The Best Animated Feature category first appeared in 2001 (Shrek was the winner), and a cartoon has taken home the prize every year since. Crazy, right? And while the Pixar juggernaut has won this category four years running, their decision to focus on profit with Cars 2 instead of quality has cost them the nomination. Their absence has left the field wide open, and for only the third time in the past decade there are five nominees vying for the award. Unlike some Academy Award categories, this year’s nominees for Best Animated Feature actually managed to include the year’s best animated feature. Even better? It’s going to win. The nominees are listed below with my predicted winner in red…

No matter how ambivalent this year’s Oscars might make everyone, trying to guess the winners is almost always intriguing. It’s usually broken down by factors such as prior victories in other awards shows, likeability of the nominee,what’s being talked about the most, what made more money…you know, characteristics that actually speak nothing about the film itself or how good it is. Yet, regardless, it’s still fun. Though, just because I can’t quantify the value of specific factors to pick a winner doesn’t necessarily mean that a quantifiable formula does not exist in terms of systematically predicting who will win; and if there was going to be someone to develop such a formula then it was most likely going to come from a student at Harvard because (as one of last year’s nominees taught us) people love math there. They love it. Indeed though, Harvard student Ben Zauzmer has developed a formula for calculating who will walk away with a statuette this Sunday and posted those math-based Oscar predictions on his blog.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that seeks to dazzle you with facts, figures, commentary and hyperlinks. And hyper-facts, figure-links and perhaps some commentary on figures. But enough about Chris Evans’ abs… We begin this evening with a still from a very intense walking sequence in The Avengers. It’s one of a pair of new photos released yesterday via Marvel.com, featuring Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Chris Evans as Captain America (said to be the central character of Avengers) and Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. At least one of these characters appears to be showing off a little more skin than usual.

For the first time in recent memory, I’m going into Oscar Sunday having no idea who is likely to take home many of the major awards. I’m sure there are entire websites out there devoted to an accurate prediction of who and what will take home the gold on Sunday, but there seems something a bit different about this year. Of the nine films nominated, I don’t have a clear sense of what would be the top five had AMPAS not changed the number of entries in the top category. While The Artist may clearly have more of a chance than, say, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, there’s no grand battle between likely leads like there was between The King’s Speech and The Social Network last year. And I don’t think I’m alone in stating that this year’s uninspiring list of nominees seems to reflect a growing indifference against the ceremony itself. Sure, on Sunday, like I have every year since I was eleven years old, I’ll watch the entire ceremony from beginning to end. And, like every year since I was twenty-one years old, I’ll make fun of the pompous and excessive self-congratulatory nature of the proceedings. But while in most years I have had some skin in the game, besides the two nominations afforded to the excellent Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the presence of the transcendentally excellent Pina in the Best Documentary Feature category, this year I didn’t even get a sense that the Academy was awarding

They say laughter is the best medicine and well, world, I’m dying here. I need my medicine. I need to laugh. I need to be entertained, but it seems every time I try to chuckle these days, someones standing right there to make me feel bad about it. Over the last few weeks in this column, I’ve mostly pointed the finger at big corporate entities bowing to some outside force, whether it’s a perceived notion that they must be politically correct to the point of being historically incorrect or whether it’s removing a joke that probably cost thousands of dollars to animate to not offend a small handful of people in a far off land with a disease that’s rapidly disappearing. Today, I point my finger elsewhere. I point it at you. I point it at them. I point it at us, a society that has lost its sense of humor – and that is a damn shame.

The Oscar montage reel is a genre on its own. It’s transparently demonstrative of the overall function of the Academy Awards. These montage reels summarize and make explicit what the annual ceremony attempts to accomplish writ large: to create and solidify a canon of important American films, along with a delimited understanding of their importance. Yes, the Oscars have occasionally given a voice to the indie underdog and rush through their obligatory movies-with-subtitles category, but besides the occasional screenplay nomination for a truly innovative film and the rare foreign language film that broaches through the marginal categories, the Oscars are by and large a celebration of American cinema, specifically Hollywood cinema. During the 2006 ceremony, a moment occurred that has been seared into my memory. I haven’t been able to find a clip of it online since it aired six years ago, so I hope this isn’t wishful or inaccurate. The 2006 ceremony consisted of a spate of overtly political films, as Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Munich, Good Night and Good Luck competed for top honors, and Syriana was in the running for other awards. In likely hopes of gaining cultural capital from celebrating mainstream cinema’s rarely explored but ever-present political function, the Academy aired a self-congratulatory reel of past Oscar-nominated films that have addressed other topical social problems, from In the Heat of the Night to Philadelphia. When the lights came back and the audience applauded with anticipated decorum, host Jon Stewart then graced the stage and stated, in a

