Best Novel: Out of Position by Kyell Gold
Best Motion Picture: Avatar, directed by James Cameron
Best Graphic Story: Concession by Immelmann
Best Magazine: Heat #6, published by Sofawolf Press
Best Other Literary Work: Draw Furries: How to Create Anthropomorphic and Fantasy Animals by Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges
Best Comic Strip: Housepets! by Rick Griffin
Best Published Illustration: Out of Position Cover by Blotch
Best Short Fiction: “Drifting” by Kyell Gold
Best Short Subject or Series: The Penguins of Madagascar, produced by Dreamworks Animation
Best Game: Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, for the PS3, developed by Insomniac Games

With two more awards under his belt, Kyell Gold has passed Stan Sakai as the recipient of the most UMAs.

The full list of nominees can be viewed on the Ursa Major Awards official website.

This is actually a pretty big year for the awards, in the sense that someone as important as me is actually familiar with most of the nominees.

In the Best Motion Picture category I’m really curious to see if people will pick the best film on the list (which is Up by the way, don’t fucking kid yourself), or if Avatar or even The Fantastic Mr Fox takes it.

I’m pleased to see that two of the novels I listed in my Year in Review feature are nominated for Best Novel. Out of Position is a definite front runner, but David Benedictus’ revival of Winnie the Pooh in Return to the Hundred Acre Woods is a great story (though I’m not sure it’s even near 40,000 words). Also of note is Cheetah’s Win by Phil Geusz, which I read as part of Roar Volume 2 a little while back. Oh and who stuck a Patricia Briggs novel in there? I know that a hot were-coyote mechanic chick marrying the alpha werewolf and fighting a vampire queen sounds awesome– wait, no it doesn’t!

The Short Fiction category is stuffed full of great entries, all of which deserve the award. I really enjoyed “Moonthief” by Not Tube, it was one of my favorite entries in X.

I’m going to glaze over these next few categories (Housepets! is cute though).

Best Magazine is another category full of great entries. I wish I had read all five, but Anthro, Heat, and New Fables are all great magazines.

Best Published Illustration really needs to have the damn illustrations on display. Here, let me fix that for you:
“Gaia’s Strange Seedlike Brood (Homage to Lynn Margulis)” by Patrick Farley
”It’s Beautiful” by Jailbird
”Jazmyn” by Sara Palmer
”New Coyote” by Kenket
”Out of Position” by Blotch

I think the winner is pretty obvious.

How is it that only one of the video games on my Year in Review feature got nominated for Best Game? And why the fuck is G-Force on there? I swear to god, furries, you would probably vote Settlers of Catan as best game every damn year if they let you.

Now remember kids. Nobody wins unless you get out there and vote. And for those of you that think your vote won’t count, remember that the Ursa Majors have an abysmally low amount of participation, so just a few Livejournal entries and you too might one day tie Stan Sakai’s record for most awards.

The livejournal group, To the Hometree was started earlier this month as a community for people that finally realized that all this time they’ve been blue alien cats with ponytail penises.

This sounds a lot like the rhetoric of the entire Otherkin community (people that believe they have a spiritual connection to nature, oftentimes believing to be a different species in spirit than they are in flesh), but it seems like even they aren’t buying this.

Any and all criticisms over the validity of “Na’vi Kin” is met with a quick rebuttal accusing the dissenter of being a furry, and thus a pervert.

The official Twitter page (which I assume plugs in through their USB ponytail penis) is currently bouncing back and forth between calling Dragoneer a pervert who wants to abduct people, and claiming the Na’vi are too forgiving to start a flamewar. Too late, guys, you started a big enough flamewar to burn down your Hometree. Again.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Director: Wes Anderson

Jakebe says: Hands down the best furry movie of the year (and this was a pretty good year for us). Quirky and whimsical enough to engage children, this movie still had an undeniably mature sensibility. It’s one of those rare movies that you can grow up with; it becomes a slightly different movie every time you see it. Fortunately for us, George Clooney as a self-possessed trickster is pretty damned hot in all of them.

