The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences just released the list of movies submitted for considerations in the Animated Feature Film category for the 80th Academy Awards. Once again there will be only 3 nominations, because the number of submissions is between 8 and 16. Hopefully we'll soon get to the point where we can get 5 Animated Features nominated, because I would be hard pressed to pick just 3 at this point.

I think I know someone that worked on almost all of these movies, so it will be even harder to choose. Here's the list in alphabetical order:

Alvin and the Chipmunks, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, Bee Movie, Beowulf, Meet the Robinsons, Persepolis, Ratatouille, Shrek the Third, The Simpsons Movie, Surf's Up, Tekkonkinkreet, TMNT

Details and links after the break.

Here's the complete Press Release from the Academy.

Alvin And The Chipmunks

This film hasn't been released yet, so it could still be really good, but it's very unlikely. Still I worked with animation director Lyndon Barrois on Happy Feet, where he was in charge of the Killer Whale sequence that was given to Rhythm & Hues at the last minute and he's good with animals, specially talking ones. I can't imagine the stupid chipmunk speedup voives not driving everyone crazy, but that's the whole point of the chipmunks.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

As with most people, I probably heard more about the City of Boston marketing fiasco, than an animated movie called Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters. Thankfully I don't know anyone that had anything to do with this movie, and even if I did, I wouldn't really want to say it, and after seeing the trailer, I don't even think that anyone working on that would have actually dared to tell me they did. I don't think that movie stands a chance of being nominated, but it is eligible for nomintation. Oh well.

Bee Movie

There was a interview on NPR a few weeks ago, where Jerry Seinfield was boasting about how important he was to the entire creative process on Bee Movie, from writing to producing acting his own part and then acting out all of the other lines for all the characters:

Seinfeld says it was often a tedious, detail-oriented process. He would ask animators "to do it over, and over, and over" until the gestures were just right. "I don't know exactly what [the animators] do," Seinfeld says, "but I know it takes them forever until they've done it. Instead of having the eyebrows go down, have them go up — you wait like four days for that."

All I have to say to my friend Doug Cooper who was VFX Supervisor on the project and all of his animators is not to worry, because we've asked Jerry to think of a character that would say funny things while moving his eyebrows up and down, and we waited like ten years for that.

Beowulf

In the Visual Effects and Animation circles, the big question is if Robert Zemeckis and Sony Imageworks will pull this off, proving that this new style of CG Filmmaking has a purpose, or if it will, like it's predecessors Final Fantasy, Polar Express and Monster House, crash at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley.

Personally, I'm torn between wanting Beowulf to succeed because animation in hollywood needs to escape the Disney/Pixar mold and be able to tell the same range of stories that live action approaches. Animation is not just for kids. On the other hand, I feel that trying to make photo-realistic characters for animation is such a waste of creativity, when you think that just like other modes of illustrations, they could have chosen any style they wanted.

Still it's likely to be a contender for the Academy, specially if it has some commercial success.

Meet The Robinsons

I saw the stereo 3-D version in theaters, and while I like the movie, I still feel that stereo is an art that we don't completely understand yet. All of the current 3D movies are the visual equivalent of the old stereo records, where everything was really recorded in mono, and you couldn't do much more than place the guitar on the hard left, the drums in the middle and the backing vocals on hard right. Fun as a novelty item, but difficult to enjoy in the long run.

Because it's done after the fact, the impact of the stereo on the viewing experience is usually not taken into account in the editing or cinematography. Case in point the stereo processing for much of Meet The Robinsons was actually done by Digital Domain, while the movie itself was done by Disney Animations.

Regardless it's a fun movie.

Persepolis

I hadn't heard about Persepolis before the announcement today, which confirms its status as the unknown foreign art film, lost amongst the 800lbs gorillas that are Dreamworks and Pixar. What makes this interesting is that it has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, for at least a limited distribution run in New York and Los Angeles, opening in December.

Based on a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis is a semi-auto-biographical story of the author and illustrator growing up as a young girl in Iran.

Ratatouille

This is likely to be the favorite, first because it's from Pixar, then because it was probably saved from relative mediocrity (relative for Pixar) by none other than Brad Bird, and because it's actually a great movie. That doesn't mean it will be a slam dunk with our own little win last year with Happy Feet taking the Oscar away from Cars proving that the underdog also wins.

One a more personal level, kudos to my friend Gordon Cameron who was apparently instrumental in getting all the character to squish against each other and against the environment in a very convincing manner. It's pretty much certain that Ratatouille will be at least Nominated, if it doesn't win outright.

Shrek The Third

Shrek #3. I don't have anything clever to say about Shrek The Third, except for that fact that this is pretty much the only animated feature that Dreamwork managed to get right, which is both a good and a bad thing. It's an enormous commercial success, currently ranked #2 in DVD sales on Amazon, just behind Ratatouille, but that also means that The Third was just more of the same slapstick and fart humor from the other two movies, and there is a good chance that Dreamworks will keep working with the Green Ogre over and over until we get tired of it or they finally stumble on another project that sticks.

The Simpsons Movie

I'll start by saying that I'm not one of those superfans of The Simpsons, who just went crazy for what is effectively just a slightly longer episode with all of the great writing that make the regular episodes great, but without really making it go to the next level. This is why I'm not quite sure it will earn them a nomination.

Still, kudos to Stephen Wild, who was VFX Supervisor on the project, in charge of some of the 2D 3D integration.

Surf's Up

Part of me feels a little responsible for Surf's Up having done badly at the Box Office. On a personal level because I was curious to go see it, and on a professional level because, with Happy Feet having done so great, I think we spoiled the whole penguin animated feature a little bit for them.

Which is really unfair, because Surf's Up is not so much about penguins as it it about being an animated surf movie and a great one at that. Again, I don't know if that's enough to get them a Nomination, but it's probably the best animated feature to come out of Sony's Animation division (and hopefully not the last, despite the recent news of that division being on the selling block)

TekkonKinkreet

I've talked a lot about Tekkon Kinkreet in the past (here, here, and here) so it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that I'm very excited to see that Michael Arias first film is eligible for a Nomination. This is a great movie, and it's good to see that it is doing relatively well on DVD (Tekkon Kinkreet) ranking #2 in their Anime section, and #7 in Animation overrall.

I would love to see the film progress to a Nomination, which would be a great nod from the Academy.

TMNT

The opening sequence of TMNT aka Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I happened to see on a flight a couple of months ago was good enough that I stopped watching because I didn't want to spoil the experience on the tiny LCD screen that was embedded in the seat in front of me.

Since then I keep meaning to rent/buy the DVD to finish watching the story. I know I was very impressed with the  graphic design and visual style, but I couldn't tell from the first 5 minutes  of watching if the story was going to go anywhere.

What's interesting from a production point of view is that IMAGI which is based in Hong Kong is a reverse outsourcing company, which is making animated feature for the foreign markets (well their foreign markets, which are here) by outsourcing their Art Department and Director to a satellite office in Los Angeles...