Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) tonight announced the winners of the 2023 Writers Guild Awards (awards.wga.org) for outstanding achievement in writing for film, television, new media, news, radio/audio, and promotional categories during concurrent ceremonies.
Of interest to our readers, the Animation category saw a bit of a coup for the new generation of thoughtful, high-concept adult toons as first time nominee Undone (Prime Video) won out over three nominations for 13-time winner The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers and Tuca & Bertie. The award went to episode “Rectify,” written by Elijah Aron & Patrick Metcalf.
The 73rd Annual ACE Eddie Awards (americancinemaeditors.org) presented by American Cinema Editors (ACE) announced winners Sunday night, recognizing outstanding editing in 14 categories of film, television and documentaries. The animated winners are:
- Best Edited Animated Feature Film — Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio | Ken Schretzmann, ACE;
Holly Klein - Best Edited Animated Series — Love, Death + Robots “Bad Travelling” | Kirk Baxter, ACE
In addition to the announcement of winners in competitive categories, Gina Prince-Bythewood accepted the prestigious ACE Golden Eddie Award for distinguished achievement in film. Film editors Lynne Willingham, ACE and Don Zimmerman, ACE received Career Achievement Awards for their outstanding contributions to film editing. The event was hosted by Ashley Nicole Black and presided over by ACE President Kevin Tent, ACE.
Ahead of the weekend, PETA announced its annual Oscat Award winners (peta.org). For the sixth year running, the group is recognizing compassionate stars and movies that used storylines, costumes and special effects to promote kindness to animals.
DreamWorks scored a double win at the Oscats. The studio’s star-studded sequel Puss in Boots: The Last Wish nabbed Best Animated Feature for promoting adoption and condemning hoarding and declawing animals. And its animated heist comedy The Bad Guys was honored with the Test Students, Not Animals award for its message that the real “bad guys” are the ones experimenting on animals.
Winning Best Actor for his role in Jurassic World: Dominion, Jeff Goldblum wowed the crowd with his in-character speech as Dr. Ian Malcolm, warning against using animals (dinosaurs) in research and declaring that “human beings have no more right to safety or liberty than any other creature on this planet.”
PETA also said “Yup” to Jordan Peele with its Primo Primate award for his use of a computer-generated chimpanzee in Nope’s haunting depiction of why wild animals don’t belong on television sets, created by MPC.
