OBlogs: In which ponies share a stage with Ah-nald for the first time ever.

Fred Astaire shoos the cabaret dancers off the stage and Ginger Rogers takes care of the ponies in tutus, wondering if it was worth the effort. A satisfied audience says yes.

Hell yes.

Moving on, Ah-nald is here to present the award for Best Visual Effects. He mentions that currently, one body part of his is, in fact, a visual effect of its own.

A brief murmur as everybody's thoughts plummet into the gutter for a moment.

Ho ho! It's his teeth! They're whitened!

Another brief pause as everyone thinks, in unison, "Yeah, RIGHT." There is, however, a smattering of laughter, because Ah-nald is still pretty massive.

See.

Side note: the trivia for visual effects is incredible. Pioneers you wouldn't expect, like Willow, which was the first film to use the morphing technique used to such, well, effect in T2 (below), and The Muppets Take Manhattan, which was the first to use green screen instead of blue! And Cliffhanger, which pioneered the digital "taking out" of suspension wires. Kind of integral, I suppose, given the subject matter.

Aaaaanyway. The nominees are...

Star Wars, 1977 - Pew! Pew! Pew! Lasers, everywhere!

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988 - you think combining animation and real actors was easy? It wasn't.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991 - if you don't know why, you haven't seen the movie. You've also never seen any kind of documentary on visual effects. It isn't because of Ah-nald.

Jurassic Park, 1993 - It's totally not my fault that all these films are relatively recent. This award didn't even exist until 1963 (in which, I'm appalled to see, Jason and the Argonauts didn't even get nominated!). Anyway. Dinosaurs. Nuff said.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 2002 - once again due largely to animation of a character, but in this case Gollum is ALWAYS an effect. Also the battle of Helm's Deep was sort of beyond cool.

And the winner is...

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers!!! (I must say, it's getting REALLY hard for the jury to make these decisions) But hurrah! All the little Weta people (apparently the staff of Weta Digital was doubled for the purpose of this film...there are a LOT of people on stage) file up with jollility to receive the award, because this is the Fantasy Oscars and EVERYONE gets an award! Ah-nald is no match for their numbers, and in seconds they swarm and he is seen no more. Never mind, though, because they're all so happy! Wheee!

Who would you say, at this point, is the person best suited to present the award for Best Editing? I'm going to go with Irony Lives Here, so out walks Warren Beatty and Gwyneth Paltrow, who represent people who could use a little editing when they start to speak.

Nominees...

(I'm explaining away the arbitrary nature of these picks by the fact that this portion of the ballot sheet was sort of fuzzy, owing to a shoddy refilling of printer ink. Which was also not my fault.)

From Here to Eternity, 1953 - William A. Lyon (someone had to say when to cut that little clinch on the beach...just kidding. It's probably more to do with the Pearl Harbour attack)

Lawrence of Arabia, 1962 - Anne V. Coates (the opening sequence, in which we fade from the burning match in Lawrence's hand to the burning Arabian sun. That's why.)

Raging Bull, 1980 - Thelma Schoonmaker (everyone likes a boxing match, but nobody edits one like Thelma Schoonmaker)

Saving Private Ryan, 1998 - Michael Kahn (bullets, hand-held cameras, explosions, death, blood, intestines...put it this way, this sequence could have been a LOT longer and less intense)

Slumdog Millionaire, 2008 - Chris Dickens (just one of the things it did really, really well)

The winner is Raging Bull! Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Martin Scorsese carry Ms Schoonmaker up onto the stage, making for a somewhat lopsided journey. She is gracious and eloquent in her speech, and there is nothing in it that doesn't need to be there. She's a pro.

Chocolate break!