From “Superbad” to Super Good?: The Misinterpretation of Jonah Hill

          As the awards season stalls over the next month in preparation for the Academy Awards, I thought it would be a cool idea to examine this years nominees through an array of different blog posts such as actor profiles, film reviews of movies with nominees in them, nominee top ten lists, etc. For my first Oscar centered post, then, I wanted to focus on my favorite nominee of the year: Jonah Hill – I mean, seriously, who in their right mind would ever think that the horny teenager with a knack for doodling elaborate penises in Superbad would ever be considered an Oscar-nominated actor?

The 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards: My Reaction

With no host and just a brisk two-hour limit, the 18^th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards was a fairly quick evening with a nice blend of obvious and surprising winners. Whatever the outcome, it was hard to feel displeased with any of the night’s results, especially thanks to the humble acceptance speeches given by each Actor. Following is my awards reaction:

SAG AWARD PREVIEW: Some “Help” Needed to stop “The Artist”

Tonight at 8pm, the 18^th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards air on TBS and TNT. Much like the rest of the awards season, the predictable batch of actors and actresses will probably walk away with wins, so I cant say I’m very excited to see what happens tonight  – Christopher Plummer will take Best Supporting Actor no doubt, Octavia Spencer has Supporting Actress in the bag, George Clooney is a rightful lock for Best Actor, and it’s Davis vs. Streep for Best Actress where I think Davis will prevail.

Awards Season Update: The Artist took home the Director’s Guild of America prize for Best Director, further cementing its status as Oscar frontrunner

The Bridge (2006): A Must See Documentary

After watching so many films over the years, some great and some bad, I came to believe that I would never feel as emotionally complex from a movie than I was after watching Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing for the first time – well, guess what? I was wrong. Shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, Eric Steel’s documentary The Bridge quietly came and went when it was released in October of that year, and after finally watching it a couple of days ago, I’m not sure why; here is a film with themes so unsettling that it’s hard to watch but with visuals so beautiful and ideas so mentally stimulating that it’s impossible to look away.

Oscar Nominations Announced! My Quick Reaction:

         With an astounding 11 nominations, Martin Scorsese’s love letter to cinema, Hugo, walked away with the most Oscar nominations this morning, upsetting award favorite The Artist, which came in a close second with 10 nominations. Though the Academy is known to continue the monotonous tone of the awards season, often keeping nominations and trends predictable, this year there were numerous surprises, both deserved and outright shocking! Following are my reactions to this morning’s Oscar announcement:

See all the nominees here: http://oscar.go.com/nominees

PGA Reaction: The Artist on top once again, why?

Can anything stop The Artist at this point? After scoring the top prize at both the Critics Choice Movie Awards and the Golden Globe Awards, the critically acclaimed silent film took home the prestigious Best Picture award from the Producer’s Guild of America (PGA) last night. Much like last year’s big winner The King Speech, The Artist is now, without a doubt, the far-and-ahead frontrunner for the Oscar for Best Picture come late February.

Watch Fargo, yah? Oh yah!

If you’ve never seen the Coen Brother’s 1996 masterpiece Fargo, I highly suggest you do yourself a favor and seek it out – not only is it one of my favorite films of all time but it’s also, no doubt, a modern American classic.

Too Cool and About School: Three Favorite School-Related Movies

If you noticed a decrease in blog posts over the past couple of days, I have one answer for you – school. With essays and reading assignments stacking up it’s a bit hard to blog 24/7 but I’ll try my best. Nonetheless, as many kids my age start heading back to college for second semester, I began to think about what school related films I love most. Like many of you, I’m a sucker for The Breakfast Club, Dazed and Confused, Mean Girls (guys admit it, it’s hilarious), School of Rock, and Animal House (toga party, anyone?), but there’s also plenty more school-related films that you’ve probably never seen that you certainty must. Check out my list below of three incredible school related films that are without-a-doubt must see’s:

5 Reasons Why “We Need To Talk About Kevin”

If you’ve been keeping up with my posts dealing with the race for Best Actress, than you already know how highly I think of Lynne Ramsey’s horrific We Need to Talk About Kevin and, in particular, Tilda Swinton’s astonishing performance. With the film expanding this weekend, I thought I would take a formal look at the reasons why this film is so powerful – think of it as a creative film review if you will. Following are the top 5 reasons why I believe you just have to see this movie: