While not as widely publicized as the Oscars, the self-serving Golden Globes or even the WGA or SAG Awards, the Annies (2011 winners here) are given out each year to honor achievements in animation.
This year, Brad Bird was given the Winsor McCay Award, which recognizes an outstanding or lifetime contribution to the art of animation – and you have admit the man has earned it. The award’s namesake was a pioneer in animation and cartooning, creator of the influential comic strips Little Nemo in Slumberland and Gertie the Dinosaur. Past recipients include such luminaries as Walt Disney, Tex Avery, Max Fleischer and Mel Blanc.
Since Bird has his hands full with the Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, he had to accept the award in a pre-recorded video. Keep watching (around 4 minute 30 seconds mark) after the rather nifty overview of his career for Bird’s acceptance speech, which extols the virtues of live-action filmmaking, and in which he evidently renounces the medium he has spent his career redefining for a new generation. I believe he may have been under duress at the time of these statements, but you be the judge:
Ha!
Did you watch the whole thing? If so, does it prove that Tom Cruise actually might have a sense of humor after all, or was it merely a piece of propaganda in the vein of a Chinese newscast?