Weekend Newsreel: February 17, 2006

     BAFTA Awards This Weekend: The British Academy of Film and Television Film Awards ceremony is scheduled for Sunday evening in London. For the FilmBuffOnLine coverage of the award nominees click here.

     Kong, War of The Worlds Sweep VES Awards: King Kong and War Of The Worlds were the big winners at the 4^th annual Visual Effects Society Awards this past Wednesday. You can read the complete FilmBuffOnLine coverage here.

     UPA Studio Tribute: A tribute to UPA animation studio, home of the near-sighted Mr. Magoo, will be held on March 26 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Planned for the evening is a panel discussion featuring former UPA animators and animation historians as well as a screening of the studios Academy Award winning short Gerald McBoing-Boing (1951), several Mr. Magoo shorts and other cartoons created by the studio.

     In Remembrance

Robert “Buzz” Knudson- The three time Academy Award winning sound-mixer has passed away at age 80.

Andreas Katsulas- The character actor who menaced Harrison Ford in the 1993 big screen version of The Fugitive has passed away at age 59.

Phil Brown- The character best remembered as Luke Syywalker’s craggy-faced uncle in the original Star Wars (1977) has passed away at age 89.

Akira Ifukube- The Japanese film composer who scored the ominous main theme for the Godzilla films has passed away at age 91.

     Opening This Week

February 17

·         Battle In Heaven (NY)

·         Date Movie- website

·         Eight Below- website

·         Freedomland- website

·         Illusion (limited)

·         Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor, limited)- website

·         The Second Chance (limited)- website

·         Sophie Scholl- The Final Days (NY)- website

·         Winter Passing (NY, LA)

February 22

·         Street Fight (NY)- website