I can’t believe Alice in Wonderland wore more Oscars than Black Swan…that alone shows you how ridiculous this annual spectacle is. Last night were the 83rd annual Oscars and even though it featured some amazing films, it was one of the most boring award shows in years…nothing really happened so if you didn’t get to watch, you didn’t miss much…here’s your recap.
The big winner of the night was The King’s Speech taking home 4 Oscars. It was tied with Inception, but King’s Speech took home the big boys including Actor in a Leading Role, Directing, Best Original Screenplay, and the coveted Best Picture. I can not believe it won all of those…I thought it was nab some, but not all. The biggest upset has got to be Directing…I feel that Darren Aronofsky should have got it for Black Swan and even thought the academy would give it to David Fincher for The Social Network. It’s absurd that Christopher Nolan wasn’t even nominated for Inception. He was nominated for his Original Screenplay which I thought you was a shoe in for, but no…King’s Speech took that one too. I thought The Kids Are All Right also had a chance there but they went home without anything last night…a great overlooked film.
Back to Black Swan. It only won ONE award and that was the most deserved Oscar to Natalie Portman for Actress in a Leading Role…she’s winning Oscars for two now you know 
. You know who won more Oscars than the great Black Swan?? Alice in Wonderland!? What the hell Academy! I understand the argument that they were for Art Direction and Costume Design and when you’re in Tim Burton’s mind…those things are superb but Alice in Wonderland was NOT an academy level film which is the excuse most people give when talking about how TRON: Legacy wasn’t nominated for more. You’re telling me Alice in Wonderland, Hereafter, and Iron Man 2 can be nominated for Visual Effects but not TRON? You’re telling me TRON’s soundtrack by Daft Punk wasn’t award worthy for Original Score? Blasphemy.
Anyway, back to the actual winners. Inception did win a nice amount which it deserve. It took away statues for the twin categories of Sound Editing and Sound Mixing (yes, they’re different but…most people don’t care), Visual Effects, and Cinematography. All three, I mean four, were well deserved. Remember that “dun” sound and flying around in the hotel room? There you go, Oscars. The Fighter picked up 2 statues both in the supporting roles categories. Christian Bale and co-supporting star Melissa Leo both deserved their wins and I’m proud The Fighter got recognized…still a little mad that Mark Whalberg didn’t get recognized for his lead role in the film however but that was a heavily contested category this year as we actress. Know who else won an Oscar? The Wolfman. lol.
Colin Firth won best Actor in a Leading Role and gave a poignant speech but I have to say the best speech of the night was Luke Matheny for his Short Live Action Film, God of Love. You might remember him as the guy with all that hair. The Social Network brought home 3 new friends last night including best Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Original Score. Can’t really complain about those…it was amazing film, I’m just still amazed it didn’t win Best Film or Directing…again King’s Speech took it all away.
Toy Story 3 did well winning 2 Oscars in the continued Pixar animation domination. Not only did it win in award season, but it was the big winner in the box office making more money than any other nominated film. Randy Newman of course won yet again and his speech was great. Did you ever realize how cool of a guy he was while making that shitty music? All I could think of was Family Guy lol. My biggest upset of the night was for Best Documentary. I really wanted Banksy to win for Exit Through The Gift Shop. Not only was it my favorite documentary of the year, it was one of my top 10 of 2010. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really need to check it out. To be honest though, I haven’t got to see Inside Job yet…or Winter’s Bone which are now on my must see list. What are on yours?
So what did you think of this year’s Oscars? I loved Anne Hathaway and her “personal moment” but thought James Franco forgot to show up or was just fed up with the whole Oscar process. Being nominated for an award and a host must have been an excruciating week. He did offer a few good zingers though, like, “Look it up…on the internet” and “alright, congratulations nerds.” No, congratulations to you Mr. Franco. The Oscars tried to target a younger market with these hosts but still cowardly picked the old money movies as big winners. In the end, Sandra Bullock and Steven Spielberg brought the elegance of the Academy Awards back and Kirk Douglas won the night. Oh, and Oprah proves she can still do whatever she wants.
Posts Tagged ‘Toy Story 3’
Summer Movie Preview: June Edition
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010It’s summertime which means it’s time for the big summer movie blockbusters! The movie season already began with movies like Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Shrek Forever After, and Sex and the City 2. A couple of those movies did great while others fell victim to terrible box office numbers but never fear, it’s only the beginning. This is the first time we’re doing a monthly preview roundup so let us know what you think and we’ll see if we continue to do them. Here we go!
