Sure, we always figured Wall-E was a longshot for a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars (though, Frost/Nixon? You really cared about that, huh? Go figure). However, this latest dis is just egregious. Take it away, Slashfilm:

WALL-E got completely snubbed at the 36th Annual Annie Awards. For those of you who don’t know, the Annie Awards is an all-animation award show presented by the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972. The awards range form Character Animation in a Feature Presentation to Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, the the more obvious, more prestigious Best Animated Feature award.

DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda beat WALL-E in every single category, including Best Animated Feature, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Directing in an Animated Feature, Production Design, Storyboarding, and Voice Acting categories. WALL-E didn’t even receive nominations in the Writing, Music, and Character Design categories. In Fact, Kung Fu Panda ended up taking home 15 statues in all (including the short film spin-off).

The Best Animated Feature win stunned Panda co-director John Stevenson into making an expletive-filled speech, though many of the same words were hurled at DreamWorks from online quarters, as the studio just happened to be a key sponsor of the Annies in the year its Panda pulled this upset. Others, though, are noting that the Annies tend to reward more expressive character designs; in other words, Wall-E should have been voiced by Zac Efron and had a Silly-Putty face with dynamic eyebrows. Still, that doesn't quite account for Panda's wins over Wall-E in screenplay (!), directing (!!), and production design.

Should we be worried about the little robot's chances at a Best Animated Film Oscar? Maybe briefly—though we're sure that the rest of the Academy will help even out whatever weird animator rivalry reared its head at the Annies. We're sure that the indomitable Wall-E is taking the news all right, but we've heard that EVE has reduced DreamWorks, the Annies, and UCLA's Royce Hall (where the event took place) to a steaming crater. Can't say we blame her!

• WTF: WALL-E Completely Snubbed at Annie Awards? [/film]

Ari Folman's autobiographical exploration of his role in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon — literally painted from repressed memories corroborated by his Army mates — had settled into about a thousand Top 10 lists since its release on Christmas, but had managed only also-ran awards status since failing to win the top prize in May at Cannes. Its Oscar chances were equally endangered, facing WALL-E in the Animated Feature category and French sensation The Class in the Foreign-Language running. (It wasn't released in time to qualify for Best Documentary.)

But with Israel now embarking on another bloody military foray and WALL-E safely recognized in second place, the NSFC went topical in Bashir's favor. The rest of the list offered yet another boost to Happy-Go-Lucky, which tied WALL-E as Best Picture runner-up and claimed four prizes for Best Actress (Sally Hawkins), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Marsan) and Best Director and Screenplay for Mike Leigh. All will go to the Oscars, where Hollywood will commence vanquishing them in favor of Kate Winslet or Heath Ledger or Christopher Nolan and/or whomever else the Academy is more comfortable putting in front of a worldwide viewing audience. The run was fun while it lasted.

Elsewhere, Sean Penn claimed Best Actor, and German actress Hanna Schygulla came out of nowhere to score Supporting Actress for the Turkish film The Edge of Heaven. Best Documentary went to Man on Wire, which is having its own Oscar engraved as we speak. Congrats to all, and may other international current events conspire less violently to prod Academy voters to their recognition in February.

• National Society of Film Critics Awards 2008 [DaveKehr.com]

• How to make a Wall-E Sandwich [Anna the Red's Bento Factory]

Mickey Rourke, Anne Hathaway, Heath Ledger, and Kate Winslet (for The Reader) earned top acting awards. The rest of their prizes were as follows:

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: "Wall-E" (Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: "Slumdog Millionaire" (Simon Beaufoy)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: "Let the Right One In"

DOCUMENTARY: "Man On Wire"

ANIMATED FEATURE: "Wall-E"

CINEMATOGRAPHY: "The Dark Knight" (Wally Pfister)

ORIGINAL SCORE: "Wall-E" (Thomas Newman)

MOST PROMISING PERFORMER: Dev Patel, "Slumdog Millionaire"

MOST PROMISING DIRECTOR: Tomas Alfredson, "Let the Right One In"

• Chicago critics laud 'Wall-E' [Variety]

A full list of winners is after the jump.

