Animated films break Oscar mark
A record 20 films have been submitted for best animated feature at the Academy Awards.
As long as at least 16 films qualify, there will be five nominees in the feature-length animation category.
The category has had only three nominees most years, but 2009 has been a prolific year for animation. The only previous year when there were five nominees came in 2002, when 17 animated films were submitted.
Submissions include a wide variety of styles, including the computer animation of such hits as “Up,” “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” and “Monsters vs. Aliens”; the stop-motion animation of “Coraline,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Mary and Max”; and the hand-drawn animation of “The Princess and the Frog” and “Ponyo.”
Other films submitted are “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” “Astro Boy,” “Battle for Terra,” “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” “Disney’s A Christmas Carol,” “The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer,” “The Missing Lynx,” “9,” “Planet 51,” “The Secret of Kells,” “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure” and “A Town Called Panic.”
Some films have yet to complete a weeklong theatrical run in Los Angeles to qualify for the Oscars. Academy rules for the category also state that a “significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.”
‘It’ is a hit
“Michael Jackson’s This Is It” has passed the $200 million mark at the box office worldwide.
The film has pulled in $61 million domestically and more than $140 million overseas. That includes $27.2 million in Japan, $14.3 million in Great Britain and $12.1 million in Germany.
“This Is It” captures Jackson’s final performances as he rehearsed for his aborted comeback tour, including such hits as “Beat It,” “Thriller,” “Human Nature” and “Billie Jean.”
‘Fourth’ fakery
Universal Pictures has agreed to pay $20,000 to the Alaska Press Club to settle complaints about fake news archives used to promote the movie “The Fourth Kind.”
Universal created a series of fabricated online news articles to publicize the movie about a purported real-life plague of alien abductions in Nome a decade ago. The articles posted appeared to be from actual Alaska publications.
The articles included a fake obituary and news story about the death of a character in the movie, Dr. William Tyler, that supposedly were from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
The settlement also requires Universal to remove the fake news articles from the Internet.