'Alice in Wonderland' won an Oscar for Best Art Direction. | Image: © Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3—which centers on Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the gang getting accidentally shipped off to a daycare center as Andy goes off to college—earned two Oscars at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. The latest installment of the storied franchise won Best Animated Feature, which was accepted by director Lee Unkrich, and Best Original Song by veteran composer Randy Newman.
Writes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times:
That Toy Story 3 won in the full-length feature animation is no surprise. The surprise would have been if this terrific film didn’t win. As good as the others were, it is a remarkable feat that the third in the ‘Toy Story’ series proved to be the best of them all.
Alice in Wonderland, a film by CalArts alum Tim Burton (Film/Video 79), also earned two awards: for outstanding achievement in Costume Design (by Colleen Atwood) and Art Direction, shared by Robert Stromberg (Production Design) and Karen O’Hara (Set Decoration). Each of the film’s winners thanked Burton for adding his usual film magic to the Lewis Carroll classic.
Toy Story 3’s executive producer John Lasseter (Film/Video BFA 79), added to Pixar’s hardware collection earlier in the weekend when he took home the lifetime achievement trophy at Shorts International’s first Shorts Awards on Friday, which honors projects under 40 minutes.
Congratulations to all Academy Award winners and nominees.