tragic upset

For only the second time, Pixar lost an Oscar they were nominated for. Up until this point, Pixar had won for every Best Animated Picture or Best Animated Short Oscar they had ever been up for, save for the first year the award was given (2001) when Shrek won. All I can figure is they lost for spite. That too many people didn't want to "give" them the Oscar.

But come on! Happy Feet?!

I would have understood if The Incredibles had lost to Shrek 2. The Incredibles was not as strong as past Pixar films, but... Happy Feet!? I saw all three movies in the category this year. The trailers for Happy Feet looked killer, and all I can figure is voters must have gone off of that and not bothered to actually watch.

The only good parts of the movie fit into the 2 min trailer, and when viewed in context, they were weak. Not to mention, as my wife pointed out, there were live actors in multiple parts of Happy Feet. It was just a bad movie. Not a good musical (one of those modern "mash-up" musicals with pop songs rather than a true musical) and the ending was just bizarre. It had nothing to do with the lead up of the movie. It jumped from a nice coming of age story for the first hour-plus, to a solve-world-peace environmentalist movie in the last 15 minutes. Honestly i think Monster House (the other movie in the category) was a better film - and it was pretty strange too. But at least it was supposed to be.

Cars was a great movie. I think probably the best Pixar since Finding Nemo or A Bug's Life. How in the world it lost to Happy Feet i don't know. Oh well.