Hans’ Oscar Bites

Pretty humdrum year for this category. All five of these were the noms at every ceremony except, Idk, maybe one ceremony where we also got Bad Guys 2? I could probably rank all of these fairly close to each other with one clear standout but otherwise I think we need to start hoping for some emerging animation talent make themselves known shortly. 

5) LITTLE AMELIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN (Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, Nidia Santiago, and Henri Magalon)

The world through the eyes of a three-year old born in a vegetative state who learns to walk through an….earthquake? I think? Idk this was pleasant enough but I really felt like we were throwing a lot of themes at the wall to see what would stick. Childlike wonder? Cross cultural exchange? Japanese bomb trauma? It’s all there, sorta! 

4) ARCO (Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry, Sophie Mas, and Natalie Portman)

A young boy in a future where people time travel by rainbow accidentally finds himself in the past. I thought this was a little more engaging and indeed I think I remember myself liking it more as I was watching it rather than how it’s lingered. There’s some fun futurist concepts here, our protagonists are fairly compelling, and the ending twist is a little existentially surprising. It’s overall nice! Not much more to say!

3) KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, and Michelle L.M. Wong)

The surprise Netflix hit of the year that caught them

So off guard they didn’t even qualify to be eligible at the BAFTAs, and some people think that makes this vulnerable! I don’t quite see it but I know monster hits like this are usually hard for the Academy to resist, especially when they are stuck watching screeners over the holidays with their young kids. But the last two years of animated feature winners have surprised us with Little Films That Could taking it over a perceived front runner, so the Honmoon is not quite yet sealed. As for what I personally think of it? It’s fun! Imaginative! The songs bop! And….yeah!

2) ELIO (Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina, and Mary Alice Drumm)

This honestly should be a future notches lower based on the development hell that this went through and rewrites that included eliminating a gay subplot. You can still see the bones of a lot of it in the finished product but it does make one wonder what could have been in this day and age as we continue to tirelessly discuss basic LGBTQ+ rights. That said? I think this is mostly pretty sweet. The character Glordon and the relationship with his father does a lot of heavy lifting toward elevating this closer to classic Pixar sentimental magic, and Elio himself still manages to take on a fairly touching journey with some hijinks mixed in. Shoutout to voice actress MVP Shirley Henderson as the alien supercomputer Ooooo.

1) ZOOTOPIA 2 (Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Yvett Merino)

This *almost* kind of ends up being a default number one, but I actively found myself delighted and charmed by it. The strength of the film here is definitely fleshing out the world of the titular Zootopia, from the very gay Palm Springs-coded water mammal village to the history of reptiles in Zootopia. All of this plus an incredibly lovely voice performance from Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan as Gary DeSnake made for a really fun movie watching experience, one that could be a worthy follow up win to its predecessor. 

– WILL WIN: KPop Demon Hunters

– COULD WIN: Zootopia 2

– SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE: paging Cliff Galiher