There is not chance in hell Ratatouille does NOT win.

It's too damn good.

I could probably even make a case for it to win Best Picture.

I could seriously take EVERY scene that didn't have either a human or a rat in it, and you would think it was real.

Even some of the rats looked real.

Those are pretty much my exact thoughts. I think Ratatouille will win simply because it's the most beloved movie among critics this year. I do think though that Bee Movie has a better chance than some people are giving it. If it's clever, it might give both of the rats a run for their money.

Some of you still don't understand.

I would bet my life savings on Ratatouille winning. I wouldn't even give whichever 2 nominees are against it more than a 5% chance to win.

Chip, your unending faith in something will not change anyone's opinion on here.

Then obviously those who do not agree have not SEEN the movie

The great reviews and pending great B.O. pretty much secures The Simpsons a spot. So, Ratatouille and Simpsons, one spot to go. The Beowulf trailer showed promise, but the snubs for The Polar Express and Linklater's films showed that the animation branch might be biased against the idea of photo-realistic motion-capture. Monster House made it last year, but the animation there wasn't really aiming for realism like Linklater and Zemeckis have. I'm leaning towards Seinfeld love getting Bee Movie in at the moment. So:

Bee Movie
Ratatouille
The Simpsons Movie

I think the fact that TSM got great reviews, great success at the box office and is sort of a different medium (2-d vs. 3-d) lock it up for a nom.

For now I agree with Positive Jon in terms of the noms.

I'm afraid, in this rare case, he's right...

I'm not arguing about which side he's on. I'm just pointing out, much as you already know, that it really, really doesn't matter.

MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

Paprika is a Miyazaki film right? Now I haven't seen the full film, but I have seen two clips of the film with a giant girl/doll or something. From that clip I really can't judge the film accurately, but what I can say is the film has the main problem Miyazaki suffers in Princess Moonoke, is the inability to connect to the common man, though I am American and not Japanese, two highly common yet in its base different cultures. His themes are somber and raw in its emotions, brilliant, but never down to earth which is what helps elivate films and what ruins some fantasy films. Spirited Away did have this problem, but for its sake, it really wasn't a problem and took on an Alice in Wonderland feel instead but with an actual plot and less abstract. Brad Bird is able to capture the great elogance and thematics Miyazaki can, but in a more sensible manner, which is what elivates Ratatouille above anything any other director in the animation film can hope to obtain. His masterful characters has the realism that some want (which to me is plain silly) and the artistic character which is remotely ignored anymore, but unknowningly makes the greatest films of our days. Not only his characterization suberb, but so is his ability to write witty and whimsical, yet cool and collective screenplays. No man is quite like Brad Bird, and not only is he the greatest animation director of our day, he is one of the greatest directors of our day. Anymore a Spielberg has delved into the sad world of having to be real that his films aren't as fun or entertaining as they use to be, and that is what Spielberg does best. A Peter Jackson might have the great dramatic eye, but this eye works wonders on in films with big imaginations, his over-dramatics in King Kong where even too far. Clint Eastwood is another director too worried about being real in his presentation. I could go on, but few have the gift that Brad Bird has in a cinematic world where the best films so called by critics and Academy elites or experts are either so real they are as stale the french bread they serve two months old, or they are too bent on expressionalism that they have no feet to keep their story and characters from floating away in the director's eyes. I see Paprika as one of those epxressionalism pieces, it create beuatiful art, but animation is more than an art, it is a story with characters. That is why I'd say Ratatouille is better than Paprika based off the two scenes I have seen from the latter movie.

No. Sorry.

I hope it wasn't so, Miyasaki can be an expressionalist, but what makes him really good is how he doesn't go too far, this film feels like it goes to far in its exetentionalism. I don't like anime, not the animation style, but its over the top antics. However, Spirited Away is one of the top ten, hell top five best animated films, above most Pixar films even.

Not as good as Ratatouille.

beemovie because i like seinfeld. ie. all !!!

Good, not great.
But it was great.
Better than Ratatouille, actually, simply because of how amazingly creative it was. I've never been more sucked into an enviroment as I was with Paprika.

Paprika will be the best animated film this year, yes, but Ratatouille will win.

Paprika is all just a bunch of colorful flashy speciticles, whop-dee-do

Paprika actually qualified for LAST year's awards, for whatever reason, so it's not eligible.

Watching Paprika is like looking into the face of God and hearing a voice in your head that says, "Why the fuck are you looking at me, you should be watching Paprika."
It just so happens I'm listening to the soundtrack (should have won Best Score and Song last year AND this year), and I wandered into this thread to sing the praises of one of the most amazing films of all time (like, #3).

DIB, you ignorant little shit, you know better than to judge a movie by 2 clips. "Colorful, flashy, spectacles"? What the FUCK? The movie is ALL ABOUT character and story and detail (all of Satoshi Kon, Master Filmmaker, better than any American living, dead, or not yet born), the spectacle is just a way of telling that story and developing those characters. It'd be pretty hard to tell the story of a dream detective without getting all crazy.

Expressionistic? Exetentionalist? (spelled very wrong) Again, what the fuck? I Heart Huckabees is exetentionalist, it makes no sense and is a piece of shit. Paprika is about dreams. That's why it looks so weird. And all films are an expression of something, Paprika is Kon's expression and interpretation of the book on which it's based.

If there's a filmmaker you are missing out on, it can't be anyone but Satoshi Kon. I unfortunately haven't seen all his films (all but one), and you really need to see them all, too. Millennium Actress continues to blow my mind, you have never seen anything like it. If you want realism in animation, Tokyo Godfathers is simply the BEST example of that. And Paprika is simply one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Period.

Brad Bird is a very good director, yes. In fact, he's the only American animator working today that I can stomach. But something you must realize about him and all his Pixar friends. They are very good at what they do because they emulate people like Kon, meaning Miyazaki. They're getting there, but to quote my favorite review ever: "Evidence that Japanese animators are reaching for the moon, while most of their American counterparts are stuck in the kiddie sandbox." - NY Times on Paprika

And the disclaimer: while completely serious, my scolding of the young DIB was not at all malicious. He knows that, but those who don't know me cuz I'm new here might not have got that.

P.S. Americans don't like Mononoke cuz it's too Japanese. Duh. What I don't understand is why is it so hard to accept the concept of trees having spirits living in them? And gods being semi-mortal animals? People swallow the talking snake in a tree story pretty easily, what's so confusing about a talking wolf?

Paprika was great but I liked Ratatouille a little more.

I just didn't like the two scenes I saw, you are quite correct, that isn't enough to judge a film upon, but that is what I got out from it. I personally just like the style of the good American animation directors (meaning only Pixar and a few others). I have seen both Moonoke and Spirited Away, both I liked, escept only mildly liked Princess Moonoke and loved Spirited Away.

The Simpsons Movie is almost locked as the second nominee.

The question is the third. It'll be between Beowulf and Bee Movie.