Here Are The Movies Eligible For The Best Animated Film Oscar

Sixteen feature films are eligible for this year's Best Animated Film Oscar. I think it's good they get some recognition, but bad that a film like "Toy Story" or "Beauty and the Beast" has never won the big enchilada, Best Picture. This year, the eligible films are:

Buena Vista's "The Wild," DreamWorks Animation's "Flushed Away" and "Over the Hedge," Paramount Pictures' "Barnyard," Sony Pictures' "Open Season," Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Ant Bully" and "Happy Feet" and 20th Century Fox's "Ice Age: The Meltdown," Buena Vista and Pixar Animation's "Cars," Fox's "Everyone's Hero," Sony's "Monster House," and Universal's "Curious George," as well as Warner Independent Pictures' indie offering "A Scanner Darkly," Luc Besson's "Arthur and the Invisibles," set for release from the Weinstein Co. and MGM; Satoshi Kon's "Paprika," from Sony Pictures Classics; and Christian Volckman's "Renaissance," from Miramax Films.

Normally, PIxar would be a lock, but "Cars" -- despite being a huge hit, didn't have quite the same emotional pull as their other films. I'd say the three top nominees are "Cars," "Flushed Away" and -- sight unseen -- "Happy Feet." I'm more excited to see this movie every day because I think director George Miller is one of the most unique talents in the industry. He's done the Mad Max movies, the Babe movies and "Lorenzo's Oil," among others. And he was working on this animated penguin movie long before "March of the Penguins" became a phenomenon.