Sci-Fi Storm

Just a quick recap of any remotely genre related awards gained at last night’s Oscar festivities, beyond the periodic Hugh Jackman/Wolverine references: Inception was the big genre winner, taking Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing; Queen Amidala – or more accurately, Natalie Portman – took home the Best Actress award for her role in Black Swan; Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature, as well as Randy Newman taking the Best Original Music, for the TS3 song, “We Belong Together” (and gave on of the best acceptance speeches of the night); Alice In Wonderland won for Art Direction and Costume Design; and Wolfman won for Makeup (it didn’t have much competition). Tron: Legacy went home with nothing, having only had one nomination in Sound Editing – inexplicably not nominated for at least Visual Effects. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 also received none, but was the subject of an interesting musical montage thanks to AutoTune…

Side note: Star Wars: The Clone Wars fans may have heard a familiar voice. Tom Kane, who narrates the beginning of each episode, was the announcer.

Did a double-header today – first we watched How To Train Your Dragon in 3D, and were incredibly surprised – it was a great movie, with great detail in the animation (the characters breathe!) and a great story. And if the main dragon’s face and expressions seemed a little familiar – this is Chris Sanders’ first feature after leaving Disney, where he created Stitch. Although I think there was a little blend of Doctor Who Sea Devil in there as well. And apparently all older Vikings are Scottish 🙂

The second feature was Tim Burton’s take on Alice In Wonderland (not in 3D though). Not as dark as some of his other features, it definitely had his stamp on it. However, at times it was a bit confusing, the dialog was hard to understand, and some scenes couldn’t hold my attention (but after one movie and lunch, I so much wanted to close my eyes). I think it is worthy of a second look though…