Globes of Gold

Well, I'm going to miss the actual event which is a bit disappointing, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to follow every other aspect of the Golden Globes. I'd have more of an invested interest if Avatar was nominated in more categories. As you can see from my last post, I'm kind of in love with it. But despite my bias, the nominees are:

For best motion picture, drama:

Avatar (woot woot!)
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Up in the Air

For best motion picture, musical or drama: (I like that they have categories within categories)

(500) Days of Summer (great movie)
The Hangover (I never stopped laughing)
It's Complicated (I have no interest in seeing it, but maybe it's just a generation thing)
Julie & Julia
Nine (my money's on this for the win)

For best director:

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar (he deserves this and more)
Clint Eastwood, Invictus
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

For best animated feature:

Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox (it kinda made 2009 for me)
Up
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Princess and the Frog

For best actor in a motion picture, drama:

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus (if it's anything like the Oscars, he'll win just 'cause he played a real person)
Tobey Maguire, Brothers

For best actress in a motion picture, drama:

Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, Precious

For best performance by an actor in a musical or comedy:

Matt Damon, The Informant!
Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine
Robert Downey Jr, Sherlock Holmes (he's got my vote!)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer (he's was pretty dern awesome)
Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man

For Best performance by an actress in a musical or comedy:

Sandra Bullock, The Proposal (well, she was funny...)
Marion Cotillard, Nine
Julia Roberts, Duplicity (that was a comedy? it felt more like a train wreck...)
Meryl Streep, It's Complicated
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

For best supporting actor:

Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

For best supporting actress:

Penelope Cruz, Nine (hey, remember when she an Tom Cruise were an item? weird...)
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air (power to the youngin's!)
Mo'Nique, Precious
Julianne Moore, A Single Man

For best foreign film:

Broken Embraces
The White Ribbon
The Maid
A Prophet
Baaria

For best screenplay:

District 9, Neil Blomkap, Terri Tatchell
The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
It's Complicated, Nancy Meyers
Up in the Air, Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner

For best original song:

Crazy Heart
Everybody's Fine
Nine
Brothers
Avatar

And finally, for best original score:

The Informant!, Marvin Hamlisch
Up, Michael Giacchino
Where the Wild Things Are, Carter Burwell, Karen Orzolek
Avatar, James Horner
A Single Man, Abel Korzenioski

My thoughts:
The actors of Avatar didn't get nominated, they deserve a lot more recognition than they're getting; Wes Anderson's name should definitely be appearing under best director for his amazing work on Fantastic Mr. Fox and I'm sure Sherlock Holmes will have more nominations at the Academy Awards since they have more categories (art direction, costume design, etc).

Little known fact to most people, I think: Carter Burwell (nominated for best original score for Where the Wild Things Are) also worked on the music for the movie Twilight. So for those of you who hate the likes of Twilight but loved Where the Wild Things Are: Ha! They have more in common than you think! :P

Anyway, stay tuned for the list of winners or check other websites for it, whatever. Either way, you won't get my opinions anywhere else. And I'm sure with this line up, I'll have quite a few opinions to share after tomorrow night.

Keep it real!

AVATAR

There's something that's been on my mind for about a week now. Well, more than a week actually, but before I could kind of shove it to the back of my mind, and now it's all I think about. So I figure since I can't get it out of my head, I might as well write about it!

There's a little indie film out right now, you may have heard of it. It's called 'Avatar' and it was directed by James Cameron. Ah, now I've got your full attention; this movie definitely has mine. Did you know that it broke a huge box office record in a matter of 17 days? Yeah, it made over one billion dollars within the first three weeks! That just astounds me.



Now me being the movie dork that I am, I went to see the movie in theater and then came home and proceeded to stay up all night just to read everything I could get my hands on about this movie. I read, I listened, I watched, I loved. I've now seen countless cast and crew interviews and have read article after article about this movie. You want to know the coolest thing I've learned from all this research?: I don't have a life... well, yeah, but that's a given. No, the coolest thing I've learned is that no matter what opinions people have about this movie, James Cameron has officially, without a doubt, achieved what he set out to do.

What did he set out to do?: Open people's eyes up to the environment around them? No (though he seemed to achieve that in the process anyway). Promote Pantheism? Nope. All James Cameron really wanted to do was get people back to the cinema! And boy, did he ever! I don't regret spending one penny of the fourteen fifty I paid to watch it. I actually walked away feeling as though I may have been the one who cheated Cameron. I only paid fifteen bucks and I got to experience this mind-blowing thing that's going to change how we do movies forever. Thanks Jim, I owe you one!



What an experience, man! I really don't want to give anything away, all I want to do is inform people that it is the furthest thing from a waste of time or money. Go! Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

My favorite aspect of this movie obviously comes from an acting perspective, I can't help it. Sam Worthington plays both a human and a Na'vi (blue alien) and he gives a stellar performance. What I love most is the way they captured his and Zoe Saldana's performances. Everything you see the blue people do, the actors actually did. The face expressions, the tears, the jumping, the fighting, everything. It wasn't just cartoons or simple animation... I mean, it's just incredible.



A friend of mine went to see it recently and I asked her what she thought of Sam Worthington (he's Australian, I try to root a little extra for people who share my heritage) and she said he was great but wondered if he was really disabled in real life. I couldn't understand why she'd ask this question since I already knew that he also played the avatar who could clearly use both his legs. I realized she was asking because she, like many other people I guess, assumed that he was only lending his voice to the other character. She couldn't be more wrong. Again, this is why the movie is so revolutionary and amazing.






Long story short: great movie. I can't guarantee you'll like every aspect of it, but I can guarantee there are enough aspects for everyone to walk away happy. I'm going to stop talking now so you can get your butt to a theater! You'll be glad you did!



Keep it real!

Love Makes the World Go Round

I found this in my cereal today - thought it was something worth sharing.

It's a good thing to remember: Love is everywhere. Sometimes you just have to look for it.

Keep it real!