Why Watch? Short films weren’t honored at the first Academy Awards in 1929, but it didn’t take long for them to be added to the docket. After all, the film industry owes its origins to short work (which may be part of why Hugo is damned popular this year). In 1932, the award for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film celebrated work from Laurel and Hardy and Disney respectively. Disney’s contribution was Flowers and Trees – a movie that was supposed to be in black and white, but ended up being the first cartoon made with the three-strip Technicolor process. It bridged technologies, was loved by fans, and got the gold. Plus, it teaches the lesson that grumpy trees shouldn’t play with fire. What will it cost? Only 7 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

With the 84th Academy Award nominations announced last week (and me finally coming up for air post-Sundance), I wanted to give the five Original Score (and two Original Song) nominees a closer look. Each nominated score is full-bodied and as varied as the films they are featured in ranging from fun (John Williams for The Adventures of Tin Tin) to lush (Ludovic Bource for The Artist) to dramatic (Howard Shore for Hugo) to tense (Alberto Iglesias for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) to emotional (John Williams for War Horse) while each of the nominated songs are quirky and catchy (Bret McKenzie’s “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets and Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown and Siedah Garrett’s “Real In Rio” from Rio.) While I am not going to propose to understand why the Academy makes their choices the way they do (the lack of Drive and Shame nominations alone had me scratching my head last week) and I do not think that the scores and songs that were selected are unworthy of their nominations, I was still left with some questions when looking into who may come out on top on February 26th.

With the Oscar nominations out terrorizing the community, we turn to IMDB Managing Editor Keith Simanton to discuss why the Academy Awards still matter, how the voting environment works, and why Harvey Weinstein always seems to control the conversation. Plus, Landon Palmer explores the death of the movie star and the rise of franchises. Could it help the revival in independent filmmaking? As if that weren’t enough, Cinema Blend‘s Editor-in-Chief Katey Rich squares off with Hollywood.com Movies Editor Matt Patches in a Movie News Pop Quiz that will change everything. Download This Episode

People were up in arms Tuesday after the announcement of nominees for the 84th Annual Academy Awards. So many seem to forget that every year they are disappointed with the nominees and every year there is some film or performer who was left off or included on the prestigious list. I may have spent the final weeks of 2011 lamenting my utter ennui with last year’s films, but I never in a million years expected some of the Oscar outcomes. No Supporting Actor nomination for Albert Brooks, whose performance in Drive unnerved audiences to the core? Or the blatant disregard for solid documentary filmmaking in The Interrupters, Buck, or Project Nim, three entries into filmmaking that will forever impact the way we view the world around us? No, the Academy seemed to forget the impressive and daring offerings in favor of an adorable dog in a silent film. What is this, 1920? Last I checked The Jazz Singer pushed us into the land of the talkies. I could spend all day gnawing my tongue over which films shouldn’t have been included in this year’s awards recognition, but just like arguing the virtues and evils of the MPAA, our time is better used talking about some of the sexy pieces of work that the Academy felt were too provocative to include (for reasons I have completely made up in my mind. Hey, they have their prerogative, I have mine.). Going along with the Academy’s new voodoo math rules of deciding the

It’s been a year filled with silent screen stars seeking redemption, the 1920s coming alive in Paris, a young boy searching for the first great director, sex addicts in New York City, horses going to war, maids of dishonor, and skulls getting crushed in elevators. Now it’s time to celebrate all of those things and more with the 84th annual Academy Awards. They’ve come a long way since the Hotel Roosevelt in 1929 (although sex addicts have almost always been a fixture). Get to ready to smile, ball your fists with snubbed rage, or be generally unsurprised. Here they are. The 2012 Oscar nominees:

