Kung Fu Panda kicks competition's butt at animation awards
Kung Fu Panda wiped out its competition at the 36th annual Annie Awards, which honours the best in animation.
The DreamWorks Animation film earned kudos as best movie among its 10 trophies, beating out acclaimed front-runners WALL*E and Waltz With Bashir.
It also captured a directing award for John Stevenson and Mark Osborne; writing honours for Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger; animated effects, Le-Ming Lawrence Lee; character animation, James Baxter; and storyboarding, Jen Yuh Nelson.
Dustin Hoffman, who plays the Kung Fu master Shifu, nabbed a voice acting accolade. That didn't end the film's awards run — to top it off, Activision's Kung Fu Panda game won the prize for best video game.
The film's 10-award collection bested the nine won last year by Pixar's gourmet rat Ratatouille.
Other winners included:
Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death by Britain's Aardman Animations for best animated short subject.
ShadowMachine's Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II for best animated TV production.
Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender for best TV production produced for children.
There were a few double winners at Friday night's ceremony at Royce Hall on the grounds of UCLA.
Nico Marlet took home two awards for character design, for both Kung Fu Panda and its 24-minute related short Secrets of the Furious Five. Tang Heng also was a double winner for production design on both projects.
Hans Zimmer and John Powell were up on stage twice to collect music prizes for the two projects.
The Annies are handed out annually by the International Animated Film Society in Los Angeles.
Slumdog Top Dog at DGA Awards
Los Angeles (E! Online) – There's a reason oddsmakers don't think Slumdog Millionaire is an Oscar underdog. It's not.
The India-set indie cemented its front-runner status with a win tonight for Danny Boyle at the 61st Annual Directors Guild of America Awards.
The Office, The Wire, Recount and America's Next Top Model were among the honorees in the TV categories.
Boyle beat out David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon) and Gus Van Sant (Milk), all of whom he'll face at the Oscars, plus Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight), whom he won't.
Since 1948, the DGA winner's only missed out the Oscar six times. Half of those instances, however, have occurred since 1995. Ang Lee is the last DGA winner to win Best Director, and not see his film (2005's Brokeback Mountain) win Best Picture, too.
Slumdog's DGA win comes one week after it claimed top prizes from the producers and actors guilds.
Carl Reiner, who was to host tonight's ceremony, was a last-minute scratch (food poisoning, Variety reported). Jon Cryer was a last-minute substitute.
Springsteen delivers promised party at Super Bowl
TAMPA, Fla. – Bruce Springsteen looked into the camera Sunday night and told the people watching at home to "put the chicken fingers down and turn the television all the way up!"
Then he proceeded to give the Super Bowl crowd and the millions watching on TV three high-energy Boss standards, with the title song from his new album wedged in among them for good measure.
The 59-year-old Springsteen and his E Street Band opened with "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," then without pause ripped through "Born To Run" and "Working on a Dream," before winding up the set with "Glory Days."
Springsteen, dressed all in black, came out Sunday night with the considerable challenge of packing the bombastic energy of one of his rollicking, three-hour concerts into an abbreviated Super Bowl halftime set.
That turned out to be no problem. He had fireworks, an expansive stage, about 1,000 people on the field and help from a Raymond James Stadium crowd equipped with small flashlights.
A five-piece horn section helped saxophonist Clarence Clemons blast out "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," and a gospel choir came on stage to back Springsteen, his wife and bandmate, Patti Scialfa, and guitarist Steven Van Zandt during "Working on a Dream," the title song from his 24th album.
Springsteen is riding a new wave of exposure and popularity, playing for President Barack Obama in Washington before the inauguration, releasing his 24th album this week and winning a Golden Globe award for his song from the Mickey Rourke movie "The Wrestler."
In 1988, Chubby Checker was the first popular musician to perform at halftime, and Michael Jackson raised the bar in 1993. His sister Janet provided the show's most infamous moment with 2004's "wardrobe malfunction."
"Taken" captures weekend box office lead
LOS ANGELES – Liam Neeson's CIA thriller "Taken" bumped off "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" at the weekend box office, raking in $24.6 million and helping fuel the first $1 billion January in Hollywood history.
North American box office revenues were up nearly 20 percent in January over the same period last year, reaching a record $1.03 billion for the month. Attendance was up 16 percent over last year, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media by Numbers.
"This is exactly how you want to start a year," Dergarabedian said Sunday. "I think people feel movies are a good value for their dollar. Going to a movie is a habit people aren't willing to break."
"Taken" follows Neeson as a former CIA operative trying to track down a group of kidnappers who want to sell his daughter into the sex slave trade.
"We are thrilled. It's an all-audience movie," said 20th Century Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. "When people come out they are going to talk about it. I think it's going to play for a long time."
"Paul Blart: Mall Cop," the Kevin James comedy about a clumsy security guard, had been No. 1 the previous two weeks. Although it dropped to second place, it earned $14 million to boost its three-week total to more than $83 million.
Also opening this weekend was "The Uninvited," a remake of the 2003 South Korean thriller that pits two sisters against their potentially evil stepmother. It earned $10.5 million for third place.
In fourth was "Hotel for Dogs" with $8.7 million, followed by "Gran Torino" with $8.6 million.
"Gran Torino," directed by and starring Clint Eastwood as a bigot who becomes a reluctant neighborhood hero, has now earned more than $110 million, making it Eastwood's highest grossing film.
It surpassed "In the Line of Fire," which starred Eastwood and made $102 million, and "Unforgiven," directed and starring Eastwood, which earned $101 million. "Unforgiven" won Oscars in 1992 for best picture and best director.
"Slumdog Millionaire," which continues to collect honors this awards season, was sixth with $7.7 million, bringing its total to more than $67 million in 12 weeks, as it moves into wider release across the U.S.
Its director, Danny Boyle, won the top honor Saturday night from the Directors Guild of America.
The awards are "adding to the prestige of the film in the marketplace and making it more important for the public to see," said Richard Shamban, vice president of theatrical distribution for the film's distributor, Fox Searchlight.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Taken," $24.6 million.
2. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," $14 million.
3. "The Uninvited," $10.5 million.
4. "Hotel for Dogs," $8.7 million.
5. "Grand Torino," $8.6 million.
6. "Slumdog Millionaire," $7.7 million.
7. "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans," $7.2 million.
8. "New in Town," $6.7 million.
9. "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," $4.3 million.
10. "Inkheart," $3.7 million.