Brave should not have been awarded Best Animated Feature. And I say this as someone who enjoyed Brave. Very much. I really, really enjoyed Brave, yet there were at least two other films that I found more deserving of the Oscar.
This award was definitely a political win, in that the Academy was awarding Pixar as opposed to the film Pixar produced – and that’s a terrible thing. I love Pixar (in fact, today I watched Ratatouille for the first time and I loved it) and I’m always excited with what they produce, with the Cars franchise the exception. Cars 2 was their first real dud of a film and that was good for deflating egos and the like, so try had to bring themselves back. Brave was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t a big enough step. It wasn’t up to the standards of true Pixar quality, and it definitely wasn’t as good as any of the other Pixar wins.
Pixar won the award for a good film, but they should be winning them for great films. And great films lost this year. The Pirates! Band of Misfits was a hilarious, adventurous film that deserved gold; Wreck-it Ralph was surprisingly moving and emotional, as well as a lot of fun and great enough to over come some of the issues within the film. Both of these films deserved to win over Brave, and it was such a shame when Brave was called.
All this negativity really sounds like I didn’t like the film, but I really did. I’ve seen it twice and enjoyed it twice, but there were better films. Plain and simple.
Join me tomorrow for my second, possibly bigger gripe from Oscar Night.
Crazy is Perfect 