A little over a year after jailing and banning their most famous filmmaker from making movies, Iran might win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It would be a first for the nation whose government seems to strongly dislike creativity and freedom of speech, but its entry this year, A Separation, almost seems like a sure thing. Come February, writer/director Asghar Farhadi and Iran might be standing on the winner’s podium. But it’s not a done deal yet. A Separation and 8 other films were announced last week as part of the Oscar shortlist – just one step away from becoming an official nominee. They include a Danish comedy set in Argentina, a masculine drama about the underground world of illegal bovine growth hormones in Belgium, and something marvelous from Wim Wenders. It’s, to say the least, a varied group. Except that almost all of them are dramas from writer/directors.  So, yeah. Subject matter-wise though, it’s a full spectrum. The final 5 will be announced tomorrow morning, but here first are the trailers from each of the 9 shortlisted movies from far off lands (like Canada):

Usually I’m quite cynical about end-of-year lists, as they demand a forced encapsulation of an arbitrary block of time that is not yet over into something simplified. I typically find end-of-year lists fun, but rarely useful. But 2011 is different. As Scott Tobias pointed out, while “quiet,” this was a surprisingly strong year for interesting and risk-taking films. What’s most interesting has been the variety: barely anything has emerged as a leading contender that tops either critics’ lists or dominates awards buzz. Quite honestly, at the end of 2010 I struggled to find compelling topics, trends, and events to define the year in cinema. The final days of 2011 brought a quite opposite struggle, for this year’s surprising glut of interesting and disparate films spoke to one another in a way that makes it difficult to isolate any of the year’s significant works. Arguments in the critical community actually led to insightful points as they addressed essential questions of what it means to be a filmgoer and a cinephile. Mainstream Hollywood machine-work and limited release arthouse fare defied expectations in several directions. New stars arose. Tired Hollywood rituals and ostensibly reliable technologies both met new breaking points. “2011” hangs over this year in cinema, and the interaction between the films – and the events and conversations that surrounded them – makes this year’s offerings particular to their time and subject to their context. This is what I took away from this surprising year:

Not-so-fun fact: The Oscars have never nominated a film from Korea for their award for Best Foreign Language Film. Despite a significant film heritage and movies like The Old Jar Craftsman and Mother being put forward by the country, no Korean flick has ever made the short list. This year, the Korean Film Council is seeking to change that with Jang Hun‘s The Front Line. The action film takes place during The Korean War, specifically during the 1953 ceasefire, but even during negotiations for peace, the fighting confusingly continues with a small outcropping of hills changing hands back and forth between North and South. The movie stars Shin Ha-kyun, who has done significant work with Chan Wook-park since JSA as well as dozens of other films. It’s unclear whether this film will succeed where others have failed, but there’s definitely a keener interest in Korean currently, propelled not least of all by the death of North Korean dictator/mass murderer Kim Jong Il. Plus, this trailer looks like it was delivered inside a powder keg. Check it out for yourself:

Prominent producer/writer/director Judd Apatow was recorded while speaking at some sort of L.A. Times sponsored press event recently, and he had some interesting comments about The Academy and how he thinks comedies are treated unfairly at the Oscars. You can head over to 24 Frames to watch the whole thing, or just read below and I’ll give you the gist of what was said. Apatow is of the opinion that there should be a new Oscar category created for “Best Comedy,” much like an Oscar for “Best Animated Film” was created in 2001. His reasoning: “Why not?” Okay, that isn’t his entire reasoning. He goes on to say that because “a comedy has only won Best Picture 5 times in a zillion years” he doesn’t think it would be “screwing up Schindler’s List for Hangover to have its own category.” And he goes even further to say that once a new Comedy category was created the Academy could “get rid of the Key Grip category,” a comment that elicits some boos from a tech-appreciative crowd gathered around the interview area. In response to the booing Apatow explains, “I love the key grips, they do a fantastic job, but in hour four I would rather see Zach Galifianakis show up rather than my friend Curtis.”

