Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Animated Feature 2022

The Contenders:

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (winner)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
The Sea Beast
Turning Red

Shell Game

Films: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Format: Marcus Ronnie’s Cinema, St. Louis.

I’m winding up my week in St. Louis dog/housesitting for my daughter, so last night I gave myself a rare treat: I went to the movies. I saw Marcel the Shell with Shoes On because I knew it would never open within 30 miles of the corn town I live in. The theater, sadly, was mostly empty, although that did mean that I had a great choice of seats. But I have to say that I think I know a part of the reason the theater was so empty—it was $14.54 for a ticket to a 5:00 show. Sure, the seat was nice and everything, but that’s an insane price for a ticket.

Anyway, Marcel (which is how I will refer to this now—the full name is long enough that typing it out fully is tedious) is the story of a tiny inch-high seashell with a single eye, shoes, and an animated mouth. Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) and his grandmother Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini) live together in a huge house that is used as an Air B&B. Amateur filmmaker Dean (actual director and ex-husband of Jenny Slate Dean Fleischer-Camp) moves into the house during a separation with his wife where he encounters Marcel and decides to make a documentary about him.