Saturn Award Nominees

Posted by Ryan Adams on Feb 29, 2012 in AWARDS CHATTER | 29 comments

(thanks to PaulH)

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror announced their Saturn nominations today. Winners revealed on 6/20.

Best Science Fiction Film:

• The Adjustment Bureau
• Captain America: The First Avenger
• Limitless
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes
• Super 8
• X-Men: First Class

Best Horror/Thriller Film:

• Contagion
• The Devil’s Double
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
• The Grey
• Take Shelter
• The Thing

Best Fantasy Film:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Hugo
• Immortals
• Midnight in Paris
• The Muppets
• Thor

The Avengers assemble in new trailer

Posted by Ryan Adams on Feb 29, 2012 in Best Picture 2012, Trailers | 14 comments

It’s the 2nd of Disney’s 3-pronged box-office assault on Spring — John Carter (Mar 9), The Avengers (May 4), Brave (June 22). The Avengers ranked #12 yesterday’s poll of the year’s most anticipated movies.

Poll Results: 50 Most Anticipated Films of 2012

Posted by Ryan Adams on Feb 29, 2012 in Best Picture 2012, Les Miserables, POLLS | 47 comments

By the time we added all the films readers recommended, the poll of most anticipated movies extended to  66 titles.  Check out how the Top 50 ranked after the cut.

Judd Apatow and Lena Dunham’s Girls Coming to HBO in April

Posted by Sasha Stone on Feb 29, 2012 in TV | 9 comments

The trailer:

This appears to be a frank, honest look at what it is to be young-er women trying to figure life out, which usually translates into trying to figure men or boys out. I really hope it’s more than that because if women are its target audience it really has to go deeper. Enlightened and Hung are really great shows on HBO that explore things women think about and talk about that don’t necessarily have to do with meeting Prince Charming. I’m excited to see Girls, anyway.

The State of the Race: When You Have them By the Balls…

Posted by Sasha Stone on Feb 29, 2012 in featured, State of the Race | 57 comments

Now that the waves have receded back to the ocean, we’re left to sift through the debris of another Oscar season where we, Oscar pundits/watchers, have become as much a part of the problem as the Oscars themselves. Because it’s become such a large industry, it is no longer about watching, but about dictating. Bloggers and critics do the prep-work for the voters. Maybe they always have, going all the way back to the beginning when the critics and the public saw all of the movies first, and voted on them either with their box office or their awards, or their reviews. The public usually had a say. The critics had a say. And the Oscar voters had the final say. Sure, it was and always will be about honoring their own – their prom queens and prom kings, their buddies, their pals, their idols. It’s always been about that and it will likely always be about that — but for a nudge here or there occasionally, when a truly deserving contender actually wins for a job well done. But that’s rare. Popularity is the name of the game when it comes to the Oscars, at least in the major categories.

You can’t really pin that label on The Artist producer, director, or actor; they made it to the Oscars because critics and voters genuinely liked their movie. It hardly ever happens that way and certainly wasn’t the case LAST year, when The King’s Speech was propelled on the popularity of its actors, but mainly on how well the Weinstein Co. worked the back-end. And in the end, it WAS the movie the public liked best. It WAS the crowdpleaser. But last year’s winner hasn’t even lasted one year after it won. I don’t know what the fate of The Artist will be but I think it was a pretty ballsy move, despite the soft lob down the middle that it actually is, for the Academy to award a movie so few people have seen nor likely to see in the near future.