Oscars: 'Wall-E' Named Best Animated Film

Best Animated Film:
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E
Winner: Wall-E Probably the way most people had this one going, although Wall-E didn't pick up some key awards from those within the animation community just last month. Jack Black's line about taking his DreamWorks animation salaries and betting it all on Pixar movies on Oscar night was the highlight of the whole animation segment, except for the "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto" during the short animation film winner's speech.

Peter Gabriel Won't Perform 'Wall-E' Tune at Oscars

It was about 24 hours ago that we wrote about the new direction the Oscars were headed in, thanks to producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark. Among the new items on the menu: No comedian hosting the show (it's Hugh Jackman), the rather childish game of keeping the presenters a secret so people will be forced to watch in order to discover who's on the stage at any given point (which also means a limit on the number of red carpet walkers), and a showcase of 2009 movies at the end of the telecast rather than a recap of 2008.

And one day later, there's more fallout because of the rather unnecessary facelift Condon and Mark are performing on the Academy Awards. Peter Gabriel, nominated for Best Song, has walked away from the chance at performing, saying he doesn't feel any of the songs in the running are being given enough respect. Deadline Hollywood Daily has obtained a letter from Gabriel in which he describes his reasons for pulling out of the show. The issue is that, even though there are three nominees, Gabriel's song from Wall-E and the two A.R. Rahman songs from Slumdog Millionaire will be turned into a medley. Terrible idea. Terrible. What's worse, Gabriel says he's barely getting a minute of performance time during the ill-conceived medley.

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No 'Wall-E' Sequels for Director Andrew Stanton

Pixar has always done pretty well with the "leave 'em wanting more" philosophy of filmmaking: Nine movies, one sequel. That is, of course, unless you count all the direct-to-DVD spin-offs, in which case, they're a bunch of whores.

But for the sake of argument, look at it this way: Toy Story 2 is the only theatrically released sequel in Pixar's proud history. And it looks like it will remain that way for a while. Director Andrew Stanton tells MTV he's not up for another Wall-E adventure. “Personally, I never consider sequels,” Stanton says. “I think that takes a lot of hubris to think that your idea is going to live on and on, and I always love the idea of something just being contained and done.”

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'Kung Fu Panda' Sweeps Annie Awards

Not so fast, Wall-E. DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda won Best Animated Feature at Friday night's Annie Awards, which really shouldn't have been a surprise by the time the award was announced. You see, Panda had already earned nine trophies before that.

The huge night was bigger than last year's dominant run by Ratatouille, which one nine awards. The actual total for Panda, which shut out Wall-E completely, was 14, if you count the animated video game honors and the wins for the TV production, The Secrets of the Furious Five. But seriously, Wall-E didn't win anything.

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DVD Talk's Top 20 DVDs of 2008

I wish I had more time to watch DVDs. Realistically, because of the 200- something movies I have to plow through every year, unless I have to watch a DVD, I usually don't. I like sports too much. So, I've got stacks of the damn things still in the cellophane. But if it's an old favorite, I'll always find time for it, it seems. And I picked up a few new versions of old favorites over the holidays, one of which - the 50th anniversary edition of Touch of Evil - has made the list of 2008's top 20 DVDs, compiled by DVD Talk. It's full of old gems recently restored or re-released as well as some of the biggest hits of the year and a smattering of TV-on-DVD. Led by the definitive collection of The Godfather trilogy, here are the 11 films in DVD Talk's top ten: 1 - The Godfather (Coppola Restorations)
2 - Wall-E
3 - Iron Man
4 - The Wire: The Complete Series
5 - Bonnie and Clyde
6 - Tropic Thunder
6 - (tie) The Dark Knight
7 - The Sopranos: The Complete Series
8 - Baraka (Blu-Ray)
9 - Touch of Evil (50th Anniversary Edition)
10- Dr. No/From Russia with Love (Blu-Ray)