Here we have the Annie Awards from the year 2023, so a very recent event as this took place last weekend, which means it is not even a week old now. I am sure most people know, but these are pretty much the animation Oscars you could say, so the focus is on a very specific branch here. The official title says that this is the 50th edition, so it is a really round anniversary and I checked back and saw the first took place back in 1972, so a very long time ago already, but this also means that it is more than 50 years, so I guess on two occasions the Annies got cancelled. I am not even sure what was up during the pandemic now last year and the one before that. I think they were held online or something, but not sure and too lazy to check now. One thing that surely kept crossing my mind here was that Annies sounded a whole lot like Emmys when they mentioned them during the broadcast, mentioned the exact name of the ceremony and trophy. Like Guillermo del Toro did and said how bad he wanted to win one of those and Jenny Slate repeated the message a little later. I think she is really on the cringeworthy side, but I will get to that a little later. If we stay with the basics for now, it can also be said still that this was an incredibly long show. You can find the full event on the Annies' official Youtube channel. The first half hour or so is just the screen with the time counting down, but everything afterwards is the show and it was indeed three hours approximately. I guess this also shows that animation (or the Annies in particular) are not (exclusively) for kids anymore because you will have a hard time finding a child who is ready to watch the event for this long. But then again, I guess the kids care more about the programs featured in here than for the programs receiving trophies for their quality. Massive duration here anyway. Annieway. Sorry, I just had to.
The big winner that night was the aforementioned Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio movie. This did not surprise anybody/anniebody I am sure. His work is the defining animation movie in terms of awards recognition this year and the film coming from a Best Picture and Best Director winner surely did not hurt the film's chances. There is another Pinocchio film out this year (Zemeckis/Hanks) that really flopped, so del Toro's take is the one to go for apparently. Also, del Toro seems pretty prolific right now. His (really long) film before that is also not long ago. I am of course talking about Nightmare Alley here. I am okay with Pinocchio winning all these awards. It is competently executed from a technical perspective, has some really nice emotional moments, especially at the beginning and end, some strong music as well and the voice acting is as good as it can be. Especially the boy voicing the title character really impressed me. It's a completely joke that the aforementioned Slate won that category. Most horrible decision of the night perhaps. She is really as unauthentic as it gets while trying to have everybody believe the opposite. Just look at the moment when she enters the stage and says that she has not prepared an acceptance speech for the most bizarre reason possible. Like random rambling it was. It had no connection to why she would not prepare a speech and of course she prepared one. Ridiculous stuff. Besides, I am sure her film is also not good. I watched the short film back then that the full feature film is based on and that short film already got so much undeserved praise that it wasn't funny anymore. I am sure the full movie will be even worse. It is also not likable how Slate during acceptance speeches talks about her failed relationship with the man with whom she made the movie. So yeah, in summary, these two were (Pinocchio and Marcel) were the biggest winners. The new Avatar film and the actually pretty good Puss in Boots sequel also managed two wins each. Good for them.
On the television front, the biggest winner was probably "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse" or actually this one won four trophies and so did "Love, Death & Robots". I need to check those out for sure. The latter was "only" nominated in five categories, so winning four is quite an achievement. The biggest short film win went to the Portuguese "Ice Merchants". Quite a success. I see this also scored already in Cannes and it is nominated for the Oscar as well, so it should be the front-runner I guess, but with the short film categories you never really know for sure. There can also be a lot said about the category announcers here. Some were alright, even creative, while others were difficult to stomach like the two Black women where one had to start screaming out of nowhere for whatever reason. I did not get it. This had nothing to do with animation and it just felt off. Towards the end of this scene I was just as fed up with the obnoxious one like the other and was happy when she would not open her mouth again and start screaming again. This was not creative or anything, just maybe a contender for worst moment of the night. The fella at the beginning was nice though, so enthusiastic and his passion for animation and the occasion felt really contagious. Pity he did not return later on, but it stayed his only inclusion. I thought that maybe he would be the host, but turns out there wasn't really any host. It is okay though. I don't think awards shows need hosts. I mean if we look at the Oscars with the really unpleasant Jimmy Kimmel back again, it is difficult to stomach and I would take this hostless approach from the Annies anytime over that.
