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Gore Verbinski's 'Rango', Bill Nighy Top 39th Annual Annie Awards

by Alex Billington
February 5, 2012
Source: ComingSoon

"The highest honor given for excellence in animation." Each year, Annie Award trophies are awarded for the year's best feature film, video, TV and more, and they've just announced the 2012 winners. Topping the charts is Gore Verbinski's charming western Rango winning Best Animated Feature as well as Best Writing. The winners include a large number of other categories (full list via ComingSoon), but other nominees for the top prize included A Cat in Paris, Arthur Christmas, Pixar's Cars 2, Chico & Rita, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, Rio and Tintin. Bill Nighy also won an award, but not for playing Rattlesnake Jake in Rango.

The other big winners in the film department from the 39th Annual Annies, hosted last night by Patton Oswalt at UCLA's Royce Hall, were Bill Nighy for Best Voice Acting as Grandsanta Arthur Christmas, an animated film from Aardman Animation which didn't go on to win anything else. It was also a bad night for Pixar, as they did not win anything, but that's expected at the Annies. Instead, Kung Fu Panda 2's Jennifer Yuh won Best Director, John Williams won Best Music for Tintin, Rio got Best Character Animation, and Rango picked up Best Character Design. Here's all the film winners (see the full list on annieawards.org):

Animated Feature
Rango

Directing in a Feature Production
Jennifer Yuh Nelson for Kung Fu Panda 2

Voice Acting in a Feature Production
Bill Nighy as Grandsanta in Arthur Christmas

Writing in a Feature Production
John Logan, Gore Verbinski and James Byrkit for Rango

Editing in a Feature Production
Craig Wood for Rango

Animated Special Production
Kung Fu Panda – Secrets of the Masters

Animated Short Subject
Adam and Dog – Minkyu Lee

Music in a Feature Production
John Williams for Tintin

Production Design in a Feature Production
Raymond Zibach for Kung Fu Panda 2

Storyboarding in a Feature Production
Jeremy Spears for Winnie The Pooh

Animated Effects in an Animated Production
Kevin Romond for Tintin

Animated Effects in a Live Action Production
Florent Andorra for Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Character Animation in a Feature Production
Jeff Gabor for Rio

Character Animation in a Live Action Production
Eric Reynolds for Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Character Design in a Feature Production
Mark "Crash" McCreery for Rango

Members Favorite Award
Rango

For the full list of nominees and winners from the 39th Annual Annie Awards, hit their official website. It's good to see such a variety of strong animated movies being recognized, especially Rango and even Kung Fu Panda 2. Disney/Pixar had a controversial boycott on the awards for a while, which supposedly ended this year, but considering they had a fairly weak entry with Cars 2, it's not a surprise it didn't get recognized. However, that doesn't matter, as these are still a good list of winners and congratulations to all who won. This was a good year for animation, some great films from Rango to even Kung Fu Panda. Your favorite?

Filed under Awards, Discuss, Movie News

From around the web:

CookieMonster

Oh please let Kung fu panda win the oscars. Both films (1&2) deserve it!!! In my modest opinion I think that Rango is just a little overrated:) If you had put ECG on me during Rango screening it would roughly have been a flat line, while KFP 2 would have had spikes all over the place:D It almost feels like KFP was somewhat personal even though I'm a big Sergio Leone fan. Juuust saying:D
Pilgrim_UK

Marshall Raylan Givens impersonation of the man with no name was worth the entry fee alone of Rango. Anybody who can get a scene from Fear and Loathing into the animation is always a winner.
Phantomrockcity

Rango hands down the best. As much as I hear people bash Depp as the voice, I can't stand Black. Rango hits the mark on imagination, even though it takes from Westerns and Star Wars (and the nod to Fear and Loathing) and wraps it up in a way that we know they are borrowed parts, but is done in pure awesomness. The cool thing is that most kids might not know they're borrowed which makes them watch this film with openness and excitement. Me and my 3 year old watch this and laugh our asses off. He's seen Kung Fu, but he lovesss Rango.