The oscars!

Well, its time for a lighter post. The oscar nominations are in!



The best picture category was expanded and now there are 10 nominees which are Precious, Inglourious Basterds,Avatar,Up in The Air,The Hurt Locker,Up,An Education,The Blind Side,District 9 and A Serious Man.



Precious is a movie with a much longer title. Apparently it's based on the novel Push by Sapphire. I haven't seen it, but it seems a bit bizarre. It is about a pregnant, overweight, black teen who is abused by her mother and her classmates and lives in poverty. She alreday has one kid, and both that one and her current one are because she is raped by her father. On top of that she has AIDS and her first kid she calls Mongo, because it's a mongoloid. I might have forgotten something, but you just can't keep count of all the horrors. I am obviously not very interested in seeing this one. Its oscar-nominated director is Lee Daniels and it's Oprah Winfrey's favourite movie.



Inglourious Basterds is one of the three big favorites to win the oscar. As I said I find it the best movie of the decade. Tarantino is nominated for Best Director and Original Screenplay. Tarantino is a great director, but an anoying speler.



Avatar is another one of the big favorites. I have seen this movie. I do not like it very much, but the movie and James Cameron deservedly are nominated for Best Picure and Best Director. It's story isn't very good, but Cameron has created a completely new and unique world all by himself. He,Tarantino and the Coens are probably the only directors whose movies probably couldn't have been made by anyone else. He will probably lose to Bigelow though, which means that he should expect jokes to be made about him, especially at the Balkans.



Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is the biggest favourite. In fact all the other nominated directors say they hope that Bigelow will win. They probably like the movie, since apart from Tarantino they are all married or gay(Daniels). Jokes aside, I haven't seen The Hurt Locker, but it probably is a great movie. Some even consider it one of the best war movies ever made. If Bigelow really wins, she'll become the first woman to win a best director oscar.



Up in the Air I'have already discussed at length. Jason Reitman is the most likeable director and he managed to get his dad an oscar nomination for producing. Jason Reitman now suddenly has 4 oscar nominations in three years. That's more than many acclaimed directors in there whole career.



I haven't seen Up, and I don't really plan to. I am not a big fan of Pixar, but it was only a matter of time when one of their movies would get an oscar nomination for best picture. It's also nominated for best animated feature. In Up stars Christopher Plummer. He stars in three of these years oscar-nominated pictures. Besides Up these are The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and the Last Station, for which he got nominated for a best supporting oscar. There he plays the famous Russian writer Tolstoy.



An Education seems like a classic oscar-movie which I'll see some day. I have absolutely no idea what to write about this one.



The Blind Side and A Serious Man have got only one other nod, besides their best picture. I don't believe that some other time a movie was nominated for best picture with only two nominations. A Serious Man deserved more, and judging from the trailer The Blind Side seems a horrible movie and deserves less.



District 9 is probably the first South-African movie to be nominated for an Oscar. 2010 starts well for South Africa. That is hopefully a good sign for the football world cup that's going to be held there this year. Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon also got nominated for Invictus. Playing Nelson Mandela is probably the easiest job Freeman ever had. As for Matt Damon he has been nominated twice for an Oscar now. The first time he played a genius, now a rugby player. He's obviously versatile. He also seems to need a Cameron blockbuster.



The acting categories are a bit boring since it almost completely certain that Jeff Bridges,Christoph Waltz,Sandra Bullock an Mo'Nique(Apparantly no last name) will win.

Leading nominees are Colin Firth, (one of the dullest actors I've ever seen. He usually plays people who are depressed because of a woman. This one is different though. Now he is depressed because of a man.)George Clooney,(who plays an ordinary man, which is probably very though for him.)and Jeremy Renner for Best Actor.
For Actress the others are Carey Mulligan ( apparently considered the new Audrey Hepburn), Meryl Streep for the hundredth time, Helen Mirren and Gabourey Sidibe, who got prestige because she doesn't resemble her character Precious at all. That's not a surprise.
Other Supp. Actors are Stanley Tucci and the very underrated Woody Harrelson
Unfortunately no Melanie Laurent or Diane Kruger for Supp Actress, but Penelope Cruz, Maggie Gyllenhaal,Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick.

Finally a very funny fact: George Clooney is nominated for playing a character named Ryan Bingham. Some real person named Ryan Bingham is nominated in the Best Song category for writing the song The Weary Kind for the movie Crazy Heart.