I was also pretty surprised that "Cars" was trounced by "Happy Feet" for Best Animated Feature. Nonetheless, while I enjoyed "Cars" and went to see it twice on the big screen, I agree with AerostarMonk that it was a far cry from Pixar's best work. I haven't seen "Happy Feet" (or "Monster House", for that matter), but the trailer did make it look a tad...well, ridiculous? ??? I'm not getting at the fact that its central characters are a colony of talking, singing, dancing penguins (no more ridiculous than a film about talking, sentient cars), but that the lead penguin should be banished in such disgrace from his family because he can't sing, only tap-dance? I don't know, maybe I'm missing something there. I'll try not to judge it until I've seen it...
To be honest, I found it hard to get terribly excited about any of the Animated Feature nominees this year. 2006 was pretty much another year ruled by the ever-increasing CG-animation glut. I was much more interested in the nominees of last year's ceremony, which were refreshingly CG-free.
Oh yes, and congratulations to Mr. Scorsese.
