18 Films Submitted to Oscar's Best Animated Feature Race; What Can Win?

There’s good news and… well, more good news about this year’s race for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. First, the number of submissions — 18 — exceeds the minimum of 16 required for a year of five nominees. (Last year only netted 15 submissions, and thus three nominees, as if anybody was going to knock off Toy Story 3 anyway.) And with a soft year for the likes of both Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, that means the field is pretty wide open for the first time in a while. What can win? Here are your options: · The Adventures of Tintin · Alois Nebel · Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked · Arthur Christmas · Cars 2 · A Cat in Paris · Chico & Rita · Gnomeo & Juliet · Happy Feet Too · Hoodwinked Two! Hood Vs. Evil · Kung Fu Panda 2 · Mars Needs Moms · Puss in Boots · Rango · Rio · The Smurfs · Winnie the Pooh · Wrinkles One word: Rango. It’s the best-reviewed film on the list, it’s an international hit (with less than half of Cars 2 or Kung Fu Panda 2’s global gross, but exponentially more cultural goodwill), and it’s a rare chance for George Lucas — whose Industrial Light and Magic produced the revelatory animation — to throw his weight around in the awards ring. Tintin’s motion-capture stylings remain fraught with technical ambiguities about which the Academy is notoriously prickly, The Smurfs is half-live-action, and Disney’s otherwise weak crop of competition includes a 63-minute bonbon and one of the biggest flops ever. Rio, Puss in Boots and Happy Feet Too are probably locks for nominations as well. Chico and Rita has a solid shot to sneak in as well — not as a huge influencer by any means, but rather as the token foreign-language offering with a ’50s-era romance spanning Havana, NY, Las Vegas and beyond. Thoughts? · 18 Animated Features Submitted for 2011 Oscar Race [AMPAS] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.