Alright! Up’s first best picture award! Bring more on, critics! 
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced their nominations earlier this week. Guess who’s in not one but TWO categories!
BEST PICTURE
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Invictus”
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
“Star Trek”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
“9”
“Coraline”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“Up”
Unfortunately, from what I’ve been reading online, it seems that the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild have rules against nominating directors or writers for animated films, so no “Up” love there (they also announced nominees for their awards this week).
This has already been known, but is a final tally and made a little splash today: Up was named highest on the TM for the year, for wide releases anyways:
insidemovies.moviefone.com/2010/ … ed-movies/
It’s 3 years in a row now of extraordinary/masterpiece films for Pixar.
Oh, also, here is a ‘little’ something from the movie awards website. This is a compilation of several hundred of the country’s leading critics’ Top 10 lists. It’s an excellent predictor of which films are going to get some sort of awards. Plz be aware, this does not include the opinions of technical producers, actors (20% of the voters in the Academy), editors, etc… But it usually is a good guide to films that you might like, as long as you look at summer popcorn movies with a jaded eye. Here is the list, and you will see why Up is probably not going to win the Academy Award for best film:
moviecitynews.com/awards/201 … board.html
This list is only 60% complete and will be done in another month. I would guess that only the top 6-7 movies have a shot at winning a bunch of awards. Avatar is there, but is likely to win only technical production awards. If you look back to 2007, Ratatouille is #9 with four 1st place votes and in 2008 Wall-E was by a wide margin in 1st place!
I’m excited about the Golden Tomato, especially since it continues the Pixar winning streak! I know Up isn’t going to win Best Pic at the Oscars, but I’ll be thrilled just to see it get a nomination in BP. The Oscar for Up I’m really pulling for is the one for Giacchino’s score! .
Well, analysts can’t always be right. I still think there’s a tiny TINY chance that Up will win best pic, but I’m not banking on it. If it does though, you bet your sweet behind I’m gonna be bouncing off the flipping walls over it. I’ll shave my head (well, maybe not THAT, but something drastic)
They did the “Critics Choice” awards last night (given by the Broadcast Film Critics Association), and Up won Animated Feature AND SCORE! They didn’t present the score award “live” (so no Michael G), but Pete Docter got to go up and accept the animated feature award, which was nice. (Up was also one of the 10 Best Picture nominees; BP was won by the much-acclaimed Hurt Locker.)
And… (Sunday night) Golden Globes! Best Animated Feature AND Best Original Score! MG was there this time and was so excited because Paul McCartney was rooting for him! Pete accepted for animated feature and made a lovely speech (and was wearing his Grape Soda pin again).
I have already put in for a half-day’s vacation on Oscar Nomination Morning.
They both made nice, focused speeches, and Up deserved what it won at the Golden Globes. Hands down.
Way to go, Pixar! Congratulations!
I wish I could do that… but I’ll definitely have the whole thing recorded.
It would be awesome if they integrated characters from Up into the ceremony, like they did with Edna Mode a couple of years back.
I think some characters from Up lend themselves to that kind of nonsense really well. 
Yay, Pixar have done it again! I’m not going to say I’m surprised, but I’m very pleased that Up is getting recognition in the bigger awards ceremonies.
The only way I can see Up winning is if the other movies get in each others’ way during the voting. Let’s go thru the negatives just like was done for Wall-E: It’s animation and animation has only been nominated once in 80 years. It’s heavily comedy and just tell me if Eddie Murphy has ever won anything from the Academy. It’s fantasy genre and how often does that win? Well, LoTR won on its final installment, a classic book series well known to all. It had several killer original songs and most importantly the big production sweeping epic factor. I don’t think Avatar will win because it’s not that epic, no great tunes, but it will take several production awards home. Up is a romance, but that doesn’t really extend thru the movie like The English Patient. Action movies have a chance, but action in Pixar movies is often to keep the kiddies in their seats: the chase scenes, which critics actually often do not like. It builds momentum for the climax, but at this critical cost rather than enhancing. (Ratatouille had chase scenes, even early on, but they were not necessary for the deja vu climax.)
Positives: original story line, moments of wonder and grandeur (altho the biggest moment was squandered in the advertising), high sentimental value, altho not quite Terms of Endearment. It’s a smart person’s film, always appreciated by the Academy. It’s score is very nice and memorable.
Good point about films getting in each other’s way. Especially true now that they’ve broadened the number of nominees for some of the categories. I’m certainly a believe that Up could be seriously considered for Best Picture. There are many of the live actions that can touch it for sheer enjoyment as well as for poignancy and just good old storytelling.
I’ll be thrilled just to see Up nominated for Best Picture. I’m not sure how much “getting in the way” there will be among the movies, because from what I’ve read, the final voting for Best Picture is going to involve each voter ranking the BP nominees 1 through 10 (instead of the usual way where they vote for one choice and that’s it). They’ll sort the ballots by the #1 choice on each, then eliminate the film with the smallest stack of ballots (fewest #1 votes) and redistribute those ballots by their #2 choice, and so on, until one film ends up with at least 50% of the ballots in its stack. (At least, that’s how I’m understanding it.) I could see Up getting some good support in the mid-range of the ballot, but there’s going to be something that falls pretty consistently in everyone’s top 3 or so, and that’s going to be your winner.
Ah, I see. I didn’t read the Academy rules far enough. That makes more sense now, so thanks for the explanation.
Latest award: “Up” won Best Animated Feature from the Producers Guild of America (PGA). (Up was also in the Best Pic nominees; Hurt Locker won that.)
And now, the Grammys! Link to the full list of winners on Variety, then the 2 biggest awards of the night (nearly all the way to the end of the list if you follow the link)::
[url]http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118014520.html?categoryid=16&cs=1[/url]
Best Instrumental Composition
“Married Life” (From “Up”)
Michael Giacchino, composer (Michael Giacchino)
Track from: Up - Soundtrack
[Walt Disney Records]
Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media
“Up” - Michael Giacchino, composer
[Walt Disney Records]
Now, come on, Oscar!
What d’ya know. Up really deserves what it supposed to. Now we’ll see what happen on Tuesday. Will the Oscar crazy enough by NOT to nominate Up for Best Picture category?
If they are, they can officially call themselves “animation’s worst enemy” - especially with ten nomination slots to fill.
Yes ! Up nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars ! Finally ! Also nominated fot Best Screenplay and Best Animated Movie.
Okay, there was ten films nominated for Best Picture but still, it’s quite something.
They didn’t announce the nominations for the score, but I think it’s a given. So that would make 4 nominations for Up. Not bad.
Yes! I was sitting here whooping and hollering!
ALSO:
Yes, Michael Giacchino got his Original Score nomination. He’s up against Avatar, Fantastic Mr Fox, Hurt Locker and Sherlock Holmes.
Up also got a nomination in “Sound Editing,” where it is up against Avatar, Hurt Locker, Inglourious(you know), and Star Trek.
Finally the loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong overdue best picture nomination!
But that’s not exactly news for the mainstream media here in Germany. They all go crazy over the chance for German-(co-)produced films like The White Ribbon to win an Oscar - in the six news articles I have read Up is not even mentioned once.