Two big fish swim in Oscar’s animated pool

The consensus within the animation industry is that the top contenders for the Academy Award for best animated feature are Pixar/Disney’s “Finding Nemo” and Sylvain Chomet’s “The Triplets of Belleville.” As in 2003, it’s a race between an American big studio release and a smaller, quirky foreign challenger.

Last year, “Lilo and Stitch” and “Spirited Away” led the pack, with “Spirited” eventually winning the award.

With $339.7 million in domestic receipts, “Finding Nemo” was the top-grossing film of 2003 (although “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” will likely overtake it), setting a new record for an animated feature. Both funny and touching, it continued Pixar’s string of state-of-the-art computer-animated blockbusters, appearing on the “Top 10” lists of 79 major critics and garnering 12 Annie Award nominations.

At a time when traditional animation is rapidly becoming an endangered species in the U.S., Chomet’s celebration of drawing in “The Triplets of Belleville” delighted artists and critics. It was named best animated film by the Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, San Diego, Boston and Broadcast film critics associations and made 26 Top Ten lists, an impressive record for a film that has been shown on only 43 screens in six cities.

DreamWorks didn’t submit “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas,” and two of the year’s more imaginative films weren’t eligible under Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rules. “The Animatrix,” a feature-length collection of shorts by Japanese directors, was disqualified because some segments appeared on the Internet before its theatrical release. The noir-inflected “Cowboy Bebop: The Movie: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” premiered in Japan in 2001, which made it too old for consideration, even though it wasn’t shown in America until 2003.

If “Nemo” and “Belleville” are nominated, nine candidates remain for the third slot: “Brother Bear,” “Jester Till” (“Till Eulenspiegel”), “The Jungle Book 2,” “Looney Tunes: Back in Action,” “Millennium Actress,” “Piglet’s Big Movie,” “Pokemon Heroes,” “Rugrats Go Wild” and “Tokyo Godfathers.” An animator who attended the nominating committee screening and spoke to The Times on the grounds of anonymity commented, “I would say the third slot is wide open. ‘Brother Bear’ is much slicker than the other candidates, which might win over the voters. ‘Looney Tunes’ might get in because of the quality of its animation, or ‘Millennium Actress’ for its imaginative storytelling and homage to classic Japanese films.”

“Brother Bear” could benefit from a sentimental vote, as it may be the last feature from Disney’s Florida animation studio, which also produced “Mulan” and “Lilo and Stitch.” But many animation artists complained that the film felt recycled and suffered from a weak story that some excellent animation couldn’t redeem.

“Back in Action” offered the best animation of the classic Warner Bros. characters in decades. The purely animated moments were terrific, especially the sequence of Bugs, Daffy and Elmer jumping into paintings. But the animation was dragged down by Larry Doyle’s weak script and the Earthbound live action. “Back in Action” earned only $20.7 million.

Japanese director Satoshi Kon is competing against himself with two striking films. Despite a very limited run, “Millennium Actress” earned excellent reviews for its intriguing mixture of past and present, memory and fantasy. Kon’s latest film, “Tokyo Godfathers,” which opened Jan. 16, has an even more unusual story: the misadventures of three homeless people trying to deal with an abandoned infant in modern Tokyo.

“Piglet’s Big Adventure” and “Jungle Now it says it’s five lines too longBook II” are perceived within the animation industry as direct-to-video projects that were given theatrical releases. Both films suffer from the inevitable comparisons to the more polished original features and a general lack of inspiration. “Rugrats Go Wild,” with Bruce Willis as the voice of a scatological dog, failed to excite fans of the TV series the way the first two movies did. The Pokemon craze peaked five years ago, and “Pokemon Heroes” came and went with a domestic box office of only $744,900. “Jester Till,” which has yet to be released in the U.S. following its brief qualifying run in December, made little impression on the few people who’ve seen it.

Outside of Original Song and Score, animation has traditionally been neglected by the Academy in major categories, and 2004 looks to be no exception.

Although “Finding Nemo” reportedly made the short list for sound editing, there’s been surprisingly little buzz about a best picture nomination.

Artists and critics argue that Ellen DeGeneres deserves a nomination as supporting actress for the depth, pathos and humor of her performance as the voice of Dory in “Nemo.” (“I speak Whale” ranks as one of the funnier lines in an American film in 2003.) But will members of the actors’ branch honor a purely vocal performance, even a brilliant one? It’s a long shot.

Fans of “Belleville” maintain that Chomet should be nominated for best original screenplay, asking how many Hollywood screenwriters could tell a story entirely in mime, but that’s an even longer shot.

If “Finding Nemo” and “The Triplets of Belleville” are nominated, animators hope the contest will be perceived not as computer animation versus hand drawn animation or as an American powerhouse studio versus a foreign independent artist but as a sincere attempt to honor the best animated feature of 2003.

That may be longest shot of all.