This year's Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature don't have a lot in common besides animation.

You've got a dark vision of Pinocchio, a red panda from Pixar, a swashbuckling sea adventure,

the latest entry and the Shrek franchise, and a tiny shell. I'm Glen Weldon.

And I'm Stephen Thompson today. We are bringing you a guide to this year's Oscar nominated animated

features on pop culture happy hour from NPR.

It's just the two of us today, as we said at the top. This year's Best Animated Feature nominees

are all over the map. Let's kick it off with Pussin Boots, The Last Wish. That's the first movie

in 11 years from the Shrek franchise, in it the swashbuckling cat played by Antonio Banderis,

embarks on a quest to restore his nine lives. It's available to rent or buy on demand and will

be streaming on peacock starting March 10th. Glen, what did you think of Pussin Boots?

I mean, I like this more than I think I have any right to. You know, it's the end of the day.

Stephen, this wasn't loaded down with lore, with a lot of narrative baggage the way so many of these

movies are. They're so fussy. They're always overcomplicated here. It's a simple quest story.

There's a thing in the woods. Let's go get the thing in the woods. I'm down for that. And yeah,

I know the cuteness overload thing felt forced where, you know, they just kind of stare

at each other and get big eyes. We've seen it before. In fact, I understand intellectually that

all of these jokes, which I liked are the product of a writer's room of comedians doing punch up.

This is punch up the movie. I get that. But at the end of the day, the notion of Goldilocks and

Three Bears as a crime family, I'm in. I like Jack Horner as a villain. The thing I had most fun

in this movie was the whole dynamic between Jack Horner and the conscience bug. And if you haven't

seen it, the conscience bug is a riff on a Jiminy cricket. He's this insect who believes that even

the evil Jack Horner could not possibly be a bad person. You know, I'm starting to think you don't

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