> Terrence Briggs wrote:
>
> [K]en Rudolph was the alias of the original poster who made the infamous

>>>Keep in mind, this was years before the Best Animated Feature award, and
>>>Disney had, frankly, acted like a spotlight-hogging *pig* about their
>>>one Best Picture nomination (which, back in '92, before two other of the
>>>nominees had come out and one was given up for forgotten, carried about
>>>as much weight as "Little Miss Sunshine" had for Best Picture this year)--

>> But yeah, I'm not sure how much consideration Happy Feet got for Best
>> Feature. Hell, Little Miss Sunshine was supposed to be the "family-
>> friendly" nom this year, right?

>
> ...Oops, sorry, meant "Babel". ^_^
>
> (Ie., in October '91, when all the ritual "What will we nominate??" articles
> traditionally start, JFK and Bugsy hadn't opened yet, Prince of Tides had
> a reserved ticket for being Babs-directed, and that Silence of the Lambs
> thing?...
> Heck, that was back in February, NOBODY would remember it!
> The more cynical of the articles started grumbling, "What critical favorites
> have we got left, 'Beauty & the Beast'??"...And, once the dopey Golden
> Globes
> started taking that seriously, so did everyone else.
> Despite the fact that B&B had gotten no other major nominations that
> year except for
> Music and Sound, and had been nominated by its supporters largely as a
> symbolic stunt.
>
> ...So, IOW, yes, *like* Babel and LMS:
> The Academy nominated it because the Golden Globes told them to.) :-P

>>>...What you had in 1997 for Oscar screening committees was the
>>>proverbial Tough Crowd for animated films.
>>>Spirited Away might've softened their hearts into a nomination, but
>>>Hayao's "Big Overreaching Attempt At Serious Downbeat Art" was not going
>>>to go over well, especially with a movie that would've been a fish out
>>>of water with the committee even if it *had* been upbeat, involving or
>>>entertaining.

>

>> So, the committee wasn't prepared to accept an animated film, much
>> less one with a weighty tone? Isn't that what I've been saying from
>> the beginning?

>
> Again, Disney's Sally-Field-on-crack'ing about their ONE Picture
> nomination (and then only because Snow White and Fantasia had been
> special awards and Mary Poppins had been a live-action film) pretty well
> slammed the door on themselves for the foreseeable future. (Never mind
> their desperation to get "Beaches" and "Dead Poets"'s feet in the
> live-action Picture door...)

> As far as the Academy cared, if they never heard of early-90's Disney
> again, it would be a million years too soon. >_<

>>>One time, a Japanese/English news blog asked the question, why DIDN'T
>>>Mononoke go over well in the US, as opposed to breaking box offices in
>>>Japan?
>>>Among other answers, mine was, will somebody break the bad news to the
>>>other side of the Pacific that Westerners *just aren't as obsessed* with
>>>"Save the Earth" messages as a good chunk of Japanese filmmakers,
>>>writers seem to be?
>>>Where Japanese audiences thought the man vs. nature story was
>>>"heartfelt" and "mystical", US audiences just fidgeted, checked their
>>>watches and said "Enough with the Woodsy Owl crap, give us a STORY with
>>>CHARACTERS!!"
>>>(At least, those who didn't try to go with the story and grumble, "Okay,
>>>so basically, everybody's crabby and at war with each other for the
>>>whole movie, then?")

>

>> Guess they weren't ready for Platoon and Saving Private Ryan and
>> Letters From Iwo Jima and every other live-action war movie ever made,
>> then. But those war flicks didn't attempt sword-and-sorcery
>> metaphysics without Hobbits and psuedo-realistic CGI.

>
> And didn't bludgeon us with "Stupid humans pollute our good Mother
> Earth" PC-bricks--
> Well, okay, so Nausicaa did too, but sheesh, at least she cracked a
> SMILE now and again!!
>
> Derek Janssen (y'know, had a perceivable *personality*??)