Animation Feature Oscar: Spider Vs. Heron

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Credit: Sony Animation

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature for 2018. Its sequel Across the Spider-Verse is a front-runner for the same award this year. The race is between Spider-Verse and Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece The Boy and the Heron. Miyazaki has won in this category for Spirited Away (2001) and is regarded as a master in the field, so he may be primed for a second Golden Guy. 

It's a tough choice. I watched Spider-Verse on Netflix and was totally stunned. There was so much happening in every frame, it was overwhelming. I did not see the 2018 film, so at first the plot was kinda confusing. But gradually we can figure out that we're in an alternate universe where Spider-Man is not Peter Parker, but Miles Morales, the son of an African-American father and a Puerto Rican mother. In this world, there is also a spider-powered version of Gwen Stacy--or is she from yet another world? Evidently, there are an infinite number of universes, each with their own Spider-Man or Woman. For reasons not immediately clear, Miles is taken to a Spider- World where EVERYBODY has Spider powers. The plot is not as important as the action which is jam-packed and the multiple Spider heroes are fun. There's even a Spider-kitty and a Spider-dinosaur.

Oscar Nomination Reaction and Early Predix

Barbieheimer dominated the
Oscar nominations.

The Oscar nominations held few surprises--Oppenheimer and Barbie, the two blockbusters of last summer which brought audiences back into the theaters following the pandemic, reaped the most nominations. Oppenheimer is the probable Oscar champ--a big, three-hour epic of an historical personage. There has been some grousing about Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie being overlooked for Best Director and Actress, but they have received nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and as a producer for a Best Picture candidate respectively. 

This movie year has been an exciting one because I've been able to see most of the nominated films before the nominations came out. It was easier this year because big films reaped many nominations in multiple categories. In previous years, the field was dominated by smaller films like Nomadland, CODA, and Parasite which got fewer citations. Plus many of the acting categories featured performers whose nominations were the only ones for their films--I still haven't seen some of last year's nominees.