Life lines: animation takes a new shape for the feature film Waking Life.

This month, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announces the first three nominees for its new Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The nominees, selected from a list of nine eligible films, will vie for the first competitive Oscar to be awarded (on March 24) to a feature-length animation. The big bucks, of course, are on the two big box office winners, Disney/Pixar's Monsters, Inc. and Dreamworks/PDI's Shrek, both animated with 3D computer graphics and each of which earned well over $200 million in 2001. But the long shot is Waking Life, an independent film directed by Richard Linklater that earned a scant $2.54 million at the box office and won the New ...