This year's Oscars host, Seth MacFarlane, and "Gangster Squad" actress Emma Stone were up bright and early on Thursday to announce the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards.
Check out a partial list below, and see who will take home the Oscar on Sunday, February 24. Are there any nods that surprise you?
The 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards was a classy affair, with each recipient of an honor being sure to share the spotlight with their peers.
The awards were nicely shared among the frontrunners this awards season, with Ben Affleck's "Argo" once again proving to be a top contender by taking home the award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.
A couple of days ago, my boyfriend really wanted, for once,to choose a movie for our movie night. He made me choose between two movies, Texas Chainsaw and Gangster Squad. Ok…I’m really not a fan of chainsaw or anything that has saw in it, so I had to go with Gangster Squad. At least I have Ryan Gosling.
The movie turned out to be a disappointment for both of us. Don’t get me wrong, the cinematography was great and all also we got stars all over the screen like a freakin’ sky but the story line was just boring…for me. Okay, we got this mafia who wants to take over LA and he must be stopped by a group of bad-ass cops and the cops win…the end. I think the film was made as a reference to 30s Gangster films, when we had Public Enemy, Little Caesar and all of those folks. However, instead of having an anti-hero hero, we have a bunch of bad-ass cops. By bad-ass I don’t mean that they’re bad. They’re just tough. They are still in the realm of good unlike a traditional anti-hero, where they’re kind of grey-ish (How can a guy who smashes a grapefruit into a woman’s face NOT an anti hero?). They still have goodness in them, they did all of the work not caring for any fame, honor or even money. They care for the civilians and not just themselves. And when we combine the storyline with the “good” bad-ass cops heroes, we have too much cliche. It’s good to keep it classic, but to much classic can be boring for audience nowadays.
Besides all of that, you have great action with a little splash of blood , bunch of cool actors, and Ryan Gosling.
“Pi” Patel and Richard Parker
Last week I saw this film “Life of Pi” because everyone said that’s “it’s good” and so I went with some spoilers from my friends, the two-version story. I absolutely love the film despite the fact that I haven’t read the book. The cinematography and the CGI are amazing. But what I like the most is the fact that the story could be interpreted in so many ways. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the two versions of the story are the one Pi tells the writer and another one Pi tells the Japanese officials towards the end of the movie when he was rescued; the animal story and the human story.The main point is not really about which story is true or which one to believe but rather a chance to explore the ending introspectively. It’s almost like asking yourself which one you preferred between a really grim story of human nature or the one with hope and faith. Pi let us choose for ourselves what kind of world-view we hold. Is it based on selfishness and self-determination? or we are abide by something more than just ourselves. Well, Sometimes we demand the truth but when faced the harsh reality, believing in something unbelievable sounds much better. Just like the Japanese officials, at the end they put the story of Pi and Richard Parker (aka. the Bengal Tiger) in their report. Sometimes all we need are hope and faith to get us through life, no?
After my first blog has been deactivated by WordPress (because they think I’m advertising my content or something) I decided not to give up because all I want to do is to write about films and hopefully have meaningful debates with some of the readers. I know when talking about film and saying that it’s good and everything is hard to categorize. “Is it a commercial?” “Is it a campaign for this film?” Well, this blog isn’t. I have nothing to gain saying that some films are better than others. So please don’t deactivate my blog again because I really like you WordPress…I think your service is great and all of your features are cool and today is my birthday, too… if that makes any difference…
Sincerely,
Prynlada A.
