We really are in awards season right now and the latest this weekend were the Annies, the gongs given out to the year’s best animation works in many categories from Best Animated Feature to Best Animated Short to categories that celebrate the individual technical feats that create those animations, such as Best Animated Effects. There was strong competition in the Best Animated Feature category with Coraline and one of my faves of 2009, the Secret of Kells, in contention, but the mighty Pixar scooped them with the wonderful – and quite moving – Up. Futurama: Into the Wild, Green Yonder took the Best Home Entertainment gong, Robot Chicken’s Star Wars 2.5 got the Best Animated Short Subject award. Surprisingly Miyazaki’s latest offering, Ponyo, wasn’t in the running for the feature category (check the Annies’ site for the full list of winners). Next up for animation fans should be the BAA, British Animation Awards, which come along every two years and usually highlight some interesting work (and if you love animation you should check out some of the DVDs they have available collecting work by previous winners)
(scene from Up!, directed by Pete Docter, (c) Pixar/Disney)
February 7th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I absolutely loved Up! It was actually one of the better films I saw this year. While I must admit, I’m not into watching a lot of children’s or animated films, this film kept me entertained throughout. Great film, can’t wait to see what it does for the rest of the awards.