The Screening Room

From The Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- One of the digital wizards behind such cartoon smashes as WALL-E, Ratatouille" and Finding Nemo is getting an Academy Award.

Pixar Animation co-founder Ed Catmull is receiving the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, an honorary Oscar statuette, for lifetime achievement in computer graphics for filmmaking.

Catmull is receiving the prize at the academy's Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony Feb. 7, which precedes the Feb. 22 Oscars.

It's the second honorary Oscar for Catmull. He's a previous recipient in 2000 for developing Pixar's RenderMan software, which has been used in digital imagery for 45 of the last 50 films nominated for the visual-effects Oscar.

Catmull also has three past scientific and technical awards from the academy.

The documentary Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life will screen at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26 at the Lakewood Theater in Dallas. All proceeds of this movie and t-shirt sales will be donated to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy research in hopes of finding treatment or a cure for this disease.

Plot synopsis from IMDb.com:

Darius Weems, a 15-year-old with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, had never left his hometown of Athens, Georgia. In the summer of 2005, he and a group of young college students traveled across the country in a wheelchair-accessible RV to test accessibility in the United States. Their ultimate goal was to reach Los Angeles and convince MTV's hit show, Pimp My Ride, to customize Darius's wheelchair. Along the way, they found joy, brotherhood, and the knowledge that life, even when imperfect, is always worth the ride.

In stores today:

An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong -- The books and cafes move to the screen again as Chrissa deals with bullies in American Girl fashion.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.0 -- This comes out just in time for viewers to catch up; the second part of the series' last season begins Jan. 16 on SciFi. The set also includes the unrated, extended version and the broadcast version of the Battlestar movie, Razor.
Bangkok Dangerous -- If you must add to your Nicolas Cage collection (he gets a pass in my book for taking his stage name from Marvel Comics' Luke Cage, aka Power Man), well, try this. If your collection stopped at Con Air, well, don't. Mr. Cage is a tough assassin (natch) who lets down his guard.
Mamma Mia! -- Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan warble their way through the movie version of the hit musical.
Mannix: Season 2 -- Back when our TV detectives had less angst and, well, detected, Joe Mannix was the man.
Pineapple Express -- Seth Rogen and James Franco star in an action-stoner film, if there can be such a thing, for the aughts. Judd Apatow, of course, produces.
Righteous Kill -- Al Pacino and Robert De Niro star as a pair of New York cops. Donnie Wahlberg and 50 Cent co-star.
The Tudors: Season 2 -- Anne Boleyn becomes King Henry VIII's new queen in Showtime's royal steamer. Yes, we know how it ends. The fun is watching actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers get there as Henry. The set includes the first two episodes of new Showtime drama The United States of Tara.

For more titles, check out our DVD page.