I think I will just do some brainstorming for the rest of my review now: Seth Green was present again towards the end handing out a few awards and I guess he will always look like early 20s to me, even if he is twice the age now already and close to 50. He has that juvenile charm thingey going for him with an ounce of nerd and this is surely gonna stay that way for the rest of his life, no matter if it will be another ten years or thirty years or even more. I also thought the two guys who received an award there were funny with their interactions and I would maybe also watch a reality show about them. The England mentioned with the weather there made me smile. On another occasion, there was a female winner I think and she thanked another woman in a really big fashion that you could think it was also her significant other in her personal life and I was not the only one thinking this I guess because the crowd also came up with a lot of applause there when she mentioned her and a few moments later she mentioned her husband then, so you knew nope the other woman was just a friend. I guess liberal Hollywood was not too happy about it. The applause when she mentions her husband was far less significant, if it was there at all. The big winner of the night del Toro is also kinda fascinating to watch all the time with what he says, with his mannerisms etc. He is not only an utterly talented filmmaker, but also seems to be a really nice bloke and fun to hang out with. Not afraid of swear words either and they actually stayed included, also for the online upload afterwards. Good choice, America needs to man up a bit in this department. One thing I found a bit sad was that they apparently were not allowed to use footage from Pixar movies (at least not online afterwards) when they handed this lifetime achievement award to Pete Docter. Quite a shame and does not saw a whole lot of positive about the company. Docter himself was fine though, gave one of the best speeches of the night and it was also a really funny moment, maybe the one the crowd loved the most, when he talked about the work of an executive or it was really just one sentence or reference if we are precise. Good inclusion nonetheless.
There were several lifetime achievement award winners by the way, but I guess it is fitting if you look at the show's massive duration and they had to fill all of it. One of the winners was even posthumous, but I liked that. They deserve it too and not being alive anymore to accept the award is not a reason to exclude them, especially as these awards maybe did not even exist during their lives or at least not during their primes. One who is still alive though is Craig McCracken. I cannot say a lot about the man, only that I immediately had to think of Zak McKracken with the name. Oh and was it there when we had this heartfelt mention of the Powerpuff Girls? I think so. How people said about some of the stuff he came up with that it is downright awful, but still it turned into a huge success. On the more negative side, one thing I found a bit disappointing was the in memoriam segment. I think it was this there, but how simply all these names were rolling down the screen did not seem like a nice tribute. Probably they wanted to include as many as they could and it is nice to not be forgotten, but being shown with a photo is even better. They don't even have to be on the screen for ten seconds or so, but the way they handled it there was not really encouraging. Oh yes, it was the tribute to the fallen indeed. I remember they included more than just a few actors and listed them with the profession voice actor there. Angela Lansbury (Beauty and the Best) is one example. Her song from this film is also so great. May she rest in peace. I am about to end my very long review for this very long show. Overall, I must say that for such a special anniversary the program was a bit weak. They could have included better tributes of the defining animation from the last 50 years I assume and made this a wonderfully warm watch about nostalgia, memories and emotions. I mean clearly they had no issues with how long the show could go, but the actual outcome sometimes felt a bit lost in mediocrity. The good news is that at least they kept politics out, no pandemic, no Ukraine unless I overheard it. I give the outcome a thumbs-down nonetheless. Not recommended.
The big winner that night was the aforementioned Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio movie. This did not surprise anybody/anniebody I am sure. His work is the defining animation movie in terms of awards recognition this year and the film coming from a Best Picture and Best Director winner surely did not hurt the film's chances. There is another Pinocchio film out this year (Zemeckis/Hanks) that really flopped, so del Toro's take is the one to go for apparently. Also, del Toro seems pretty prolific right now. His (really long) film before that is also not long ago. I am of course talking about Nightmare Alley here. I am okay with Pinocchio winning all these awards. It is competently executed from a technical perspective, has some really nice emotional moments, especially at the beginning and end, some strong music as well and the voice acting is as good as it can be. Especially the boy voicing the title character really impressed me. It's a completely joke that the aforementioned Slate won that category. Most horrible decision of the night perhaps. She is really as unauthentic as it gets while trying to have everybody believe the opposite. Just look at the moment when she enters the stage and says that she has not prepared an acceptance speech for the most bizarre reason possible. Like random rambling it was. It had no connection to why she would not prepare a speech and of course she prepared one. Ridiculous stuff. Besides, I am sure her film is also not good. I watched the short film back then that the full feature film is based on and that short film already got so much undeserved praise that it wasn't funny anymore. I am sure the full movie will be even worse. It is also not likable how Slate during acceptance speeches talks about her failed relationship with the man with whom she made the movie. So yeah, in summary, these two were (Pinocchio and Marcel) were the biggest winners. The new Avatar film and the actually pretty good Puss in Boots sequel also managed two wins each. Good for them.
