• “Shrek” • “Monsters Inc.” • “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius”
It only makes sense that a new category should be inaugurated with an undeserved win, and you can bet that’s exactly what will happen when the first award for best animated feature is given out. The Academy already messed up once by giving a nomination to “Jimmy Neutron” instead of Richard Linklater’s amazing “Waking Life,” and they’ll mess up again by giving the award to the amusing, but highly overrated “Shrek” instead of the fantastic “Monsters Inc.”
“Jimmy Neutron” was lucky to get in, so it’s chances of winning are all but non-existent. “Shrek” and “Monsters Inc.” both made killings at the box office but for some inexplicable reason, almost everyone seems to prefer “Shrek’s” clever-the-first-time-but-gets-old-fast post-modern wit to “Monsters Inc.,” a film that holds up very well upon multiple viewings (I know, I saw it four times in the theater).
So, look for DreamWorks’s computer animation division P.D.I. to walk away with the first trophy wile the pioneers of the medium, Disney’s “Pixar,” will be left in the dust. It’ll be a disappointing, but not unexpected way to ring in the arrival of a long-overdue category: one that will hopefully rectify their mistake in the years to come.
WILL WIN: Shrek SHOULD WIN: Monsters Inc. REALISTIC UPSET: Monsters Inc. SAFEST BET OF THE NIGHT: Jimmy Neutron? No way in hell.
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