Once again, the Oscar Oracle is a column to talk about the Oscar odds -- long or short -- of contenders that I've seen. While previous installments have covered movies like Gone Girl, The Imitation Game and Wild, this edition looks at the Best Animated film field -- and even this early in the game, I'm getting  a sense that this particular race is going to see some elbows hurled. 

How To Train Your Dragon 2

Will it Get Nominated? Between the financial success of the film, the fact it's from Oscar-hungry DreamWorks and the fact it's both an identifiable franchise and really good, I'm inclined to say yes. Bear in mind, the Academy can be sentimental -- and something like HTTYD2, which wears its heart a bit more openly and less ironically on its sleeve than The Lego Movie does, may very well play better with them than something as post-modern and clever as The LEGO Movie. 

Will it Win? To me, it's between this and The LEGO Movie. 

Dear Academy: To be sure, HTTYD2 has made a bunch of money -- but it's also got serious themes in it that talk to kids about death, grief, honor and humanity, and all of its conflicts have real costs. 

From my Review:  

"Some of How to Train Your Dragon 2 will be tough for your kids to watch, and some of it will require explaining and discussion --  which alone makes it mean and matter more than the majority of designed-to-be-forgotten (or, worse, designed-to-be-repeated-ad-nauseam-on-disc-at-home) animated films in theaters these days.

(Really, is anyone who isn't a Disney stockholder excited by the prospect of Planes: Fire and Rescue?) With beauty, boldness, big widescreen action and a bigger heart, How to Train Your Dragon 2 may be a follow-up, but it most assuredly knows how to follow through."

The Boxtrolls:

Will it Get Nominated? I think that a nod of nomination to The Boxtrolls wlil show the Academy's Animation branch still respects old-school stop-motion animation (no matter how newfangled). And Laika, the studio behind The Boxtrolls, has gotten a Best Animated Feature nomination with every film they've put out (Coraline, ParaNorman). 

Will it Win? This is one of those cases where it's hard to separate your feelings from your thoughts -- I just find The Boxtrolls so ugly in it's faux-Britishisms, full of tiny bad puppet-teeth and pale, sickly puppet-skin.

From My Review:

"There’s no denying the step-by-step, frame-by-frame 3-D-printed magic of the filmmaking is beautiful, but this time, the process seems to have put the ‘bore’ in ‘laborious.’ A lot of The Boxtrolls is hampered by an ugly look and feel — crooked teeth, leech attacks, a man is swollen by his cheese allergies into a pulpy cartoon, a villainous character literally farts themselves to death. A little of this goes a long way, and while it’s nice to have something out there as an alternative to the too-smooth look of most computer-animated films, I’m not sure that the level of grody grit and grime here is the best alternative possibility."