40th Annual Annie Awards Winners: Disney Wins Big

Last night, ASIFA-Hollywood handed out this year's Annie Awards, honouring the best of animation for 2012; the evening was hosted by animation and film historian Leonard Maltin. The Annies are self-touted as animation's highest honour, and last night the highest honours went to Disney.

Awards Bits: 40th Annual Annie Nominations, and New For Your Consideration Ads

Awards season is soon to be upon us, as such, ASIFA-Hollywood have unveiled the nominations for the 40th Annual Annie Awards. After the Pixar shut-out a couple of years ago, it seems things are back to normal this year, with Pixar/Pixarians getting a total of 10 nominations this year. That said, this year seems to be a very evenly distributed year, with DreamWorks getting a colossal 26 nominations (bear in mind they did release two features and a few TV specials this year).

39th Annual Annie Awards Results

Saturday was the 39th Annual Annie Awards, honouring the greatest achievements in animation over the past year. Following on from a controversial year last year, where DreamWorks' How to Train your Dragon swept the ceremony, this year it was Nickelodeon and Paramount's Rango that topped the ceremony, winning 5 awards.

The animated western story of lonely and eponymous chameleon, Rango, is the frontrunner for the Animated Oscar this year, and beat out DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, as well as Pixar's Cars 2 and others to scoop the top prize at this year's Annies. The Gore Verbinski directed film also took home awards, including Editing and Writing in a Feature Production.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson took home the award for Best Director for Kung Fu Panda 2, and there were awards handed to The Adventures of Tintin, Winnie the Pooh and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

For a full list of winners, click here.

Annie Award Nominations Revealed

ASIFA-Hollywood have revealed the nominations for the 39th Annual Annie Awards, 'Animation's Highest Honor' will be presented on February 4, 2012 and the extensive slate of nominations were released online today.

The top prize, the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, this year has a whopping 10 nominations, including my personal favourites, The Adventures of Tintin and Kung Fu Panda 2. The full list of nominations for the award can be viewed below:

Best Animated Feature

• A Cat in Paris – Folimage
• Arrugas (Wrinkles) - Perro Verde Films, S.L.
• Arthur Christmas – Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animations (my review)
• Cars 2 – Pixar Animation Studios (my review)
• Chico & Rita – Chico & Rita Distribution Limited
• Kung Fu Panda 2 – DreamWorks Animation (my review)
• Puss In Boots – DreamWorks Animation
• Rango – Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink/GK Films Production (my review)
• Rio – Blue Sky Studios (my review)
• Tintin – Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall (my review)

There seems to be a large portion of Individual Achievement Awards for Disney's Winnie the Pooh (my review) and DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots - some absolutely gorgeous films. Obviously, as DreamWorks is one of the main sponsors of ASIFA-Hollywood, there's always the accusation of unfairness - especially due to the shut out of Toy Story 3 last year and the lack of nominations for Cars 2 this year, following the very public pulling out of the studio's support for the awards -, but Kung Fu Panda 2 was brilliant, and I'd hate to see a repeat of last year, where How to Train Your Dragon's monumentous wins were overshadowed by screams of fowl-play.

Read the full list of nominations here.

Also, rememeber to vote in the poll to the right, for your favourite animated film of the year, to decide The People's Favourite A113Animation Award.