The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Films has just announced the nominees for its 34th annual Saturn Awards. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on 24 June 2008 in Universal City, California.
The 30 awards are broken down into three major sections: Film (17), Television (7), and DVD (6). Leading the pack of nominees is 300, with 10 nominations. Close behind it are Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with 9, and Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with 8.
In the television categories, Lost again leads the pack, with 7 nominations (last year, it had 6). Dexter received 5 nominations (up from last year’s 4), and Heroes got 4 nominations (compared to last year’s 5).
This year, the Academy will also give two special awards. Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro will receive the George Pal Memorial Award, and author Tim Lucas will receive a Special Achievement Award for his book Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark.
The full list of nominees is available here.
The write-ups for the special awards follow:
Guillermo del Toro, The George Pal Memorial Award:
Guillermo del Toro is one of the most talented and creative filmmakers working in contemporary film. His films have been widely recognized as genre classics. His recent film, Pan’s Labyrinth, won several Academy awards in 2007. His upcoming film is Hellboy II: The Golden Army opening in July through Universal Pictures.
President of the Academy, Robert Holguin, says of del Toro: “Nobody embodies the full range artistry of classic filmmaker George Pal more than Guillermo del Toro”.
George Pal was the genius filmmaker who produced and/or directed such genre classics as War of the Worlds (1960), When Worlds Collide (1951), and The Time Machine (1960). He was also the creator of the three-dimensional cartoons, Puppetoons, in the ’30s. George Pal was a close friend of Academy founder Dr. Donald A. Reed, and a long-time supporter of the Saturn Awards until his passing in 1980.
Tim Lucas: The Special Achievement Award:
One of the great achievements of 2007 was the publication of the book, Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark written by author Tim Lucas. This book interweaves biography, history, and criticism of the life and work of filmmaker Mario Bava. This massive project, which took many years of exhaustive research, is 1128 pages (nearly 800,000 words) and fully illustrated with well over 1000 stills and annotated poster art from all over the world. The book itself weighs 12 pounds. The book is a tribute to a filmmaker who was original and influential to many contemporary filmmakers including: Tim Burton, Joe Dante, Guillermo del Toro, and Martin Scorsese (who wrote the introduction). Bava’s films include: Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), Planet of the Vampires (1965), and Danger: Diabolik (1968).
Tim Lucas is publisher and editor of Video Watchdog. He has written other works which include Throat Sprockets and The Book of Renfield: A Gospel of Dracula.