Friday, December 12, 2008

The List of 15

The visual effects branch of the Academy have announced their 'list of 15' films, considered semifinalists in the race for the Oscar nominations for the 81st Academy Awards.
  • “Australia”
  • “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”
  • “Cloverfield”
  • “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
  • “The Dark Knight”
  • “The Day the Earth Stood Still”
  • “Hancock”
  • “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”
  • “The Incredible Hulk”
  • “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
  • “Iron Man”
  • “Journey to the Center of the Earth”
  • “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”
  • “Quantum of Solace”
  • “The Spiderwick Chronicles”
The Executive Committee will then whittle this list down to seven films in the next few weeks, which will be featured at the bake-off (to take place on January 15), where each of the seven films presents a reel of their finished work, and takes questions from the entire visual effects branch. The entire branch then votes for their top three choices, which ultimately determine the three Academy Award nominees for Best Visual Effects. The nominees for all categories will be announced on January 22. The entire Academy then votes on the winner.

Personally, I'm happy that none of this year's animated films made this list of 15, which allows the industry to sidestep the entire issue of debating the term visual effects, as we had to last year, when "Ratatouille" and "Beowulf" made it to the 'list of 15.'

I am also generally happy with this list of films, meaning, I don't sense any major snubs ("The Matrix Revolutions" being ignored in 2003) or 'are you kidding me?!' films on this list.

My prediction for the final seven films: "Prince Caspian," "Benjamin Button," "Dark Knight," "Hellboy II," "Indy IV," "Iron Man," "Spiderwick."
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10 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:59 AM

    snubbed: speed racer/gaeta/libreri.

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  2. Todd Vaziri6:47 PM

    Anonymous said... snubbed: speed racer/gaeta/libreri.

    Really? Have you seen the film?

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  3. Anonymous9:30 AM

    s

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  4. Anonymous9:39 AM

    why a movie like spiderwick chronicles is so overlooked and underrated? nobody is mentioning it for a possible oscar nod. the movie has some terrific carachter animation that looks much better than prince caspian and it was made with a fraction of the budget.

    considering that SC will be certainly snubbed, my final prediction for the final three is :

    1)Iron Man

    2)Benjamin Button

    3)The Dark Knight

    ReplyDelete
  5. TylerMirage6:15 PM

    I agree with that list for the most part.

    My biggest beef is: why is "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in there and "10,000 B.C." isn't?

    My predictions for the semi-final 7are (alphabetically):
    The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Hancock, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

    As for the final 3, I have the movies that I HOPE would be nominated, (TCON:PC, IM, and TM:TOTDE, just so that WETA, ILM, R&H, and DD can get nominations) and then there is the list of films that will probably get nominated merely because of hype and critical acclaim (TCON:PC, TDK, and TCCOBB)

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  6. Anonymous2:36 AM

    No way in hell should Mummy 3 be anywhere near that list, worst effects of the year by far. Rob Cohen is up there with Stephen Summers as the worst purveyor of vfx in the industry.

    Anyway it's another no brainer this year, as I suppose it should have been last year ironically, Ben Button will win hands down, and then Avatar next year, so it's not much of a discussion till 2011. Some of Button is genuinely astonishing, but it never gave me the amazement that Davy Jones did.

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  7. TylerMirage7:00 PM

    I do agree with Anonymous that The Mummy 3 may not have had the best VFX (but it didn't have the worst {Speed Racer, Journey to the...}), but I just want it to be nominated for R&H and DD sakes.

    It would also be nice for ILM to actually WIN an Oscar again.

    I predict that for 2009 films, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will no doubt be in the final 3. I hope that it wins.

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  8. Anonymous6:24 AM

    the anonymous is right, sadly: this year button will win and the next year avatar, no matter how good the vfx in the Cameron movie will be... just only for the hype.

    see titanic: in my opinion it had the worst effects of the three movies nominated, back in 1998.

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  9. Todd Vaziri8:51 PM

    TylerMirage said... My biggest beef is: why is "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in there and "10,000 B.C." isn't?

    There's no question that the two chin-scratchers on the list are "Australia" and "Journey," with "Mummy 3" close behind. The clips I saw from "10,000 B.C." were pretty spectacular; however, the film was generally received much more poorly (ahem, 9% on the Tomatometer) than any of the other long-listed films, which, I believe, makes a significant difference.

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  10. Todd Vaziri9:02 PM

    Anonymous said... No way in hell should Mummy 3 be anywhere near that list, worst effects of the year by far. Rob Cohen is up there with Stephen Summers as the worst purveyor of vfx in the industry.

    Hey, I can't disagree with you there! My article on "Stealth's" visual effects: http://fxrant.blogspot.com/2007/10/good-thankless-effects-stealth.html

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