Best Picture:
"Wall-E"
Runner-up: "The Dark Knight"

Best Director:
Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Runner-up: Christopher Nolan, "The Dark Knight"

Best Actor:
Sean Penn, "Milk"
Runner-up: Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"

Best Actress:
Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"

Best Supporting Actor:
Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Runner-up: Eddie Marsan, "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Elegy"
Runner-up: Viola Davis, "Doubt"

Best Screenplay: Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York"

Best Foreign-language film: "Still Life"
Runner-up: "The Class"

Best Documentary: "Man on Wire"
Runner-up: "Waltz With Bashir"

Best Animation: "Waltz With Bashir"

Best Cinematography: Yu Lik Wai, "Still Life"
Runner-up: Anthony Dod Mantle, "Slumdog Millionaire"

Best Production Design: Mark Friedberg, "Synecdoche, New York"
Runner-up: Nathan Crowley, "The Dark Knight"

Best Music/score: A.R. Rahman, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

New Generation: Steve McQueen, "Hunger"

• AWARDS WATCH '08 | "Wall-E" Woos LA Critics [IndieWire]
• 'WALL-E' cruises to top of L.A. critics' list [THR]

First, let's take Wall-E. The indomitable Pixar robot has collected some of the most glowing reviews of the year and many of those critics then called it the best American film of 2008 — in fact, Wall Street Journal scribe Joe Morgenstern was already talking Wall-E up for Best Picture in July. Still, the film has several things working against it: it opened early enough in the year to have been forgotten, it made a ton of money but not as much as much as, say, Cars (thereby falling into an Oscar trap where the movie is too successful, but not so successful that it can't be ignored), and it's animated. "Younger-skewing" films like Beauty and the Beast and Babe have been nominated before, but almost offhandedly, and not in a while.

Then, there's the Bat. The Dark Knight has one big thing going for it: Heath Ledger's performance is a mortal lock for a Supporting Actor slot, which may help grease the wheels for the film to grab a Best Pic nom. Also, its box office total, second only to Oscar favorite Titanic, is so massive that The Dark Knight has remained the biggest story in the industry all year. Yes, it's still just a comic book movie (and one that had a minor Bat-lash), but what isn't in Hollywood these days?

Thus, in the race for Best Picture, we're going to give the edge to The Dark Knight. With previous contenders like Frost/Nixon and Changeling losing steam among the chattering class, The Dark Knight's chances are certainly improved, and it has the best precedent: The Fugitive, a well-reviewed action blockbuster that rode a buzzworthy supporting performance to Oscar glory. We're going to hold out hope in our hearts for Wall-E, but we fear it'll take something stronger than a laser blast from EVE to bust this robot out of the Best Animated Film ghetto.

• Studios Are Pushing Box Office Winners as Oscar Contenders [NYT]

The dollars aren't disclosed, but follow the jump for a depressing if fascinating array of blockbusters for sale, the brands that bought them and the ultimate recognition of their unholy unions:

Most Mouthwatering, placement most likely to prompt an immediate purchase: Louis Vuitton in Sex and the City

Perfect Fit, best chemistry between a brand and a film: Manolo Blahnik and Sex and the City

Welcome to Reality, fictional brand that you would most want in real life: Stark Industries in Iron Man

Scene Stealer, brand that stole the spotlight from its human co-stars: Ford Mustang in I Am Legend

Bomb, placement that ruined enjoyment of a scene: Nokia in Cloverfield

Odd Couple, most awkward and seemingly ineffective product placement: LG mobile phone in Iron Man

Film Whore, film that most “sold out” for product placement: Sex and the City

We were surprised to not see Transformers and its over-the-top GM endorsements singled out for anything other than the "E.T./Reese's Award for Achievement in Press Coverage," but there you have it. Other underrepresented films included Juno (Tic-Tacs, though no mention of Sunny Delight), Wall-E (Apple, plus a nod for its pseudo-chain Big 'N' Large), 21 (Planet Hollywood) and even Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fender guitars). As for 2009's early front-runners, your guess is as good as ours: We figure Tropic Thunder's doomed mock campaign for Simple Jack should at land somewhere, and let's face it — there has never been as craven a placement as a movie simply called Milk. Shame on you, Gus Van Sant!

• 2008 brandcameo Product Placement Awards [brandchannel]

1. Hellboy II: The Golden Army - $35.885 million
Every true visionary director has their own methodology, and Guillermo del Toro is no exception: Every night before going to bed, the Guadalajara native consumes approximately two dozen tins of tainted sheep and pork products, their deadly bacteria providing the nightmare fuel that produces such del Toroian visions as cat-snacking bag ladies and 20-story legumes hellbent on destruction. Apparently America has an appetite for these fever-dream delicacies, as the reluctant red hero's adventures took an easy first place win. Selma Blair, meanwhile, returns to full-fledged movie-star status, just in time for the debut of NBC's Kath and Kim, effectively making her the new Steve Carell.