Up
Directors: Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson

Jakebe says: Pixar’s latest is notable for a whole host of reasons — it’s the highest grossing 3D movie of all time, if you had a heart at all, you cried in the first fifteen minutes (before our protagonist even said a word) and it gave us Dug, one adorable talking dog. Still, the story is what resonates most; the old crotchety man setting out on one last adventure to fulfill his wife’s lifelong dream and finding himself, his life and a dysfunctional family in the process. Way to go Pixar — you’ve proven for another year that you can do no wrong.

The Hangover
Director: Todd Phillips

Malin says: How hard is it to reinvent the stupid buddy comedy? It’s a tried and true formula, but “The Hangover” takes it to another level, giving us stupid buddies we care about, a mystery with delightful and sometimes side-splitting surprises at every turn, and heartfelt acting performances. To make Vegas more surreal and funny than it already is hasn’t been done this well since “Swingers.”

The Princess and the Frog
Directors: Ron Clements and John Musker

Jakebe says: Disney’s triumphant return to traditional animation was everything it needed to be — a crowd-pleasing musical in the finest Disney tradition, a bold, surprising movie that proved the company could do something modern, and a love letter to the spirit and character of New Orleans. It’s most stunning achievement, however, is Louis, who might finally dispel the memory of that horrible big-lipped alligator in All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Where the Wild Things Are
Director: Spike Jonze

Jakebe says: It’s hard to deny the craftsmanship in the look (a trippy and effective combination of puppety and CG) or the story (a deft, mature meditation of the complex emotional landscape of childhood), but this Spike Jonze adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s classic was a little inert for me. Fascinating as an intellectual exercise, I can’t say it worked as entertainment — it was more whimpering than wild. Still, this scored deeply with quite a lot of you, and who wouldn’t want to romp around in the woods with a bunch of giant monsters?

Sherlock Holmes
Director: Guy Ritchie

Lovejoy says: I was pleasantly surprised with how enjoyable Sherlock Holmes was. I love Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective, and while the film’s plot wasn’t a stellar mystery, it was entertaining and had a lot of the twists and set ups that Doyle uses in his novels. Just as important, Robert Downey Jr is amazing and embodied Holmes with the wit and narcissism I love him for. He carries the film, though he is supported by the charming likes of Jude Law.

Coraline
Director: Henry Selick

Jakebe says: This charming stop-motion animation is being ignored in a lot of year-end lists, and that’s a shame. It’s another movie that immerses you in its very unique world, and the story — adapted from the master of modern fantasy, Neil Gaiman — is a wonderful coming-of-age fable that has something for kids and adult alike. And, in a completely overlooked performance, Keith David totally rocks it as The Cat.

Watchmen
Director: Zack Snyder

Jakebe says: Despite the tweaks to this highly-anticipated adaptation, it was quite possibly the most faithful reworking you could get of Alan Moore’s complicated 1987 graphic novel. The action and effects were top-notch, but so were the story and acting — Watchmen is quite possibly the only movie that we wish Moore had given his blessing to. But hey, we understand; it’s an outrage to see Dr. Manhattan’s giant, blue, glowing penis to be treated so casually.

Up in the Air
Director: Jason Reitman

Malin says: Up In The Air is a film that really shines. It’s a tight, enjoyable movie, wonderfully acted and directed, with a story that is perfectly suited to our times and a message that resonates long after the final credits. It has everything: humor, surprises, emotion, drama, George Clooney, and Jason Bateman. No other movie this year has been as complete or as perfectly executed.

Star Trek
Director: JJ Abrams

Jakebe says: After the premature flame-out of Star Trek: Enterprise and the disappointing box office for Nemesis, folks were beginning to wonder if it was time to put the Federation on ice for a while. Then came JJ Abrams, who guided James T. Kirk and company back to cultural relevance with a cool, sweet sci-fi blockbuster. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto make a better Kirk and Spock than Shatner and Nimoy did, and that’s saying something. Abrams continues to show a remarkable knack for spinning perfect pop-culture confections.

