Oscar Picks

Well it's Oscar time again and I have to admit, this was a pretty good year for movies! This year's Oscars are hosted by Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show, and Ted) so that's new... Anyway, here are my picks for this year's Oscar Nominee's: Enjoy!

(Only select categories featured.)

Best Picture: Lincoln – Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy
Best Director: Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln as Abraham Lincoln
Best Actress: Naomi Watts – The Impossible as Maria Bennett
Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln as Thaddeus Stevens
Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field – Lincoln as Mary Todd Lincoln
Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: Lincoln – Tony Kushner from Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Best Animated Feature: ParaNorman – Sam Fell and Chris Butler
Best Animated Short Film: Paperman – John Kahrs
Best Original Score: Lincoln – John Williams
Best Original Song: "Skyfall" from Skyfall – Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
Best Sound Editing: Skyfall – Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
Best Sound Mixing: Lincoln – Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, and Ronald Judkins
Best Production Design: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Dan Hennah, Ra Vincent, and Simon Bright
Best Cinematography: Lincoln – Janusz Kamiński
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater, and Tami Lane
Best Costume Design: Lincoln – Joanna Johnston
Best Film Editing: Lincoln – Michael Kahn
Best Visual Effects: Marvel's The Avengers – Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, and Dan Sudick

OSCAR NIGHT!

Sunday is the 84th Annual Academy Awards or "Oscars"! Every year, eager film fanatics await the announcement of the winners of this prestigious award. While many of the winners are well deserved of this honor many of these films that win, most of us (including me) haven't even seen! Many of the films who are nominated are either artsy-fartsy period pieces or intense politically-driven (with an agenda) melodramas. (Although the one time I was actually surprised was when Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won in 2004!) Very rarely do the movies I enjoy over the year ever win or for that matter even get nominated, while others make you wonder how they ended up on the ballot in the first place. Sure you may be thinking I'm just the product of mass media and over-blown marketing and merchandising of mainstream movies...and you may be right. But who cares, this year I look back and share my own Oscar Picks and assorted "Besties" in some of my own categories! And the "Oscar" goes to...

Best Animated Feature: Rango, Dir. Gore Verbinski
Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dir. Rupert Wyatt
Best Writing: Limitless, Leslie Dixon (screenplay) and Alan Glynn (novel)
Best Original Music Score: Hans Zimmer, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Best Song in a Soundtrack: "Walk" , Foo Fighters, Thor
Best Original Song: "Man or Muppet", The Muppets
Best Comic Book Movie: X-Men First Class, Dir. Matthew Vaughn
Best Sound Effects: Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, Dir. Michael Bay
Best Documentary: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Best Foreign Film: Trollhunter (Trolljegeren ), Dir. André Øvredal
Best Independent Film: Red State, Dir. Kevin Smith
Best Comedy: Paul, Dir. Greg Mottola, Starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost
Best Sci-Fi Movie: Cowboys & Aliens, Dir. Jon Favreau, Starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford
Best Horror Movie: The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), Dir. Tom Six
Best Babe: Rooney Mara (Lisbeth Salander), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Badass: Michael Fassbender (Eric Lensher/Magneto) X-Men: First Class
Best Hero: Captain America, Starring: Chris Evans, Dir. Joe Johnston,
Best Director: Kenneth Branagh, Thor
Best Picture: Super 8, Dir. J.J. Abrams

LINKS: IMDB

And the Oscar goes too...(yawn)

Last night was the 83rd Annual Academy Awards...and I was NOT impressed! Let's face it, YES, we Americans are a bit obsessed with celebrities and awards shows and I admit I watched the WHOLE THING! We love movies, I love movies but year after year we have to suffer through long-winded acceptance speeches "Thanks Mom!", tiresome celebrity coupling, bizarre fashions and lackluster nominations. Now, I don't mean to rant but...what am I saying this is my blog, of course I do! So, lets start with this year's hosts: you've got Anne Hathaway: kinda hot, somewhat hyperactive AND James Franco: dull, boring, and possibly high as a kite (he was in Pineapple Express after all, lol)! The beginning sequence featured a parody of Inception starring Alec Baldwin and Morgan Freeman of all people, it seemed like something the MTV Movie Awards would do, and not the Oscars!? Anne Hathaway defintiely stole the show with her quirky remarks and incredibly bad jokes such as: "It's been a great year for Lesbians!" (i.e. The Kids Are Alright) and “It used to be, you get naked, you get nominated...", referring to her last film Love and other Drugs, not to mention her literal "Flub!" while introducing Sandra Bullock. Also her incredibly odd solo number where she poked fun at Hugh Jackman. It was obvious the producers of this years Oscars were leaning to a more "younger" audience especially with this years The Social Network receiving so many nominations (and only 1 win in Film Editing?I wasn't really surprised). It became painfully obvious when James Franco came on stage in DRAG as Marylin Monroe and with Anne's comment: " you look very appealing to a younger demographic as well." (gag!)
Next comes the nominations, there were apparently 10 Nominations for Best Picture, that's right, TEN! Are you kidding me, everything else such as Actor, Actress, and Director gets like 5 nominations at least. Were there really that many great movies this year or were you just trying to make everyone feel better?
It always amazes me of the time taken up with the minor technical awards for Film Editing, Sound Editing and even Sound Mixing and yet there's the whole separate awards for the Science and Technical Awards (not televised). I guarantee those are much more interesting than the awards for Documentary Feature, Documentary Short, Animated Short or even Live-Action Short. We don't care!
The most disappointing awards were the nominations for Animated Feature Film, there were only 3? Of course Toy Story 3 and How To Train Your Dragon were on it, but what about Tangled (it got a song nomination) or even Shrek Forever After? Possibly the greatest injustice came from one of my favorites this year being Tron: Legacy, with only 1 nomination for Sound Editing of all things, not even a nomination for Visual Effects, instead Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 gets a nomination! WTF?
I was pleased with the nominations for Inception which deserved every one even though none of it's actors (which were more of an ensemble cast anyway) didn't receive any nominations. And I believe Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech) should have won Best Supporting Actor instead of Christian Bale (The Fighter) who admittedly exclaimed: "...a room a full of talented and inspirational people and what the hell am I doing here?". Well said...I think?
It was pretty obvious when Tom Hooper took Best Director and Colin Firth won Best Actor for The King's Speech what was going to win Best Picture, and I was thoroughly impressed with the film itself. I especially liked the Best Picture montage which revolved around the radio speech scene from The King's Speech while Beethoven's 7th Symphony played. LINK All in all, it seemed like a fairly mediocre Oscar night and I trust neither Anne Hathaway or James Franco will return next year. Unfortunately the final number did little to bring it any prestige with a performance of "Over the Rainbow" by Staten Island's PS 22 Chorus which sounded very dubbed/lip synced? We've definitely had our fill of awards shows this year, with the recent Grammy awards in all it's eccentricitys (i.e. Lady Gaga arriving in a giant egg?!?!) plus the Emmy's, Tony's, Golden Globes and now the Oscars! (And don't forget the Indie Spirit Awards) Enough is Enough!!!