New The Pirates Clip - We Laugh in the Face of Danger

Aardman have just released a new clip (above) from their next stop-motion animated film, The Pirates. Branded here in England as The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists (and The Pirates! Band of Misfits internationally), the film will be Aardman's first stop-motion film since 2005's Oscar winning The Curse of the Were Rabbit; it also mark's Chicken Run director Peter Lord's return to the director's chair.

The clip displays the trademark style and British wit of the animation giants that has made them a huge hit with critics and fans alike over the years, and also the luscious animation on display in the film.

The Pirates will be released in conjunction with Sony Pictures Animation on 28th March here in the UK, and 27th April in America.

New La Luna Clip

Entertainment Weekly has premiered a new clip (above) from Pixar's Oscar nominated short film, La Luna. The short, which has been making the rounds of festivals in the past few months, is scheduled to premiere worldwide with Pixar's 13th feature film, Brave, this summer.

The clip, which is accompanied on EW's website with an interview with the film's director, Enrico Casarosa, is charming, nostalgic and makes it obvious that La Luna is set to be one of Pixar's finest shorts to date. The musical accompaniment by Pixar favourite Michael Giacchino is also sublime.

For the clip and interview with Enrico Casarosa, head over here.

Via Upcoming Pixar.

Shrek: Once Upon A Time

No matter what you make of the sequels, Shrek, as a film and indeed a franchise, is one of the most important and noteworthy sagas in animation history; the 2001 original did, after all, win the first Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Tonight, BBC Three (this's really only applicable if you're in the UK) has a night of Shrek in store. Shrek the Halls is on right now, to be followed by the original film, however, the point of this post is what starts at 9. A documentary based upon the influence of Shrek, entitled Shrek: Once Upon A Time, narrated by David Tennant. It sounds great, after all, the Pixar: 25 Magic Moments documentary that BBC produced recently was great! I would suggest catching it if you can.

Randy Newman Goes to the Oscars

This afternoon A.M.P.A.S. announced that Toy Story 3 composer, Randy Newman, is going to perform his Best Original Song nominated track, "We Belong Together" at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards.

Surely this is a good sign for Newman's chances of scooping up another Oscar.

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards take place on 27th February, 2011.

VES 2011 Results

Last night was the 9th annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards Ceremony and DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon was dominant in the animated categories, winning all three awards it was nominated for, these were:

·         Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Simon Otto, Craig Ring, Bonnie Arnold

·         Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture – Toothless

Gabe Hordos, Cassidy Curtis, Mariette Marinus, Brent Watkins

·         Outstanding Effects Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Andy Hayes, Laurent Kermel, Jason Mayer, Brett Miller

Congrats to the whole DreamWorks team, whilst undoubtedly many will complain that Toy Story 3 didn't win anything, at this point it's almost a certainty that TS3 will win the Best Animated Film Oscar, so it's nice for DreamWorks' brilliant How to Train Your Dragon to be recognised, it's certainly fantastic.

However, Pixar weren't awardless, as Day and Night won the Oustanding Achievement in an Animated Short Award.

Do you agree or disagree with these results, let us know with the new reactions feature below!

Oscar Predictions

Since the nominations for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards have been revealed, I thought it would be a good idea to give my predictions for them. The films I want to win are in bold, the films I think will win are underlined. Categories with no bold or underlined entries means I haven't seen any of the films nominated.

Best Picture
'Black Swan'
'The Fighter'
'Inception'
'The Kids Are All Right'
'The King’s Speech'
'127 Hours'
'The Social Network'
'Toy Story 3'
'True Grit'
'Winter’s Bone'

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, 'Black Swan'
David O. Russell, 'The Fighter'
Tom Hooper, 'The King's Speech'
David Fincher, 'The Social Network'
Joel and Ethan Coen, 'True Grit'

Best Actor
Javier Bardem, 'Biutiful'
Jeff Bridges, 'True Grit'
Jesse Eisenberg, 'The Social Network'
Colin Firth, 'The King's Speech'
James Franco, '127 Hours'

Best Actress
Annette Bening, 'The Kids Are All Right'
Nicole Kidman, 'Rabbit Hole'
Jennifer Lawrence, 'Winter's Bone'
Natalie Portman, 'Black Swan'
Michelle Williams, 'Blue Valentine'

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, 'The Fighter'
John Hawkes, 'Winter's Bone'
Jeremy Renner, 'The Town'
Mark Ruffalo, 'The Kids Are All Right'
Geoffrey Rush, 'The King's Speech'

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, 'The Fighter'
Helena Bonham Carter, 'The King's Speech'
Melissa Leo, 'The Fighter'
Hailee Steinfeld, 'True Grit'
Jacki Weaver, 'Animal Kingdom'

Best Animated Feature Film
'How to Train Your Dragon'
'Illusionist'
'Toy Story 3'

Best Foreign Film
Mexico - 'Biutiful'
Greece - 'Dogtooth'
Denmark - 'In a Better World'
Canada - 'Incendies'
Algeria - 'Outside the law'

Best Original Screenplay
'Another Year'
'The Fighter'
'Inception'
'The Kids Are All Right'
'The King's Speech'

Best Adapted Screenplay
'127 Hours'
'The Social Network'
'Toy Story 3'
'True Grit'
'Winter's Bone'

Best Art Direction
'Alice in Wonderland'
'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I'
'Inception'
'The King's Speech'
'True Grit'

Best Costume Design
'Alice in Wonderland'
'I Am Love'
'The King's Speech'
'The Tempest'
'True Grit'

