Animated Short Film Submissions

The Academy announced today the 10 films which will compete for the five spots in the Animated Short Film category. There were 37 films which were submitted for the first round of voting. Here are the films:

1. The Cat Piano - Eddie White, Ari Gibson
2. French Roast - Fabrice O. Joubert
3. Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty - Nicky Phelan
4. The Kinematograph - Tomek Baginski
5. The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte) - Javier Recio Garcia
6. Logorama - Nicolas Schmerkin
7. A Matter of Loaf and Death - Nick Park
8. Partly Cloudy - Peter Sohn
9. Runaway - Cordell Barker
10. Variete - Roelof van der Bergh

What do you think will make the cut?

Documentary Feature Film Candidates

Earlier today the Academy announced the 15 films who are eligible to compete for the Documentary Feature Film category. Five will be selected to be nominees, so which ones do you think will make the cut? Here is the shortlist:

1. The Beaches of Agnes - Agnes Varda
2. Burma VJ - Anders Ostergaard
3. The Cove - Louie Psihoyos
4. Every Little Step - James D. Stern, Adam Del Deo
5. Facing Ali - Pete McCormack
6. Food, Inc. - Robert Kenner
7. Garbage Dreams - Mai Iskander
8. Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders - Mark N. Hopkins
9. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers - Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith
10. Mugabe and the White African - Andrew Thompson, Lucy Bailey
11. Sergio - Greg Barker
12. Soundtrack for a Revolution - Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman
13. Under Our Skin - Andy Abrahams Wilson
14. Valentino the Last Emperor - Matt Tyrnauer
15. Which Way Home - Rebecca Cammisa

It would be important to note a couple of misses here, notably Anvil! which currently has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was the first film screened 'For Your Consideration' this year for the Academy. Other big documentaries missing are Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore and Tyson by James Toback. Do you think others were snubbed? Make your picks.

Golden Globes New Rule

This year, the Golden Globes will expand their Animated Feature Film category from their usual 3 nominees to 5 nominees this year. This, of course, will happen if at least twelve films qualify to be contenders. If there are less than 8 films that qualify, in that case there will be no award but the films will then run for Best Picture. If the number of films which qualify are between 8 and 12, then only 3 nominees will be presented at the ceremony. What do you think?

Crazy Heart Trailer

Here is the first trailer for Scott Cooper's directorial debut Crazy Heart. There is a lot of buzz for its star, 4-time Oscar nominee Jeff Bridges (Starman, The Big Lebowski). Also starring Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight), Colin Farrell (In Bruges) and Oscar winner Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies, The Godfather I & II). Do you think it has what it takes to make the top 10?

Nine Trailer #2

Here is a sample of this year's most talked about musical from director Rob Marshall (Chicago). Expect this song (sung from Kate Hudson no less) to be a favorite for this year's ceremony. What do you think?

Golden Globes Predix

With less than a month until the official announcement of the Golden Globes Award nominees, it is time to offer my first predictions for the ceremony in the movie categories. Here goes:

BEST MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA
An Education
Invictus
The Lovely Bones
Precious
Up in the Air

BEST MOTION PICTURE - COMEDY/MUSICAL
(500) Days of Summer
In the Loop
The Informant!
The Men Who Stare at Goats
Nine

BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up in the Air
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Viggo Mortensen - The Road

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY/MUSICAL
Peter Capaldi - In the Loop
George Clooney - The Men Who Stare at Goats
Matt Damon - The Informant!
Daniel Day-Lewis - Nine
Joseph Gordon-Levitt - (500) Days of Summer

BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Penelope Cruz - Broken Embraces
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Saoirse Ronan - The Lovely Bones
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY/MUSICAL
Marion Cotillard - Nine
Zooey Deschanel - (500) Days of Summer
Maya Rudolph - Away We Go
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia
Emma Thompson - Pirate Radio

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon - Invictus
Alfred Molina - An Education
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz - Nine
Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Mo'Nique - Precious
Julianne Moore - A Single Man
Susan Sarandon - The Lovely Bones

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
Lee Daniels - Precious
Peter Jackson - The Lovely Bones
Rob Marshall - Nine
Jason Reitman - Up in the Air

BEST SCREENPLAY
Nick Hornby - An Education
Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh - The Lovely Bones
Geoffrey Fletcher - Precious
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen - A Serious Man
Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner - Up in the Air

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Paul Englishby - An Education
James Horner - Avatar
T-Bone Burnett - Crazy Heart
Brian Eno - The Lovely Bones
Michael Giacchino - Up

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
''Time for Miracles'' - 2012
''The Weary Kind'' - Crazy Heart
''Cinema Italiano'' - Nine
''100 Percent'' - Precious
''Down in New Orleans'' - The Princess and the Frog

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Coraline
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Ponyo
The Princess and the Frog
Up

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Broken Embraces (Spain)
Mother (South Korea)
Police Adjective (Romania)
A Prophet (France)
The White Ribbon (Germany)

What do you think?

