2010 Oscar Winners

Here is the full list of Oscar nominees and winners of each category:

Best Supporting Actor:

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

Best Animated Feature Film:

• Coraline
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Secret of the Kells
• Up

Best Original Song:

• “Almost There” from The Princess and the Frog
• “Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog
• “Loin de Paname” from Paris 36
• “Take It All” from Nine
• “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart

Best Original Screenplay:

• Mark Boal - The Hurt Locker
• Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds
• Oren Moverman and - The Messenger
• Joel and Ethan Coen - A Serious Man
• Pete Docter and Bob Peterson - Up

Best Animated Short:

• French Roast
• Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
• The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
• Logorama
• A Matter of Loaf and Death

Best Documentary Short:

• China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
• The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
• The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
• Music by Prudence
• Rabbit à la Berlin

Best Live-Action Short:

• The Door
• Instead of Abracadabra
• Kavi
• Miracle Fish
• The New Tenants

Best Make-up:

• Il Divo
• Star Trek
• The Young Victoria

Best Adapted Screenplay:

• Neill Blomkamp and - District 9
• Nick Hornby - An Education
• Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche - In the Loop
• Geoffrey Fletcher - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
• Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner - Up in the Air

Best Supporting Actress:

• Penelope Cruz - Nine
• Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air
• Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart
• Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
• Mo’Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire

Best Art Direction

• Avatar
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• Nine
• Sherlock Holmes
• The Young Victoria

Best Costume Design:

• Bright Star
• Coco Before Chanel
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• Nine
• The Young Victoria

Best Sound Editing:

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Pixar’s Up

Best Sound Mixing:

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Cinematography:

• Maurio Fiore - Avatar
• Bruno Delbonnel - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Barry Ackroyd - The Hurt Locker
• Robert Richardson - Inglourious Basterds
• Christian Berger - The White Ribbon

Best Original Score:

• James Horner - Avatar
• Alexandre Desplat - Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders - The Hurt Locker
• Hans Zimmer - Sherlock Holmes
• Michael Giacchino - Pixar’s Up

Best Visual Effects:

• Avatar
• District 9
• Star Trek

Best Documentary Feature:

• Burma VJ
• The Cove
• Food, Inc.
• The Most Dangerous Man in America
• Which Way Home

Best Film Editing:

• Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron - Avatar
• Julian Clarke - District 9
• Bob Murawski and Chris Innis - The Hurt Locker
• Sally Menke - Inglourious Basterds
• Joe Klotz - Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Best Foreign Language Film:

• Ajami - Israel
• El Secreto de sus Ojos - Argentina
• The Milk of Sorrow - Peru
• Un Prophéte - France
• The White Ribbon - Germany

Best Actor:

• Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
• George Clooney - Up in the Air
• Colin Firth - A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman - Invictus
• Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker

Best Actress:

• Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren - The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan - An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
• Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

Best Director:

• Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
• James Cameron - Avatar
• Lee Daniels - Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
• Jason Reitman - Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

Best Picture:

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

What I'm happy with:

Best Supporting Actor: Cristoph Waltz
I thought he thoroughly deserved the win for that excellent performance in Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: Mo'nique
Again, Mo'nique thoroughly deserves this Oscar. She will never play another role this well again in her life. You have to watch Precious just for her performance in the film.

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker
Although this movie may seem small and insignificant in comparison to Avatar, it takes nothing away from the quality of this movie, which ultimately gave it this win. I have always liked The Hurt Locker, ever since I saw it and reviewed it- here.


What I'm not happy with:

Best Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker
Sure The Hurt Locker had an excellent screenplay and would deserve this win any other year. But it was in the same category as Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece Inglourious Basterds. I just think Basterds had a far more superior story than The Hurt Locker and I'm just a little disappointed it didn't win.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Precious
I just think Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell did a better job with District 9 and should have take this award home for their efforts.

Best Visual Effects: Avatar

Yeah, yeah. Stop gasping. I wasn't blown away by Avatar's visual effects. Not that I'm saying it wasn't anywhere near game-changing for cinema, because it was. I'm just saying I connected more and got more out of the effects in District 9. And when we talk about bang for buck, District 9 (budget: $30 million) blows Avatar (budget: $250-300 million) out of the water.



Well, congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker people for racking up a total of six out of a possible six Academy Awards. I thought they really deserved each and every one of them. I am, after all, team Hurt Locker, no matter what people say about Avatar.

Source: /Film

Opening This Week: Avatar

Yes, I am back and hopefully gonna get my movie blogging mojo back on track. Expect lots of updates coming soon. But I think I shall start things off with previewing one of the most talked about non-summer movie of the year- James Cameron's Avatar.


Avatar (2009)
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez
Director: James Cameron
USA release: December 18, 2009
Malaysia release: December 17,2009
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller
Runtime: 2 Hours 43 Minutes
Rated in USA: PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking
Rated in Malaysia: PG-13
IMDb User Rating: 8.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
See what the early buzz surrounding Avatar is like on Twitter

Avatar is an emotional journey of redemption and revolution. The story tells of a wounded ex-marine, who thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, and eventually crosses over to lead an indigenous race in a battle for survival. Thus, combining the elements of massive spectacle and intimate character that made James Cameron's Titanic the highest grossing film of all time.

