For those of you who may have missed, yesterday was the Golden Globes, which goes by some hoity-toity real name, but we will call it the Golden Globes (It's the Hollywood Foreign Press, just in case you thought I didn't know). I don't care much for these kinds of things, award shows, I mean. Typically, my type of movie doesn't win. Sure there are exceptions, but by and large, the winners are typically movies or shows that I have never seen and have little desire to see. Maybe that makes me uncultured. I'm ok with that, so you should be too.
Last night was a little different, especially in the Best Animated Feature category, or as it should be called, the Disney/Pixar Award. The award has been a part of the Golden Globes since 2007, and since then a non-Disney/Pixar film has won the award a grand total of once-when Cars 2 lost out to The Adventures of Tintin. All the other winners have been Disney/Pixar or Disney. And they have all been not really "geeky" type films. You can see the list of winners here. But last night was different.
The nominees for Best Animated Feature last night were: How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Lego Movie, Big Hero 6, The Book of Life, and The Box Trolls. The last two are more traditional, non-geeky films, like the previous winners of this award, but the other three, I would say are pretty geeky, and all pretty good. Reading over the category, I realized last year was a great year for geeky kids' flicks. You could make an argument for any of these three to be the winner, but I think they got it right when they gave the award to How to Train Your Dragon 2 (only the second non-Disney film to win this award).
I really enjoyed the first How to Train Your Dragon, and the second film was one those rare sequels that's just as good, if not better. The story is awesome just because it involves dragons and vikings. On top of that, though, it has a lot of heart. Hiccup is not your normal viking, but he doesn't let that stop him- he works through it and finds his own place. Plus the film gets a little heavy, when his father dies, but it doesn't over do it. If you haven't seen this film yet, first of all, sorry for the spoiler, and second, go and rent it and watch it. It is beautifully animated and has a great story and deserves to win this award.
On top of that, though, the other two geeky films were pretty fantastic as well. There has never been anything quite like The Lego Movie and it will be hard for anyone to ever replicate that ever. Even the equal will have a hard time capturing the same lightning in a bottle. The movie has it all, likable characters, great humor and Batman. You really can't go wrong, except when I saw the preview I thought it was going to be a disaster. It surprised everyone, I think. Big Hero 6 is what we get when we merge Marvel with Disney and leave Disney in charge-a super hero movie with maybe a little too much heart. It is not a bad movie, by any means, but it just feels weird to me.
The real point here, however, is that we had 3 great geeky kids' movies last year. It is a great time to be a geek, and more than that, it is a great time to be a geeky parent. It is becoming easier for us to find geeky things to expose our children to, in order to raise the next generation of geeks. Really, it is pretty exciting.
What do you think? Did the right animated film win last night? Let us know in the comments below what your thoughts were.
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