Ratatouille Nearly Sweeps Annie Awards

Pixar's Ratatouille swept up most of the Annie Awards at the recent awards ceremony. From Variety (via Animated News):

"Ratatouille" ranked tops with Hollywood's animation community, taking home nine trophies - including best animated feature - Friday night at the 35th annual Annie Awards.

[Ratatouille] can also boast wins for short subject for its DVD extra "Your Friend the Rat" and for the "Ratatouille" vidgame.

In a near-sweep, Pixar's popular "anyone can cook" parable shut out every bigscreen contender except Sony Pictures Animation's "Surf's Up," which scored two individual achievement awards, while Oscar nominee "Persepolis" went home empty-handed.

Before presenting one of "Ratatouille's" many trophies, actor James Hong (Mr. Ping in DreamWorks' forthcoming "Kung Fu Panda") reminded the crowd that the Chinese New Year kicked off a day earlier. "This is the Year of the Rat, so that's why you are winning all the awards," he mused. "We are psychic, you know."

The coup marks a major improvement over Pixar's performance the year before, where "Cars" earned only two awards. Among "Ratatouille's" more prominent individual honorees were Brad Bird (writing, directing), Michael Giacchino (music) and Ian Holm (who voiced the pint-sized chef, Skinner).

Be sure to check out the full report at Variety.com

Congratulations also to Surf's Up, which I thought was one of the most enjoyable animated films I've seen and easily one of Sony's best works. Even though Persepolis was recently shown here in Banff, but I didn't have the chance to see it. Nice to read that it was nominated though.