Annie Awards this year...

I hate to justify why a film would win... if it wins, to suggest that it deserves otherwise is a huge injustice to the hundreds of creatives who worked extremely hard to produce such a massive, labor of love.

But for the sake of analyzing and posing an argument, one practical way to discern why one film would win over the other is by looking at the voting committee. The Annie's are nominated by the ASIFA (the International Animated Film Society). The Golden Globes are voted on by the Foreign Press Association (critics). The Oscars are voted on by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (various high profile representatives in the film community).

As a former family film critic, Wall-E appeals to critics in a tremendous way. The social commentary, the inclusion of old black and white film footage, the homage to silent filmmaking... this is the stuff film critics who are almost ALWAYS film scholars and historians... LOVE! Sure, Panda was an homage to Kung Fu films... but kung fu films (Kurosawa's contributions aside) are generally left out of the discussion in film-school. To many cinephiles, kung fu films are still unjustly viewed as low-brow, B-movie, fare. So, Wall-E takes the cake at the Golden Globes.

The fact that Panda made such a striking sweep at the Annies, demonstrates that Kung Fu Panda was viewed as the greatest achievement in animation this year as far as the animators are concerned. Certainly, Wall-E was a wonderful story and artistically relevant... however, Pandas landscapes (pick up a copy of The Art of Kung Fu Panda), were EXTREMELY elaborate, utilized a tremendous amount of matte painting, etc. The designs that didn't make it into the film were just as spectacular... some of the old designs looked like they came from a Hiyao Miyazaki film. From what I understand, fur is more difficult to render than metal. And the emotional nuance in Kung Fu Panda came through in the characters facial expressions... so brilliantly, not an easy feat. How many CG animals have you seen that are eerily dead in the eyes? Yes, it's amazing that Wall-E achieved a highly emotional impact just by using limited facial contortions and BEEPS and BLIPS... but technically, Panda was the harder slope to climb.

Now, the Oscars... that's a tough one to call.