District 9
Director: Neil Blomkamp

Jakebe says: When I saw the roll-out for this movie’s ubiquitous advertising campaign (“This bus is for humans only!”), I knew it would be something special. Thankfully, I was right: District 9 taught Hollywood that it could make a great, gritty, instant-cult-favorite on a limited budget without any big name stars and effects that create a believable, down-to-earth world that still holds up under the weight of its heavy concept. I’m already looking forward to the return of CJ for Neil Blomkamp’s inevitable sequel.

(500) Days of Summer
Director: Marc Webb

Lovejoy says: I hesitate to call this film a romantic comedy, and I flat out refuse to use the stupid term “dramady”. I think I’ll make up a new terrible compound word, “melanchomedy”. Though there are some hilarious moments in here. Ultimately, 500 Days is a heartfelt, emotional film carried by the stars. I’ve never seen Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel so great, but I can’t wait to see more.

Zombieland
Director: Ruben Fleischer

Jakebe says: I expected good things from this, and joy of joys the movie turned out to be even better than I imagined. This along with 2012 put Woody Harrelson back on the map, and Jesse Eisenberg’s baby-faced hero establishes him as something much more than a poor man’s Michael Cera. Oh, and the little sister to Emma Stone’s bad-ass Wichita? None other than “Little Miss Sunshine” herself, Abigail Breslin. Perfectly cast and wickedly funny, this earns its place atop a genre that’s gotten incredibly crowded in recent years.

Avatar
Director: James Cameron

Jakebe says: It’s impossible to overstate Avatar‘s importance as the pop-culture fantasy event of the year. James Cameron’s return to the big screen met with the astonishing success we’ve come to expect from him, and it couldn’t have come at a better moment. In a year where Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen takes the box-office crown, we sorely needed someone to show Michael Bay how you roll with eye-popping special effects.

Inglourious Basterds
Director: Quentin Tarantino

Malin says: There are certain things we take for granted as hallmarks of a Tarantino movie: snappy, layered dialogue; brilliant, striking visuals; almost cartoonishly exaggerated violence. Inglourious Basterds does not disappoint on any of those fronts. Tarantino is also a director who knows how to get terrific performances from his actors: Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz steal the show, but there’s not a false note in the cast. And yet, the story seems less developed than usual. Ranked against his other full-length features, Basterds would be near the bottom–which still leaves it ahead of most of the rest of Hollywood.

So there you have it. There were more films we wanted to put in here. Jakebe loves Taken more than anyone reasonably should. And none of even saw The Hurt Locker, but we hear good things. We’re sure you’ve got your favorites, so go ahead and leave us a comment ranting about how we snubbed The Proposal.

Now I’ll admit I was one of the people turned off by the hype surrounding Avatar. “The greatest adventure of all time” is how every major blockbuster is touted, but to say this film will reinvent movies seems a little absurd. Avatar is a major technical and artistic achievement, though, and it should be seen by everyone, even if it won’t actually change how you experience movies forever.

Plain and simple, Avatar is one of those films that is made to be a theatrical spectacle, and it totally succeeds on that front. It’s colorful, loud, exciting, without being overwhelming or obnoxious (save for maybe the fact that every plant on Pandora is neon and bioluminescent). Seriously some of these shots are literally breathtaking, and regardless of whether or not the stuff was stolen from Delgo becomes a moot point when you see how cool this shit is compared to the crappy CGI in Delgo (and for the record, flying alien things that look like dragons wasn‘t original even a decade ago).

The story isn’t great and will likely seem pretty familiar. A little Dances with Wolves, some Last of the Mohicans, and a dash of The Last Samurai. But it’s lack of originality doesn’t make it bad. Besides some hokey acting, Sam Worthington’s constantly slipping American accent, and a handful of supposedly main characters that never get any development, I really didn’t have any major complaints.

I think Avatar is likely to get a nomination for Best Picture, but I’d be surprised to see it win. It’s definitely worth seeing in the theaters (and in 3D because that’s how Cameron directed it).

And if it makes a difference to you, the cat people are in loincloths (or less!) for most of the film.