2. Hancock - $33 million
This movie's central theme of overcoming potential-stifling demons in order to fully benefit from one's innate super-abilities is rich in the tenets of Scientology, making Hancock in many ways Will Smith's own Battlefield Earth, and explaining all those assist tents set up in the Grove theater lobby.

3. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D - $20.58 million
Brendan Fraser's return to summer blockbuster action hero status begins with this immersive experience, as the once white-hot leading man tumbles into the perilous abyss in search of his former career, fighting off carnivorous plants and role-hungry Van Der Beeks along the way.

4. Wall-E - $18.509 million
Obese-Americans continue to cry foul against Pixar's dark masterpiece, claiming the portrait of the overweight painted by the movie—perennial couch potatoes, forever slurping down Jamba Burgers and texting the people directly next to them—to be an ugly and unfair stereotype. Bloggers, meanwhile, herald it as "the first accurate depiction in a mainstream Hollywood film. Thank you, Pixar, for finally legitimizing our kind!"

7. Meet Dave - $5.3 million
Or just ignore him completely.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE July 11-13, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

All I can think of is how would you look at me? How would you look at someone’s sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, fathers and brothers—are they funny? Are they less human or dirty or stupid? You had years to create the Axiom—didn’t you see any shape of a person that could be recognized or loved?
I was at Columbus GLBTQ Pride today and I saw people of all shapes and sizes laughing and being in love.
Are they worthless too? Are they dirty and stupid and responsible for ruining the planet? Does their shape make them inherently bad?

Which, oh, eek, I really don't think was the filmmakers' point. But, sigh, a writer at Slate agrees with her, arguing that the film upholds the myths about obesity—that it's caused by sloth and gluttony—rather than recognizing the true culprit, genetics. Obesity is not a sign of end times, and how dare a movie imply that, these folks keen.

And the thing is, look. Obviously not everyone who is overweight is a food-crazed slob. Obviously some are victims of shitty genes or whatever. And, really, I don't think Pixar was targeting the genetically obese. Researchers have suggested that those unlucky folks aren't the way they are because of overeating anyway. What Pixar is targeting is a culture, immediately an American one, that has the highest obesity rate in the world, by a lot. As we are all painfully aware by now, fast food is slowly burying us in piles of grease and processed, sickly gray meat. I was at a Burger King last weekend while driving back to New York and there was a hamburger, I kid you not, that had the contents of a loaded baked potato smeared on top of it. We're talking mashed potaters 'n bacon piled on top of a hamburger that ALREADY HAD ONION RINGS ON IT. If that's not a sign of end times, I don't know what is. (Not to mention the environmental impact of such insane consumption. The ecological footprint of keeping one mooing meat sack alive is pretty astounding.)

So yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what Pixar was teasing at, not people who diet and exercise and do as much as they can but still carry some extra pounds. They're shaking their heads at the people who pull up to the drive thru in their SUVs and buy six Gordita Supremes and scarf them down, sitting in their idling car on the side of the road. It's a fairly new, millennial problem, and one that doesn't seem to be getting better. So I don't blame Pixar for depicting a disgraced humanity as lazy blobs. But Pixar isn't saying "look at the fatties," I don't think. They're saying "look at the liquid cupcakes in their hands."

Amongst, you know, lots of other insightful, hand-wringy stuff.

1. Hancock - $66 million
When not delighting crowds at New Village Academy Oh-Tee Eights games as that wrestling team's mascot Elron the Iguana, Will Smith also manages to shatter records in only the way The Biggest Star in the World can. His presence in Hancock, for example, turned an ill-conceived, anti-superhero movie about an alcoholic underachiever who accidentally puts out fires with his super-upchuck abilities into something America simply had to experience for themselves: $107.3 million over 5.5 days, $66 million from the weekend alone. That works out to roughly 10 million people who surveyed the sour, puckering butt-face (above) used as the film's central marketing image, and paid to see this movie anyway. That's superstardom.