Week 1: Get Him to the Greek, Killers, Marmaduke, Splice
This is truly a weekend offering a movie for everyone. Get Him to the Greek is your typical comedy of this generation from Judd Apatow. Starring Russel Brand, and Jonah Hill, it follows a record company intern trying to bring a washed up rockstar who makes his own rules from London to California for an anniversary concert that’s supposed to restart his career. (Check out our Get Him to the Greek review) Killers is a romantic comedy staring eye candy for both the guys and girls, Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl about a super spy who doesn’t let his wife know he’s a super spy…until now. Marmaduke is a film for the kids about the beloved comic book dog voiced by Owen Wilson. And Splice is a movie like no other for moviegoers looking for something different and edgy. It’s about two rockstar geneticists who have spliced together a new creation which they end up raising as their own until it becomes it’s own…(Check out our Splice review with some Q&A with the director)
My pick of the week: Splice.
Week 2: The A-Team, The Karate Kid
Week 2 is your 80s remake weekend. The Karate Kid replaces Pat Morita with Jackie Chan and casts Will Smith’s son, Jaden Smith, as the Karate Kid. Unlike the original, this movie is actually based in China where it throws an American kid into a crowd he’s unfamiliar with. They were almost going to release this movie as “Kung Fu Kid” but decided to stick with the original title…it’s definitely targeted for younger kids this time around but should still come with the same comedic edge. The A-Team is your a-typical action remake. All the regular characters are back for a stretched out episode of the classic tv series with an updated modern twist. It’s a comedic action film where you can expect huge explosions, outrageous situations, and a clever script. I just want to hear the theme song…
My pick for Week 2: The A-Team.
Week 3: Jonah Hex, Toy Story 3
Here are a couple of fantasy movies. Toy Story 3 is the much anticipated continuation of the beloved Toy Story series which keeps impressing audiences of every generation. There hasn’t been a Toy Story movie in a decade (the original was released in 1995 and the sequel was in 1999) so the real target market has never had a new Toy Story movie to go to even though we all know that almost every age group can relate and enjoy these films. The way the structure the movies and write the scripts is incredible the way it reaches every kid, young and old from all sorts of backgrounds. You can expect new characters alongside with the classic toys we grew up with. Jonah Hex is for a much older crowd and combines modern technology with the wild wild west genre. I never quite understood why people kept combining westerns with updated weaponry, but here we go again. Jonah Hex is about a bounty hunter with warrants getting an offer to clear his name by stopping a terrorist. Go at your own risk.
My easy pick of the week: Toy Story 3
Week 4: Grown Ups, Knight and Day
Grown Ups has an all-star cast of comedians: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade. It’s about five friends who reunite years after their childhood when their basketball coach passes away. Eventhough they’ve grown older…they haven’t really grown up…Knight and Day is another action comedy promising huge explosions, daring stunts, and witty dialogue. Starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, this is a super spy movie on overdrive where the super spy (Tom Cruise) seems to be perfect in every situation and the damsel in distress (Cameron Diaz) seems to mess up everything with ease.
My pick for this week: Did you see Splice or Toy Story 3 already?
Week 4 1/2: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
I haven’t even seen the second twilight and they’re already releasing the third. After the first, I just didn’t want to continue…to be honest. But it’s not about me, it’s about the army of teenage girls who are obsessed with vampires and warewolves named Jacob and Edward. Which team are you on? It doesn’t matter, because Team Twilight wins every time. They’re going to keep churning out these movies as fast as they can to appease their audience and make as much money as they can before the fad is over. They’re even releasing this movie on a Wednesday to get that extra couple days of movie income to boost their first weekend numbers.
I don’t have to pick this movie, thousands of teenage girls and their mothers already have.
Limited Notables: Holy Rollers, Solitary Man, Cyrus
It’s hard to really put these limited releases in a monthly roundup because they open up in different cities at different times. Either way, they should be easiest to find during this month. I’m a huge fan of smaller films and love to expose people to them who wouldn’t even know about them. Holy Rollers is inspired by true events about Hasidic Jews who were international ecstasy traffickers. Solitary Man is the aftermath of a mid-life crisis starring Michael Douglas. It’s a comedic look at the result of a lot of bad decisions. Cyrus is a modern comedy about an older divorced man (John C. Reilly) who meets an amazing women (Marisa Tomei) who even more amazingly is interested in him. There’s one problem though: her twenty-one-year-old son (Jonah Hill) who has a freakishly close relationship with his mom. You can expect these reviews later on in the month.
