Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
No big shockers here: The late Heath Ledger received Best Supporting Actor and WALL-E Best Animated Film. Less predictable was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button winning Best Visual Effects over The Dark Knight and Iron Man. Button also took Art Direction and Makeup, while The Dark Knight nabbed Sound Editing.
Slumdog Millionaire was the night’s biggest winner, with Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, both music awards and several others.
The Fanboys cometh. Director Kyle Newman interviewed at StarWars.com and Sci Fi Wire, while Billy Dee Williams talks to SciFi Scanner.
Meanwhile, TFN has the final theater count and a Chicago premiere report. And for those of us who are going to have to wait, Newman tells us what to expect on the DVD.
Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II won Annie Awards for Best Animated Television Production, Writing, and Voice Acting for Ahmed Best’s Jar-Jar. But perhaps the biggest shock was the total shut-out of WALL-E – it was beat in nearly every category it was nominated for by Kung Fu Panda. Seriously. Kung Fu Panda. The hell?
Other winners include Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Kevin Kiner was up for Music in an Animated Television Production for the ‘Rising Malevolence’ episode of The Clone Wars, but lost out to Henry Jackman, Hans Zimmer & John Powell for Secrets of the Furious Five, a Kung Fu Panda spinoff.
Going on a combo of box office and popular acclaim, I’ve chosen three frontrunners: The Dark Knight, Iron Man and WALL-E as the year’s top genre films. Vote now! Continue reading “Poll: If we chose the Oscars…”
Per usual, not too much for genre fans to get excited about. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I suppose could classify as fantasy, sort of, had the most nods this year, including Best Picture and Actor. Heath Ledger is up for Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, but the movie failed to get any other major nominations. It is up for the usual throw-them-a-bone categories of Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.
Wall-E did pretty good – it failed to get a Best Picture nod as many were hoping for, but it is up for Animated Film (duh,) Original Screenplay, Original Song, and several technical awards.
The Visual Effects category puts Benjamin Button up against The Dark Knight and ILM’s Iron Man.
UPDATE: StarWars.com has a full listing of all ILM and Skywalker Sound Oscar nominations, as well as BAFTA and VES nods.
The New York Times may have gotten George Lucas, but the Los Angeles Times has Ben Burtt… The Star Wars sound designer is also responsible for the voice of Pixar’s Wall-E. (Which, in addition to great reviews, ruled the box office this weekend.)
The Movie Blog asks: Is Star Wars robot inspiration for Wall-E? Well, this one, certainly…. This one? I’m not so sure. But hey, they have one of those cut scenes videos. Been a while since that one last came around, right?
Today’s biggie: a new trailer for Pixar’s Wall-E. Sorry Artoo – there’s a new adorable robot in town.
Elsewhere…
Rumor Mill of the Crystal Skull
Franchise Madness
And then…
Stardust may not be out yet, but it’s certainly getting its share of hype. It’s currently getting a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (from only five reviews, granted) but Neil Gaiman is everywhere.
Really, there ought to be a band
Videos du jour