The best animated movie of the year has been deemed ineligible by the animation branch of the academy. Blasphemy!
Richard Linklater’s “Apollo 10 ½”, a rotoscope wonder released in the Spring, is better than any animated movie released in 2022. This is a ridiculous move by the branch, and probably due to potential lobbying from big studios like Disney.
However, “Marcel The Shell With the Shoes On,” which features real people mixed with stop motion, might be eligible? Linklater is appealing the decision, as he should. He sees this decision as both a bias against rotoscope and that animation shouldn’t just be for kids.
This ineligibility sounds even more preposterous when you take into consideration that Linklater’s “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly” had no such problems getting into the animation Oscar race back in the aughts.
I counted 10 contenders for the five slots available in the Best Animated Film category: Turning Red, Marcel The Shell With the Shoes On, The Bad Guys, The Sea Beast, Lightyear, My Father’s Dragon, Wendell & Wild, Inu-Oh, Strange World, and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio.