Brave (2012): Not Up to Former Pixar's Classics

After their heavy domination in the realm of animation, Pixar finally lost the lead last year. The 2012 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature went to Rango and if Pixar rely on Brave to win another Oscar or at least to restore their image, I don't think they will succeed. Brave is neither very good nor brave. It's a decent movie but it leaves more a taste of mediocrity when you know it's made by Pixar.

Brave is about young Princess Merida whose least desirable wish is to be a princess. She's good in archery and horse riding. She does not like to wear tight good-looking dresses. And she does not want to marry somebody her mother or a competition chooses. Merida's rebelliousness is about to start a war in her father's kingdom. So when she incidentally meets a witch she does not hesitate to ask for sorcery in order to change her life and her mother. But the magic does not work the way Merida expects so now she has to act fast and break the spell or its unpleasant effect will remain permanent.

The story is nothing original. A child opposes her parents' will and some complications appear, eventually helping them to resolve the issues. The theme is recycled many times and the main feature of Brave is it's animated. But the story itself is not told in a very interesting way. The plot is kept alive by some illogical actions (who needs to bring a bear in a castle while simultaneously trying to hide it just to take a tapestry from a wall). There are references to ancient events that are pretty much redundant. And Merida has a father who is probably supposed to be a funny character but he's actually acting just plain stupid and is completely uninterested in his family doings. Well, it's not that his daughter is acting smarter most of the time but Ok, she's still a child and it is an animated movie after all.

The visuals are well crafted yet this is naturally expected when Pixar are involved. Some of the landscapes in Brave look almost like real ones. Of course, water scenes are not among these and people are not even supposed to look authentic. The mandatory songs for an animated feature are not omitted. And they as well as everything else sound Scottish, which could be good or bad, or even distracting depending on your preference.

Unfortunately, Pixar are not "brave" this time and they do not take any risks with Brave. This furthers the movie's mediocrity. Brave has a standard story and everything happens the way you would expect from a Disney film. Indeed, it shouldn't be an obstacle for everybody and especially kids will probably find the movie and its characters entertaining. As for recapturing older audience, I think Pixar have to work harder. It seems they are running out of fresh ideas but if they want to be hugely successful again producing just gorgeous animations won't be enough. We need more than a simplistic story and a witty dialogue to begin praising their movies anew.

Academy Awards 2012: Oscar Winners and Nominees Trivia

This year's Academy Awards broke a few records and introduced novelties. Some of them were probably expected and others not so much. Most notably it had never happened before a movie produced by a country different from the United States or the United Kingdom to win the Oscar in the Best Picture category. Well, it happened this year. There were also other interesting developments like the cease of Pixar's domination in the Best Animated Feature Film category. And a few personal achievements contributed to make 2012 Academy Awards a curious event. Here are some of the particular achievements and trivia.

French/Belgian movie The Artist won the Oscar in the Best Motion Picture of the Year category. For the first time, the winning film had not been produced by the US or the UK. Consequently, The Artist became the first French movie to win Best Picture. It also became the film produced by a non-English speaking country winning the most Oscars (5) in a single year. In addition to Best Picture, The Artist also won the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Costume Design and Best Music Written for Motion Pictures. Finally, the film had received 10 Oscar nominations which equalled Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's record for a foreign movie. Some could say that all these achievements are actually due to the fact that The Artist is a silent movie thus it is not exactly a foreign language film, which makes it more accessible to the American public. On the other hand it has enough non-appealing to the general audience features (silence included).

Something to be expected was Meryl Streep's 17th Oscar nomination. An Academy favorite almost since the dawn of her acting career, she had been nominated for an Academy Award roughly every two years. And not so surprisingly, in addition to breaking her own record for the most acting nominations, Meryl Streep also won the 2012 Oscar in the Best Actress category for The Iron Lady. Now only Katherine Hepburn has more awards than Streep.

Similar to Meryl Streep, Woody Allen broke his own record for the most Oscar nominations in the category of Best Writing (Original Screenplay) with his beautiful film Midnight in Paris. He made them 15. Woody Allen also won the award for the third time, which made him the person with the most Academy Awards in the category.

