Furry Movie Award Watch: August 2012
Go crossie! It’s your birthday! We’re gonna party like it’s your birthday!
Okay, that’s enough of that, then. On to the column.
crossie’s Current Best Guesses
| Academy Award for Best Animated Feature | Annie for Best Animated Feature | |
|---|---|---|
| Winner | Rise of the Guardians | Rise of the Guardians |
| Nominees | Brave ParaNorman The Rabbi’s Cat The Secret World of Arrietty |
Brave Frankenweenie From Up on Poppy Hill Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted ParaNorman Pirates! A Band of Misfits The Secret World of Arrietty Wreck-it-Ralph |
Blame it on Bloody Disgusting: The secret origin of Furry Movie Award Watch
A little over a year ago, I was feeling in horror movie kind of mood, so instead of doing the obvious thing and watching a horror movie, I decided to read about them on the Internet. BloodyDisgusting.com was number one on Google’s search list for “horror movies” at the time, so that’s where I went.
I browsed the archives, and an article wormed its way into my mind. It was about the movie Black Swan, which is a horror movie about a wereswan. Okay, so the wereswan thing is all in Princess Amidala’s head, and it is not about a ballerina transforming into a swan and pecking people to death when the moon is full – which is a movie I would totally pay money to see – but it did beat out The Howling III: The Marsupials for best transformation into a werecreature by a ballerina while onstage. The DVD packaging says it is not a horror movie, but a “psychosexual thriller,” which I believe is a genre that can be defined as “a horror movie that was nominated for Best Picture.”
Jaws is definitely my favorite psychosexual thriller.
So, Black Swan was nominated for Best Picture, which inspired BloodyDisgusting.com to write a snub article. If horror’s fans can respect their genre enough to say, “Look, Academy, you done us wrong,” and say The Bride of Frankenstein is a better movie than The Great Ziegfield
(it totally is, by the way), then it makes it a bit easier for outsiders to respect the genre.
Horror fans respect their genre, and demand respect for their genre, because they know it deserves respect. Same thing for fantasy fans, or science fiction fans, or all those comic book fans who know The Dark Knight was the Best Picture of 2008, and are hoping this year the Academy rectifies the situation with at least a nomination for The Dark Knight Rises. Most genre fandoms want recognition for their genres, not themselves.
How I spent my summer vacation: From horror to the Western, but still furry
Earlier this month, I made my annual visit to the old Western town of Creede, Colorado. It gets to call itself an “old Western town” because it is the place where Robert Ford, the guy who shot Jesse James, was himself shot.
Creede was one site of filming for the upcoming The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp, directed by Gore Verbinski – and if that pairing of actor and director doesn’t remind you of anything, what are you doing reading this column?
I wish I had been a couple months earlier, when the shoot was taking place. Yes, it would have been cool to see Johnny Depp (and a local store proudly displayed a picture of Depp walking down the thoroughfare), but I really wanted to see the director, Gore Verbinski. I doubt I would be able to talk to the guy, but I could at least shout something stereotypical like, “I’m you’re biggest fan!” at him. Because I am.
And if I somehow got to actually say something to him, since this is a fantasy, after all, the one thing I’d make sure to tell him was that, though it was great that you got Best Animated Feature, really, the Academy ripped him off. Rango should have been a Best Picture nominee, plain and simple, with a complementary Best Director nomination for Verbinski, of course.
I think that’s something he needs to know. His movie has a fan, and that fan thinks his movie deserves more respect than what it got.
Then, since this is a fantasy, I would pitch him my Rango sequel revolving around Angelique the secretary fox in the background and he would be all like, “Let’s do it!” and I would become a rich and famous Hollywood writer and I’m getting off point.
About the author
crossaffliction (Brendan Kachel) — read stories — contact (login required)a reporter and Red Fox from Hooker, Oklahoma, interested in movies, horror, stand up comedy
Formerly Wichita's only furry comic.
Comments
Actually, errata to the errata; Up From Poppy Hill is produced by Studio Ghibli, distributed by GKIDs, so watch out for that one.
Though what the heck happened to the Ghibli/Disney partnership?
Looks like my original comment went to data heaven; original errata is Arrietty came out in Japanese theaters too early, so disqualified for next year's Oscars.
There was some other stuff, too, but I don't remember.
