One look at the Wikipedia page for animated Oscars nominees makes it abundantly clear that the Academy doesn’t respect animation. Animated films rarely get nominated for any awards outside their designated categories of Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short Film (the two exceptions being Best Score and Best Original Song). While I would like to see more animations nominated for awards like Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, it’s understandable that the medium is too unique to go head-to-head with live-action films in these categories. What bugs me, though, is the complete lack of foreign animated nominations in any category. Only about 20 foreign films have been nominated in the 24-year history of the Best Animated Feature category, a clear sign of the Oscars’ Americentricism. Worse yet, only three foreign animations have ever been nominated for a non-animation category — Flee (2021) for Best International Feature and Best Documentary Feature, Flow (2024) for Best International Feature, and The Triplets of Belleville (2003) for Best Original Song.

This leads us to the Academy’s next major issue with animation: the Disney bias. Disney produces the vast majority of animated nominees for any award. 15 of the 24 Best Animated Feature winners were made by Disney. I understand that animation would not exist as it does today without Disney’s influence. However, the field has grown significantly since the days of Steamboat Willie (1928). Current animation is a diverse medium with incredible depth in its storytelling. It feels unfair that one studio, no matter how significant, should have an effectively guaranteed nomination any year they put out a film. This goes for non-Disney American animations as well. Are you really telling me that the Academy, with all its wisdom and resources, could not find a more deserving movie than Shark Tale to take a spot in the 2004 race? I understand there are far fewer animations than live-action features produced yearly, but this just feels lazy.

2017 saw the single most egregious example of Americentricism costing a foreign movie its due recognition. 2017’s Best Animated Feature nominees included the prestigious ranks of such movies as Ferdinand and, better yet, The Boss Baby. For those not in “the know” when it comes to high art, The Boss Baby is about a baby who wears a business suit and speaks with the voice of a grown man — a novel concept, to be sure — possibly even Oscar-worthy. But at the risk of falling into pretension, let me tell you about another animated film that might just surpass The Boss Baby in its cultural relevance and artistic merit.

A Silent Voice is a 2016 Japanese coming-of-age film directed by visionary filmmaker Naoko Yamada and animated by Kyoto Animation. It follows Shouya, a teenage boy who relentlessly bullied his deaf classmate, Shouko, in elementary school. Years later, Shouya himself became a victim of bullying and fell into depression as a result. In an effort to repent, he reconnects with Shouko. A Silent Voice delicately tackles topics like bullying, anxiety, and children with disabilities. It confronts harsh realities; it’s biting, yet soft. Its animation is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. And, according to the Academy, it is less deserving of an award than The Boss Baby. My movie of 2024, Look Back, is another similar case (although 2024 thankfully didn’t have a Boss Baby analog in the running). Notably, only one non-Studio Ghibli Japanese animation has ever been nominated for Best Animated Feature: Mirai in 2018 — odd for a country with such a prolific animation scene.

Don’t get me wrong — I (mostly) don’t hate The Boss Baby. It’s a wonderful kids’ movie. I enjoyed it when I watched it as an 11-year-old. But therein lies the problem. In the Academy’s eyes, “animation” equals “for kids.” See anonymous 2015 Academy Voter #5’s comment:

“I only watch the ones that my kid wants to see, so I didn’t see [The] Boxtrolls… The biggest snub for me was Chris Miller and Phil Lord not getting in for [The] Lego [Movie]. When a movie is that successful and culturally hits all the right chords and does that kind of box-office — for that movie not to be in over these two obscure freakin’ Chinese fuckin’ things that nobody ever freakin’ saw? That is my biggest bitch.”

Also look to Voter #7, who put it more succinctly:

“Frankly, I didn’t see any of them.”

So, some Academy members don’t even watch every animated nomination. Some just don’t believe that foreign animations are worth seeing. This kind of attitude is why movies like A Silent Voice get snubbed, and movies like The Boss Baby are praised. This is troubling, not just because of the blatant racism, but also because The Oscars are supposed to be an authority on the best films of any given year. How can viewers put any stock in this institution when it blatantly ignores works of art that undeniably merit discourse?

There is hope, though. 2024 saw Flow, an independent Latvian film, win Best Animated Feature. It even beat out titans like Pixar and Dreamworks on the way to its award. This is a step in the right direction. Maybe one day, the Academy will wake up and give animation the respect it deserves — before another Boss Baby sneaks its way in.

