Awards Season Recap: Monsters University

This awards season, unfortunately, has been a rather disappointing one for Pixar, as their brilliant but underrated feature Monsters University has been largely ignored by most notable award organizations. The film was downright snubbed by the Golden Globes and the Oscars this year, who for some reason preferred arguably weaker films like Despicable Me 2 and The Croods.

The Monsters prequel has, however, received some recognition from less-known organizations, and it did win a couple awards at the Annies, where it had a total of 10 nominations and ended up taking home the awards for Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production and Editorial in an Animated Feature Production. It was nominated for, but ended up losing, the following Annie Awards:

• Best Animated Feature
• Animated Effects in an Animated Production
• Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production
• Character Design in an Animated Feature Production
• Music in an Animated Feature Production
• Production Design in an Animated Feature Production
• Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production (Billy Crystal as Mike Wazowski)
• Writing in an Animated Feature Production
• Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production

Way back in October, the film also won a Hollywood Animation Award at the 17th Hollywood Film Awards. Unfortunately, it hasn't won anything outside of that and the Annies, but it has at least been nominated for several other awards including:

• Best Edited Animated Feature Film - American Cinema Editors
• Best Animated Film - British Academy Film Awards
• Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures (Animated) - Cinema Audio Society Awards
• Best Animated Feature - Critics' Choice Movie Award
• Best Animated Feature Film - Denver Film Critics Society
• Best Animated Film - International Cinephile Society
• Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures (Kori Rae) - Producers Guild of America Award
• Best Animated Feature - San Francisco Film Critics Circle
• Best Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media - Satellite Awards
• Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture and Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature Motion Picture - Visual Effects Society Awards
• Best Animated Feature - Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association

Awards are marvelous things, it's never a bad thing to give recognition to a filmmaker, actor, artist, or studio for their outstanding work. However, let's not forget that a film's (or a director's, actor's, etc.) greatness is not really determined by the number of accolades it earns. Films are meant to entertain, so shouldn't their greatness instead be determined by the joy they bring to people across the world? As the wise Doc Hudson would say, an award is "just an empty cup".

Congratulations to Dan Scanlon and the entire cast and crew for crafting a truly remarkable film with an exceptional message, a film that I hope will gain more recognition as it ages.

Today's the Big Day...

With the Oscars just a couple of hours away, I thought it was a good time to have a look back at all the accolades that have been awarded to Pixar's thirteenth feature film, Brave, this awards season. The film is nominated for Best Animated Feature tonight, although it's got some pretty intense competition, including Disney's astounding Wreck-It Ralph, directed by Rich Moore.

Brave took home the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature earlier in the season, beating out Wreck-It Ralph, Frankenweenie, Rise of the Guardians, and Hotel Transylvania. Heaven knows why Hotel T was nominated and Laika's fantastic stop-motion flick ParaNorman wasn't. Last year was the first time that a Pixar film didn't win the BAF prize at the Globes, with Cars 2 having been beat by The Adventures of Tintin.

Pixar's 13th was also nominated for a grand total of 8 Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, although that award ended up going to Wreck-It Ralph. On the up side, the film was awarded honors for Production Design in an Animated Feature Production and Editorial in an Animated Feature Production, so Pixar did not go home empty handed that night.

At the BAFTAs, Brave once again took home a Best Animated Feature award, beating Frankenweenie and ParaNorman.

Brave has also claimed several other prizes, including honors for Outstanding Animation, Outstanding Animated Character, Outstanding Created Environment and Outstanding FX and Simulation Animation from the Visual Effects Society. Merida, Queen Elinor and the pesky Witch also granted the film an award for Best Animated Females from the Women Film Critics Circle.

Other awards the film has won include:

• Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing from the Cinema Audio Society
• Best Edited Animated Feature Film from the American Cinema Editors
• Best Animated Female (Merida, voiced by Kelly Macdonald) from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists

Pixar's had quite the award season this year, and I'd be very pleased to see Brave win the studio a 7th Oscar for Best Animated Feature tonight. But even if it doesn't win, that won't change the fact that Pixar produced a beautiful film, with wonderful characters, gorgeous music, breathtaking visuals, and an amazing story, so I give my sincere congratulations to the talented crew behind Brave.

'Brave' Brings Home the Golden Globe

The awards season progresses, and yesterday night Pixar's Brave won its first major award at the 70th Golden Globe Awards. Director Mark Andrews and producer Katherine Sarafian came up to receive the award for Best Animated Feature Film. Watch Mark's acceptance speech below:

I'm very happy to see that Brave won, it was a gorgeous film in terms of both animation and story, and should be enough to prove to the world that the acclaimed Emeryville-based animation studio has indeed not lost its touch and can still make films meant to be treasured by audiences in their hearts for years to come.

Congratulations to Brenda Chapman, Mark Andrews, Katherine Sarafian and the entire team at Pixar for their Golden Globe win and for creating such an incredible work of art.

Toy Story 3 Wins Golden Globe!

Last night, the Golden Globes were held, and of course, Toy Story 3 and the geniuses at Pixar behind making all that movie magic were honored with the Best Animated Feature Film award! Pixar's 11th went up against:

-Despicable Me

-How To Train Your Dragon

-The Illusionist

-Tangled

But in the end, of course, TS3 went on to win. Congrats to Lee Unkrich (director), Darla Anderson (producer), John Lasseter (executive producer), and everyone else who helped bring this masterpiece to the big screen!

Photo credit: MSN

Toy Story 3 Highest Grossing Animated Film Ever!

Last week, the critically acclaimed Toy Story 3 set an all new record for highest grossing animated film ever. Looks like Dreamworks' Shrek 2, which held the record for six years, has finally been out grossed. TS3 grossed about $940 million globally at the box office last week when it broke the record, has grossed $941,580,518 so far, and may very well be on its way to one billion! It is the 9th highest grossing film of ALL TIME and has already passed Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Last week it was in 14th place. Can it make it to at least fifth place? Also, it has made it to 10th place on the domestic grosses list, beating Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. Toy Story 3 has broken many other records, which it has been doing ever since it hit theaters in June. This movie is going to do very good at the Grammys, the Golden Globes, the Emmys, and the Oscars. It has already won a Teen Choice Award for Best Animated Movie. We'll see what other awards TS3 wins along the way. Only time will tell if it will be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Good luck Toy Story 3!