Tag Archives: Brad Pitt

And The Nominees Are…


The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 84th Academy Awards this morning.  This year’s most nominated film was Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, with 11 nominations, followed by Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist, with 10. There were the usual suspects, some surprise and a lot of snubs (Hello Gosling, Fassbender?) The Oscars will be air on ABC on Sunday, Feb. 26 and will be hosted by soon to be 9 time host, Billy Crystal. Check out all the nominees below.

Best Picture
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo 
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse 

*Where did Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close come from? I just think that if they were gonna put another movie in that slot that maybe Bridesmaids or The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo should have been there.

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris 
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life 

Best Actor
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Best Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor 
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

*Jonah Hill was great in Moneyball but I just think it’s kind of funny that the actor that brought us great films like Grandma’s Boy and Accepted is now nominated for an Oscar.

Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help 

Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Asghar Farhadi, A Separation

Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Jim Rash & Nat Faxon, The Descendants
John Logan, Hugo
George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Beau Willimon, The Ides of March
Aaron Sorkin & Steven Zaillian, Moneyball
Peter Straughan & Bridget O’Connor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Animated Film
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango 

Best Foreign Language Film
Bullhead (Belgium)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)

Art Direction
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
War Horse

Costume Design
Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E.

Documentary Feature
Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

Documentary Short
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
God Is the Bigger Elvis
Incident in New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Film Editing
The Artist, Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants, Kevin Tent
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
Hugo, Thelma Schoonmaker 
Moneyball, Christopher Tellefsen

Makeup
Albert Nobbs, Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng 
The Iron Lady, Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Music (Original Score)
The Adventures of Tintin, John Williams
The Artist, Ludovic Bource
Hugo, Howard Shore
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alberto Iglesias
War Horse, John Williams

Music (Original Song)
“Man or Muppet” from The Muppets, Bret McKenzie
“Real in Rio” from Rio, Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown and Siedah Garrett

Short Film (Animated)
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life

Short Film (Live Action)
Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic

Sound Editing
Drive
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

Sound Mixing
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Monyeball
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

Visual Effects
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Watch The Hunger Games‘ Jennifer Lawrence announce the nominees with Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak.

 

Some TV and Movie Headlines of the Week


Thank you its the weekend. I can sleep in and catch up on some shows and movies. But before it ends and the new week starts lets recaps some of the stories and events from movies and tv this week.

Lets start off with NBC. They released their mid-season schedule this week  and truly just said f*@% it to any kind of common sense. They have taken off Prime Suspect and Community and moved almost every show around. Whitney is moving to from its nice post Office spot to Wednesday nights at 8:30/7:30c. It will follow the new Chelsea Handler show, Are You There Chelsea (Vodka got taken out of the title because this is family hour). It makes sense to pair these 2 shows together but 8/7c family hour is definitely not the place. These shows are supposed to be rude and crude and make lots of sex jokes. Both of these shows would be way better on cable where there is more freedom to do all that not on broadcast television. Up All Night will be taking over Whitney’s spot on Thursday nights. 30 Rock will take over Community’s spot. NBC says the show isn’t cancelled but you have to wonder when it will return. Prime Suspect looks like it’s getting the ax. They say they haven’t made a decision but they already stopped production on the show and are shooting the final 13th episode next week so you tell me if that isn’t a decision. New show, The Firm, based on the John Grisham novel, will take over the slot. Here is the rest of NBC’s schedule.

MONDAYS: 8-10 PM – The Voice (season premiere February 5 after the Superbowl; series resumes February 6); 10-11 PM – SMASH (February 6)

TUESDAYS: 8-10 PM – The Biggest Loser (January 3); 10-11 PM – Parenthood (through February 28); 10-11 PM – FASHION STAR (March 13, 9-11 p.m. with two-hour premiere; one-hour episodes resume March 20)

WEDNESDAYS: 8-8:30 PM – Whitney (January 11);8:30-9 PM – ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA? (January 11); 9-10 PM – Rock Center with Brian Williams (February; 10-11 PM – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

THURSDAY: 8-8:30 PM – 30 Rock (January 12); 8:30-9 PM – Parks and Recreation; 9-9:30 PM – The Office; 9:30-10 PM – Up All Night (January 12); 10-11 PM – THE FIRM (two-hour premiere January 8; Thursday time period premiere January 12)

FRIDAY: 8-9 PM – Who Do You Think You Are? (February 3); 9-10 PM – Grimm; 10-11 PM – Dateline NBC