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David Lynch, an enigmatic filmmaker, died on January 15, 2025. David Lynch’s passing was not only a huge loss for his many fans, but also for actors and film industry people who worked with him. Numerous well-known actors have expressed their grief over this loss on social media, sharing how David Lynch impacted their lives personally and talking about his unique character. Kyle MacLachlan wrote in an Instagram post: “I will miss my dear friend. He has made my world – all of our worlds – both wonderful and strange.” Kyle MacLachlan starred in a number of David Lynch roles, including that of Agent Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks (1990-1991) and Paul Atreides in Dune (1984), to name a couple. Strangeness and ambiguity aren’t the only constants within Lynch’s work. There is also a strong sense of loyalty between the director, cast, and crew. Kyle MacLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Jack Nance, Naomi Watts are just a few of the actors who consistently appear in his films. The lovely messages online from actors and collaborators are very telling of Lynch’s character, as is their apparent eagerness to work with him in multiple projects. He was special to fans and to those within the industry.

In my interview with Chris Alexander, a fellow filmmaker and artist, he had much to say about David Lynch: who he was as a person, as well as the unique artistry of his work. We covered several of Lynch’s films – those that seemed to have the biggest impact on Alexander – including The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Eraserhead (1977), as well as his hit TV series, Twin Peaks. Alexander pointed out that Lynch often incorporated aspects of reality into his work while depicting them in strange and ambiguous ways (referring to Eraserhead): “Here we have this insane movie … at its core about fatherhood and the anxieties surrounding fatherhood presented in such a fucking insane way.” When asked about how Lynch left his mark on the industry itself, Alexander stated, “I think he has managed to affect the film industry, change the way so many people watch movies, receive movies. He is an artist to his heart. When he was not making movies, he was making furniture, or painting pictures, or releasing records. He had to create. But everything he did was incredibly singular. He never sold out. He always made stipulations to sugar-coat his weirdness for the mainstream, but he never bent.” Like many gifted artists, Lynch had a compulsion to create and never worried about catering to anyone if it meant changing his style and not remaining true to himself. This was a huge part of his appeal. “He was always true to himself. He never wavered from who he was as an artist. And yet he managed again to change the system from within, to affect the mainstream, and never, ever sold out to the suits.”

Alexander further talked about the intricacies that set Lynch aside from other experimental directors: “To watch Lynch’s movies, sometimes it bypasses the intellect and goes right to the guts. You feel it. You viscerally respond to it. And a lot of it has to do with elemental imagery.” Lynch was known for his over-the-top creative choices that oftentimes were grotesque with seemingly no rhyme or reason. His use of music was fascinating. It could seem contradictory even; for instance, the girl with the ethereal voice juxtaposed by the gritty Twin Peaks biker bar. And yet, it worked. Alexander further discussed how Lynch’s death personally impacted him as an artist: “It ’s almost like an eraser of your past because everything you grew up with, the magic in your life, starts to deplete, and you have to really train yourself to look elsewhere for the magic. But with Lynch’s passing, it really felt different than many of the great artists and thinkers we know.” Lynch’s unique style and artistry genuinely reflected his character. He didn’t just love to create – he absolutely had to, and he did it in a true, real way. In a world where we are taught to fear – where our instincts are to avoid things that are different, foreign, and weird – Lynch strived to embrace it. He was a man with an open mind and heart who was not afraid to show it. David Lynch was a true artist who left a lasting mark on the film industry and on many individuals. He was weird, and we love him for it.

My first experience with a David Lynch film was the nightmarish Eraserhead, his 1977 feature-length debut. Attempts at explaining this film’s plot are famously futile – more important is the feeling it evokes. For me, it was pure disorientation. I was lost; I didn’t know what was happening, what to think, or how to feel. I felt like I had unmarked paths, each leading to an indescribable somewhere.

Lynch’s films are all like that. They bring you into the dark; they try to show you what you can’t see. Inevitably, they lose you. And yet, once the credits roll, you feel a shift towards clarity. Through a descent into the unknown, you become immersed in your unique sense of being. That is the essence of a dream. Wading in the muddled corners of consciousness, those other places our waking selves don’t get to see. When you wake from a dream, you simultaneously experience the return to one self and the loss of another. That is, we trade one self for another every time we wake up. Lynch embraced that fear: he wanted to show us the other place. He wanted us to dream.

