Ratatouille deserves a Best Picture nomination, at the very least
There is an article I have been meaning to discuss here for a couple of days and have been unable to get around to it until today. It is this New York Times piece by Michael Cieply from this past week that goes into detail about Ratatouille’s chances in the Best Picture category at this year’s Oscar Awards and the big choices Disney and Pixar have in front of them in this regard.
As the awards season heats up, the Walt Disney Company and its Pixar Animation Studios unit have been wrestling with a conundrum posed by their warmly received, computer-animated fable about a rat who aspires to become a Parisian chef: Any move to promote it as the year’s best picture might lead to ballot-splitting that would diminish its chances of getting the less prestigious but more easily won Oscar for best animated film.
It is an amazingly complicated and intricate situation. You would logically assume that if one thinks it is the best picture, that one would also think it is the year’s best animated feature as well. But apparently such simple logic doesn’t’ apply to the academy. I don’t know why I am so shocked by this. I can’t remember the last time I agreed with their decisions anyway. Here’s a taste of what I mean…
The studios’ reluctance to advance their animated wares as candidates for best picture is enforced by a perception that actors, the academy’s largest branch, with about 20 percent of the membership, are reluctant to honor movies without live performances. Additionally, the academy has a definite allergy to family fare, like the G-rated “Ratatouille”: 28 R-rated films have been nominated for best picture in the last 10 years, while only two PG-rated movies — “Finding Neverland” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” — have. And none with a G rating have made the cut.
The simple fact of the matter is that Ratatouille is a great film, and people who know me know that I do not hand out this kind of praise easily for a film. (Here’s my review if you are interested) There was nothing about it that wasn’t terrific. It was an amazing visual journey that also just happened to have a truly wonderful story. This film should be nominated and strongly considered for Best Picture, and win the animated award easily, regardless of whatever nonsensical stupidity academy members like to use for reasoning when voting.
If I were Disney I would shoot for the moon. A nomination for Best Picture should be in itself a deserved achievement and a realistic one. However, I do understand why they think the year’s best film will not win the award. It rarely does. Here’s hoping that this year is an exception. Pay attention academy members! If you haven’t seen it because cartoons are somehow beneath your intellectual prowess, you owe it to yourself and the entire industry to give this masterpiece the chance it deserves.
Jason said,
December 2, 2007 @ 10:29 pm
I would like to see Ratatouille be nominated for best picture, but I doubt it would win. The Academy will never let an animated film win that category.
The writer of the article also got one of his facts wrong. He said a G-rated film has never been considered for best picture, but Beauty and the Beast was nominated.