>There was no reliable Pixar effort, a Monsters Inc or a Toy Story. ... There was even room left over to nominate Spirited Away, which probably deserves the award but may only have commanded the Academy's attention for lack of anything else to nominate.
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Well there was... sort of. John Lasseter of Pixar did the direction for the English dub of Spirited Away, and did a darn good job of it too. (Of course, I haven't seen Spirted Away in the original Japanese, but I am usually violently anti-dub and this was good enough to earn an accolade from me.) I remember wishing I could go to a special showing of Spirited Away that they did at Pixar's studios, especially when they managed to get Miyazaki himself there.

As far as I'm concerned, it's about time that Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli got an Academy Award nomination. They more than deserve it, if not for Spirited Away than for any number of their past works. (This April, Disney is releasing Spirited Away as well as two other Miyazaki films, Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky on DVD... once it comes out, I HIGHLY recommend seeing Castle in the Sky. It's a great movie.)

Sosi"can say nothing about the other films, as the only ones she's seen are Spirted Away and The Two Towers"qui