The last forty-eight hours have been tumultuous ones for this year’s Academy Awards telecast. First, the show’s producer Brett Ratner was unceremoniously asked to step down from his position after the world realized that he was a creep. Then his host, Eddie Murphy, soon followed, wishing the new producer and new host the best of luck. Fans all over the web were in an agitated state, debating who should take their places, with a large contingent actively campaigning for a very Muppet Oscars. The Academy seems to be in a bit of a panic though, because less than a day later they’ve already locked their choices down, and the replacements they found can most accurately be described as safe. First, it was announced that Brian Grazer would be the new producer. After this, speculation began to run rampant that Billy Crystal would be the most logical and easy choice for Grazer to plug in as host, seeing as he’s done the job so many times and has a seemingly endless enthusiasm for the gig. Sure enough, earlier today Crystal took to his @BillyCrystal Twitter account and made the following announcement, “Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions. Looking forward to the show.” Since then, the Academy’s official account has retweeted Crystal’s claims, making things pretty official.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that isn’t holding out hope that it will be chosen to host the 84th Academy Awards. It has never had a good working relationship with Brian Grazer. Earlier today the entire film world was talking about Brett Ratner’s departure as producer of the Oscars because of a whole bunch of controversy over some comments he made that offended fans of rehearsals. Everyone wanted him out, and they got it. The also got the bonus of Eddie Murphy jumping ship as host, two-for-one discount style. And now they’re getting something else, which might be seen as a bonus. The Academy confirmed this evening via a press release that Brian Grazer will produce the 84th Academy Awards telecast. The odds on Tom Hanks hosting just went through the roof.

I know that just the act of using the words “credibility” and “The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences” in the same sentence feels completely ludicrous, but on Tuesday the Academy’s governors voted in a new set of rules that lends a little bit more credibility to the act of choosing the nominees for Best Picture. It was just two years ago that they changed their long-standing tradition of having five nominees to a new standard of nominating ten films. Seeing as there are only ever two, maybe three movies that actually have any sort of chance at winning, upping the number of nominees to ten looked very transparently like a stupid marketing ploy. From one side of things, the Academy could give nominations to more “mainstream” films that Joe Six-Pack might complain never get recognition on the show. And from the other, now five more films a year could use the phrase “Academy Award Nominee for Best Picture” in their marketing. Theoretically, that would lead to more interest in the ceremony, more people buying tickets to theaters, and everybody in the industry winning. Except that the idea is totally stupid because Joe Six-Pack won’t give a crap about The Oscars no matter what they do, and having ten nominees can’t help but make at least three or four of the films look like completely pathetic afterthoughts. It further ruins the credibility of an already oft-derided process.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that refuses to turn its back on Michael Bay and Doctor Who, but also wants to keep you interested. With that in mind, tonight is only half text. The rest if videos and pictures, sights and sounds. Only the best for your ADD-afflicted minds. The news is out, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is now being closely linked to another episode in the Terminator franchise. He and director Justin Lin are attached to a project that, for all intents and purposes, has studios like Universal, Sony and Lionsgate pulling out their big daddy checkbooks. In unrelated news, we aren’t sure that movie studios still use checkbooks. They may have moved on to direct deposit for price tags over $25 million.

Watch enough foreign language movies and you’re bound to develop some (usually incorrect) perception of that particular country’s citizens. Korean people are more likely to kick you than they are to smile. French folks will cheat on each other at the drop of a pastry. There are no schools for acting in Thailand. You get the idea. Japanese films are no different and in fact offer up more than one assumption about the culture. And no, they don’t all have to do with lactation or the enticing aroma of girls’ underwear. Some are about the overwhelming fear that Japanese society appears to have towards its own children. The youth of the nation are alternately dangerous to others (Battle Royale) or to themselves (Suicide Club), but the one constant is the complete lack of connection or understanding the adults have for their teenage counterparts. It’s an intriguing idea and one writer/director Tetsuya Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls) has decided to embrace with his latest movie, Confessions. His film is far more subtle than those mentioned above, but no less dangerous or dark, and he melds it seamlessly with another popular theme in Asian cinema…