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www.postmagazine.com 25 POST NOVEMBER 2015 MINIONS - ANIMATION Despicable Me fans would argue that 2015's Minions (www.minionsmovie. com) didn't compete with the first two films in the franchise, but its $1.15B worldwide box office might suggest differently. Directed by Pierre Coffin and featuring the voices of Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton and Allison Janney, the stereo 3D film was animated by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film tells the story of the Minions' evolution, which ultimately leads up to the timeframe of the first film. Can it take home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature? Bob, Stuart and Kevin probably think so. — MARC LOFTUS STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON - DIRECTING Director F. Gary Gray returned to his music roots for Universal Pictures' Straight Outta Compton — a biopic that follows the birth of the gangsta rap group NWA. Gray says he wanted to look into the 'why' surrounding the band's harsh and edgy lyrics about police. In a conversation with Post contributor Iain Blair, the director said, "I felt I knew the answer — as I grew up in that environment — which is that LA in the 80s was a rough place and time. There was this huge influx of cocaine, which changed the economic dynamic, and then you had the influx of military weap- ons flooding the neighborhoods, and NWA wrote about all that. So we knew the 'where' and 'when,' but it's the 'why' that I wanted to explore. That's what I hope sets this movie apart from your typical music biopic." Efilm handled the film's digital intermediate. — MARC LOFTUS THE MARTIAN - DIRECTING, EDITING, VFX, SOUND EDITING, SOUND MIXING Just outside the year's top 10 films, at press time grossing $394M worldwide, is 20th Century Fox's The Martian. The Ridley Scott sci-fi adventure stars Matt Damon as astronaut Mark Watney who, by a se- ries of unfortunate events, ends up stranded on Mars and is forced to rely on his training, ingenuity and wit to survive on the hostile planet. It took a team of artists and a number of studios to create more than 1,000 VFX shots for the film that included Mars environ- ments, NASA headquarters and various scenes carried out in space. According to MPC's Richard Stammers, VFX super on The Martian, it took several VFX studios — MPC, The Senate VFX and Framestore with additional support from ILM, Atomic Arts and Milk Visual Effects as well as previs and postvis contributions from Argon and The Third Floor — to complete the task. The film's outstanding directing, edit- ing, sound editing and mixing will also undoubtedly grab the atten- tion of the Academy. — LINDA ROMANELLO