2011 Academy Award Nominations

Boom baby! It's that time of the year again. It's my Christmas baby! The season of joy has come and I have the full list of nominees for the Academy Awards that's happening in exactly one month from now.

BEST PICTURE
•Black Swan
•The Fighter
•Inception
•The Kids Are All Right
•The King's Speech
•127 Hours
•The Social Network
•Toy Story 3
•True Grit
•Winter's Bone 

BEST DIRECTOR
•Darren Aronofsky- Black Swan
•David. O. Russell- The Fighter
•Tom Hooper- The King's Speech
•David Fincher- The Social Network
•Joel Coen and Ethan Coen- True Grit 

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
•Javier Bardem- Biutiful
•Jeff Bridges- True Grit
•Jesse Eisenberg- The Social Network
•Colin Firth- The King's Speech
•James Franco- 127 Hours 

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
•Annette Bening- The Kids Are All Right
•Nicole Kidman- Rabbit Hole
•Jennifer Lawrence- Winter's Bone
•Natalie Portman- Black Swan
•Michelle Williams- Blue Valentine 

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
•Christian Bale- The Fighter
•John Hawkes- Winter's Bone
•Jeremy Renner- The Town
•Mark Ruffalo- The Kids Are All Right
•Geoffrey Rush- The King's Speech 

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
•Amy Adams- The Fighter
•Helena Bonham Carter- The King's Speech
•Melissa Leo- The Fighter
•Hailee Steinfeld- True Grit
•Jacki Weaver- Animal Kingdom 

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
•127 Hours
•The Social Network
•Toy Story 3
•True Grit
•Winter's Bone 

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY'
•Another Year
•The Fighter
•Inception
•The Kids Are All Right
•The King's Speech 

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
•Biutiful
•Dogtooth
•In A Better World
•Incendies
•Outside the Law

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
•How to Train Your Dragon
•The Illusionist
•Toy Story 3

BEST ART DIRECTION

•Alice In Wonderland
•Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
•Inception
•The King's Speech
•True Grit

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

•Black Swan
•Inception
•The King's Speech
•The Social Network
•True Grit

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

•Alice in Wonderland
•I Am Love
•The King's Speech
•The Tempest
•True Grit

BEST FILM EDITING

•Black Swan
•The Fighter
•The King's Speech
•127 Hours
•The Social Network

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

•Exit Through the Gift Shop
•Gasland
•Inside Job
•Restrepo
•Waste Land

BEST MAKEUP

•Barney's Version
•The Way Back
•The Wolfman

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

•How to Train Your Dragon
•Inception
•The King's Speech
•127 Hours
•The Social Network

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

•Coming Home from Country Strong
•I See the Light from Tangled
•If I Rise from 127 Hours
•We Belong Together from Toy Story 3

BEST SOUND MIXING

•Inception
•The King's Speech
•Salt
•The Social Network
•True Grit

BEST SOUND EDITING

•Inception
•Toy Story 3
•Tron: Legacy
•True Grit
•Unstoppable

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

•Alice In Wonderland
•Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
•Hereafter
•Inception
•Iron Man 2

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM

•Killing in the Name
•Poster Girl
•Strangers No More
•Sun Come Up
•The Warriors of Qiugang

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

•Day & Night
•The Gruffalo
•Let's Pollute
•The Lost Thing
•Madagascar, A Journey Diary

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

•The Confession
•The Crush
•God of Love
•Na Wewe
•Wish 143

   

So this years nomination sees the academy falling back on the usual, safer kind of films in contrast to last years nominations which saw films like District 9, Ajami and The Secret of Kells being nominated. Here we have our same old predictables. The period drama, the epic western, the box office champ, the boxer movie, the indie gem and Pixar.

The King's Speech leads the nominees with a staggering 12 nominations while True Grit trails with 10 nominations. Inception and David Fincher's Golden Globe winning Social Network holds 8 nods while The Fighter earned 7 nominations. Character pieces like 127 Hours and Black Swan have 6 and 5 nominations each.

