Moving in on the Oscars
By Shay • Feb 1st, 2006 • Category: Anime/Manga, More, newsHayao Miyazaki’s most recent film, Howl’s Moving Castle has been nominated for an Oscar. The nomination comes in the category of Best Animated Feature. The beautifully animated movie was nominated alongside Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Whererabbit and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.
Spirited Away, another movie by Miyazaki, won the same category’s award in 2002. Hopefully, Miyazaki’s latest venture will turn out the same results as the 2002 Oscars did. We’ll all see the outcome on March, 5th at 8pm EST.
While this is common knowledge by now, thanks to Ikimashou for the heads-up.
Shay is eating Yen and Won for breakfast.
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I know we had a good bit of discussion about this over on my site, but the discussion just keeps me thinking about the clout afforded anime, and more so how animation as a genre could make some rough pickings if a more serious film was to be nominated. I mean, how do you pick a serious adult drama that’s animated over a childrens comedy? To a lesser degree the distinction is made apparent by the offerings in this years nominee list. Both Gromit and Corpse Bride are relatively light hearted, if not of a different subject matter, but Howl’s Moving Castle in and of itself is a deeper story, regardless of the fact that they were all animated in one form or another.
Does that mean that the Academy doesn’t feel the animated films could walk on their own, so to speak, in other genres? Does Howl not deserve to be nominated along side other films of similar story line? I guess the genre exclusivity is just another way of subtly showing that animation isn’t considered as seriously as other films, even though they do recognize that the films are valid and damn good at times. *sigh* America just doesn’t want to accept animation as an art form for adults. Baby steps, I guess.
I totally agree Randall. It is unfortunate that animation is not a serious art form and seems incomparable to live-action films by many.
Maybe the adultness (if that were a word) of Moving Castle will give it the edge over the others in its category at least.
Another thing is that I’ve always asked myself the question of why America cannot make a serious animated movie or TV show. If it’s not for kids, it’s a comedy. No drama, action or any other genre similar to anime is ever even thought about here. It’s unfortunate and a fact we must live with but maybe the perception will change…one day.
Yeah, I think people see the bright colors of animation and get a little scared. Your comment made me think, are there even any serious animated features that weren’t comedies that saw any amount of fame?
After pondering a while (without researching or anything) all I could come up with was Cool World with Brad Pitt. Even then, it’s a half animated/half live-action gig. It’s pretty awesome though. Man, now I need to watch Cool World…