Best Original Song
'Coming Home' - 'Country Strong'
'I See the Light' - 'Tangled'
'If I Rise' - '127 Hours'
'We Belong Together' - 'Toy Story 3'

Best Original Score
'How to Train Your Dragon' John Powell
'Inception' Hans Zimmer
'The King's Speech' Alexandre Desplat
'127 Hours' A.R. Rahman
'The Social Network' Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Best Documentary
'Exit Through the Gift Shop'
'Gasland'
'Inside Job'
'Restrepo'
'Waste Land'

Best Film Editing
'Black Swan'
'The Fighter'
'The Kings Speech'
'127 Hours'
'The Social Network'

Best Makeup
'Barney's Version'
'The Way Back'
'The Wolfman'

Best Sound Editing
'Inception'
'Toy Story 3'
'TRON: Legacy'
'True Grit'
'Unstoppable'

Best Sound Mixing
'Inception'
'The King's Speech'
'Salt'
'The Social Network'
'True Grit'

Best Visual Effects
'Alice in Wonderland'
'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1'
'Hereafter'
'Inception'
'Iron Man 2'

Best Documentary (Short Subject)
'Killing in the Name'
'Poster Girl'
'Strangers No More'
'Sun Comes Up'
'The Warriors of Qiugang'

Best Visual Short Film (Animated)
'Day & Night'
'The Gruffalo'
'Let's Pollute'
'The Lost Thing'
'Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)'

Best Short Film (Live Action)
'The Confession'
'The Crush'
'God of Love'
'Na Wewe'
'Wish 143'

It's certainly a packed show this year, I'm personally predicting that the films that will pick up the most Oscars are The King's Speech, The Social Network, Toy Story 3 and Inception. I'm personally pulling for Toy Story 3 and Inception. Also... what?... no Best Director nomination for Christopher Nolan or Lee Unkrich, they better be saving Chris Nolan's nomination for the Dark Knight Rises! 

The awards are set to take place on February 27th.

Critics' Choice Awards

Yesterday was the 16th Annual Critics Choice Awards and it was a big night.

2010 was a great year for Animated films and every film nominated received significant critical acclaim, the nominations can be viewed below:

• Despicable Me
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Illusionist
• Tangled
• Toy Story 3

The winner this year was...
Toy Story 3, Pixar's 11th feature film scooped up the prize for Best Animated Feature and director Lee Unkrich accepted the award in person.

However, it is worth noting that Toy Story 3 lost out in the other 4 categories it was nominated in, with The Social Network taking the top prize for Best Picture. Not long now to see which film takes home the Oscar.

You can read the full list of awards and nominees here.

Your thoughts?

Toy Story 3, 12 New For Your Consideration Ads

Pictured above are 4 of the new 12 For Your Consideration Ads for the Toy Story 3 Best Picture Oscar Campaign, above is the Not Since... posters for Godfather Part II, Mutiny on the Bounty, Platoon and Silence of the Lambs. They are all, in my opinion, really appealing and good looking. You can check out all twelve on the Disney Awards Site in the campaign section of the photo tab.

Toy Story 3, New For Your Consideration Ad

Over the past few weeks as the Toy Story 3 Best Picture push gathered steam, we've seen several For Your Consideration Ads for Pixar's 11th feature - which you can see here, here and here - previous ads spoofed past winners such as Shakespeare in Love and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. This new ad spoofs James Cameron's award winning and several billion dollar grossing Blockbuster Titanic.

The ad was originally seen in Variety on December 13th, and is now online (above).

Whilst I think the ad is really good and a great idea, I think the text colour - in this case - is quite poor and difficult to read. Nonetheless TS3 has my vote.

Thanks to The Pixar Blog for alerting me to this.

Annie Nominations Revealed

The nominations have been revealed for the 38th annual Annie Awards, the nominations for Best Animated Feature are as follows:

• Despicable Me – Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures
• How to Train Your Dragon – DreamWorks Animation
• Tangled – Disney
• The Illusionist – Django Films
• Toy Story 3 – Disney/Pixar

Notably, Toy Story 3 is nominated, despite the fact that earlier in the year Disney and Pixar publicly withdrew support for the awards, due to the inexplicable voting and judging methods. Presumably still annoyed that WALL E (the eventual 2008 Oscar winner) lost to DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda, blaming the fact that DreamWorks buys each new employee an ASIFA-Holywood membership.

The nominations for Best Animated Short Subject are as follows:

• Coyote Falls - Warner Bros. Animation
• Day & Night – Pixar
• Enrique Wrecks the World - House of Chai
• The Cow Who Wanted To Be A Hamburger - Plymptoons Studio
• The Renter - Jason Carpenter

The awards will take place on February 5th, 2010

Day and Night Oscar Run

The latest short film from Pixar, Day and Night, that was attached to Toy Story 3, has been officially confirmed to have progressed to the shortlist for Best Animated Short Film Category for the 83rd Academy Awards.
Nominations for the actual awards will be announced on January 25th 2011, with the awards taking place on February 27th.
You can read the press release from A.M.P.A.S. here.

Toy Story 3, Awards Season

Well, Awards season has well and truly begun, to show this Disney have revamped their awards site to try to nominate all of their films in some category or another. However, none are more deserving of Oscars galore than Toy Story 3, as such we have seen the first for your consideration ad on the cover of Variety this week (pictured below).

And finally and most awesomely, the Toy Story 3 screenplay has been released online, in the hopes of being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, the screenplay is brilliant and if there is any justice in the world, Toy Story 3 will become the first animated film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

What do you think? Can Toy Story 3 do it?