Academy Awards

Best Picture- Strangely enough, the least predictable of the awards this season as there are 2 viable favorites among the 10 and a legitimate dark horse 3rd. See what a difference a year makes? This year’s bottom 5 nominees are a Na’vi length better than any of ‘08’s remedial “contenders”. Those who like/love movies are forever grateful. The list of 9 is uniformly strong, with the exception being that Sandra Bullock movie...but you already knew that.

Up- Based on the incredible true story about the Asian kid and the old man who makes his house fly with balloons. Pixar changed the ending because no kid wants to watch the real denouement where the old man dies falling off the porch in mid-flight looking for his false teeth and the balloon house crashes and the kid is left to fend for himself against bloodthirsty cannibal savages in the mood for some Asian takeout. That kind of story doesn’t scream “Pixar”. Especially the ending when the kid is found by the natives, tortured, sacrificed and eaten while the talking dog is made some kind of deity, like Pirates of the Caribbean 2.  read more »

Best Actor: You’d think Jeff Bridges had already won the award (considering he’s won just about every other) and that they could save time during the ceremony to just give it to him as soon as he enters the building, but people seem to really like him, and not just because he’s the Dude. You wonder if he’s smokes a jay right before he gets out of the limo and onto the red carpet. At least the 4 other non-winners get a free lunch and vials of whatever drug gets them going (it’s a little known Oscar nominee secret, so all you aspiring actors and actresses out there, reach for those stars), courtesy of the Academy.

Morgan Freeman in Invictus- Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela? An almost automatic nomination based on Subject Matter and portraying a Very Important Person. Freeman’s good in the role as you’d expect him to be, but it’s such obvious casting (he’s noble...and that’s about it) that there’s really nothing surprising about the performance as well as the movie. Might as well have Al Pacino play someone who yells a lot or Denzel Washington play somebody righteous. If you had to rank the nominees’ performances, his would take the 5 spot.  read more »

Best Director- AKA Minority Report:

A black guy and a woman nominated in the same year. Unprecedented. Also a wigger (Quentin Tarantino), the son of the guy that directed Stripes and Ghostbusters, and James Cameron.

Lee Daniels for Precious- Only a handful of black directors have ever been nominated, but this is the wrong minority for the wrong year. If only there were an active black woman directing (Kasi Lemmons is the only person I can think of). Though you can credit Daniels’ strength with actors, you wouldn’t exactly call Precious a visual feast for the eyes. If this were a shitty year like 2008, he might have had more of a chance.

Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker- Her momentum has been gaining since the ending of the calendar year as she’s racked up most of the awards that matter. Plus she’s got the ‘First Woman EVER’ thing going for her. However, if she turns out to be a guy, I don’t know how many people will be pissed and it’ll take her DILF label right off. If she wins it she’ll deserve it, and I’d be rooting for her a whole lot more if it weren’t for...  read more »

2010 Oscars: My 2 cents: Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor: Now with more Colons!

Amidst dwindling ratings because of nominated films nobody would actually pay to see (The Reader, Frost/Nixon from last year, The Dark Knight’s shafting- which gets even more egregious as time goes by), interminable running times and dance numbers that make you want to have something sharp meet with something sensitive, The Academy of Movies with Overpriced tickets have decided to try to spike and spice up the awards by expanding the Best Picture field from 5 to 10 nominees (to squeeze in something we’d actually see instead of costume dramas about dead people and Holocaust drearies about dead people), well placed nudity and random beatings. Plus a member of the audience gets to use a rifle to shoot at the stage when the musical numbers get too long and boring. Aim for the head, lucky audience member, aim for the head.

We’ll find out if the shameless baiting works on Sunday March 7th. Or, based on the ratings anyway, some of us will as the rest of us have lives to lead. We’re there however, if Alec Baldwin mentions the words “Schwetty Balls” or if Steve Martin promises to never ever do another Pink Panther.  read more »

I got trashed too early, watched five minutes of the Oscars then passed out! And now that I'm looking over the winners -- I'm glad I did, it looked like a complete Slumdog jerkfest. I also caught some of the jokes, intros and other crap but the only one that seems worth mentioning is Dustin Lance Black's personal and political acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay Milk. You can read it below in case you missed it. Check out our Latest Image section, where I will be adding Oscar pictures all day!

