Looking at the Oscar nominations list. I’m glad Argo, Life Of Pi and Les Miserables are up for Best Pic, seeing I enjoyed all of them and they’re the only three I’ve seen.
Props to Jackman and Hathaway for your acting nods, you fully deserve it.
Good picks for Best Animated Ghetto - I’m not surprised Dreamworks Animation didn’t get a pick this year (is this the first time?), seeing that they were a little weak (in comparison to the strong showing) this year. Although, I was secretly wishing that there would be room for Madagascar 3. Honestly, as much as I love Pixar, I’m tired of it always being a shoo-in. In my opinion, Brave, even with all its heartwarming moments and magnificent crimson locks, should not be on that list this year.
Hobbit gets makeup, congratulations Newman and Adele for Skyfall’s score and theme respectively, good on ya Paperman and Maggie In ‘The Longest Daycare’ for animated short film, and kudos to Avengers for Visual Effects.
Predictably, a select few films hog the limelight, and disappointingly, no animated film for Best Pic this year. Still looking forward to the show, though, if only because MacFarlane would be hosting and there will be a tribute segment to James Bond.
I do think Brave is weakest than most Pixar products, and not the best Animated one this year. But in any case, those that were better were also nominated. Which one would you put in Brave’s spot?
I think Brave (and I’m no fan of it) deserved the nod, if only for the great technical achievement it represents.
Probably Madagascar 3 or Rise Of The Guardians. I think my disappointment was to do with my expectation-whiplash: the predictable ending, the small locale, the confusing message… don’t get me wrong, Madagascar 3 is more ‘silly’ and Rise Of The Guardians is not as technically impressive as Brave (although they both have their moments). But maybe I’m just jaded with Pixar disappointing me so much lately (except for Cars 2, but even then that was because I’m biased towards the first film).
ROTG exceedes expectations, unlike Brave. But I guess objectively, the nomination was right. I would have to watch them both back to back to be definite on this.
But don’t let me start on Madagascar 3. I think it being nominated over other films this year would constitute a crime against the film industry!
Haha …
If I viewed it objectively, I suppose the Academy would’ve put in ROTG before Madagascar 3.
Right now I’m tidying my house in preparation for my brother’s arrival. I’m also going to watch the mob thriller Gangster Squad with a work colleague before meeting another one for dinner. The latter is going to introduce me to a friend who knows good ramen joints in Singapore, so I’m terribly excited to meet her!
I’m so happy right now! My winter break was extremely stressful because all I did was fill out college applications. I was kinda banking on my dream school for early action but I found out I got deferred so I had to complete 12 other applications at the last minute. Definitely not fun, but now I’m 100% stress-free! Senior year is basically over for me.
I am not excited about MacFarlane. While he has a talented voice, and is a good song writer, as an artist I can’t stand his work a bit. I can write an well formulated essay on why, so I’ll just cut it off here.
But I agree with you on the Best animated Feature category. I liked Brave, but I’m rooting for Wreck it Ralph. It was my favourite animated movie this year, and I want to see WDA get an Oscar in this category, since they never have.
A few people have wondered this. I won’t say details, but the moderators are working on putting on the awards.
I know what you’re feeling, I’m in the transfer process. I have no idea where I’ll be living next year and what school I’ll be at! Best of luck to you.
I just came back from watching Gangster Squad with a work colleague. An excellent if uber-violent film (a mook is “drawn and quartered” by two cars running in opposite directions early on). It has a fairly predictable plot and character development arc (I saw Ryan Gosling’s “Mickey Mouse?” line a mile away and a Chekov’s Gun Advice “Shoot not where it’s at, but where it’s going” come into play later). Apparently, the release was delayed because of the Aurora shooting - a gunfight scene was apparently set in Grauman’s Theatre and it was reshot (pun unintended) to take place in Chinatown instead with an exploding laundry truck.
But I personally loved it. Very cruel at times, but classic tale of good vs evil in the battle for the soul of Los Angeles. Josh Brolin’s rogue detective leads a multi-racial secret gang of cops to take down Sean Penn’s mob kingpin Mickey Cohen, while Emma Stone plays the crime lord’s moll who has an affair with Gosling’s baby-faced rookie. First great movie of the year for me, but we’ll see how it goes.
The ramen girl I was to meet turned out to be quite aloof and I had already visited the one-two joints that she reluctantly told me when I asked her, so I was disappointed with my fact-finding mission. Kinda disappointed, looks like it’s back to the drawing board for my ‘quest’.
There was Robopocalypse for 2014, but the project has been postponed indefinitely.
Then there was also Interstellar, but now it seems Nolan will direct that.
And he has many projects he has commented, including one About Martin Luther King, Jr. and tons of novels he has buy the rights to, like The 39 Clues.
In all, there’s no a definite idea of what he’ll tackle next (that happens a lot with him), but for the looks of things, it won’t happen this year. He shoots faster than nobody, so there’s still a slim change, though.
Well, you live in California (though I’m not sure if LA), so yeah, you might like it since it’s about the post-war era gangster period of the City of Angels. It’s based on a true story that was reported in a Wired article or a book, I believe. I read an article where Ryan Gosling describes meeting the real-life detective he played and some of the details the old-timer shared with him:
While I didn’t see that little gesture (or maybe I missed it) in the movie, there’s a lot of attention to details and they did a good job recreating a 50s-era L.A. The movie does descend into self-parody occasionally, though, which was fine with me, but it’s not a straight-up serious documentary, though it has its dramatic moments. The director did the comedies Zombieland and Thirty Minutes Or Less, which both coincidentally starred Jesse Eisenberg.
Well, personally, I feel that Pixar is not immune to making bad movies. It’s like saying that Jamie Oliver never made a cooking disaster, nobody (or no studio) is infallible.
Having said that, Cars 2 is one of my favourite Pixar movies. But it’s only because a) I love the first film b) I love spy movies c) I love the characters and their voice actors (including newcomer characters Holley Shiftwell and Finn McMissile, and newcomer voice actors Sir Michael Caine and Bruce Campbell).
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Right now, I’m trying to squeeze some more fun out of the last hours of my weekend before I go back to work tomorrow. I’ll probably play some Saints Row: The Third or Red Dead: Redemption till early morning, then wake up around noon to go to work at 1:30pm.
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