> I thought Howl's was a sure bet, just based on Miyazaki's past work.

It made it, but it wasn't a sure bet. And Miyazaki was rewarded with a win for Spirited Away, so I doubt the Academy felt there was an unpaid debt.

The thing is, this category is not reliably appreciative of imagination and invention in its choices. Yes, in 2001, "Spirited Away" was not only nominated, it won. But the year before saw "Jimmy Neutron" nominated instead of "Waking Life" or "Final Fantasy." Last year saw "Shark Tale" nominated instead of "The Polar Express." In 2002, "The Triplets of Belleville" was nominated, but "Millennium Actress" was supplanted by "Brother Bear."

So has the Academy got the insight to nominate "Howl's," or not? That track record is inconclusive. Inexplicable though it may be, "Madagascar" was a runaway hit. If even "Shark Tale" can get a nomination, why not "Madagascar"?

It's easy now to look back on those previous years and come up with plausible reasons why what happened happened. Hindsight is 20/20. Already I have a theory about how Howl's made it: the portion of Academy voters interested in CG slapstick divided their votes between Madagascar and Chicken Little, with Robots siphoning off votes as well. Howl's didn't split votes with anything. The right thing happened in the end, but do you really trust that it happened for the right reason?

> I was also plesantly surprised to see a lack of CGI-driven works in the list. There seems to be something more honest (or at least deserving of praise) about creating a work through a labor-intensive process than creating a work sitting at a computer, and letting it generate the movie, no matter how labor-intensive that actually is. I suppose that's a matter of perception -- someone drawing each frame of a movie or creating a stop motion film a frame at a time appears to take more effort than someone telling a computer to digitally walk from point A to point B; instead of the people creating the film, the computer does.

CG doesn't create anything, no more than a hammer creates a house. A computer can interpolate frames between key frames put together by the artist -- but that's what Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng did, too, draw up key frames and send them off to his animators. Yes, the interpolation process was still done by human hands. The interpolation done by Jones's animators was never mathematically precise, of course, but if you don't want mathematically precise interpolation in CG, you're not just letting the computer to the interpolation for you in the first place -- you're adding more key frames and doing the interpolation yourself.

But IF there is an instance in a film where the interpolated frames must be an exact, mathematically precise progression from frame A and frame B, why is drawing it all manually "more honest" than using a computer to perform some calculations for you? I call it "more inefficient," on manpower, money, and time.

But the reality is that you almost never want a mathematically even progression from frame A to frame B. You want some acceleration and deceleration, maybe some jitter. You want those nuances of movement that we perceive subconsciously that suggests energy, mass, and character. And even if you do want a mathematically precise progression for a certain element in the frame -- say, a projectile -- there are probably other elements in the frame -- say, a character fleeing from the projectile -- you want more fine-tuned control over. The end result is you get so many key frames, you might as well be hand-drawing the interpolation. Computers don't spare you the required work or the required artistry (although certainly they change what work and what artistry that is) -- they simply enable you to achieve something that *cannot* be achieved by hand.

For me, it's all about what you're trying to accomplish. What story are you telling, and what feelings do you want to evoke? For some things, CG is the natural answer. For others, it is not. I share your pleasure at the lack of CG nominees in the lineup, but only because lately it seems like Hollywood has decided that CG is the appropriate medium for ANY animated story, and I fear the older forms, which CG does not obviate, are being forgotten.