Honorary Oscars

For the first time in Academy Award history, the Honorary Oscars were handed out at a private ceremony and not during the telecast of the official ceremony. Among the winners, legendary B-movie producer/director Roger Corman, 2-time Oscar nominee cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather trilogy, Zelig), Oscar nominee Lauren Bacall (The Mirror Has Two Faces) and producer John Calley was the recipient of the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award. The ceremony took place at the ballroom above the Kodak theatre this weekend.

The White Ribbon Trailer

Here is the trailer for this year's Palme D'Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival from director Michael Haneke (Caché). It is currently the favorite to take the Foreign Language Film Oscar. What do you think?

A Single Man Trailer

Here is Tom Ford's feature film debut gaining a lot of buzz for its main actors Colin Firth and Julianne Moore for nominations. Will the film itself make the top ten? What do you think?

Another Honor for Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese, the Academy Award winning director for The Departed and numerous classics of modern cinema (GoodFellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver to name a few) will receive the Cecil B. DeMille award at the Golden Globe awards ceremony on January 17th. The nominations will be announced on December 15th and so, in three days time, I'll offer my first predictions for the Golden Globe nominees.

Animated Feature Film Submissions

Today the Academy announced 20 titles which will be competing for the five slots for Best Animated Feature Film for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. This will mark the first time since 2002 that there will be five nominees in this category. Here are the films who will be competing this year:

• Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
• Astro Boy
• Battle for Terra
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
• Coraline
• Disney's A Christmas Carol
• The Dolphin - Story of a Dreamer
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• Mary and Max
• The Missing Lynx
• Monsters vs. Aliens
• 9
• Planet 51
• Ponyo
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Secret of Kells
• Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
• A Town Called Panic
• Up

Which films do you think will make the final cut?

Date Night Trailer

Here is the first trailer for Shawn Levy's (Night at the Museum) next comedy, Date Night, starring NBC's favorite headliners Steve Carell (The Office, 40 Year-Old Virgin) and Tiny Fey (30 Rock, Mean Girls). Also headlining the cast is Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Mila Kunis, James Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Ray Liotta and Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). What do you think?

Salt Trailer

Here is the first trailer for Phillip Noyce's new thriller Salt starring Oscar winner Angelina Jolie. Expect loads of action, thrills and sexy moments. What do you think?

Host Announcement

It has yet to be confirmed by the Academy, but according to several reports, it would appear both Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, who will co-star in the upcoming Nancy Meyers romantic comedy "It's Complicated" alongside Meryl Streep, have been chosen to co-host the 82nd annual Academy Awards. These look like very interesting and good choices here. Baldwin is a former nominee for The Cooler and is enjoying success on his hit show 30 Rock (for which he won 2 Emmys and 2 Golden Globes). Martin is arguably "the" SNL alumni who has been nominated for 5 Golden Globe awards and will host the Oscars for the third time (this is his first co-hosting). This will be the first time since 1987 the Oscars will have more than one host, so another interesting change this year. What do you think?

Green Zone Trailer

Two Matt Damon trailers in one day! Reuniting with Bourne director Paul Greengrass, here is their next project slated for a March 2010 release. What do you think?

Hollywood Awards

The award season is officially underway with the announcement of the Hollwood Awards early this morning. So we finally have an idea of the early favorites for this year's Oscar race. Here are the winners:

