My Award Nominations: Visual Effects

Tomorrow the VES will bestow a bunch of hardware on The Jungle Book (or so I presume), but there was a ton of other impressive work done out there worthy of Best Visual Effects consideration. And I have to hand it to the Academy's vfx branch too: This year, they got it exactly right.
Here are my top five:

One Category at a Time: Visual Effects

Every since 1971, the rule has held that no Best Picture nominated film has lost Best Visual Effects to a film not also nominated for Best Picture. It certainly buttresses the belief that Academy members simply vote for the movie they like in categories they don't really understand, and visual effects is arguably the most "technical" of the so-called "technical" awards (I always find that term so vulgar).

But if ever that rule was to be broken, this would be the year.

My Award Nominations: Visual Effects

There's so much swell work out there this year. Not only are the Visual Effects in these five movies extremely proficient, but what I love most about them is that they have personality. It's easy to take photoreal illusions for granted these days, so it bears reminding that thy are created by artists who truly are thinking about deeper things than "How real does it look?". Watch some of the embedded featurettes to see what I mean.

Life of Pi and Brave clean up at VES Awards

The Visual Effects Society came through for Life of Pi (like we knew they would), handing it four honours including the Best Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Motion Picture. The Avengers and The Hobbit were consoled with two wins and one win respectively.

In the animated categories, Brave swept the board, winning all four prizes for effects in animated films. It's a beautiful film with great effects and all, but I gotta say:

ParaNorman = robbed.

Just saying.

All the winners after the jump.

Review - Skyfall

It's iterated often in Skyfall that the old fashioned ways are sometimes the best. It's a persistent theme that permeates both the literal narrative and the conceptual approach to the 23rd entry in the storied James Bond franchise. While the story debates the virtue of antiquity in a modern world, the film adheres to Bond tradition as seen through a filter of contemporary dramatic substance for present-day audiences to appreciate. The Bond is old-school (rustically so at times), but the treatment he gets is fresh.

With the theatrically-minded Sam Mendes at the helm, Skyfall indulges us in a sense of detail to character that is uncommon to Bond films. None of the previous 22 have dared plumb the depths of 007's traumatic past and haunted present that this one attempts to – with some success, as well. Nor have any of them explored the practically maternal relationship between Bond (Daniel Craig's third outing) and his MI6 shot-caller M (reprised once again here by Judi Dench). Skyfall puts their connection front and centre as one of the main driving forces of the plot.

Review - The Dark Knight Rises

Batman faces his greatest challenge yet in The Dark Knight Rises, in which Gotham city is threatened by potential nuclear Armageddon at the whim of a coldly calculatory and brawny terrorist, forcing the reclusive billionaire to dust off his batsuit after eight years out of the saddle. How to move on from the emotional and physical scars incurred from that fateful clash with The Joker and Two-Face, unaware of the even greater emotional and physical hurdles to come? As it proves the greatest challenge yet for Batman, so too does The Dark Knight Rises prove the greatest challenge yet for the trilogy's writer-director-producer Christopher Nolan. How to follow up the unprecedented commercial and critical success of his 2008 hit The Dark Knight with a third and final chapter that can satisfy geeks, general audiences, and critics alike? Well, he may have stumbled across that finish line somewhat, but cross it he has, giving his franchise the epic and stirring conclusion it deserves.

Compositing numerous character arcs and plot threads with which Batman aficionados will already be familiar, The Dark Knight Rises takes off with Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) been shaken from vigilante retirement upon the appearance of a new villain in town; the mask-wearing international master criminal Bane (Tom Hardy) who enacts an ambiguous plot which Wayne's concerned butler Alfred (Michael Caine) suggests might be connected to foes from Batman's past. It doesn't help matters that the Caped Crusader's list of allies is as flimsy as his injured right leg. The city wrongfully holds him responsible for the death of Harvey Dent eight years earlier, but he still has friends in GCPD Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), a young cop named John Blake (Joseph Gordon Levitt), and wealthy socialite Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) whose investment in Wayne's company have yielded a clean energy source which could be weaponized if allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Also along for the ride is anti-heroine Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a slick cat burglar whose allegiances are in question and flux as she tries to steal and slink her way out of an increasingly dangerous Gotham.

My Award nominations: Visual Effects

With the VES announcing their nominees tomorrow, I thought I'd better announce my own nominees for Best Visual Effects:

Black Swan (Dan Schrecker, Henrik Fett, Conrad V. Brink Jr., Michael Capton):

Devilishly clever freakout effects. Lots of fun with mirrors. Let's not forget all the subtle clean-up work.

Inception (Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Marc Weingartner, Tom Struthers):

What sets Inception apart is the fact that its special effects are actually special. Borrowing techniques as old as Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Nolan's brilliant effects team put on a spectacular show that looked so real because a lot of it was, particularly those stupefying zero gravity sequences.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
(Grant Freckleton, Aidan Sarfield, Ben Gunsberger, Craig Welsh):

The photorealism of the effects animation is dazzling every detail, from the hair-raising grandeur of the matte paintings to the immaculate minutia of each individual feather on the owls' heads, which are forced to interact with wind, ash, and in one especially breath-taking sequence, torrential rain.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
(Frazer Churchill, Arthur Langevin, Dennis Berardi, Aaron Weintraub):

Nifty graphics pop in and out of frame indicating point levels and character specifics, vanquished foes burst into coins, and the fight scenes are as full of visual exclamation points as a Mortal Combat face-off. The virtue of these wonderfully creative effects are that they give the film such personality.

TRON Legacy (Eric Barba, Alex Burdett, Steve Preeg, Ben Procter):

Sure, young Jeff Bridges looked a little hokey, but the rest is pretty stunning CG light show.