Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Animated Feature 2016

The Contenders:

Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia (winner)

Because an Eggplant Would Be Weird

Film: My Life as a Zucchini (Ma Vie de Courgette)
Format: DVD from Coal City Public Library on laptop.

I’m happy to complain about Oscar’s nominating habits all the time, but there are moments when they do it right. A film like My Life a Zucchini (Ma Vie de Courgette in its original French) is a Swiss-French stop-motion collaboration that would be virtually unheard of and completely unknown without its nomination. The truth is that a film like this has very little chance of actually winning Best Animated Feature. Even with screeners being sent out to voters, it simply doesn’t have the cachet of a film from the bigger studios. And yet, this is precisely the sort of film that should be nominated to give it greater exposure.

My Life as a Zucchini features stop-motion animation with a particular look unlike anything I’ve seen. The characters are clearly human, but somehow off. Their arms are far too long, for instance. Everyone’s eyes are rimmed with a color that matches his or her hair and everyone’s nose is a shade of red. Because of this, in many ways My Life as a Zucchini is the least attractive of the five nominees, and that is a part of how I judge films in this category.