"Toy Story 4," "Frozen II," and the Race for the Best Animated Film Oscar

Scene from Frozen II

This morning, Disney released the trailer for their latest film Frozen II. Most audiences will know the franchise very well, in part because of the 2013 film but also because this is the third year in a row that Elsa and Anna will have appeared on the big screen. Following Olaf's Frozen Adventure in 2017 and brief cameos in Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet in 2018, it's the long-awaited follow-up to the highest-grossing animated film in history that also spawned two Oscar wins. Considering that this trailer is likely to play in front of Toy Story 4 in 10 days, it also begins to raise another question: how is this year's Best Animated Film Oscar category shaking out? Have we seen the winner already? Considering that Frozen II AND Toy Story 4 are both sequels to previous winners, the answer may be staring us in the face. That is if the pattern continues to hold up.

Best Song: "Let It Go" (2013)

Scene from Frozen

Welcome to Best Song, a new weekly column released on Sunday dedicated to chronicling the Best Original Song category over the course of its many decades. The goal is to listen to and critique every song that has ever been nominated in the category as well as find the Best Best Song and the Best Loser. By the end, we'll have a comprehensive list of this music category and will hopefully have a better understanding not only of the evolution, but what it takes to receive a nomination here. It may seem easy now, but wait until the bad years.

A Look at the Troubling Best Animated Feature Race of 2013

Scene from Frozen

With Oscar season firmly under way and 12 Years a Slave on the verge of a wide release, it is time to re-evaluate the one category in which thing seem highly unclear: Best Animated Feature. Where last year's selection had some of the best, diverse offerings, this year seems to be an open book with little to no indication of any film deserving nomination besides Pixar's Monsters University. While I predicted that the film will win, I at least hoped that in the process of the months following, and preceding, that it would have a film with enough esteem to overthrow it. So, what is going on with the Best Animated Feature category?