2. Wall-E - $33.417 million
Pixar's melancholy meditation on the dark (seriously dark!) places towards which our things-obsessed society is heading crossed the $100 million mark over the weekend. The film's message is so bold, however, that its makers—who have long relied on merchandising and fast food tie-ins to push the product—suddenly find themselves painted into an ideological corner. Still, Disney has come up with a P.R.-friendly solution: Disney's Sprout In A Boot ™ foundation pledges that for every square-mile of Wall-E packaging dumped into the nation's landfills, a single bean sproutling potted in an adorable hobo's boot will be donated to a worthy school, for display and educational purposes.

3. Wanted - $20.607 million
4. Get Smart - $11.125 million
5. Kung Fu Panda - $7.5 million
Summer '08s Trio of Assassin Entertainments continue their stealthy creep towards profitability and inevitable sequeldom. But only one of these three contains an army of suicide-bombing rodents, waging jihad bis saif against those who have wronged them. We'll never tell which—you'll just have to see all three to find out!

8. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl - $3.6 million
The wide-release of the Depression-era movie based on the wildly popular American Girl doll franchise managed only a disappointing eighth place. Audience feedback suggested most of the intended demo lost interest once they realized the narrative was essentially locked-in, and that they couldn't drag star Abigail Breslin into a hair salon for a braid-treatment and some tea and cucumber sandwiches whenever they felt like it.

• BOX OFFICE MOJO WEEKEND BOX OFFICE July 4-6, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

1. Wall-E - $62.5 million
Realizing that their last vision of a dystopian future-Earth—2006's Cars, in which automobiles ruled the planet, fueled by an endlessly replenishable supply of human livestock bred in subterranean people-farms—was perhaps a little too dark a subject matter for their intended family audiences, Pixar decided to simplify this time around. The result: A nearly silent love story featuring a binoculars-on-treads that critics are hailing as a modern classic. Disney can only be overjoyed with the results: Wall-E earned the second-highest June opening of all time, and Pixar's third-highest debut, behind Finding Nemo. The only person to come away disappointed? Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who saw in the parable a painful metaphor for his failed attempts at winning the heart of his own Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, Kathy Griffin. Upon returning home, he instantly set upon smashing any remotely Wall-E-ish thing in his garage to pieces— which included the Segway they rode on their first date, and an early Apple prototype made from parts of a Speak n' Spell and a hand-mixer.

2. Wanted - $51.118 million

But were Wall-E the only record-breaking Box Office Miracle™ this weekend, for more mature audiences (read: 14-year-olds with patchy facial hair and highly suspicious drivers licenses issued by the State of Hawaii) flocked instead to this visually arresting, swervy-ammo shoot 'em up. Among the paradigm-upending innovations conjured up by director Timur Bekmambetov (a proud Kazakh export and delicious retribution for three years of humiliating, "In my country we have a pen outside for the animals and womens!" jokes): Angelina Jolie illuminated by fluorescent drugstore lighting, James McAvoy's transformation from turtle-faced office-nerd to action hero, and Morgan "God" Freeman getting all MF-bomb-droppin' badass again.

3. Get Smart - $20 million
If you think you might enjoy Steve Carell pretending to talk like a deaf person, then being referred to as a "retard," then doing a dance routine with an obese woman who—wait for it—actually ends up being light on her feet...then Get Smart is the movie for you!

4. Kung Fu Panda - $11.746 million
Sure, you can round-kick. But tell us this, Kung Fu Panda: Can you walk on 30-foot-high tree-stilts? We didn't think so.

5. The Incredible Hulk - $9.226 million
We've taken a cue from Incredible, and started wearing a wristwatch pulse-meter ourselves, in a similarly feeble attempt at avoiding waking up naked somewhere in the British Columbian wilderness after a particularly destructive Midori Sour bender.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE June 27–29, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

WHAT'S NEW: As per tradition this June, it's another new release "duel" with an essentially foregone conclusion: The already-beloved (except among fat people and the GOP) Pixar entry Wall-E is ready to go at No. 1, with the bloody Angelina Jolie/James McAvoy destiny-caper Wanted lagging some miles behind with its R-rating. Crap-allergic audiences who stayed away from last week's openings may nudge Wall-E toward the high end of its projected $55 million opening. The same can be said of the male-skewing Wanted, which will surpass $40 million without much trouble. At least we hope so for Disney and Universal's sakes, as both films will vanish into Hancock's booze-smelling shadow in T-minus five days and counting.

