The 35th annual "Annies" awards, held in Los Angeles by the International Animated Film Society, has given a slew of prizes, including the top award of Best Animated Feature, to Pixar's Ratatouille, thus making it the No Country for Old Men of films about gifted culinary-minded vermin. The film's writer-director, Brad Bird won for Best Director and Best Screenplay; the film also took home prizes for Best Music, Best Character Design, Best Character Design, Best Storyboarding, and Best Voice Actor: Ian Holm, who played the villainous French chef Skinner, and whose thorough deservingness of this award can perhaps be measured by the fact that I myself saw the movie twice and didn't realize until I saw this announcement that I was listening to Ian freakin' Holm! Awards also went to a couple of Ratatouille spin-offs: the movie's animated video game and the short film Your Friend the Rat, which features characters from Ratatouille and is included in the movie's DVD editions. The awards for Best Animated Effects and Production Artist went to the penguin-hits-the-waves movie Surf's Up, possibly because whoever labels the awards just got really sick of writing "Ratatouille." The Best Animated Feature award is seen as a strong indicator of which film is liable to take the Academy Award in that category, though this year it may not be as strong an indicator of Ratatouille's chances as the fact that if Bee Movie wins instead, we're gonna burn Los Angeles to the ground! The society also celebrates excellence in the field of television animation; notable winners this year included Seth Green for directing the Star Wars episode of Robot Chicken and Ian Maxtone-Graham and Billy Kimball for writing the episode of The Simpsons that lampooned 24, choices designed to set an army of geeks somersaulting past Forbidden Planet at noon with Roman candles held between their teeth. The society also its Winsor McKay career achievement awards on independent animated filmmaker and animation historian John Canemaker, Disney filmmaking veteran Glen Keane, and Ren and Stimpy's dad, John Kricfalusi.
