Well, the nominations for the 79th Academy Awards were announced early Tuesday morning, and congratulations to VFX nominees PIRATES OF THE CARIBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST, POSEIDON and SUPERMAN RETURNS. Jill Smolin recaps last week's bakeoff, bolstered by some terrific clips. And good luck to the three animated feature contenders: CARS, HAPPY FEET and MONSTER HOUSE. Meanwhile, Christopher Harz recaps CES 2007, Bryan Hoff reviews how the new Intel quad-core processor speeds up HP's xw8400 workstation and Tara DiLullo returns to ROME to find out how the vfx team copes with a whole new set of challenges.

Bill Desowitz
Editor