Hollywood Film (as voted by Yahoo Movies! fans) : Star Trek
Hollywood Male Star of the year : Gerard Butler
Hollywood Female Star of the year : Megan Fox
Hollywood World Award : The White Ribbon
Hollywood Best Actor : Robert De Niro - Everybody's Fine
Hollywood Best Actress : Hilary Swank - Amelia
Hollywood Best Supporting Actor : Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds
Hollywood Best Supporting Actress : Julianne Moore - A Single Man
Hollywood Best Director : Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
Hollywood Best Screenplay : Nora Ephron - Julie & Julia
Hollywood Breakthrough Actress : Carey Mulligan - An Education
Hollywood Breakthrough Actor : Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Hollywood Breakthrough Director : Lee Daniels - Precious
New Hollywood Award : Gabourey ''Gabby'' Sidibe - Precious
Hollywood Spotlight Award : Shohreh Aghdashloo, Zachary Quinto, Melanie Lynskey, Paul Schneider
Hollywood Comedy Award : Bradley Cooper - The Hangover
Hollywood Animation : Pete Docter - Up
Hollywood Film Composer : Alexandre Desplat - Julie & Julia, The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Hollywood Cinematographer : Roger Deakins - A Serious Man
Hollywood Film Editor : Dana Glauberman - Up In the Air
Hollywood Visual Effects : Scott Farrar - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Hollywood Production Designer : Rick Carter - Avatar
Hollywood Costume Designer : Colleen Atwood - Public Enemies, Nine

What do you think?

Invictus Trailer

Pardon the long absence, but now that Oscar season is about to begin, it is time to start posting again. Here I present the first trailer for Clint Eastwood's next film Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as former South African president Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pineaar, captain of the national rugby team. Together, they sought to unite a nation after the apartheid which divided it for so long. Expect major buzz for both actors and Clint, and even possibly for the film now that the field is up to 10 nominees. What do you think?

Empire's Early Contenders

Since the Academy has announced the Best Picture category will have ten nominees this year, numerous early speculations have been made as to which films will make the list. I always found it pointless this early in the game to try to guess who will make the Best Picture list because some films which get nominated aren't on anyone's radar (Frost/Nixon, The Reader and winner Slumdog Millionaire from last year weren't on a lot of early shortlists) but it gives a good idea on which films to watch to see if they live up to the early buzz, who to look at for acting, directing and screenwriting noms. On Empire's Internet site I saw a slideshow of 31 films believed to be early contenders for next year's Oscar race. They included what they believe to be their chances to pick up a nomination by marking their status. I'd like to share with you what they think of the films they mentionned according to the status they chose:

Locks: Up, Invictus, Nine, Shutter Island, The Lovely Bones

Looking Good: Green Zone, Public Enemies, The Informant, The Road, The Tree of Life, Avatar, Funny People, Brothers

Dark Horses: The Hurt Locker, A Serious Man, Inglourious Basterds, Cheri, 500 Days of Summer, Julie & Julia, Where the Wild Things Are, A Christmas Carol, The Twilight Saga's New Moon, My Sister's Keeper

Rank Outsiders: In the Loop, I Love You Phillip Morris, Star Trek, Watchmen, An Education, The Time Traveler's Wife

Dead in the Water: Away We Go (their argument is its mixed reviews, indie status and summer release will hurt its chances at an Oscar nom. While not saying I believe this film will end up in the top 10, personally I loved it and seeing films like Watchmen and New Moon ranked as Outsiders or Dark Horses, I would consider this film having a better chance than the latter, but that's just my opinion).

And as the winner (forcing Empire to dive up the top of mappin house in despair) they jokingly declared the untitled Nancy Meyers Comedy.

According to the Internet movie database, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is scheduled only for a 2010 release, so that would mean if you include the top 2 categories, we would have 12 potential films vying for the 10 spots, meaning these would make the shortlist:

Up

Invictus

Nine

Shutter Island

The Lovely Bones

Green Zone

Public Enemies

The Informant

The Road

Avatar

Funny People

Brothers

While this list might seem good right now, there are a few films I could name we could try to categorize, notably Amelia, Precious which is getting good reviews especially for Mo'Nique's performance, Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces and Jason Reitman's next project, Up in the Air starring George Clooney and Jason Bateman. Of course, there will probably more films to speculate on in the following months most of us haven't heard of yet, some could get pushed back to next year or some will not live up to the hype. Needless to say, I expect this list to change somewhat in time and I think around October, probably November we will have a better idea on which films to include in that prestigious top 10. What do you think?

Brothers Trailer

This is the first trailer for Jim Sheridan's Brothers, the story of a love triangle between brothers Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire with Natalie Portman as a family struggles to cope with the return of a soldier from war. What do you think?

R.I.P. Karl Malden (1912-2009)

The Oscar winner for A Streetcar Named Desire and star of On the Waterfront and Patton has passed away today at the age of 97. The Chicago native enjoyed a fabulous movie career and he will be missed.