My Limited Pick: All of them, but if I had to pick one: Solitary Man.
And there you have it, June in a nutshell. This month is dominated with comedies, primarily action comedies, especially action comedies with super spies. Splice is probably the only unique film of the month and everything else is just more of the same. To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to any of these movies which works out because I’ll be out most of the month in South Africa for the World Cup 
. July, on the other hand, looks to be my favorite movie month of the year with The Last Airbender, Inception, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and the limited film: The Kids Are Alright (which I have already seen, and it’s great!). I can’t wait to write that roundup in a few weeks. Look out for it!
WonderCon: The Disney Panel (Prince of Persia, Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Toy Story 3)
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Disney started their showcase with a first look at Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time starring Jake Gyllenhaal, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Mike Newell…all three were in attendance to talk about the movie. Prince of Persia is based on the popular video game of the same name. It follows the adventures of a prince who stumbles upon a mythical object which can affect time itself. He teams up with the princess of his rivals to stop a sandstorm which would end of the world. From what they showed and said, it’s definitely an action-packed summer blockbuster but Jerry kept highlighting the points that it would have lots of comedy and romance. Pretty much, it’s trying to have mass appeal and target the largest market possible. It was filmed in Morocco where it was said to be over a hundred degrees every day. Additionally, they sent teams around the world to take authentic pictures and bring back the images to build unique sets. But even with that backdrop, a lot of the movie will be computer generated. The footage they showed looked very common and bland. Granted, it’s still early and the scenes weren’t polished up yet. However, the time travel affects with the sand looked awesome as well as the scenes with snakes…they did some really cool things there. It’s reminiscent of the director, Mike Newell’s work in Harry Potter, very magical. You can expect a lot of free running/parkour type stuff from Jake who literally runs up walls.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time comes out May 28, 2010.
Jerry Bruckheimer stayed in his seat as the panels changed because he was presenting his 2nd upcoming film with Disney, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel and is directed by Jon Turteltaub. Set in modern-day, a college student in New York City finds himself in a magical battle between good and evil. He is destined to become a great and powerful sorcerer trained by an old wizard by the name of Balthazar. On the plot, Jon Turteltaub commented on how fundamental this plot is to Disney and that it originated from a segment in Fantasia. He comically said that obviously they’re not doing a cartoon for two hours of a mop (even though the iconic sequence of the mop is in the film). To me, the footage looked amazing. This is going to be a homerun for Disney and regain them some lost fans while gaining them a lot of new ones from the younger generation who has no idea what Fantasia is and would definitely not sit through it today. You can tell it’s still geared towards kids, but it looks really funny and entertaining…kind of a Harry Potter like feel. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice looks at magic a different way than Harry Potter though. Turteltaub said he wanted to create a very realistic and modern weird feeling as if you were in this world with the characters on the screen and then the magic would enter all of our lives.The Sorcerer’s Apprentice opens on July 16, 2010.
Finally, Disney’s last film showcased was a continuation of a little known franchise from Disney Pixar called Toy Story 3. The third film in this series follows the characters as they are abandoned in a day care while their owner, Andy, goes away to college. At first, to all of the toys except Woody, it looks like a paradise but kids love new toys…The director, Lee Unkrich, said that it took two days in a cabin to come up with the story but over two and half years of storyboarding and fine tuning. He felt the pressure of taking this huge franchise and creating a third feature length film every day of the process of making it but it doesn’t look like he failed…every time a new character was shown to the audience, there was a collective “awww.” There’s no doubt in my mind that this film will resonate with the new generation of kids and that the old fans will flock back to see the new instalment. When an audience member asked Jeff Garlin about improvising in the movie he said that when the script is good, he doesn’t like to improvise. He likes to improvise in order to help a movie out but with Wall-E and Toy Story 3, he felt that the scripts were great so that should give you an idea of how good this one is going to be.Toy Story 3 arrives in theaters on June 18, 2010.
Remember, they are doing a special cliffhanger screening (first hour of the movie) for college students. You can see if your city is included here: Toy Story 3 Advance Screenings
WonderCon is one of the country’s best comics conventions featuring guests and events for comics, movies, video games, and other popular media. This year, WonderCon had presentations by such Hollywood studios as Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, and Lionsgate.Visit WonderCon’s Official Website
