but it would mostly go unnoticed for decades. The biggest notice came in the men’s triple jump. Even before the Helsinki Games in 1952, Adhemar Ferreira da Silva held the world record in the men’s triple jump. In Helsinki, winning was an ease for da Silva as he won by almost 10 inches and set a new world record in the process. Da Silva would repeat as Olympic champion in 1956. Da Silva would prove himself to be one of the greats of triple-jumping as his career would not only include two gold medals but he’d also break the world record five times in his career. Da Silva would prove to be inspiring to Brazil as there would be two other male triple jumpers who would win Olympic medals and break the world record too.

Unfortunately for Brazil, Da Silva would prove to be Brazil’s only Olympic champion up until 1980. With the exception of a silver in the triple jump in 1968, Brazil’s Olympic teams after World War II would come home with nothing but bronze in that meantime. Sure they’d always have at least one medal but a single silver and the rest bronze was pretty much it from 1960 to 1976. It’s not to say it was all bad as Brazil would expand its abilities to win medals in other sports like basketball, swimming, sailing and judo.

A BREAKTHROUGH IN 1980

The boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980 may have kept other nations at home but Brazil didn’t cave into the pressure. Their participation at the Moscow Games boosted its sporting confidence. The team won its first gold medals since Da Silva: two in sailing. These Games would later open the doors to Brazilians in sailing as success would continue. Brazil has won a total of 17 medals in sailing: six of them gold. The team in 1980 would also win bronzes in swimming and triple-jumping.

1980 would prove to be a boost of confidence to their Olympians as more success would follow. Los Angeles in 1984 would be the stage for Joaquim Cruz as he won gold in the 800m: Brazil’s first gold in a running event. Brazil would also win an additional five silver and two bronze at those Games. Possibly making amends for 1932. Medals came in judo, volleyball, sailing, swimming and their first-ever men’s football medal: a silver. Up until 1984, professionals weren’t allowed to compete at the Olympics which meant Brazil could only send ‘diluted’ teams to the Olympics which kept them out of the medals. Professionals were allowed to compete at the Olympics for the first time in 1984 and it opened the floodgates to Brazil–although not completely– to send better football teams to the Olympics. Dunga was part of the silver medal-winning 1984 team.

The Seoul Games of 1988 would give Brazil additional success as the team would win a total of six medals including their first ever gold in judo to Half-Heavyweight Aurelio Miguel Fernandez. This would open the doors to other judokas of Brazil as Brazil has won a total of 18 Olympic medals in judo including three gold. Brazil having the biggest Japanese diaspora outside of Japan may have a lot to do with it. Additional medals came in sailing, football (featuring greats Bebeto, Careca and Romario) and athletics. One noteworthy medalist was sprinter Robson da Silva. He’s considered to be the best South American sprinter ever. His bronze in the 200m in Seoul came just five days after running in the 100m dash: considered by most to be “the dirtiest race in Olympic history.” Robson was actually one of two with the most justifiable cases of being clean athletes. I like what he’s always said: “Sure I didn’t dope and I didn’t win all that much, but I sleep well every night.”

1992 would only be a case of three medals in three different sports but it was still a good showing for Brazil as it was their second Games where they returned home with two golds: in man’s volleyball and in judo. The volleyball gold would be key as it would pave the way for future success for the Brazilian team at the Olympics.

1996 AND THE BRAZILIAN BREAKTHROUGH

As Brazil’s economy would grow over time, so would their athletic prowess. Ever since the 1996 Games in Atlanta, the Brazilian Olympic team would always leave each of the last five Games with at least ten medals or more. In fact 70 of the 109 total medals Brazil has won before the Rio Games were won in the previous five Summer Olympic Games. Atlanta was the very first sign of the Brazilian sports boom. The nation won a best-ever total of 15 medals including 3 gold. The introduction of beach volleyball led to Brazil taking the top 2 spots in the women’s category. They also had continued success in sailing, judo, football (featuring Ronaldo) and swimming but they also won their first ever equestrian medals as well as their first medals ever won by female athletes.

Scheidt Grael
Sailors Robert Scheidt (left) and Torben Grael show off their gold medals from Athens 2004. They are Brazil’s most medaled athletes. Both men have won five medals each, including two gold.

2000 was a case where Brazil didn’t win a single gold medal but still left Sydney with a total of 12 medals. Success continued in swimming, track, volleyball, judo, equestrian, sailing and volleyball. They sure made up for their no-gold disappointment in Athens in 2004 with five golds of their ten medals: their most golds ever. Actually it was originally four golds but a bizarre doping situation led to five. In equestrian show jumping, Rodrigo Pessoa finished second to Ireland’s Cian O’Connor. However it was later revealed months later that the doping sample from O’Connor’s horse went missing and was finally tested in November of 2004 resulting in a positive test. That bumped Pessoa up to Olympic champion: Brazil’s first ever equestrian gold medalist. Bizarre but glad it was finally set straight. Another example of Brazilian sportsmanship came in the men’s marathon. Vanderlei de Lima was leading the race when out of nowhere, an Irish defrocked priest hounded him and disrupted his run. Fortunately de Lima was able to get back to running and finish third. When he received his bronze medal, he was also given the de Coubertin award for fair and courageous play.

2008 in Beijing saw their Olympic prowess taken another step further as they won three golds and a best-ever 16 medals. First-ever golds for Brazil came from swimmer Cesar Cielo Filho and long jumper Maurren Maggi in women’s athletics. This was also the first Olympics where both the men’s and women’s football teams won medals: silver for the women and bronze for the men. London 2012 was another increase in the medal haul with a best-ever 17 medals including three gold. The women’s volleyball team repeated as Olympic champions but the biggest gold-medal surprise came from gymnast Arthur Zanetti on the rings as he won Brazil’s first-ever gymnastics medal: gold on the rings. The team also won three medals in boxing–their first since 1968–and Yane Marques became the first Brazilian to win a modern pentathlon medal when she won silver.

A footnote to ad: Brazil has competed in every winter Olympics since the Albertville Games of 1992. Their best result is a ninth in snowboarding back in 2006.

No kidding Brazil wants to give their home country something to be proud of. They will field a team of 465 athletes in 29 sports and they hope to give Brazil its best-ever medal total. The men’s football team has brought Neymar–who was part of Brazil’s silver medal-winning team in 2012– on the squad. Marta is back on the women’s squad. And a unique situation in sailing where two of Torben Grael’s children–Marco and Martine– are competing in the sailing events.

As the athletes in Brazil compete in Rio de Janeiro, they will compete with a sense of pride. They will also compete having a set of heroes they’ve grown up admiring and idolizing and hopefully create new heroes for the next generation. The stage will be set.

DISCLAIMER: I know the Olympics have been going on for a week and a half and Brazil has won a lot of medals but I chose to exclude the results in Rio for the sake of keeping this blog ‘evergreen.’

WORKS CITED:

WIKIPEDIA: Brazil At The Olympics. Wikipedia.com. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc.<Brazil At The Olympics>

WIKIPEDIA: Brazil At The 1932 Summer Olympics. Wikipedia.com. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc.<Brazil at the 1932 Summer Olympics>