December Animation Preview

After a very busy November in animation land, December is looking a bit quieter. Some of November's releases will continue to find business, especially Moana 2. I imagine Flow will also pick up more business as we get into the thick of awards season and it starts picking up nominations. Here's a look at what's coming this month.

First up, let's take a look at some stuff regarding...

Awards Season

I love awards season, especially the early days before everything feels so settled. Here are some animation-related awards season dates to look out for in December:

Monday, December 9 - Golden Globe Nominations

The Golden Globes have gotten a lot of flack over the years, for various (very good) reasons, but they also tend to make room for a lot of interesting nominees. Part of this is that they split a lot of categories into separate Drama and Musical/Comedy divisions. But they also just have some cool taste. This is especially true in their Animated Feature category, where they've made room alongside more expected studio nominees for stuff like My Sunny Maad, Inu-Oh, and Suzume in recent years. Hopefully, they nominate something out of left field again this year -- maybe they'll find room for Look Back or The Glassworker? I also wonder if The Wild Robot could pull some additional nominations, such as for score, song, or even Best Picture?

Tuesday, December 17 - Oscar Shortlists Announcement

Maybe my single favorite date of awards season is when the Academy announces their shortlists in a bunch of categories, including the music categories, all three shorts categories, and a smattering of others. On the animation front, we'll get the shortlist for Animated Short, and probably see some additional mentions for Flow in International Feature, The Wild Robot in Song and Score, and maybe some other surprises. For Oscar completionists like me, it's nice to get a list of stuff to seek out before the big day.

Friday, December 20 - Annie Nominations

The Annies are always fun to check out because they are an awards show that is exclusively for animation, which means a ton of categories celebrating a ton of artists who do a ton of different things to make these movies come to life! This year has been so amazing for animation, so it'll be extra exciting to see what makes the cut.

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Now, onto what we'll be watching in December:

In Theaters

On December 13, Middle-earth comes back to the big screen with The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an anime spin-off of Peter Jackson's films that follows headstrong Héra, a princess of Rohan who helps to protect her kingdom from a vicious threat. I personally found the film to be a mixed bag, a little too generic in its fantasy trappings to really tap into my LotR-loving heart, but I imagine I might be in the minority on this one. It'll be interesting to see how it does at the box office through the Christmas season. I imagine it'll set some box office records for anime movies at the U.S. box office.

Also on December 13, a pair of great movies I saw at Animation is Film open for their Oscar-qualifying runs in LA (and maybe New York...I don't keep track of what's going on over there, sorry). The Colors Within really wowed me with its gorgeous animation and sweet story about a trio of new friends who start a band. It's one of my favorites from GKIDS this year, which is always saying something, because they always kill it with their slate. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is the first-ever fully animated Looney Tunes movie, and it's a dynamite, joke-dense wonder, full of brilliant slap-stick humor, great voice performances, and a zany story that recalls Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Colors Within will have its proper release in January, and The Day the Earth Blew Up in February, so even if you're not in a major city, you'll have a chance to catch them soon.

Finally, on December 20, Disney plops out its latest "live-action" requel/prequel/spin-off, Mufasa: The Lion King. Disney doesn't consider this an animated movie, but I'm pretty sure they didn't train actual lions to act, so... Listen, this is a movie that no one asked for, and I feel like there's not a lot of excitement for it. I certainly didn't expect to care about it, especially after how underwhelming the remake of the original was. But I have to be honest...the more trailers I see for this, the more interested I am. Plus, Barry Jenkins is directing and Lin-Manuel Miranda is doing the songs so I feel like this could end up being something of a banger, even if none of us were asking for a Mufasa origin story.

(t to b, l to r: That Christmas, The Colors Within, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie,
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Mufasa: The Lion King, My Love Affair with Marriage)

At Home

On December 3, The Wild Robot comes home on DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K. I feel like I'm constantly talking about this movie, and I honestly don't intend to stop any time soon! It's so good! I'm excited to own it. All hail physical media!

December 4 brings us Netflix's final animated release of the year, That Christmas, based on a series of books by Richard Curtis. Appropriately, it sounds like this one is a bit Love Actually-esque in its construction, as it follows a bunch of intertwined stories (including Santa's) during a storm. It sounds delightful, and I can't wait to check it out.

Lastly, one of last year's underseen gems, Signe Baumane's My Love Affair with Marriage, a brilliant, off-beat musical about a woman navigating various relationships that shape her views of love and marriage, will start streaming on OVID on December 20. I don't really know what OVID is, and you can already watch the movie a myriad of other ways for a few bucks, but I'll always take the opportunity to shout-out a great movie, which this is. Check it out if you haven't seen it!