Oscar Results

So...how'd I do on my Oscar guesses? Well, it turned out I did pretty well! I got 18 out of the 24 categories correct, and 5 out of the 6 major ones right. I was pretty sure David Fincher was going to win Best Director for The Social Network (he was robbed), but Tom Hooper managed to beat him out.

Here are some of my other thoughts...

I thought James Franco and Anne Hathaway were perhaps the worst Oscar hosts that I can remember. I had a feeling from the beginning that hiring non-comedians was going to be a poor choice, but I had hope that these two of all people could pull it off. I was wrong. James Franco was practically emotionless the entire time and it looked like Anne Hathaway was trying to overcompensate for James Franco's dead weight. There are TONS of comedians who would have been a much better choice. Even the opening montage with the hosts entering the Best Picture movies was pretty mediocre this year.

I don't care what anybody says- this movie WAS NOT good. I purposely bet against it twice because I thought this POS could never win. I don't care how cool the Art Direction or the Costume Design was, just the fact that it can now be referred to as "Oscar winner Alice in Wonderland" is a travesty. Tim Burton is definitely at his best when he's working on original work, but apparently there are people out there who enjoyed Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Yikes.

I knew The King's Speech would win Best Picture and Best Actor for Colin Firth, but I must admit I've never seen the movie. 127 Hours and The King's Speech were the only Best Picture nominees I haven't seen (yes- I saw Winter's Bone! It was okay.) But for the first time in a long time, I think the Best Picture winner looks really boring and have absolutely no desire to see it. I usually am never like that as I always like to give a movie a chance, but for some reason this movie really doesn't appeal to me. I've heard it's good, but just everything about it looks so average. I will eventually give it a chance and maybe I'll post my reactions on here, but I don't know- it looks so blah.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night for me was the fact that Exit Through the Gift Shop didn't win Best Documentary. It wasn't even about the movie as I'm sure Inside Job was good, but I think everyone was hoping that Exit Through the Gift Shop would win so we could get a look at Banksy. There was controversy before the show because apparently if he won he would accept the award in a gorilla mask in order to conceal his real identity, but the Academy president refused to let that happen. It turned out the controversy was for nothing as Banksy didn't even win!

Christian Bale is an incredible actor and I had faith that he was going to win yesterday. But for some reason I know a lot of people bet against him, which made me nervous. I think anyone who actually saw The Fighter would realize it was an incredible performance and there was no way he could have lost. With that said, I'm making a prediction that this is just the first of many Oscars for Christian Bale as he's truly an incredibly talented actor.

Inception was a great movie and it definitely didn't get the credit it deserved in the major categories this year. How could David O. Russell get nominated for Best Director over Christopher Nolan? That's insane. It was good to see Inception win the Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects Oscars though. The movie was truly innovative and I think will be remembered for many years to come.

What did you guys think of the Oscars? Did you like the show? I thought it was pretty mediocre overall. How'd you do with your picks?

-Jared

My 2011 Oscar Picks!

Tonight is the night where the Academy gives out Oscars to the best work in the film industry in 2010. I've always had a big problem with the Oscars as I feel like a lot of the time they pander towards certain audiences (like old people). There's sort of a tradition among Oscar nominated movies where certain movies and performances are guaranteed nominations over other types of movies. You'd be shocked to hear that barely any horror films have ever been nominated (even movies like The Shining!). Before The Dark Knight, guess how many comic book movies were nominated? Now guess how many boring, by-the-books period pieces have been nominated. 

This year I think the Academy did a better job than usual. Christopher Nolan should have been nominated for Best Director of Inception, without a doubt though. Either way, below are my picks for who WILL and SHOULD WIN tonight. Obviously the two aren't necessarily the same. Let's see how many I get right!

Best Live Action Short Film

Will Win: Na Wewe

(can't judge- didn't see any of these)

Best Animated Short Film

Will Win & Should Win: Day & Night

Best Documentary Short

Will Win: Strangers No More

(again, can't judge- didn't see any of these)

Best Documentary Feature

Will Win: Inside Job

Should Win: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Will Win & Should Win: Inception

Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Will Win & Should Win: Inception

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

Will Win & Should Win: Inception

Best Original Song

Will Win & Should Win: "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3

Best Original Score

Will Win & Should Win: The Social Network

(why wasn't Daft Punk's TRON score nominated??)

