The Visual Effects Shortlist

Many of Oscar's tech categories get nominated through a whittling-down process that takes a couple of months, meaning we get a good idea of the contenders long before the nominations are actually announced.

Today, the Academy's Visual Effects branch announced fifteen semi-finalists; in January, that will be cut down to seven finalists, which, by the time the nominations roll around, will be cut down to three.

Fifteen is a lot, when you think about it. Consider the following fifteen a list of every film this year that used visual effects to any significant professional capacity:

Australia
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Cloverfield
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Hancock
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
The Incredible Hulk
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
Journey to the Center of the Earth
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Quantum of Solace
The Spiderwick Chronicles

In my opinion, the three heavyweights are:

The Dark Knight
Iron Man
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

...The first two for their massive popularity, and Benjamin Button for its status as a Major Awards Contender.

Ironically, even though The Dark Knight is the movie of the year in many respects, its visual effects aren't as showy in the traditional sense as Iron Man, with its CGI-flying superhero, or Benjamin Button, with its stunning de-aging of Brad Pitt (and Cate Blanchett, for that matter).

That leads me to think that a solid runner-up like Hancock or Cloverfield could sneak in. Many others can be outright disqualified, I think: Indiana Jones and Quantum of Solace will be remembered as disappointments; Australia flopped; The Spiderwick Chronicles was too early in the year; and so on.

I suppose we'll have to check back when the list has been cut down again. Too bad all the categories don't work like that.

image source

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