Hugo Natterings: Best Dramatic Presentation
As an aside, whenever I make these posts, I have the Too Much Joy song "Hugo" going through my head.
There are two relevant awards. Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) is for "a dramatized production in any medium" that is 90 minutes or longer (excluding commercials). Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) is ditto, but the performance has to be less than 90 minutes.
So, for the long-form category I've mostly been playing catch-up this year. I was hopelessly behind until I got stuck on night shift (from Jan. 2 through now, although hopefully not for too much longer).
This is what my list looks like:
Inception -- Um, yeah. No question there.
How To Train Your Dragon -- Ditto. A solid fantasy movie. I didn't see it as paradigm-shattering, but it was solid.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World -- What can I say? I liked it, and it's also pretty clearly a work of fantasy.
Those three are very certain. The next two are more tenuous.
Despicable Me -- Solidly (mad-)science fiction. Though I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would.
Doctor Who -- "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" A very good Dr Who two-parter, but is it better to nominate the episodes individually? I don't know.
So, what have I overlooked or bypassed?
Kick-Ass? Mmm, no. Iron Man 2 would be a better superhero choice, but I think no there as well.
I haven't seen Predators. Most notably, I haven't seen either Megamind or Endhiran (aka The Robot). If I get hold of a copy of Endhiran in the next month, I can see it slipping its way into the final five.
Anything obvious that I've missed? I think Splice was 2009.
Now ... for the Short Versions. Mostly "Dr Who" ... because that's the only SF TV show that I really watched this year.
If I had to rank them, probably the three episodes I'd be more likely to nominate are (in air order) "The Time of Angels," "Flesh and Stone," and "A Christmas Carol." Although I do note that "Vincent and the Doctor" was nominated for the Nebula (where they do not distinguish between short & long form).
Why only three? Because I have two other short form performances to nominate. Both of which I can link to.
One is John Scalzi's performance of Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School for Troubled Youth. It's amusing. It's SF. The production value isn't the greatest, though (being a youtube video from w00tstock).
The other? Rachel Bloom's "F*ck Me, Ray Bradbury" -- Of course it is. This is more about science fiction (or more specifically a science fiction writer) than directly science fiction, but there is some fudge factor allowed. After all, back in 1970, when there was only one Best Dramatic Presentation category, it went to non-fiction programming: "News coverage of Apollo XI"
What else might you suggest?
There are two relevant awards. Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) is for "a dramatized production in any medium" that is 90 minutes or longer (excluding commercials). Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) is ditto, but the performance has to be less than 90 minutes.
So, for the long-form category I've mostly been playing catch-up this year. I was hopelessly behind until I got stuck on night shift (from Jan. 2 through now, although hopefully not for too much longer).
This is what my list looks like:
Inception -- Um, yeah. No question there.
How To Train Your Dragon -- Ditto. A solid fantasy movie. I didn't see it as paradigm-shattering, but it was solid.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World -- What can I say? I liked it, and it's also pretty clearly a work of fantasy.
Those three are very certain. The next two are more tenuous.
Despicable Me -- Solidly (mad-)science fiction. Though I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would.
Doctor Who -- "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" A very good Dr Who two-parter, but is it better to nominate the episodes individually? I don't know.
So, what have I overlooked or bypassed?
Kick-Ass? Mmm, no. Iron Man 2 would be a better superhero choice, but I think no there as well.
I haven't seen Predators. Most notably, I haven't seen either Megamind or Endhiran (aka The Robot). If I get hold of a copy of Endhiran in the next month, I can see it slipping its way into the final five.
Anything obvious that I've missed? I think Splice was 2009.
Now ... for the Short Versions. Mostly "Dr Who" ... because that's the only SF TV show that I really watched this year.
If I had to rank them, probably the three episodes I'd be more likely to nominate are (in air order) "The Time of Angels," "Flesh and Stone," and "A Christmas Carol." Although I do note that "Vincent and the Doctor" was nominated for the Nebula (where they do not distinguish between short & long form).
Why only three? Because I have two other short form performances to nominate. Both of which I can link to.
One is John Scalzi's performance of Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School for Troubled Youth. It's amusing. It's SF. The production value isn't the greatest, though (being a youtube video from w00tstock).
The other? Rachel Bloom's "F*ck Me, Ray Bradbury" -- Of course it is. This is more about science fiction (or more specifically a science fiction writer) than directly science fiction, but there is some fudge factor allowed. After all, back in 1970, when there was only one Best Dramatic Presentation category, it went to non-fiction programming: "News coverage of Apollo XI"
What else might you suggest?