Best Achievement in Makeup

Will Win & Should Win: The Wolfman

(weak, weak nominees this year)

Best Achievement in Costume Design

Will Win & Should Win: The King's Speech

Best Achievement in Art Direction

Will Win: The King's Speech

Should Win: Inception

Best Achievement in Editing

Will Win & Should Win: The Social Network

Best Achievement in Cinematography

Will Win & Should Win: True Grit

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Will Win: In A Better World

(didn't manage to catch any of these this year)

Best Animated Feature of the Year

Will Win & Should Win: Toy Story 3

(duh)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win & Should Win: The Social Network

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win: The King's Speech

Should Win: The Fighter

Best Achievement in Directing

Will Win & Should Win: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Will Win & Should Win: Melissa Leo, The Fighter

(toughest of the major categories)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Will Win & Should Win: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role

Will Win & Should Win: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role

Will Win & Should Win: Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Will Win: The King's Speech

Should Win: The Social Network

Make sure to come back here after the show to see how many I got right!

-Jared

Super Bowl Movie Trailers

Yesterday was the Super Bowl and for those of you that watched the game, you were treated to a bunch of new trailers for some of this summer's big blockbusters. Below are the big TV spots that were shown and some of my thoughts....

I always had high hopes for the Captain America movie, but I think this trailer made me even more excited. It just seems like it has a different vibe than any other superhero movie out there, and that's why it has an edge over Thor in my opinion. I'm really digging the World War II setting and I really like the supporting casting of Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones (even though their parts in the trailer are minimal.) The trailer shown yesterday also gave us our first look at the villain Red Skull (played by Hugo Weaving). The only weird thing about this trailer was "skinny" Chris Evans which I'll apologize for if it's really him, but if it's CGI it looks terrible.

VERDICT: PRETTY AWESOME

Thor, on the other hand, was a little disappointing to me. It used pretty much all footage that we've already seen and didn't offer anything new. I'm also getting a little worried about the amount of time spent on Thor's origin before he comes to Earth as I think origin stories can be really overplayed. I think Thor is going to be a lot like a gritty Superman story, if more time was spent on Krypton in the original Superman movies. Either way, this SuperBowl ad didn't do anything to change my mind on Thor.

VERDICT: MEH

My God that sound is so annoying! Why would they use that? Anyway, anyone that knows me knows I think the Transformers movies suck. They're boring and I can never remember which robot is which. Awful. But I think this TV spot, featuring a lot of slowed down action, was really effective. The one shot with the person diving out of the plane with the other plane crashing was incredibly cool. I don't think this is going to be a good movie by any means, but this TV spot at least makes me think the movie will look cool.

VERDICT: DECENT

This movie looks so cool! Like an idiot, I totally forgot to list it as one of my most anticipated movies of 2011, but especially after this TV spot, it definitely is up there. The idea of James Bond and Han Solo fighting off aliens is pretty incredible itself, but with Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man) directing as well, I'm sure this movie will be pretty great. It's also kind of funny how some of the shots were really similar to the shots used in the Transformers TV spot. I'm sure this movie will kick that movie's ass though. Extra points for including a nude Olivia Wilde in the TV spot.

VERDICT: REALLY COOL

Didn't I see this movie four times already? It's kind of amazing that the Fast and the Furious franchise has lasted this long. I remember how cool the original one was in middle school, but it's also hard to forget how lame the other ones were. This franchise also gets points taken away for dumbest use of a number in the title of a movie- for 2 Fast 2 Furious. As for this trailer, I do like the addition of The Rock as the "villain" of the movie as I think The Rock definitely has the potential to be really good when he tries. I do think however that as cool as the car chases may be, this franchise is getting really tired.

VERDICT: BORING

Everyone knows Johnny Depp was the best part of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but can Johnny Depp carry the entire franchise on his own? This fourth movie will literally strip itself of everything from the first three- nearly all the major actors and the director included. Unfortunately, I'm getting more of a bad spin-off vibe from Pirates of the Caribbean 4 than a good sequel. What's even more confusing is that based on this TV spot, it literally looks like they're going to have characters very similar to the ones Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley played. Honestly, this doesn't look good.

VERDICT: UH OH

Whoah this is a really cool teaser. No one really knows what Super 8 is really about and this was our first clue. Although not much was revealed, we can now speculate that it is indeed some kind of monster movie, but exactly what type of monster no one really knows. I think this teaser gives off a very Steven Spielbergish feel (he is producing) similar to ET or Jurassic Park, which is a very good thing. Director JJ Abrams described this movie today as a cross between The X-Files, ET, Stand by Me, and The Goonies. WHAT. Sign me up.

VERDICT: PLEASE COME OUT TOMORROW

Well, that's it for the Super Bowl movie spots. I thought the regular commercials were pretty weak this year though. What movie trailers and commercials did you guys like?

Jared

PS- Green Bay won.