Canadian actor Christopher Plummer won his first Oscar in the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for the movie Beginners (2010). As a result, he became the oldest actor to win in this category and the oldest person (82) to win an Oscar in the entire history of the Academy Awards.

After Pixar's heavy domination in the last decade it was about time for something new in the field of animated films. Pixar movies have been regularly nominated throughout the decade and they won six Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film since 2004 including 4 consecutive Oscars for Toy Story 3 (2010), Up (2009), WALL·E (2008), Ratatouille (2007) in the past 4 years. This year they did not win (Industrial Light & Magic's Rango did). Actually, Pixar hadn't even been nominated. Let's hope it will motivate them to make a better animated film in 2012.

Academy Award Nominations 2011: Best Animated Feature Oscar Nominees Criticism, Part II

Follow the link to read the first part of our article Academy Award Nominations 2011: Best Animated Feature Oscar Nominees Criticism, Part I.

In recent years the category for Best Animated Feature has been dominated by Pixar productions. Which is perfectly understandable. Pixar have been at the forefront in the field of 3D animation, both technically and storytelling-wise. And their rivals were constantly lagging behind. Pixar's superiority was just a fact of life. The norm. One of those things that's silly to question. And Toy Story 3 is no exception here. The mature themes and their handling were even acknowledged with an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Second in a row for Pixar after Up. And also pretty much cementing Toy Story 3's win in the Best Animated Feature category, but this is another story.

How to Train Your Dragon is undoubtedly the best Dreamworks animation so far. Undoubtedly, it's also a worthy Oscar nominee. As all other Dreamworks productions it is a little bit uneven technically, mostly in the way it handles its realistic environments versus the stylized characters. But one can't help but notice the positive influence of visual consultant Roger Deakins in the way the movie is "shot": the fluid but restrained camera and the live-action-like lighting. In view of the forementioned Pixar excellence this little twist is commendable as an effort for differentiation. The end result is beautiful to behold, with night scenes and interiors being especially gorgeous.

What is the problem then, one might ask?

See, it is pretty obvious: that's the glaring absence of Tangled amongst the Oscar nominees. Tangled might be the most refreshing thing to happen to 3D animation since its advent. With the way it mimics the movements of the classic Disney animated figures. And with the way it boldly shuns away photorealistic rendering (which is Pixar's domain, anyway) in favor of hand-drawn simulation and then enhancing that with established modern techniques like global illumination (overemphasized for a richer look) and subsurface scattering. Tangled is really the missing link between photo-realistic 3D done the Pixar way and Disney from the old days. Surely, it deserves to be amongst 2011 Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature. Well, one could probably do with less singing, but, hey, it's Disney...

Now all this should be quite obvious to the Nomination Committee, or at least to a part of it. While Pixar and Dreamworks go evolutionary, Disney have gone radical. One possible reason for the omission of Tangled among the Oscar nominees in this category may be the fact Pixar and Disney are one company now. And with only three slots available the politically correct decision is probably to promote studio diversity in the Academy Award nominations. With the box-office success of Toy Story 3 and its apparent appeal (as pointed to by the Best Picture nod) favoring it over Tangled is understandable. Another possible explanation is philosophical and concerns the very foundations of the Best Animated Feature category and how the submissions for Oscar nominees are judged: Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon could just happen to be better films. But then again, this is not the Best Picture category, this is the category for Animated Features.

So maybe just bad luck for Tangled then. In a better year with five Oscar nominees the movie would most certainly get an Academy Award nomination. Yet, this is not a consolation or whatnot. The point is, the Academy has once again taken a wrong step. Unsurprisingly.

Read our opinion about 2011 Oscar winners. You might also find interesting to read about people who got multiple Oscar nominations but never received the Academy Award. If you like animated films, you may check our Top 5 3D Blu-ray movies article, where naturally you'll find some animations listed. Or just browse the Review Maze for more reviews.