Back in November, the Lineboil audience was nearly perfect in selecting the Oscar nominations, getting 4 or 5 correct. For Best Animated Feature Film, you chose Ponyo, as opposed to Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s stop-motion feature, which ended up snagging the nomination instead. Up stands out from the bunch, taking a total of 5 nominations, including Original Screenplay and a Best Picture nod. It’s only the second time an animated feature has been mentioned amongst the live-action films in this category (Beuaty and the Beast). Not to diminish this achievement, but BATB did it when only 5 films were nominated, while this year its 10. That said, I’d argue that if there were still 5 slots, Up would likely be amongst them. 
After all, it was the best-reviewed widely-released film of 2009, animated or not.
The other interesting development here is that a pair of 2D features (The Princess and the Frog and The Secret of Kells) were included. Only Persepolis (2007) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2005) had cracked this category in the past 5 years, while the onslaught of CG features basked in the limelight. Kells pulled off perhaps the biggest win by getting a nomination, as the film had such a small release in the US.
Here’s the nominations (5 this year, while previous years there were only 3):
- Coraline (Focus Features), Henry Selick
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (20th Century Fox), Wes Anderson
- The Princess and the Frog (Walt Disney), John Musker and Ron Clements
- The Secret of Kells (GKIDS), Tomm Moore
- Up (Disney/Pixar), Pete Docter
Congrats to all of the teams involved!