When I think of dreams put to screen, I think of Mulholland Drive (2001). It follows aspiring actress Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) and mysterious amnesiac Rita (Laura Harring) as they try to find their
way in an unfamiliar Los Angeles. Numerous disjointed vignettes point to some hidden truth that is never entirely revealed, ultimately prodding at the insidious underbelly of America’s entertainment industry. Betty gets off the plane alongside a friendly elderly couple who welcome her to Los Angeles and assure her of imminent success in her acting pursuits. After she leaves them, the film jumps to a scene of them in a limousine… smiling. Not casually smiling as you’d imagine, but intently, silently grinning as they stare into the distance. This is one of many scenes that warp a familiar situation just enough for deep unrest to permeate. Something is slightly awry, like in a dream. The whole film feels fuzzy, like how your eyes are out of focus moments after waking up.

This quality envelopes Mulholland Drive. It lends it an unreality that serves both absurd humour and cosmic horror. Like any dream, Mulholland Drive is fluent in both of these languages. It oscillates between them, containing some of the funniest and most terrifying moments I’ve seen in a film. The dichotomy of absurdism and horror is a common theme in Lynch’s works, and he often uses it to make us question reality.

The 1990s murder mystery show Twin Peaks is perhaps David Lynch’s most famous work. Like Mulholland Drive, it uses a harsh juxtaposition of humour and horror to expose the terrifying realities we live with but do not acknowledge. The show begins after after the isolated mountain town of Twin Peaks is shaken by the death of homecoming queen and local sweetheart Laura Palmer. Idiosyncratic FBI agent Dale Cooper is assigned to the case, and his investigation uncovers supernatural mixed truths. Both tonally and stylistically scattered, Twin Peaks contains extreme moments of psychological horror and violence in with a (by-design) cheesy teen soap opera. The use of horror to punctuate the moments of whimsy provides a glimpse into the show’s ultimate goal: to expose the lie of the American dream. On the surface, Twin Peaks is an idyllic mountain paradise straight from a postcard. However, once the layers are peeled back, the disgusting undergrowth of American life reveals itself. This is accentuated by Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), a prequel film that depicts the tragic events that led to Laura’s death. It is an unabashedly scathing critique of idealistic America; the once-picturesque town of Twin Peaks is reduced to a desolate wasteland of parking lots, trailer parks, and suburban sprawl. This reflects the experience of Laura, who was ultimately failed by the cookie-cutter American experience. These themes are explored throughout Lynch’s work, including films like Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, which examine the horror beneath mundanity.

Beyond surreal horror, David Lynch was also capable of realistic an highly compassionate films.
The Elephant Man captures this side of him better than any other work. The film is a biopic of Joseph “John” Merrick, a man who lived in 19th- century London and suffered from severe physical deformities due to an unknown medical condition. Merrick was exhibited in a freak show as “The Elephant Man” until he met an esteemed doctor and was housed permanently at the London Hospital. The Elephant Man forgoes Lynch’s signature surrealism, instead opting to tell a humanistic story of a gentle soul who endured immense mistreatment and pain. It captures both extremes of human suffering and compassion as John Merrick learns what it means to be known, to be loved, and to have your heart be full. The Elephant Man is a testament to Lynch’s versatility as a filmmaker. He knew brutality and compassion, imminent realities, and indescribable dreams. He understood every extreme and portrayed them with respect for the inevitable humanity at the core. He had a way of realizing distilled ideas on the screen like no one else.

In his book Catching the Big Fish (2006), he wrote: “I believe that if you sit quietly, like you’re fishing, you will catch ideas. The real, you know, beautiful, big ones swim kinda deep down there so you have to be very quiet, and you know, wait for them to come along… So, you get an idea and it is like a seed. And in your mind the idea is seen and felt and it explodes like it ’s got electricity and light connected to it. And it has all the images and the feeling. And it ’s like in an instant you know the idea, in an instant…”

David Lynch passed away on January 15, 2025. He was 78 years old.