So the hype around James Cameron's Avatar has been slowly growing from super secret Sci-Fi project to "biggest movie of the year" status. Despite the movie being released worldwide later this week, quite a few people have already seen Avatar and most of them are raving about it. To read some of the early Twitter reactions, check out this /Film article. When the first trailer was released I wasn't really excited for the movie but the early buzz has picked my enthusiasm for the film back up and I'm ready to be blown away by the 'revolutionary' 3-D and CG effects. Seriously cannot wait for the movie.

Sources: IMDb, Cinema Online, Rotten Tomatoes

Avatar Teaser Trailer

First off, Happy Avatar Day! So James Cameron's Avatar has been getting about as much hype as Transformers 2 got, I would say. I had a bad experience with Transformers 2, so this time around I'm keeping my expectations down. So far, I haven't had to work hard at that because for one, there hasn't been a lot of marketing material thrown at us and secondly, I'm not impressed with the Avatar teaser trailer that went live on the Web last night.

Although a lot has been said about how the CG and the 3-D technology was utilized differently in the making of this film, I just did not take kindly to what I saw in the 2 minute teaser. Having that been said, I am still looking forward to seeing what the mesh of CG, live-action and motion capture will look like in both 2-D and 3-D.

About Avatar Day, it was announced at last month's San Diego Comic-Con that on August 21, in selected theaters all around the world, a special sneak preview of the film will be shown free of charge. A total of 16 minutes of 3-D footage is supposed to be shown in 3-D. I know that this is happening here in Malaysia too. Check out Cinema Online for more deets.

The footage we will be showing on 22 August 2009, Saturday at 11.30am GSC Mid Valley Hall 4 will add up to total running time of just over 16 min and includes a short James Cameron intro in 3-D (run time: 39 seconds) and 3-D movie footage (run time: 15 minutes, 34 seconds), which in addition to a shorter edit of scenes from the Comicon footage concludes with an action montage culled from finished footage of the teaser trailer.

So here is the long-awaited, highly anticipated teaser trailer for James Cameron's Avatar. Enjoy.



Official Plot Synopsis:
Avatar takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery, as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. The film was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, Avatar delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film, disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

James Cameron's Avatar hits Malaysian screens December 17.

First Official Photo From James Cameron’s Avatar

In the wake of having our minds blown by Wikus van de Merwe and Christopher Johnson from District 9, it’s time to look forward to arguably the only other film this year that could possibly be as good as District 9. I’m talking about non other than James Cameron’s Avatar. Yes, that other Sci-Fi flick. Well, here’s a really cool photo of Sam Worthington (yes, the Terminator Salvation dude) in the lead role of his new film. Apparently, he’s in almost every single scene of this movie. So if you don’t like him as an actor, then you’d probably hate Avatar. Take a look at the photo though. If you’re wondering what’s in the tank of water in the background, it’s Sam Worthy’s alien avatar. Cool innit? Check it. from

Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully a paraplegic war veteran, who gets the opportunity to travel to another planet, Pandora, to work with a mining operation. Because the planet is so harsh, traditional armor and envirosuit solutions are not good enough to protect miners, and a clone program has developed in which DNA from humans and Na’vi, the natives that inhabit Pandora, are combined. The result is essentially a cloned Na’vi that can house the consciousness of an individual with human DNA. This means that Jake will be able to walk again.

Avatar gets its release December 18, 2009.

Source: /Film

2009 Must-See Movies Part 4

This is the 4th and last post of my Must-See list of this year. Thank you if you've checked out all of the previous ones. I hope everyone's had a great start to the year.

If you think I missed any movies that you think deserves a mention, just let me know in the comments section or in the popcorn chat section. As always I look forward to all your comments. And don't forget to tell people what movies you're most excited for this year in the poll on the right sidebar.

October 23
Astro Boy
(trailer)

November 6

The Wolf Man

A Christmas Carol

November 20
Sherlock Holmes

New Moon

December 18
Avatar

Sorry for the lack of posters and trailers. The later we get into the year, the less pre-release material available out there. But be sure to be kept up-to-date when it all becomes available.

2009 Must-See IMAX Movies

Sorry to interrupt the ongoing '2009 Must-See Movies'. I still have Part 4 pending. Last part. Hopefully will be posted tomorrow. Latest by the weekend. Been quite busy today so real short post. Another 2009 Must-See list. Keeping up the spirit of that. So I hope you enjoy this list if it doesn't excite you first.

If you didn't know before, Warner are re-releasing the dark favorite of last year, The Dark Knight. If you caught it in regular cinemas last time and didn't get the IMAX experience of The Caped Crusader, seriously consider doing that this time round. Re-release happening on the 23rd of this month. Hope it reaches Malaysia on that day too. Not sure. Will keep you guys posted. Enough talk already. Here's the list in no particular order.

1. The Dark Knight
2. Under The Sea (3D)
3. Watchmen
4. Monsters vs. Aliens (3D)
5. Star Trek
6. Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian
7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (3D)
8. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
9. Avatar (3D)

This great list was found at Premiere.com