First off, I predict the Oscars will be fair game season this year. With all these films performing equally well with each other, and the critics awards being split between many of these films.. it's easy to say that all these films are going to walk away with wins come March. No film is going to pull a LOTR and sweep everything, all films are going to take home something.

My money is on The Social Network to win Best Picture, if not that then it should be The King's Speech. While I don't agree with The King's Speech, it's sheer number of nods is hard to overlook. David Fincher for Best Director. Colin Firth for Best Actor. Natalie Portman for Best Actress. Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor. Either Melissa Leo or Hailee Steinfeld for Best Supporting Actress.

But for God sakes academy. No nomination for Chris Nolan again?? A fuuuuuuuuuk you.

The Last Exorcism | Review

Seriously.. it's been almost 40 years since The Exorcist. Thought people would have figured it out by now. Those white nightdresses them girls wear are the demon magnets. You don't wanna get possessed, don't wear a nightdress. Problem solved.

So I wasn't too hyped up to see this movie, because really.. this kind of format and storyline has been done to death in the horror genre but I was pleasantly surprised by this film. For the most part, The Last Exorcism was a genuinely creepy, intense character drama. And then the ending happened.

So the film is about a pastor, Reverend Cotton Marcus who has been an evangelist and an exorcist for all his life, coming from a family of preachers. But he sees his job more of as a business than faith matters. He doesn't even believe spirits or demons are real. Overwhelmed with guilt for the people he's conned, he agrees to do a documentary where he performs and exorcism on a girl and shows the crew all the tricks he uses to make the ritual seem real. But then some strange things start to happen that throws Cotton, the crew and the girls family in a frightening struggle between faith and survival.

First thing  gotta talk about is how awesome the two lead actors were. Patrick Fabian who plays the pastor in this is one hell of a character actor. In a way he is very charming in his portrayal but his character has levels of depth usually absent in most main characters in a horror film which probably is what made the story flow so well is because we had a main character that we connected with and like, thus adding great tension in the chilly scenes.

Speaking of chilly scenes.. Ashley Bell is the actress who plays the possessed girl named Nell and even when she's not all Lucifer-ish, her eyes are just creepy to look at. People are saying her performance here is Oscar worthy, and yes she has been getting a lot of indie award nominations but I wouldn't go that far to praise the performance. But definitely a great one, very physical yet subtle in execution in some of the most creepy facial expressions that were brilliantly shot in a found footage format.

And also the two actors who play Nell's father and brother. Which brings me to the whole dynamic storyline of Last Exorcism. See, these guys are batshit fucked up. They don't act like the big lunatics you'll find on Shutter Island, but it's pretty clear that they are just from the way they act and speak. And I thought those two delivered, especially the guy playing the brother.

The Last Exorcism kept me guessing, walking a very thin line between the psychological and supernatural. Throughout the movie, you're wondering if this girl is truly possessed or if she's just psychologically insane because her family and the people around her are just crazy.  And the filmmaker does a really good job in leading you in all the wrong directions with some very clever plot twists and scares.

Everything about the two thirds of The Last Exorcism was so neat, and smart and cool. But then the ending happened and my hopes for a good horror film was shattered. Now I'm not going to spoil it, but the ending to this film is ludicrous bullshit. It totally destroys everything the film has been working up to in the first 2/3 of it. Really disappointed how this movie turned out, especially when I have been loving everything else so far only to have it end like that.

But still, this is a fresh take on found footage horror and it's abysmal ending is easily saved by the brilliance of the first two thirds. I'd love to see the director do another horror film.. this time.. don't fuck it up dude.

RATING: 6.5/10

International Poster For Winnie The Pooh

The Irish website, Scannain published a new colorful poster for Disney Animation Studio's upcoming film, Winnie The Pooh. It premieres in Malaysia on 21st July 2011.

Death Race 2 | Review

Poor Sean Bean. It's hard going from Lord of the Rings to be in... Death Race 2... Uh.. okay..

