#233. Best Animated Feature

In the almost 90 years the Academy Awards have been held, most of the categories have been established early in its history. By 1950, the Oscar categories we’ve come to know were pretty well set. Since then, only two categories have been added. Best Makeup and Hairstyling made its appearance in 1981, but the most recent award for Best Animated Feature has only been around for a mere 15 years. That’s not to say there haven’t been great animated films before 2001, it’s just that there wasn’t much competition. A few won special, technical Oscars for their efforts, but Disney’s animated films would have won many of the previous years’ Oscars just by default if the Award existed before the 21^st century. This week’s two movies look at some winners in the up-and-coming Best Animated Feature Oscar category.

Shrek
Year: 2001
Rating: PG
Length: 90 minutes / 1.5 hours

As I’ve written about before, DreamWorks was able to make the first dent in the monolithic Disney animation empire. Partly because they provided some competition in a very narrow and difficult field of film, DreamWorks essentially made it so the Best Animated Feature Oscar could be possible. Almost in recognition of this feat, four years after their first feature film, DreamWorks would walk home with the very first Best Animated Feature Oscar for Shrek (2001). Up until this point, only Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and Toy Story (1995) had been given any Oscars for their animated efforts, and only because they had been trailblazers of the craft. Still, Shrek set the stage to show that technology had advanced to a point where animated feature films could be produced in a much shorter timeframe, thus giving Disney a run for its money.

It is almost fitting that Shrek was able to win Best Animated Feature, considering how many Disney films it parodied by placing all of fairytale-dom in a single universe (much like what Disney has since done with the TV show, Once Upon a Time). While there are references to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Peter Pan (1953), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Pinocchio (1940), the main thrust of the film is a classic adventure of a damsel in distress. However, the “knight in shining armor” is that of the eponymous Shrek (Michael Myers), an ogre trying his best to keep his life in an isolated swamp in a state of status quo. While Shrek and the now-rescued Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) couldn’t be any more different, a secret event that happens to Fiona at night threatens to reveal that they might, in fact, be more similar than initially thought.

Up
Year: 2009
Rating: PG
Length: 96 minutes / 1.6 hours

One of the qualms many critics have with this new Oscar category is that it essentially hamstrings the film nominated for Best Animated Feature from winning Best Picture overall. Now, an animated film being nominated for the top award is exceedingly rare, but it had happened before the Animated Feature category was even established. In 1991, 10 years before Shrek won the unprecedented award, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture, losing out to The Silence of the Lambs (1991). However, when the nomination procedures for Best Picture changed in 2009, we suddenly saw an addition to the nominee list: an animated film. With 10 movies now able to be in the running, Up (2009) was nominated for both Best Picture and Best Animated Feature, only managing to win the latter. A year later, Toy Story 3 (2010) would repeat this feat to the same result.

Following a beautiful, touching, and speechless segment detailing the lives of Ellie and Carl Fredricksen (Edward Asner), we find the elderly widower planted firmly in the path of a new construction project. In a final, last-ditch effort to accomplish the goal to live next to Paradise Falls, Carl outfits his house with a plethora of colorful helium balloons, lifting it away to South America. Unfortunately, an accidental stowaway by the name of Russell (Jordan Nagai) is taken along for the ride. The young child just wanted to help Carl so he could earn his last Wilderness Explorer badge: assisting the elderly. When the house lands, the two of them soon realize they have nearly made it to Paradise Falls. As they take the house to its final resting place, they must deal with a strange bird and the former hero who has been trying to catch it.

2 sum it up: 2 films, 2 Academy awarded animations

#211. Hugh Jackman

Occasionally, you run across an actor who seems to have been acting forever, but in reality, just hit his defining role early in his career. Hugh Jackman is just such an actor. Sure, he acted in television in his native Australia, but his first film role was only in 1999. With a few exceptions, he has acted in a film every year since. In fact, most years he’s performed in multiple films. On average, he has appeared in nearly three films every year he has been acting. Of course, his most prolific year was 2006 with six films. And yet, even though his defining role typecast him somewhat, Jackman has used his skills from the stage to earn himself some credibility past the action hero stereotype. Only 15 years into his career, Hugh Jackman has long since been an A-list actor. This week’s two films look at his diverse talents.

Real Steel
Year: 2011
Rating: PG-13
Length: 127 minutes / 2.12 hours

A year after appearing in his first film, Hugh Jackman was cast in the role of a lifetime. In X-Men (2000), Jackman portrayed Logan (aka Wolverine), the cigar-chomping, adamantium-infused-claw wielding, and fast healing mutant that made him an instant star. He has acted in this role six more times, two of which were X-Men films revolving entirely around his character (X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013)). Although, most of the films pretty heavily revolved around Wolverine, so this distinction is not too impressive. At any rate, this role set him as yet another action hero. As such, he has starred in such action films as Van Helsing (2004), Chappie (2015), and Real Steel (2011), the latter two of this list just coincidentally revolving around robots. When you start your career portraying a man with a metal skeleton, robots are not far off.

Charles “Charlie” Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was once at the top of his game as a boxer. Unfortunately, when his job became obsolete due to the arrival of robotic boxers, he struggled to find his niche. While Charlie might have been a threat in the ring as a man, he just can’t get the hang of controlling these boxing robots. Incredibly in debt, he now finds himself fighting to keep full custody of his child, Max (Dakota Goyo). Fortunately, Max takes an interest in robotic boxing, which leads the two of them to acquire a formerly famous robot to fight for them. Unfortunately, it is destroyed during its first fight. In a junkyard, they find an old, functioning sparring robot that Max convinces Charlie to get into fighting shape due to the robot’s unique ability to mimic its user’s motions. Now Charlie is essentially back in the ring and making his way up the ranks to take on the global champion.

Les Misérables
Year: 2012
Rating: PG-13
Length: 158 minutes / 2.63 hours

Alongside his action hero persona, Jackman also has a lighter side. On screen, he has been in a few romantic films, including Kate & Leopold (2001), Scoop (2006), and Australia (2008). Simultaneously, he has spent time on the stage, performing in musicals. It’s no wonder he has used his voice in films as well. He has had several voice acting roles in animated fare, including Happy Feet (2006), Flushed Away (2006), and Rise of the Guardians (2012). Of course, the one film that gave him any recognition from the Academy was Les Misérables (2012). This opera based off of the stage musical really gave Hugh Jackman the chance to show his talent as an actor and a singer. For his role as Jean Valjean, he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. Even if he didn’t win, the variety of work he has performed means it might not be too long before his next nomination.

Recently-released convict Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) easily goes back to his thieving ways after nearly 20 years in prison. However, a bishop shows him kindness, even forgiving him for stealing the clergyman’s silver. The one condition for this gift is for Valjean to do something worthwhile with his life. Years later, Valjean now owns a factory and is mayor of a French town. Unfortunately, his former prison guard, Javert (Russell Crowe) recognizes Valjean when he helps lift a cart from an accident. The cat-and-mouse between them begins just as Valjean picks up an orphaned girl. They both escape to Paris where she grows up and eventually gets romantically involved with the revolution that is forming. Javert finds Valjean in Paris and is confused when he is shown mercy, despite the relentless chase. His adopted daughter’s fiancé is rescued by Valjean, and both are saddened that he cannot be with them at their wedding, as he has since died.

2 sum it up: 2 films, 2 halves of Hugh Jackman

Bacon #: 1 (X-Men: First Class / Kevin Bacon)