Start making your predictions now! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that twenty films have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category. As we discussed last week on the Brew, this means there will be five nominees in the category for only the second time since the inception of the award. The submitted films are:

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”
“Astro Boy”
“Battle for Terra”
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
“Coraline”
“Disney’s A Christmas Carol”
“The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
“Mary and Max”
“The Missing Lynx”
“Monsters vs. Aliens”
“9”
“Planet 51”
“Ponyo”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“The Secret of Kells”
“Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure”
“A Town Called Panic”
“Up”

One important note: seven of these films have not yet completed their LA qualifying run: “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” “The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Planet 51,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “The Secret of Kells” and “A Town Called Panic.” Also, there is still the possibility that films will be disqualified from the field if they do not fulfill the category’s requirements. With this many films in the running though, we’re most definitely looking at a five-nominee field this year.

UPDATE: Looks like The Dolphin is playing at the Laemmle Claremont 5 starting December 11 - same theater and week as A Town Called Panic, per Laemmle Theatres website

The Secret of Kells will be at the AMC Burbank 8 December 4-10 at 7 PM, per the Kells Blog.

(Thanks, Jerrett Zaroski)

…because I always think of car insurance when I’m watching a Disney feature.

(Thanks, Jon Reeves)

Nevin Martell’s Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Strip has piqued my interest. The author wasn’t able to score an interview with the notoriously reclusive Watterson, but he’s pieced together his life by interviewing Watterson’s friends and family members including his mother and editor at Universal Press Syndicate. Comic Book Resources has an interview with Martell in which he talks about the challenges of writing the book and how he didn’t want to end up with an overwrought biography like the Charles Schulz volume by David Michaelis.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, the Rauch Bros. have posted on-line their short but powerful film Germans in the Woods. The film’s audio track is recorded by WWII vet Joseph Robertson who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. More details about the film can be found on the Rauch Bros. website and their online store offers pieces of original artwork from the film.

Once again, yours truly Jerry Beck will be a guest today on Stu’s Show on Shokus Internet Radio. This will be my eleventh or twelfth (I’ve lost count) visit to discuss all things animation with Stu and his listeners, live beginning at 4:00 p.m. PDT (7:00 p.m. EDT). Topics this time will include the upcoming Mighty Mouse DVD box set from CBS, forthcoming classic cartoon DVDs from Warner Bros. and your phone calls. As always, listeners will be encouraged to call in with their questions and comments on the station’s toll-free telephone number. Click here for more details. Oh, and if you miss the live broadcast today, the show is rerun in the same time slot during the next six days.

Dani from the Spanish animation blog Protoones turned me on to Puck Cinema Caravana, a cool little project from Spain conceived by Carles Porta and Toni Tomàs. In short, Carles and Toni got their hands on a trailer home, decorated it beautifully on the outside, outfitted the inside with a cinema, and are roaming the Spanish countryside screening rare animated shorts for young and old alike. There is a more in-depth description on the Puck Cinema Caravana blog:

“Puck is a caravan fitted out as a cinema. Its inside is a tiny cinema, maybe the smallest in the world. There is room for seven people. Puck shows animation films which are not usually broadcast on TV. There is a wide selection of international films from all around the world that have been made throughout time. The menu is varied but selected. It aims mostly to the spirit.

The objective is to capture a brand new lover of animated cinema or simply be able to recover the experience of cinema in a particular way in order to enjoy in a short time a little big piece of work of audiovisual creation.”

They’ve put a lot of care and detail into the presentation and branding of their cinema, from the beautiful paint job on the exterior of their cinema-on-wheels to this cute animated trailer:

A screenshot from today’s Google News:

The best comment about this mix-up comes from Ricky Garduno on Facebook: “Makes sense. After watching Space Jam I severed my own penis.”

ASIFA-Hollywood has announced its Winsor McCay Award recipients for 2009: Tim Burton, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Bruce Timm. The award is given in recognition of career contributions to the art of animation.

Tim Burton, of course, has had a strong influence on the world of animation. Burton began his career as an animator (Tron, Fox And the Hound) at the Walt Disney Studios where he directed his first shorts, Vincent (in stop motion animation) and Frankenweenie (live action). He co-produced the CBS Family Dog series, and returned to Disney to make Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, directed by Henry Selick) and later co-produced the stop-mo feature James and The Giant Peach (1996). In the past decade, Burton co-directed the stop-motion Corpse Bride (2005) and created an internet animation series, The World of Stainboy (2000). Burton is currently developing Frankenweenie as a full length animated feature.

Bruce Timm forever changed the world of TV adventure cartoons with his visual take on DC Comics super heroes, beginning with his co-producing Batman: the Animated Series in 1992. Timm began his career in animation at Filmation, doing layouts on He-Man and Flash Gordon. He did storyboards for Ralph Bakshi (on Mighty Mouse: the New Adventures) and John Kricfalusi (Beany & Cecil). While working on Tiny Toon Adventures, he helped create a new take on Batman. The success of that series has led Timm to redesign the entire DC Comics universe in various Warner Bros. Animation series as Superman, Batman Beyond and Justice League Unlimited.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is the CEO of Dreamworks Animation. Katzenberg was responsible for reviving the fortunes of Walt Disney Feature Animation with his supervision of The Little Mermaid, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and The Beast and The Lion King. Katzenberg left Disney in 1994 to team with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to create Dreamworks SKG, where, as head of the animation studio, he oversaw the production of such hand drawn animated features as The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado and Spirit. Switching to CG production, the studio since produced a string of hits including Shrek (and its sequels), Madagascar (and its spin-offs) and Kung Fu Panda.

The awards will be presented at the 37th Annual Annie Awards scheduled for Saturday, February 6, 2010 at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles, California.