Annie Awards turn into a joke

For those who haven't heard, the 36th Annie Awards, which celebrate the year's best in animated films, have announced their awards. The reason I write about it, is because one of the year's best films, WALL-E was nominated for more awards than had ever been nominated before and it did not win a single award.

Instead freaking Kung-Fu Panda swept the awards. The awards that Panda won over WALL-E include:

Best Animated Feature
Animated Video Game
Animated Effects
Character Animation
Directing
Original Music (WALL-E wasn't even nominated)
Production Design
Storyboarding
Voice Acting, Dustin Hoffman
Writing (again no WALL-E nomination)

Okay, besides looking at what WALL-E didn't win, let's look at what they weren't nominated for. Original Music and Writing, two of the categories that it was nominated for at the Oscars. I need a reason for this to be happening. What are the Annie's thinking? Did they actually see the kid jokes in Kung-Fu Panda and think that it was better than the substance and depth that WALL-E added? How about some other categories? Production design? No way. How could the giant city landscapes and space visuals lose to anything, much less the cartoonish ideas of Kung-Fu Panda? This is a failure of epic proportions. This is the animated equivalent of Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan.

I do want to say that this is not meant to downsize the quality of Kung-Fu Panda. It is in no way a bad film, but WALL-E is a genre definer and one of the best, if not the best animated films in history. In 20 years, is anyone going to remember Kung-Fu Panda? I would say no. In 50 years is anyone going to remember WALL-E? I would say yes.

Impending Top 10

Okay, so I've been holding off my Top 10 List for as long as I can and I plan to post it in about a week. I'll include my main eight categories while I'm at it, I just need to see one more film.

Ironically, it's the one movie every Oscar columnist is gaga over and it's the one film I've been actively trying to avoid. Yep, Slumdog Millionaire. It's out, but I'm broke, so as soon as I can, I'll catch it and post my list.

Stay tuned...

Welcome

Thanks for joining me here on WTSOYF, a blog dedicated to film and the Academy Awards.

In case you don't know, the blog title is based on a scene in The Insider where lawyer Ron Motley (great character actor and all-time "that guy" Bruce McGill) is defending his client from a pushy lawyer who, while listening to Motley banter on, gets a smug smile. Motley shoots back and makes whoever watches the film jump back with the scream of "WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE!" He then goes to shut the lawyer up and continue with his deposition.

That's not exactly what the tone of the blog is about, it's just a great line in a great movie. So, stick around and check the right side of the site for my Oscar winner predictions.

Stay tuned and thanks for joining us.