Best Picture - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director - Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actor - Sean Penn (Milk)
Best Actress - Kate Winslet (The Reader)
Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Best Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz ('Vicky Cristina Barcelona)

Best Animated Feature Film - Wall-E
Best Foreign Film - Departures (Japan)
Best Original Screenplay - Dustin Lance Black (Milk)
Best Adapted Screenplay -Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Documentary Feature (Man on a Wire)
Best Original Score - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Song - Jai Ho (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Film Editing - Slumdog Millionaire (Chris Dickens)
Best Documentary: Short Subject - Smile Pink
Best Cinematography - Slumdog Millionaire (Anthony Dod Mantle)
Best Costume Design - The Duchess (Michael O'Connor)
Best Sound Mixing - (David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Mark Weingarten)
Best Sound Editing - The Dark Knight (Richard King)
Best Live Action Short Film - Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Best Animated Short Film - La Maison de Petits Cubes
Best Makeup -The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Greg Cannom)
Best Art Direction - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo)
Best Visual Effects - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron)  read more »

Joel Madden announced on the Good Charlotte website that he is having another baby with Nicole Richie:

"What's better than winning an Oscar? I am so happy to tell everyone that Harlow is going to be a big sister! God has truly blessed my family. Hope your all feeling as good as i am right now........."

Doesn't he know we're all too busy with the Oscars to deal with this fuckery? I'm busy dusting of my tuxedo, preparing my whiskey and Red Bull and getting ready to be bored out of my mind for three hours! Why did he feel the need to bore us even more?

Oh yeah I had planned to Blog about the show tonight, but realized I will probably be drunk and passed out by 5:00pm. So I'll just see you all tomorrow! Well unless someone else decides to announce they're knocked up... How rude!  read more »

Here is a way to get a whole new crowd to watch the Academy Awards -- add Twilight star and teen heartthrob, Robert Pattinson to the show. Hitflix.com has confirmed that the young actor will be in attendance, but no word on what he will be doing yet.

If the producers are really smart, they won't reveal what he is doing or when. That way the thousands of teen and tween girls who tune-in, will have to watch the entire show to see him.

The 81st Annual Academy Awards air live on Sunday, Feb 22nd on ABC.

A few quick Oscar predictions from our new movie critic, "Sexman." Enjoy!

Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress...AKA the last hour of the telecast that you actually care about

BEST ACTRESS- a weaker field than the normal Best Actress remains of what’s left , but it was 2008 so the mediocrity doesn’t really surprise

1) Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married – Nothing you’ve ever seen in her previous movies would lead you to believe that she’s capable of such great work. Hopefully this helps in a worldwide campaign to burn EVERY SINGLE COPY of The Princess Diaries and its sequel. If you have one at home, throw it into the fire. Not only will you be saving yourself...you’ll be saving the Earth as well.

Fun fact: In 2005, Focus Features spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running Oscar Campaigns for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain but did not set aside enough money to campaign for Anne Hathaway’s Breasts for Best Supporting Appendage. Anne Hathaway’s Breasts’ agent did not return any of my office’s calls to respond. I’m halfway thinking of direct dialing Anne Hathaway’s breasts myself just to hear what really happened straight from the nipple. I’ll keep you posted.

2) Angelina Jolie for Changeling- this is the ‘We couldn’t find anybody else so we’re scraping the bottom of the performance barrel” nomination for Jolie’s histrionics in the lesser of the Clint Eastwood-directed movies this year. Since Brad Pitt’s nominated too, all I care about is...who will baby-sit the twins? I need to know. Maybe Jennifer Aniston’s available. Or Gwyneth Paltrow. Or that Nanny from Babel, because that turned out so well before...

Fun Fact: If you look in the Pitt-Jolie Basement, you’ll see hundreds of other kids they’ve ‘adopted’ from various park benches and Toys ‘r’ Us’. Don’t worry, they’re well fed as they’re sent pizza and cookies every couple of days and Anne Hathaway’s Breasts sometimes visits for milk.  read more »

I’ll keep my mention of The Dark Knight shafting to a minimum because not much can be said with such an obvious fuckup. Wasn’t the sappy syrupy goodwill over Heath Ledger’s D--th enough to get a nomination? Apparently not. My thesis: it happened way too early in the voting year. If he died say, in August of ’08 or later, then it’d be The Return of the King all over again with even the Dark Knight Craft Services team getting calls at 6 in the morning...

Oh well. If given the choice between half a billion dollars and a Best Picture Oscar Nomination, it’s pretty obvious which one’s more preferable. I mean, if something amusingly facile like Slumdog Millionaire is the front-runner for Best Picture, then it only underscores what a mediocre year 2008 was anyway...

I’m going to go over the major categories only because no one really cares about the others. I mean, if you watch the Oscars at all, won’t most of you be going to the loo or getting Sobe refills when something like the Technical Awards take up valuable air time. And I’m sure you’re placing the majority your office pool bets on what wins best Short Film or hedging the spread on Best Sound Design. Maybe there should be a sub-category on if Megan Fox “accidentally” lets a boob fall out or if Maggie and Jake Gylenhaal will be seen on the red carpet background throating each other while Billy Bush is asking inane questions to Marisa Tomei on what it was like playing a stripper and what she’d do for the dollar bill he had in his hand  read more »