Also opening: The Matthew Broderick gerund dramedy Finding Amanda; the Irish-drunks-at-a-wake comedy Red Roses and Petrol; and the 19th-century Catherine Breillat/Asia Argento clash The Last Mistress.

THE BIG LOSER: None of this weekend's new releases will underachieve that much, but The Love Guru may be the first film ever to drop 100% from its opening weekend. Get Smart won't age well, either.

THE UNDERDOG: A hybrid of stage readings, archival footage and interviews, Trumbo isn't going to blow any minds in illuminating the troubled life and times of its blacklisted novelist/screenwriter namesake Dalton Trumbo. That said, his story (adapted from son Christopher's off-Broadway play) is as concentrated an account of the blacklist's havoc as any we've seen, and the actors gathered to monologue his correspondence from the era — including Brian Dennehy, Joan Allen, Paul Giamatti and particularly David Strathairn — do well by their subject's moody talent. At the very least, Nathan Lane's stirring five-minute paean to masturbation is a YouTube hit in the making.

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD releases include Roland Emmerich's steaming pile of 10,000 BC; the dark, dark Colin Farrell hit-man comedy In Bruges; the Oscar-jilted, animated coming-of-age story Persepolis; the underrated rom-com Definitely Maybe; and the desperately awaited "Magical Musical Edition" of Xanadu — complete with soundtrack! (Razor blade sold separately.)

So what's your outlook for the weekend — lovesick robot or bullet-curving megastar? Or some other new, nifty treat altogether? Are you the one person in the country who'll dare to drop $11 on The Love Guru? Or is it an all-Xanadu weekend? Let us know — we can help!

Says outraged film critic Kyle Smith:

Wall-E...supposes that the human race of the future will become a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk. Instead they zip around in flying wheelchairs surfing the Web, chatting on phone lines and stuffing their faces with food meant to be sucked down like milkshakes while unquestioningly taking orders from the master corporation that controls all aspects of their existence. I’m trying to think of a major Disney cartoon feature that was anywhere near as dark or cynical as this. I’m coming up blank. I’m also not sure I’ve ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers.

The Post's Lou Lumenick weighs in, though he's careful to point out he's a fan of the film:

Many of the early early reviews, including mine, have noted this may offend Disney's target audience... it turns out that large people have been blogging angrily about "Wall-E'' since at least November. "Will general audiences (which form the bulk of Pixar’s demographic), upon seeing a fat blob 'drinking liquified food from Big-Gulp-esque cups, and forever surfing (and chatting) on chair-mounted video screens' think 'Oh, wow, so that’s what gravity does to humans!' or 'Wow, so that’s what the obesity epidemic will do to humans!' says a post at The F Word. Gripes a writer at Fatshionista: "this is so INCREDIBLY disappointing. I feel personally betrayed by Pixar right now.''

Too true! When will Pixar realize that the movie's central romance — between a square, boxy robot and a love interest shaped like a white, floating pear — promotes unreasonable body image issues? Parents of America, do not let your daughters starve yourself and sand off their sharp edges to look like EVE! Only a return trip to the overweight delights of Kung Fu Panda can save you now...

• Disney’s “Wall-E”: A $170 Million Art Film [Kyle Smith]

How will moviegoers react to a CG hero who isn't voiced by Jack Black or Will Smith — a character who can say little besides a chirping recitation of his own name? Sound designer Ben Burtt hopes they'll take a cue from decades past:

“We all thought about Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton,” Mr. Burtt said, “this energetic, sympathetic character who doesn’t say a whole lot. Most animation is very dialogue heavy. There’s dance, constant talking, punch lines. We used to wonder: How will we prepare the audience?”

While we have faith in the Pixar brain trust to solve such a problem, we hope they won't follow in the footsteps of Short Circuit 2's notorious, cut-for-TV robot hate crime. Johnny Five...dead...?

• With Wall-E, Pixar Moves to More Somber Ground [New York Times]

Wanted
Release Date: June 27
Tagline: "Choose your identity." (Um, can we borrow Jolie's for a hot second?)
Prime Players: Pre-preggers Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and the always dependable Morgan Freeman.
Highlights: Angie's first magnetic, eyeliner-drenched appearance in a drugstore five seconds in, curveball bullets shot in slo-mo, McAvoy breaking through glass windows, and yeah, the classic shots of Angie shooting massive guns out the passenger window of a red speedster. And...that eyeliner. Wow.