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.

The Informant! Trailer

Here is the first trailer for Steven Soderbergh's upcoming The Informant starring Matt Damon. Expect good laughs from Damon here. What do you think?

Best Song category

Last year it was declared that no film could receive more than 2 Oscar nominations in the Best Song category. This year, a new rule has been applied that could affect the number of nominees in the category altogether. Indeed, a song must now receive a tuning score of over 8.25 between 6 and 10 to be determined by Academy members in order to qualify for a nomination. That means that if no song receives a score higher than 8.25, then no Best Song Oscar will be awarded that year. If only one song gets the score, then the next song with the highest score qualifies for a nomination and only 2 songs would be nominated. And with this new rule, the number of nominees will vary between 2 and 5 every year. Not to judge too harshly, but does the Academy really want to be too difficult with this category? This looks very ridiculous in my view, but what do you think?

Amelia Trailer

With already two Oscars in hand, Hilary Swank seems like an early favorite for Best Actress as she stars in the biopic of Amelia Earhart from director Mira Nair (Vanity Fair). Also starring Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor, look for this film to pick up a few nominations in the technical categories and quite possibly, due to the new rule change, a Best Picture candidate perhaps. What do you think?

Oscar goes back to its roots

It was announced by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis that at next year's Oscar ceremony, the Best Picture category will expand its list from five nominess to ten. While the move is not unprecedented (until 1944, the Oscars had 10 or more nominations in the category), it certainly comes as a surprise to many. The idea of the Academy making a top 10 might open the door to many films which might not usually make the traditional cut (just last year, The Dark Knight and WALL-E may have in all logic been nominated were there 10 nominees) which will certainly please movie fans but where exactly do we draw the line? While certain films deserve to be nominated for a Best Picture within a certain year without making the cut, the purpose is to select the films which will be remembered through time as the absolute best. We must question as whether all ten films really deserved to be labeled as Best Picture nominees. Anyway, ten nominees certainly open the door for more fan-favorite films so we might see blockbusters or animated films slip into the category from now on. What do you think?

Bond gets a heavy... writer

With Academy Award winner Paul Haggis working on the last two Bond films with usual scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, successfully 'rebooting' the franchise, it has been confirmed that the next Bond film will be penned by Purvis, Wade and two-time Oscar nominee Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon). It is unclear if Haggis will participate at this point but it will definitely be interesting to have a fresh and talented mind behind this popular franchise. What do you think?

Shutter Island Trailer

A lot of questions surround this film for the upcoming Oscar season. This marks the fourth collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. All three previous films went on to be nominated for Best Picture and Best Director for Scorsese, winning both for The Departed. DiCaprio was nominated for Best Actor for The Aviator, losing to Jamie Foxx for Ray. For both The Aviator and The Departed, Scorsese faced off against Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby (winning against Aviator) and Letters from Iwo Jima. With his Invictus coming out this year, will these two (arguably of the best filmmakers of our generation) be facing each other yet again? With these questions in mind, here is the first trailer for Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. Enjoy!

J.J. and Tom pair again

It appears that J.J. Abrams is not looking for a break. He will join up with Tom Cruise as a producer for the upcoming Mission:Impossible 4 in which Cruise will star again as Ethan Hunt. They are already working on a plot for the film. What do you think?

Three confirmed for The Hobbit!

According to Guillermo Del Toro in a recent interview, it appears that Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Andy Serkis (Gollum) and Hugo Weaving (Elrond) have confirmed to participate in The Hobbit films in their original roles, so that is great news for LOTR fans who will be looking forward for the two films. What do you think?

Whiplash premiere

Here is your first look of Mickey Rourke as Russian baddie Ivan Vanko a.k.a. Whiplash in the upcoming Iron Man 2 opposite Robert Downey Jr. It is still unclear if this character will be employed by Tony Stark's competitor Justin Hammer, played by Sam Rockwell, but you can see his Russian tattoos and a design of his suit and whips, so we'll see how much he'll be able to pound Iron Man. What do you think?

A new Expendable?

According to Moviehole, Steven Seagal recently turned down an offer to participate in one of the biggest action projects in years, Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables because of disagreements with Avi Lerner, one of the film's producers. Fans shouldn't be too disappointed, because it is now rumored that none other than Bruce Willis is currently in talks to participate in the film. Adding John McClane to an all-stellar action cast (Sly, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Eric Roberts, Danny Trejo and Randy Couture, not to mention a cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger), this should promise to be a great hit. What do you think?

Monsters, Inc. Sequel?

With Pixar's tenth hit at the box-office in Up, director Pete Docter is rumored to be working on a sequel to the 2001 Monsters, Inc. which was nominated for a Animated Feature Film award (Shrek won the award). The film went on to make over 250 million dollars at the domestic box office. It would be fun to see if the original characters would be involved. We'll keep you updated.

Full House Film?

Rumours are currently circulating that John Stamos is working to adapt the television series in which he starred in into a motion picture event. A TV series turned into a movie is often a big risk, especially when younger audiences haven't seen the series run, but Get Smart was a good comedy last summer, so we'll see if this project becomes a reality in the near future.

Invictus release date

According to Variety magazine, Clint Eastwood's next pic Invictus will be released on December 11th, just on time for Oscar season. The Nelson Mandela biopic starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, once called the Human Factor, should be a heavy favorite especially for Freeman if Clint continues his hot streak. What do you think?

R.I.P. David Carradine

The actor who made his fame with the series Kung Fu and was recently seen as the titled character Bill in the Kill Bill movies, passed away today at the age of 72. You will be missed.

Toy Story 3 Teaser Trailer

Here is the teaser for Pixar next project, the much anticipated third film of the Toy Story franchise and from the looks of it, this will be one of the best films of 2010. Enjoy!