I don't really get why this movie is called Death Race 2 cause this isn't really Death Race 2. As in, this doesn't take place after Death Race, it's a prequel.. it's like calling that Star Trek movie Star Trek VIII: Namaste. Anyway so this movie is a prequel to the 2008 movie centering on the origins of Frankenstein.

So for those who don't know, here's a little recap; Death Race takes place in a universe where John McCain becomes President and fucks up the economy and prisons are now run by heinous corporations for profit by making inmates race to the death in gigantic cars with super guns promising the winner of 5 races his freedom. In the race's history, the most famous racer was Frankenstein; a mystery man who was said to have suffered so many scars from racing that he wears a mask but is a pretty badass racer. So Death Race 2 is his origin... A fucking lame origin.

Now boo me all you want but I'll stick by my young, less handsome self and defend my 2008 review that Death Race was a good movie. I liked Death Race. Sure it ain't no True Grit but what the hell do you expect from a movie called Death Race. For a B movie, it delivers what it promised to deliver and then some. So stop going ape shit about the rating I gave it and spam my email about how I gave it a 7 out of 10 but gave movies like Lovely Bones lower or something. It's all about the genre and expectation of the movie. So shut it and read the review.

Anyway, straight up let me just say that Death Race 2 disappointments in a big way. A smaller budget restrain doesn't give you the right to come up with an epic piece of shit that manages to surpass the awfulness of  Skyline. Everything you've seen in Death Race; the style, tone, feel, races and action has been copied, ripped and pasted directly into this sloppy, incoherent mess.

Let's talk about the actors first of all.. Luke Goss seems to work out fine as Frankenstein if he just keeps his mouth shut. He's that kinda guy you'd be afraid of cause he's so big and scary but the second he opens his mouth and talks you quickly realize he either has one of two things. (1) Small genitals. (2) Mental retardation. His character speaks like how a geek speaks to a pretty girl. Which is how I speak to a pretty girl. Wise cracking, over-emphasizing jokes and laughing at himself while constantly changing the pitch of his voice. Doesn't help either that he acts like a whole buddy buddy dude trying to please his crew and then becomes totally cold and badass seconds later. It's almost bipolar in a way he's doing this; I'm not sure.. I haven't had my morning gin yet. Maybe he and the director was on gin when they were making the movie.

The next is Tanit Phoenix, who clearly got the role by sleeping with every male in the casting department. She somehow looks like a cross between Carla Bruni and plastic surgery with Natalie Martinez's body superimposed. This woman can't act, she can't even say lines right. I laugh so hard at the unbelievable number of times her voice was dubbed over by herself because the original was probably so bad but they can't reshoot so they resulted to her just saying her lines into a microphone while the editor try to paste it over the video and stitch it together so we won't notice. But I did. Editor fail.

Danny Trejo and Frederick Koehler were the better parts of the film. Both served more of the spine of the movie and brought most of the connection between this movie and Death Race. Also helps that they are great to watch paying off each other as this incredibly awkward yet organic team up. And then there's Sean Bean and Ving Rhames who are just in it for the cheque and poor Lauren Cohan who must be crying now after seeing herself put way too much effort into acting well in a movie that will probably derail her career.

The action scenes in this were boring. I've seen them done before in Death Race and in other movies and I've seen them done much better. While there was technically nothing wrong with them, I was left with this sense of unfulfillment. And that's strange for me, cause I like carcasses splattering all over my TV screen. It's really enjoyable. Perhaps the reason why the race scenes in this felt so hollow compared to Death Race because there was just more at stake in terms of story and character in the original than in this piece of shit.

In Death Race we root for Jason Stathham, a man wrongly accused for murder and is trying to win the race to win his freedom to find his daughter and take care of her. His motivation deepens when he uncovers a greater scheme behind Death race involving him and the warden and races to rebel. In this movie Luke Goss, who is unlikeable and deserves to be in prison is just racing because the word "race" is in the title. There's really no incentive or reason as to why he'd be doing this sort of thing.

So this movie pretty much blows and sucks balls from all angles I can think of. Oh well. See ya. Gonna pour some gin now.

RATING: 2/10