2012 Oscar Nominees

The nominees for the 2012 Academy Awards were announced today, and while they did a few things right, there are numerous snubs that need to be addressed. I understand that the past year was a great year in film and making these decisions is very tough, but it's might right to undermine the Academy's choices. But first, the nominees: 

Best Picture
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Full list of nominees, snubs, and analysis after the jump.

Dean Pelton is an Oscar Winner

Have You Seen Angelina Jolie's Leg?

The 10 Best Pictures of Angelina Jolie's Leg: via Buzzfeed

Beerfest Has Produced Two Oscar Winners

With Nat Faxon winning an Oscar tonight for his work co-writing the screenplay of The Descendants, he joins Monique, who won for best Supporting Actress for her performance in Precious, as the second person involved with the 2006 film Beerfest. Expect to see a Best Director nomination for Jay Chandrasekhar at next year's ceremony.

2012 Oscar Winners

Like most years, the 84th Academy Awards went largely without any major surprises. The only real upset being Meryl Streep for Best Actress over the favored Viola Davis, but this wasn't truly that big of a surprise. I love that Jim Rash (aka Dean Pelton from "Community") and Bret Mackenzie of Flight of the Conchords won Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original song respectively. The big winners of the night, as expected, were The Artist and Hugo. The Artist won 5 Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, and Director, and Hugo also took away 5 awards, mostly for technical achievements.


Full list of winners after the jump.

Sacha Baron Cohen Not Banned From Oscars

Sure he would have made a scene. Sure it's shameless self-promotion for his upcoming movie. Sure it's not fit for the high society elegance of the Academy Awards. But the folks over at the Oscars really need to loosen up a bit. We were disappointed when we learned Banksy wouldn't be allowed to accept the award for Best Documentary last year in costume or via proxy (ultimately, it didn't matter as he didn't end up winning). The old geezers in charge of the Oscars and get with the times. You know it's going to be another lame show when Billy Crystal is hosing and it's not the 1990's. Now Sacha Baron Cohen isn't being allowed to appear at the awards show as his character from his upcoming film The Dictator. It would liven things about a bit and make the awards show a bit more worth watching. I guess there's always next year.


Full story here

I'm Live Tweeting the Oscars

I will be live tweeting the Academy Awards on Sunday, February 26th. Follow me at @kalarooka on Twitter.

The Worst Best Picture Winners

1. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

This is a fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld, a real life Broadway impresario. The film tracks Ziegfeld's life from his beginnings as a promoter at the Chicago World's Fair, to his success as a Broadway producer, to his death. The most prominent issue with this film is the musical numbers. Naturally, this film features many of Ziegfeld's stage productions, and these scenes are certainly a visual spectacle. However, they drag on and on. There is one scene that must be twenty minutes or more by itself. Over a quarter of the movie is made up of these musical numbers and they have absolutely nothing to do with the plot! The only part of this movie I enjoyed was seeing the actors who played the Wizard and the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz” in other roles.

The Best Best Picture Winners

1. Casablanca (1942) 

 This film is considered by many to be the greatest screenplay ever written. The dialogue in Casablanca is better than any other film I have seen. There are so many classic lines in this movie. From “Here's Looking at you, kid” to “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” this movie is just dripping with brilliant dialogue. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman both bring the dialogue to life with excellent performances. However, it's not merely the dialogue that makes this film great. It also contains an excellent character study and an intriguing love triangle, all on top of the political tensions of World War II. The shadowy film-noir style lighting and cinematography add even more to the drama and emotions. As time goes by, this movie remains superb.

Oscar Picks 2012

The Oscars are coming up this sunday, and unlike years past many of the categories are much more closely contended with no real front-runners. Here is who I think will win, who ought to win, and a dark horse for this year's biggest categories.

Oscar Nominees 2012

Here is the full list of Academy Award nominees. Hugo leads the field with 11 nominations. Notable snubs includes 50/50 for Best Picture, Patton Oswalt for Best Supporting Actor in for his role in Young Adult, Michael Fassbender for Best Lead Actor for his role in Shame, Albert Brooks for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Drive. Some of the Academy's more curious nominations include Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for Best Picture, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon for anything. It's nice to see Bridesmaids get a few nominations, comedies have long been painfully underrepresented at the Oscars.

Best Picture

The Artist

The Descendants

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse