By Adam Spunberg

The Academy has a driveling habit of discriminating by genre, particularly when it comes to its marquee category: Best Picture. At times, the nominations seem almost too predictable, as if the members of the Academy joined some Hollywood version of a Puritan cult (Scientology maybe?), predestining what ought to be revered and what expunged. The actors even show up in fancy costumes, worship statues, and offer tearful, inebriated soliloquies. This, until they can find the after-party most closely resembling the orgy from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (where’s Tom Cruise?).

World War II flick? Golden! Period Piece? Lavish! Comedy? Better be quirky, feature a dysfunctional family, or take place in some other country. $200 million+ Blockbuster? Oh, we wouldn’t dare want any popular films.

Of all the categories, however, the most de-lionized, sunken, rusted, Prometheus-ed, undercooked, and now dehumanized victim just happens to be the most creative: Animated films. The last animated feature to garner a nomination was Beauty and the Beast in, oh, 1991! Let’s categorize the 80 nominated films since 1992, with winners in bold and post-2000 films italicized:

World War II/War Epic: 10 nominees, 4 winners
(A Few Good Men; Schindler’s List; Braveheart; The English Patient; The Thin Red Line; Saving Private Ryan; Gladiator; The Pianist; Letters from Iwo Jima; Atonement)

Period Piece: 4 nominees, 1 winner
(Howards End; Sense and Sensibility; Shakespeare in Love; Gosford Park)

Historic/Biopic: 15 nominees, 3 winners
(Forrest Gump; Quiz Show; Apollo 13; Shine; Elizabeth; Titanic; A Beautiful Mind; Seabiscuit; Ray; Finding Neverland; The Aviator; Munich; Good Night and Good Luck; Capote; The Queen)

Drama: 21 nominees, 2 winners
(Scent of a Woman; The Crying Game; The Remains of the Day; The Piano; In the Name of the Father; The Shawshank Redemption; Secrets & Lies; LA Confidential; Good Will Hunting; The Green Mile; The Cider House Rules; Traffic; Erin Brokovich; In the Bedroom; The Hours; Mystic River; Million Dollar Baby; Brokeback Mountain; Crash; Babel; There Will Be Blood)

Dark/Quirky Comedy: 9 nominees, 1 winner
(Pulp Fiction; Fargo; The Full Monty; American Beauty; Chocolat; Lost In Translation; Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine; Juno)

Romantic Comedy: 3 nominees, 0 winners
(Four Weddings and a Funeral; Jerry Maguire; As Good As It Gets)

Musical: 2 nominees, 1 winner
(Moulin Rouge; Chicago)

Action/Thriller/Horror: 7 nominees, 2 winners
(The Fugitive; The Insider; The Sixth Sense; Gangs of New York; The Departed; Michael Clayton; No Country for Old Men)

Western: 1 nominee, 1 winner
(Unforgiven)

Foreign: 3 nominees, 0 winners
(Il Postino; Life is Beautiful; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

Fantasy/Adventure: 5 nominees, 1 winner
(Babe; The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; The Return of the King)

What can we learn from the above data? Sweeping War Epics owned the 90’s, Romantic Comedies and Foreign Films have no chance, and Dramas and Thrillers have been gaining steam, especially of late. Amazingly, not a single Animated film was deemed worthy of a nomination. Let’s examine six of the forgotten:

The Nightmare Before Christmas: (97% Rotten Tomatoes Score)
The Lion King: (92% Rotten Tomatoes Score)
Toy Story: (100% Rotten Tomatoes Score)
Finding Nemo: (98% Rotten Tomatoes Score)
The Incredibles: (97% Rotten Tomatoes Score)
Ratatouille: (96% Rotten Tomatoes Score)

For those of you who don’t know, a Rotten Tomatoes Score is a tabulation of positive-to-negative critics reviews across the country. Anything above a 90% is considered phenomenal, with Toy Story’s 100% being essentially unheard of. I am not suggesting that these six films should have won in their respective years, but one has to take into account the unparalleled acclaim and incredible popularity of these efforts.

There were many who thought WALL-E had a chance of bucking this unholy trend. While I never fully expected it, I still found myself dismayed when the 2008 nominations were announced and WALL-E was inexplicably discarded. WALL-E is quite possibly the most imaginative film ever made, with stunning visuals, a truly original premise, and a unique form of robot-to-robot dialogue that both personifies machines and condemns humanity all at once.

While I could spout WALL-E’s praises for another 5,000 words (which, consequently, would be 5,000 more words than those uttered in the film’s first act), I will resort to a simple, technical argument. Here is how WALL-E ranks among the 2008 nominees in Rotten Tomatoes scoring:

WALL-E: 96%
Slumdog Millionaire: 95%
Milk: 93%
Frost/Nixon: 91%
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 72%
The Reader: 60%

The statistics above are not sacrosanct; I would personally question all 28% of the critics who saw fit to defame The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for instance. In the case of WALL-E, however, it is abundantly clear that EVERYONE loved it, awarded it the highest marks, and should recoil in disappointment at this most odious of omissions.

Nate Freiberg contributed to this post.