Of all the films I could have gotten for screeners, I had to get one I’d already seen. Ah well.

Despicable Me 2

Stars: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Russell Brand, Ken Jeong, Steve Coogan, Elsie Fisher, Dana Gaier, Moises Arias, Nasim Pedrad, Kristen Schaal
Director: Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin
Premise: From IMDb: “Gru is recruited by the Anti-Villain League to help deal with a powerful new super criminal.”
Oscar Chances: Good: There were a lot of duds this year in Animated Feature, but Despicable Me 2 got good reviews and did spectacularly at the box office. A nomination is assured. A win is unlikely.
Campaign-Proposed Categories:

• Best Animated Feature (Chris Melendandri, Janet Healy)
• Best Director (Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin)
• Best Adapted Screenplay (Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio)
• Best Film Editing (Gregory Perler)
• Best Production Design (Yarrow Cheney, Eric Guillon)
• Best Sound Mixing (Christopher Scarabosio, Gary Rizzo, Tom Johnson)
• Best Sound Editing (Dennis Leonard)
• Best Visual Effects (Bruno Chauffard, Nicolas Brack, Milo Riccarand)
• Best Original Score (Heitor Pereira)
• Best Original Song (“Happy” – Pharrell Williams)

Rotten Tomatoes:
75% (6.7 average rating) (166 critics; as of 12/11/13)
Metacritic:
62 out of 100 (39 critics; as of 12/11/13)