I don’t believe that the Producers of the Oscars or whoever won’t let the three nominees just perform their songs! That’s ridiculous. All the nominees have obviously worked incredibly hard and deserve to have their time in the spotlight. I can see why Peter Gabriel has chosen to pull out, and although I really do hope this hasn’t affected his chance of winning the Oscar, at the same time, it seems sort of trivial now. What’s the point of the Oscars if they’re going to be this political? Surely by doing this sort of thing on a consistent basis, they’re just going to invalidate the entire amazingness of getting an Oscar in the first place!
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see now, though if Down to Earth doesn’t win, we’ll probably never know if it was because of this or if it was just because it wasn’t the favourite anyway.
Actually the accepted belief amongst most Oscar predicting bloggers and people who are “in-the-know” on the subject isthat due to Slumdog’s two nominations it is more likely to split the vote between them giving WALL-E the edge. And we do not know that Down to Earth didn’t score better than the two Slumdog songs, actually, since WALL-E easily could’ve had a “10” vs. both Slumdog songs having a “9” each. Read up on how the Best Song portion works for more info on those scores and how they work.
I get the feeling that the academy are probably trying to set up Slumdog Millionaire as one of the Oscars’ big multiple award winners. What with its universal praise and already large collection of empty cups.
So Wall-e’s chances of collecting best song do seem rather slim, regardless of whether or not it deserves the award. It probably will be handed to Slumdog.
I mean, just look at the baftas! Slumdog winning best sound over Wall-e???
Tonight WALL-E again made history, becoming the first animated film in history to win an ACE Eddie award (basically the equivalent of an “Editor’s” guild) for Editing.
First animated film ever to recieve that award? That is quite an achievement! I haven’t heard of that award before, but for the editing of WALL-E to be recognised in such a way is brilliant. Thanks for the information, wallefanatic.
You’re very welcome. The ACE is basically the Editor’s Guild (like the WGA for Writers, DGA for Directors, etc.) It’s definitely a fairly big accomplishment. Schaffer didn’t even have a speech prepared, it came as such a surprise.
It’s just too bad the CAS (sound) missed the boat on WALL-E. It was nominated but didn’t win. Instead they chose fairly “standard” fare over a world created in large part out of created sounds, i.e. WALL-E.
That’s great news for Wall-E! I can’t believe Wall-E is the first film to win the ACE Eddie Award! Great Job to Stephen Schaffer!
It’s also sad that Peter Gabriel won’t be playing Down To Earth. I really don’t see why they won’t just let him play the whole song. I was really looking forword to watching him perform live. I guess I’ll just listen to it on my Ipod a few times.
There is, at least, still hope that we’ll get to hear it performed live. Just by the gospel choir that is Gabriel’s backup and not by Gabriel himself. And of course truncated as part of a dumb medley.
Benjamin Button won the main award. Newman did 2 movies this year, including Revolutionary Road, but that wasn’t enought against the tidal wave of Danny Elfman.
Oh well, but Newman at last weeks Grammy’s fetched two major awards.
Congratulations to Thomas Newman for WALL•E, and all of the other composers for their respective work. A quick note is that Michael Giacchino won for his Cloverfield ‘Roar’ Overture. That piece is amazing!
All of the composers here are deserving ones. I really like Canadian film composer Andrew Lockington’s work in City of Ember. So I am glad that he was recognized for it. Andrew Lockington’s newest movie score is for a movie called One Week. It looks like it should be really good as well. oneweek.ca/
One award is still good! Congratulations to Thomas Newman! The score for Benjamin Button was very good, and it’s been such a hyped-up movie with all those Oscar nominations that I’m not too surprised it won the main award. Thanks for the information and the link, DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver.
Congratulations to Thomas Newman for the award, he must feel really honored for the noms! This is just another piece of evidence that this year’s Annies are crazy!!
Thanks for the tip, DHoSW!
-People magazine ran a 2 page blurb this week covering Best Picture and the 4 actor awards, and on the margin put up the image of Wall-E and said he should win Best Animated: “…it’s really better than some of the Best Picture noms”.
-TV Guide, which has the largest circulation of any magazine, ran 3 pages covering the same categories, plus a few others, and also listed who “Will Win” and who “Should Win”, not always the same result. They implied that Wall•E was better than the other Best Picture films and wasn’t in that group because of the squemishness against animation. That it should have been nominated and might have won.
So, just perusing the supermarket checkout, the most popular magazines in the country, including the two above and Entertainment and Time all say who the real winner should be. Tens of millions of people are reading all this stuff about Wall-E. The Academy nominated 2 fairly popular movies with a positive ending this year, as opposed to last year’s gloomy choices.
Although the film with the most uplifting ending (WALL-E) still got no Best Pic or Best Director nod. And WALL-E was Time’s #1 Movie of the Year, so no surprise there. ^^ Anyway, a few minor awards (most of them net-based) such as the VES (visual effects, which has animation categories) and Gold Derby (online awards from the LA Times) coming up today. If WALL-E gets anything good I’ll try to post about it.
Guess what? We have further proof that The Annies were a farce this year, especially for those who’s argument for the panda’s success is it has “better traditional animation and character design”.
For anyone else interested in online awards (and these are from the LA Times website so they aren’t exactly just any random group’s) there’s the Gold Derby, where WALL-E walked away with 4 awards, including Best Picture:
While I had hoped that WALL•E would have gotten something at the Annies, Kung Fu Panda was good, and I still don’t think that they were fixed in any way.
Anyway, i don’t think that WALL•E will win all 6 of it’s awards tomorrow, but I do think that it could be in the 2-5 range. I guess we will just have to see though…
Oh! And congratulations again to all of the people who worked on WALL•E for all of it’s awards up until now.
I thought Kung Fu Panda was great and DreamWorks best to date as well. Still doesn’t hold a candle to WALL-E, and if anyone needs any real proof that inside politics effected the decision, look no further than The Carpetbagger, one of the most respected awards-season posters:
I’m participating in a practically live commentary on the Wall-E forums! But anyway, moment of truth for Best Animated Pic is coming up! Looks like Best Original Screenplay is on now. Wow, there’s a huge turnout today on this forum too! Update Okay, Wall-E missed out on making history to be the first Animated film to get Best Original Screenplay. It’s Milk.
I really don’t see why they won’t just let him play the whole song. I was really looking forword to watching him perform live. 
I guess I’ll just listen to it on my Ipod a few times.
