'Up' Takes the Annie Award

Saturday evening, Up floated off with the highest award an animated film can take. At the 37th annual Annie Awards, hosted by William Shatner, Up won the year's best animated film. It also earned the best director award for Pete Docter.

The win spells good news for Up as a potential competitor for an animation Oscar, though the verdict is hardly in. Despite Dreamworks' shutout at the Annie Awards last year with Kung Fu Panda, the Oscar still went to Pixar's Wall-E.

Disney/Pixar's film tells the tale of an aging man with a crippling inability to let go of his past, so much so that he ends up stringing together enough balloons to carry him and his house to South America for one last adventure. Little does he know that he'll pick up an officious boy scout, a talking dog, and a giant bird along the way.

As a whole, the flick highlights Pixar's uncanny ability to combine a childlike sense of humor with unmatched visual representation and imaginative thematic construction. It takes varying degrees of artistic talent to create a character who's burdened by their past, but only Pixar would take as bold a leap as to display that character dragging his lifelong home behind him by a garden hose.

Notable runner's up in the category included Coraline and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, both having scored a handful of awards themselves.