His age, debilitating emphysema, and relative inactivity over the past seven years had marked an evident slowdown in his career, but his death shook me nonetheless. To me and many other fans, David Lynch was a myth – a cloudy form like smoke. But the haze eventually drifts away, and we inevitably wake from our dreams. That ’s how I process David Lynch’s death. His being has dissipated into the atmosphere and gone somewhere we can’t know. As his Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost said, “The man from another place has gone home.”

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Directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata founded Studio Ghibli after the success of Miyazaki’s 1984 sophomore film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Several salient stylistic choices and themes employed throughout the studio’s future works were introduced in Nausicaä. Core ideas include independent female protagonists, a fantastical aesthetic, and humanity’s relationship with nature. The clash between humanity’s technological progression and nature’s primordial influence, has been one of Miyazaki’s favourite ways to examine the idea of home. This conflict is explored heavily in both Nausicaä and Miyazaki’s 1997 environmentalist fantasy epic, Princess Mononoke, where humans must reconcile the natural home they have with the tech-forward home they want to build. In both films, industrial progression results in a resource-hungry conquest at the natural world’s expense. It could be said that the environment is the home we are provided, and industry is the ideal home we seek to construct.

Ghibli often frames humanity’s clash with the environment through its portrayals of war. Princess Mononoke, Nausicaä, and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) are all defined by war’s inescapable nature. An unfortunate side effect of war is the destruction of homes — an idea encapsulated best by Isao Takahata’s tragic Grave of the Fireflies (1988). In this film, the young siblings Seita and Setsuko see war eviscerate their home in every imaginable capacity. Their house, hometown, and family are burned asunder by the wrath of America’s WWII firebombing campaign. The older brother Seita must build a new home for himself and his younger sister. Faced with hostility and misfortune at every turn, he tries to scrape together enough to provide for her. But war is merciless, and the young family of two can barely find enough food to survive. Seita’s home, once broad and multifaceted, has been concentrated into a burning desire to preserve his sister’s life. Grave of the Fireflies scrutinizes how we as a society doom the innocent through war, which in its essence, is nothing more than the brutal destruction of countless homes.

Grave of the Fireflies premiered alongside Miyazaki’s whimsical My Neighbour Totoro (1988) in an infamously conflicting double feature. Like Grave of the Fireflies, Totoro explores how definitions of home can quickly change. This film follows young sisters Satsuki and Mei after they move to a country house near the hospital where their mother is undergoing treatment. Their mother’s removal from the household, combined with a complete change of scenery, forces the girls to redefine their concept of home. This process is portrayed through a fantastical exploration of nature and imagination. The rustling of trees in the wind, a verdant tunnel through the bushes, and magical soot sprites in the attic help the girls transform their environment into a new home. This culminates in the introduction of the eponymous Totoro, a jolly spirit of the forest who shows the girls mysterious, supernatural wonders in the nature surrounding them. Whether a real or imaginary friend, Totoro’s presence represents a childlike wonder that can turn any foreign place into a home.

Explorations of home are omnipresent in Ghibli’s oeuvre, from Chihiro’s odyssey to the real world in Spirited Away (2001) to young witch Kiki’s search for meaning in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). But this examination would be incomplete without Miyazaki’s latest (and possibly final) work, released just last year: The Boy and the Heron (2023). This film is perhaps Miyazaki and Ghibli’s most ambitious project yet, prodding at life’s purpose, from birth to death to whatever lies beyond. In fact, the original Japanese title How Do You Live? may be a more apt signifier of what lies at the core of this film. This psychedelic jumble of fantastical whimsy and human pain encompasses every theme discussed so far. The Boy and the Heron knows war. It knows grief. It knows wonder, family, love, and deep within its core, it knows home.

Buried within its boundless oceans, its blazes of war, and its effervescent spirits is a boy who wants to know what “home” is for himself. After losing his mother in a fire, Mahito moves with his father to the country and follows a heron to an alternate world. There he meets an old wizard, the world’s proprietor and eternal denizen, who has built this world as a home for himself. He tasks Mahito with continuing its maintenance, as his lifetime will soon end. It is ultimately up to Mahito to decide if this world can be his home. I see this as Ghibli’s way of answering a question with another question, appropriately idiosyncratic for Miyazaki’s potential swan song. How does an artist appeal to an audience’s infinitely variable sense of home? According to the mind of Miyazaki, simply ask them to figure it out for themselves.

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