The Cartoon Brew website announced two days ago that distributor GKIDS intends to release four foreign animated theatrical features during November 2012, to qualify for the 2012 Best Animated Feature Oscar® and the 2012 Annie Awards. GKIDS is planning Academy® qualifying Los Angeles runs in November for the Japanese 2011 From Up On Poppy Hill, directed by Goro Miyazaki; the French 2012 Le Tableau, directed by Jean-François Laguionie; the French 2011 The Rabbi’s Cat, directed by Joann Sfar & Antoine Delesvaux; and the 2012 French/Belgian Zarafa, directed by Rémi Bezançon & Jean-Christophe Lie. This will raise the number of animated theatrical features distributed in the U.S.A. during 2012 to fifteen, only one short of the minimum requirement to qualify five nominees for the 2012 Best Animated Feature Oscar®. The fifteen are:
The Lorax (Illumination Entertainment/Universal)
The Pirates: Band of Misfits (Aardman/Sony)
Madagascar 3 (DreamWorks Animation)
Brave (Disney/Pixar)
Ice Age: Continental Drift (Blue Sky/20th Century Fox)
ParaNorman (Laika/Focus)
Hotel Transylvania (Sony)
Frankenweenie (Disney)
Rise of the Guardians (Dreamworks Animation)
Wreck-It Ralph (Disney)
A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman (TV premiere?)
Zarafa (Pathe/GKids)
The Rabbi’s Cat (TF1/GKids)
Le Tableau (Rezo/GKids)
From Up on Poppy Hill (Studio Ghibli/GKids)
There are still four months for a distributor to add a sixteenth feature; possibly Walt Disney Home Entertainment’s Secret of the Wings, currently scheduled for a direct-to-home-video release on October 23.
Fred Patten
Here’s In Contention’s take on the GKIDS movies; basically reprinting the press releases, with a minimum of commentary. And here’s the Ernest and Celestine piece I linked to on Newsbytes; basically, if you read the updates, not only is Disney releasing Secret of the Wings (Tapley says confirmed, and I believe him), but something called Arjun: The Warrior Prince as well. Also, A Liar’s Autobiography, about the Monty Python animator, will be qualified, and none of these movies are “live action hybrids” or “mocap” or “rotoscoped,” so they all definitely qualify.
It’s a fiver year, unless the Academy changes the rules again, like they just did to the Original Song (basically, we get five songs; none of this two nominees crap) and Art Direction (not really a rule change but a name change, to Production Design; it has always been an award for production design, not art direction, so they finally changed the name to actually reflect what they are awarding instead of naming it after something they aren’t rewarding).
Of the four GKIDS movies, A Rabbi's Cat is definitely furry in that the title character is definitely furry (an anthropomorphic animal), Zarafa is about an (I believe) non-anthropomorphic giraffe, Le Tableau is about anthropomorphic drawings and paintings, but (I believe), no animals, while From Up On Poppy Hill is definitely not furry with no animals or anthropomorphics.
Actually, let me rephrase that; it's still not a automatically a fiver year, because, though they changed the voting system on the Original Song category (as well as made it mandatory that the Original Song category be five), the thing that happened last year in Original Song, with the just two songs? Yeah, that can actually totally happen in Best Animated Feature.
Under current rules, if there are 16 or more movies both submitted and qualified for the category, it means between 2 and 5 movies can be nominated; between 12 and 15 movies s' and q'ed means between 2 and 4 nominees, while less than 12 means either 2 or 3 nominees.
That being said, while even I think its a weak year, we still have some interesting stuff coming up (Rise of the Guardians is the favorite, with Frankenweenie a dark horse spoiler, and, heck, maybe even Wreck-It-Ralph is a player), and GKIDS seems to know how to pick it, so I wouldn't bet against a fiver year.
I am not making it my official guess, but all four GKIDS movies being on the final nominee list would not surprise me.
Arjun, the Warrior Prince, had its trailer posted on 19 May in the "'Krishna aur Kans' chronicles early life of Vishnu avatar" post. It looks very good, but totally non-anthro.
http://www.flayrah.com/4044/krishna-aur-kans-chronicles-early-life-vishnu-avatar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tqBnA7d9P4
Fred Patten
The Cartoon Brew website has confirmed that Disney is releasing both Secret of the Wings and Arjun, the Warrior Prince theatrically at Hollywood's El Capitan Theater to qualify them for 2012 Academy Award consideration.
"The El Cap is currently playing an Oscar-qualifying engagement of the new Tinkerbell direct-to-video, Secret of the Wings. Apparently Arjun will begin playing each night, at 9:20pm, to also qualify for Academy consideration. The showings begin this Monday night and will run through next Sunday September 9th."
This makes seventeen animated features to be officially released in America this year, meaning that the Academy can nominate its full slate of five contenders for the 2012 Best Animated Feature Oscar®. They also qualify for ASIFA-Hollywood's 2012 Annie Awards.
Fred Patten
Egads! I just realized I apparently forgot my Ursa Major Award predictions.
They hadn't changes since last time, and I didn't discuss them at all, but oopsy-whoopsy-doopsy.
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