Kind of why I was still holding on to Rango Best Picture chances; it was showing up in none of the precursors's Best Picture equivalents (besides the Annies, duh), but none of the precursors contain a contingent of voters specifically biased towards animation (besides the Annies, duh).
That's not entirely true. Arthur Christmas did show up on the ten movie pre-official-nominee list for "Best British Film" at the BAFTAS, which is the only other organization besides AMPAS to have an Animation Branch (or Chapter, in the BAFTAS), which did baffle a few pundits. So, that actually kind of contradicts the Arthur Christmas jerk director theory, unless the jerkery was in basically forcing Aardman Animation votes for Arthur Christmas, but gave me hope for the Rango surprise nomination.
Seriously, if Rango could have gotten that tenth spot (and it totally deserved it over Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, with an impressive 46% on Rotten Tomatoes!), it could very well have been a serious contender; The Artist, that French silent film (which I am actually looking forward to eventually seeing) I talked about in an earlier column, is pretty much a lock for Best Picture. The surprise nomination (and it would have been the biggest surprise ever) might have garnered Rango enough cachet to get enough voters to go "Ah, what the hell, we were going to give it to a French silent film anyway, why not an animated movie, the animators in the industry are due, especially after pulling off a stunt like that? At least it's actually American." that it might have actually won.
Paramount seems to be over the freaking moon about Rango; they are FYCing the crap out of it like they're actually worried about it losing Best Animated Feature, and they are rereleasing it for limited engagements in L.A., where most of the Academy live. Interestingly, the three American, big animated productions who got nominated were the only three I saw running online FYC ads in non-animation sites (well, that and The Adventures of Tintin).
Kind of why I was still holding on to Rango Best Picture chances; it was showing up in none of the precursors's Best Picture equivalents (besides the Annies, duh), but none of the precursors contain a contingent of voters specifically biased towards animation (besides the Annies, duh).
That's not entirely true. Arthur Christmas did show up on the ten movie pre-official-nominee list for "Best British Film" at the BAFTAS, which is the only other organization besides AMPAS to have an Animation Branch (or Chapter, in the BAFTAS), which did baffle a few pundits. So, that actually kind of contradicts the Arthur Christmas jerk director theory, unless the jerkery was in basically forcing Aardman Animation votes for Arthur Christmas, but gave me hope for the Rango surprise nomination.
Seriously, if Rango could have gotten that tenth spot (and it totally deserved it over Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, with an impressive 46% on Rotten Tomatoes!), it could very well have been a serious contender; The Artist, that French silent film (which I am actually looking forward to eventually seeing) I talked about in an earlier column, is pretty much a lock for Best Picture. The surprise nomination (and it would have been the biggest surprise ever) might have garnered Rango enough cachet to get enough voters to go "Ah, what the hell, we were going to give it to a French silent film anyway, why not an animated movie, the animators in the industry are due, especially after pulling off a stunt like that? At least it's actually American." that it might have actually won.
Paramount seems to be over the freaking moon about Rango; they are FYCing the crap out of it like they're actually worried about it losing Best Animated Feature, and they are rereleasing it for limited engagements in L.A., where most of the Academy live. Interestingly, the three American, big animated productions who got nominated were the only three I saw running online FYC ads in non-animation sites (well, that and The Adventures of Tintin).