SATURDAYS: Reruns

SUNDAYS: 7-9 PM – Dateline NBC (January); 8-9 PM – Harry’s Law (March 4); 9-11 PM – The Celebrity Apprentice (February 12)

ABC also unveiled their mid-season schedule and one of my favorite shows was notably missing from the lineup. CougarTown staring Friends alum, Courtney Cox Arquette (she might not be going with Arquette anymore; Kanye shrug) was not in the line up and this coupled with the mess that was NBC made me angry about the coming mid-season. The show will air sometime in March with a shorter season as the episode count been cut down to 15 instead of the 22 that were going to air. This isn’t a great sign for the show but hopefully when it does return people watch and the ratings go up because the show is quite hilarious.

Good news Arrested Development fans. The show is officially returning. There had already been an announcement about the show returning but it hadn’t found a home yet. This time it has. The series will be shown exclusively on Netflix starting in 2013. No word on if all the cast members will be returning  or if the long-awaited movie is going to happen but the show is back and that’s all that matters.

Ugh Twilight: Breaking Dawn pt 1 came out yesterday and is on track to make almost $140 million. It started off the weekend with midnight showings making over $30 million and $72 million total on Friday. It’s the 3rd biggest opening day ever behind Harry Potter and The Deadly Hallows: Part 2 and the second Twilight movie, New Moon. Everyone I know who has seen this is raving about it and saying it was actually really good. I don’t get it.  I watched the first one and that was awful and nothing ever convinced me to see any of the other ones. Kristen Stewart is also one of the worst actresses. Hell the whole main cast is pretty bad. Glad this is the end of this franchise because these kids are gonna disappear after this. Their movies that ventured out of the Twilight franchise have been less than spectacular and have not been seen by many so I look forward to the day I don’t have to see another Twilight ad or Kristen Stewart’s awkward and unsmiling face.

The trailer for a new Denzel Washington movie Safe House came out this week. The film stars also stars Ryan Reynolds and Vera Farmiga (with really bad hair). It’s about young CIA agent (Reynolds) who must watch a fugitive being held in a safe house (Washington). The house is attacked and they must work together run to get to a secure. Love Denzel and love Reynolds so I was already in without seeing the trailer but man when I saw it, I was in. I love when Denzel goes bad. Training Day was a great movie, I don’t think he should have won an Oscar for that but it was a great movie. Denzel plays bad so well. Why he didn’t do it more often I don’t know. The premise of this movie is not anything new. Its been done before but it definitely looks awesome and they use one of my fav songs from Kanye and Jay-Z’s Watch The Throne album that features the lovely Frank Ocean called “No Church in The Wild.” Good action, acting and eye candy what more can you ask for. The movie is in theaters February 2012.

Brad Pitt says he is going to be retiring from acting in 3 years. He did an interview this week with the UK version of 60 minutes. He said “I am really enjoying the producing side and development of stories and putting those pieces together. And getting stories to the plate that might have had a tougher time otherwise…” If I had read this in the late 90s or early 2000s, I would have been upset because Brad was making some wonderful movies at that time. Now I would say ok if he wants to I’m fine with that. The peak of his acting career has passed and while he still makes plenty of good movies, he could retire and not be missed. There are many younger actors that have taken the place that he held during the 90s when he was making hit movies and named People’s Sexiest Man. I would miss Pitt movies but I’d be ok just watching his old ones like Legends of The Fall, which is one of the best movies ever.

Moneyball


Moneyball is the new movie staring Brad Pitt, Johan Hill, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and a whole lot of other people.  I saw this movie last night and didn’t even know it was about baseball (I clearly didn’t pay attention to the trailer). I’m not really a fan of the sport but I’ll say this movie was a good one.  Its about this guy named Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, who is the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, which was one of the poorest teams in baseball.  They didn’t have deep pockets and therefore couldn’t afford star players like the Yankees and other top teams could.  The movie is the story of how he tried to get turn his cheap team into a winning one  using an unconventional method with the help of Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill.

I haven’t really liked a movie with Brad Pitt since Inglorious Basterds. Granted I haven’t seen the last movie he was in, Tree of Life, but that movie just didn’t make me want to see it and you know I’ll watch anything. The movie had a kind of Jerry Maguire feel to it but not much.  The movie is written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Social Network) and its got a nice cast with some good acting and a couple of good laughs. What else can you ask for in a movie.

Check out it out September 23