The Annies announced their nominees earlier this month, so for once that award will be first up in the rundown. The last month has also been full to the brim with critic’s awards, which can influence the Academy.

It will be a five-nominee year for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. 18 films were sent in for a chance at nomination for the award, and all were accepted. The motion-capture debate seems to have been for naught; all three films under question were accepted, though only one is a contender.

There's a long tradition of horror stories set in Antarctica. H. P. Lovecraft set In the Mountains of Madness in the white continent, featuring a race of giant cave-dwelling albino penguins who shrieked “Tekelili!” over and over.

Happy Feet Two continues the tradition of Antarctic penguins repetitively crying out horrific noises. Instead of shout-outs to Edgar Allan Poe, however, these penguins cry out dated pop songs. The horror, the horror.

September is an important month for next year’s awards. Major film festivals earlier in the month (which didn’t feature anything remotely furry, so this is their last mention), plus the beginning of screenings of studio hopefuls and even the first precursor award make September the unofficial beginning of “awards season” for movies.

Meanwhile, back in the furry fandom, a major player has had a setback, completely changing my Ursa Major predictions.

There are three big movie awards furries should be watching, or, at the very least, have somebody watching for them: the Oscars, the Annies and the Ursa Majors.

This year looks to be interesting in all three awards. With Pixar flopping and all sorts of new rules, the Best Animated Feature Oscar may be a surprise this year. The flop also affects the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature. Finally, the fandom’s own Ursa Majors’s Best Anthropomorphic Movie will see something entirely new; a movie made by the fandom.