Figuring out which film will win the Academy Award for best animated feature is usually the easiest part of filling out a ballot for your Oscar pool. Go down the list of nominees and find the one produced by Pixar. Circle it. But this year,animation is becoming a hotly contested race. The biggest reason is Fantastic Mr. Fox,Wes Andersons quirky adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel. The film,from 20th Century Fox and the producer Scott Rudin,is soaking up a surprising amount of awards attention. Up,Pixars 3-D flying-house adventure,dominated the multiplexes last May and seemed to have the animation Oscar sewn up as recently as a few weeks ago. And its still the front-runner. The movie industry cooed that Up,Pixars sophisticated 10th feature,was another artistic triumph. Critics agreed. Then a fox snuck into Pixars henhouse. Fantastic Mr. Fox,which features the vocal talents of George Clooney and Meryl Streep in a story about a dapper family man who cant resist stealing chickens and cider,arrived in wide release on November 25. Despite stratospheric reviews,the holiday rush and a soft box office performanceit cost just under $40 million to produce and sold $20 million in ticketsmade an Oscar run seem like a long shot. But Up,which has been estimated to cost $175 million and cruised to a $293 million gross in North America,lost two influential awards to Fox. In a mid-December surprise,both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named Fantastic Mr. Fox the best animated movie of 2009. Similar awards from five other critics groups followed. The film is up for a Golden Globe on Sunday,as is Up. Nobody saw this coming, said Jerry Beck,the author of 12 books on animation and an operator of the news blog CartoonBrew.com. The animation in Mr. Fox strikes some people as a bit funky,but the film is indisputably a piece of artsomething that exhibits a really strong point of view from beginning to end. Many critics have been impressed that Anderson,whose other movies include The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and Rushmore (1998) is thriving in a genre new to him. Fantastic Mr. Fox was made using stop-motion animation,a painstaking process involving handmade models. The producers of Fox say they are just happy that there appears to be room at the awards podium for different styles of animation. Up was computer generated,or CG,in industry shorthand. Yet another contender,The Princess and the Frog,from Walt Disney Pictures,is a hand-drawn throwback to the heyday of the genre. The Oscar race is just hitting its stride,of course. Nominations will be announced on February 2 and the awards given on March 7. In only the second time since the animated feature category was created in 2001,there will be five nominees. In recent years there have been only three. Rules state that a minimum of 16 films must be submitted to warrant five slots. And Up,directed by Pete Docter,remains very much the lead contender for the best animated feature Oscar,a prize Pixar has won four times. Up has so far taken top animated honours from 14 awards groups,including the National Board of Review. Many awards strategists consider Up a strong candidate for a best picture nomination,especially with that field expanded to 10 nominees this year. No animated movie has ever won in that category,and only one,Beauty and the Beast,has been nominated. Even so,Disney and Pixar may have their hands full. Aside from the unexpected competition from Fox,there is Ponyo,an odd but haunting film from Hayao Miyazaki,the Japanese anime master whose Spirited Away won in 2002. Other prominent contenders are Universals Coraline and Sonys Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
