DVD News

Nominees for the Fourth Annual DVD Exclusive Awards

By James Wray Jan 3, 2005, 23:39 GMT

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a contender

Late-year DVD releases such as "The Ultimate Matrix Collection," and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Ring - Special Extended Edition" and "Mary Poppins 40th Anniversary Edition" have scored major nominations for the annual DVD Exclusive Awards, as late-year releases often do with the major theatrical awards. However, titles released on DVD early in 2004, such as "Capturing the Friedmans" and "The Lion King 1-1/2," and mid-year releases such as "School of Rock," "The Great Escape," and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," among others, also scored heavy nominations.

New Line's recently released hour-longer version of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" leads all special edition DVD titles with seven DVD Exclusive nominations -- one in every category for which it is eligible, including Best Overall DVD, New Movie.

 In a surprise nomination, competing against the 2004 Academy Award(R) winner is HBO's 2004 Academy Award(R) -- nominated documentary "Capturing the Friedmans," which collected three DVD Exclusive nominations despite being released on DVD nearly a full year ago on January 27, 2004. The academy recognized "Fahrenheit 9/11" with only a single nomination, that for Best Deleted Scenes.

Actress Eva Longoria may have been the only "Desperate Housewives" cast member not to be nominated for a Golden Globe, but she is also the only cast member nominated for DVD Exclusive Awards' Best Actress -- in Maverick Entertainment's DVD premiere movie "Carlita's Secret."

The 2004 DVD Exclusive Awards will be presented on Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at the Annenberg Building at the California Science Center near the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The gala event's cocktail reception begins at 6:30 PM, and dinner and the awards show start at 7:30 PM.

The annual DVD Exclusive Awards recognize the individual and collaborative artistic achievement in bonus features produced for DVD special editions of theatrical films, and all creative contributions made to movies produced specifically for home viewing.

Award categories, of which there are more than 20, include overall DVD new movie, overall DVD TV program, overall DVD music program, animated DVD premiere movie, audio commentary, menu design, best actor, actress, animated character performance, director and screenplay for movies premiering on DVD.

In addition special honorary awards include Director Focus Award, Career Achievement Award, and Innovation Award. Past special award recipients have included Quentin Tarantino, Michael Bay, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Peter Jackson, Stan Lee, Ridley Scott, and Pixar.

The over 500 entertainment industry members of the DVD Exclusive Academy, including filmmakers like Sam Raimi and Ridley Scott and actors from Jason Alexander to Sylvester Stallone, are each sent dozens of DVDs each year to rate electronically on a scale of 1-5 at the time of the DVD release to determine the members' weekly and monthly top picks of new releases.

The five weekly and monthly leaders with the highest average ratings in each of 24 categories at the end of the year become the nominees for the best DVDs of 2004. Online ballots for nominated DVDs have been re-opened so DVDX Academy members may revise any of their previous ratings for nominees throughout this month.

For a complete list of nominees, visit http://www.dvdexclusive.com/.