11 films are in contention; 3 will be nominated. The films are:
Finding Nemo, Brother Bear, Millenium Actress, Triplets of Belleville, Tokyo Godfathers, Jester Till, Jungle Book 2, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Piglet’s Big Movie, Pokemon Heroes and Rugrats go Wild.
Finding Nemo is a certainty for a nomination and a near-certainty for the win.
I am guessing Disney will get the second nomination with Brother Bear.
However the contest for the third nomination will be interesting; I think Millenium Actress and Triplets will be fighting it out; both of them have received good reviews and will add to the prestige of the contest. I liked both films but I think Triplets is the better one. My impression is that it has more buzz as well and since a Japanese film won last year they may prefer a French film for a nomination this year.
An outside shot for the third spot is Tokyo Godfathers by Satoshi Kon (who also directed Millenium Actress). I don’t think it has been released yet and I don’t know how mainstream reviewers will react to it. It has received good reviews on anime websites though.
In any event Finding Nemo will almost certainly win. Though I liked Triplets more, I have no complaints. Nemo was a terrific film and Pixar certainly deserves the prize.
Nothing much to say except I’m in complete agreement with you.
One more factor that’ll help Finding Nemo will be Pixar’s track record. They’ve made a string of great films without winning an Oscar and the voters will be looking to make up for that.
There needs to be sixteen eligible films for there to be five films nominated (interestingly, Dreamworks neglected to put Sinbad up for consideration while Disney threw in all its resurrected DTV sequels). Finding Nemo is about as much of a lock as there can get.
The first year they had an animated Oscar category, they demonstrated it as a complete sham by not nominating Waking Life, the most innovative animated film since Toy Story.
Anyway, on the topic of this year’s award, the OP seems to be completely correct.
“(interestingly, Dreamworks neglected to put Sinbad up for consideration…”
I was wondering about Sinbad myself. Why didn’t Dreamworks put it up?
“It should be Finding Nemo (winner), Millenium Actress, Triplets of Belleville”
I agree these should be the three nominees but I seriously doubt that the Academy will nominate two art-house films. Let’s hope we get at least one. Neither MA or Triplets is children’s fare either unlike Spirited Away which , excellent though it was, was fairly conventional in terms of its genre.
Interestingly though www.oscarwatch.com lists Nemo, MA and Triplets in the animation category.
An interesting article about the Animation Oscar. Page 2 has some interesting information about the current race. If the article is correct, Triplets and Tokyo Godfathers are being promoted more actively than Millenium Actress. Perhaps Godfathers isn’t that long of a shot for the nomination.
Haven’t seen *Triplets *(though I plan to), but definitely agree that Finding Nemo and Millennium Actress deserve nods, both as spectacular achievements in animation and as fantastic films in their own right. Not sure which of the latter I actually consider the better film, as they’re both excellent in very different ways. Like most of the people here, though, I’m leaning towards Nemo winning the Oscar, as Pixar is waaaaaaay overdue. I mean, really, Shrek over Monster’s Inc?!