Javier Mariscal - Movieline

The Oscars || BY Karen Nicoletti || 02 24 2012 3:50 PM

Oscar Chat: Get to Know This Year's Best Animated Feature Nominees

When the Academy announced its nominations last month for Best Animated Feature, two waves of surprise washed over Oscar watchers: Not only was Pixar left out in the cold for the first time in its history, but also two lesser-known films from abroad made the cut in the category: the noir-y French entry A Cat in Paris and the Spanish-language jazz-romance Chico and Rita. The directors of those films, along with Kung Fu Panda 2 helmer Jennifer Yuh Nelson, one of few female directors nominated this year, spoke with Movieline about the recognition from the Academy, technologies such as 3-D and motion capture, and their Oscar night excitement.
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Review || BY Stephanie Zacharek || 02 09 2012 11:40 AM

REVIEW: Chico & Rita Is Sultry, Seductive Old-School Animation, Set to a Latin Beat

We’ve come to the point where hand-drawn animation almost seems like a forgotten art, lost in the gaudy shuffle of motion-capture slickness a la The Adventures of Tintin and the sleek technical sophistication of pictures like Rango and Kung-Fu Panda 2. That’s why it’s such a glorious relief to greet the arrival of an old-school -– but very grown-up -- animated picture like Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando’s Chico & Rita, a romance that opens in late-1940s Cuba and uses a thumbnail history of midcentury Latin jazz as its backdrop.
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