On the television front, the biggest winner was probably "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse" or actually this one won four trophies and so did "Love, Death & Robots". I need to check those out for sure. The latter was "only" nominated in five categories, so winning four is quite an achievement. The biggest short film win went to the Portuguese "Ice Merchants". Quite a success. I see this also scored already in Cannes and it is nominated for the Oscar as well, so it should be the front-runner I guess, but with the short film categories you never really know for sure. There can also be a lot said about the category announcers here. Some were alright, even creative, while others were difficult to stomach like the two Black women where one had to start screaming out of nowhere for whatever reason. I did not get it. This had nothing to do with animation and it just felt off. Towards the end of this scene I was just as fed up with the obnoxious one like the other and was happy when she would not open her mouth again and start screaming again. This was not creative or anything, just maybe a contender for worst moment of the night. The fella at the beginning was nice though, so enthusiastic and his passion for animation and the occasion felt really contagious. Pity he did not return later on, but it stayed his only inclusion. I thought that maybe he would be the host, but turns out there wasn't really any host. It is okay though. I don't think awards shows need hosts. I mean if we look at the Oscars with the really unpleasant Jimmy Kimmel back again, it is difficult to stomach and I would take this hostless approach from the Annies anytime over that.
I think I will just do some brainstorming for the rest of my review now: Seth Green was present again towards the end handing out a few awards and I guess he will always look like early 20s to me, even if he is twice the age now already and close to 50. He has that juvenile charm thingey going for him with an ounce of nerd and this is surely gonna stay that way for the rest of his life, no matter if it will be another ten years or thirty years or even more. I also thought the two guys who received an award there were funny with their interactions and I would maybe also watch a reality show about them. The England mentioned with the weather there made me smile. On another occasion, there was a female winner I think and she thanked another woman in a really big fashion that you could think it was also her significant other in her personal life and I was not the only one thinking this I guess because the crowd also came up with a lot of applause there when she mentioned her and a few moments later she mentioned her husband then, so you knew nope the other woman was just a friend. I guess liberal Hollywood was not too happy about it. The applause when she mentions her husband was far less significant, if it was there at all. The big winner of the night del Toro is also kinda fascinating to watch all the time with what he says, with his mannerisms etc. He is not only an utterly talented filmmaker, but also seems to be a really nice bloke and fun to hang out with. Not afraid of swear words either and they actually stayed included, also for the online upload afterwards. Good choice, America needs to man up a bit in this department. One thing I found a bit sad was that they apparently were not allowed to use footage from Pixar movies (at least not online afterwards) when they handed this lifetime achievement award to Pete Docter. Quite a shame and does not saw a whole lot of positive about the company. Docter himself was fine though, gave one of the best speeches of the night and it was also a really funny moment, maybe the one the crowd loved the most, when he talked about the work of an executive or it was really just one sentence or reference if we are precise. Good inclusion nonetheless.
There were several lifetime achievement award winners by the way, but I guess it is fitting if you look at the show's massive duration and they had to fill all of it. One of the winners was even posthumous, but I liked that. They deserve it too and not being alive anymore to accept the award is not a reason to exclude them, especially as these awards maybe did not even exist during their lives or at least not during their primes. One who is still alive though is Craig McCracken. I cannot say a lot about the man, only that I immediately had to think of Zak McKracken with the name. Oh and was it there when we had this heartfelt mention of the Powerpuff Girls? I think so. How people said about some of the stuff he came up with that it is downright awful, but still it turned into a huge success. On the more negative side, one thing I found a bit disappointing was the in memoriam segment. I think it was this there, but how simply all these names were rolling down the screen did not seem like a nice tribute. Probably they wanted to include as many as they could and it is nice to not be forgotten, but being shown with a photo is even better. They don't even have to be on the screen for ten seconds or so, but the way they handled it there was not really encouraging. Oh yes, it was the tribute to the fallen indeed. I remember they included more than just a few actors and listed them with the profession voice actor there. Angela Lansbury (Beauty and the Best) is one example. Her song from this film is also so great. May she rest in peace. I am about to end my very long review for this very long show. Overall, I must say that for such a special anniversary the program was a bit weak. They could have included better tributes of the defining animation from the last 50 years I assume and made this a wonderfully warm watch about nostalgia, memories and emotions. I mean clearly they had no issues with how long the show could go, but the actual outcome sometimes felt a bit lost in mediocrity. The good news is that at least they kept politics out, no pandemic, no Ukraine unless I overheard it. I give the outcome a thumbs-down nonetheless. Not recommended.
