Last Minute Picks

 In the categories I may know something about:


BEST PICTURE
The King's Speech
Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Colin Firth
The King's Speech

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Christian Bale
The Fighter

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Natalie Portman
Black Swan

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Amy Adams
The Fighter

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Toy Story 3
Lee Unkrich

ART DIRECTION
Inception
Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Design); Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (Set Decoration)

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Inception
Wally Pfister

COSTUME DESIGN
Alice in Wonderland
Colleen Atwood

DIRECTING
The Social Network
David Fincher

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Exit through the Gift Shop
Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz

FILM EDITING
The Social Network
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Incendies
Canada

MAKEUP
The Wolfman
Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
The Social Network
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
Toy Story 3
"We Belong Together"
Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
The Lost Thing
Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann

VISUAL EFFECTS
Iron Man 2
Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
True Grit
Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
Inception
Written by Christopher Nolan

The Heat Of Battle, The Neon Green Of War

Presenting an awesome fan-made trailer of "Modern Warfare" for the equally awesome show Community

Three Things For A Thursday

Three new things today:

1. The complete James Bond collection of books is 74% off at Chapters
   Not really new since the sale started on Monday (not sure when it ends), but I just received confirmation of my copy shipping, so I thought I would pass this along anyway. All fourteen of Ian Flemming's Bond books in retro paperback - I dare you to pass it up.
2. The Geek A Week Challenge
   This project came to my attention recently when Think Geek announced that it would begin selling physical sets of these cards and selling various items from the people featured in the sets. Take the time to check out the write ups for each of the cards - they're pretty funny and have some interesting titbits squirrelled away in them. Heh, "Evets Kainzow."
3. Foleys
   I will never claim to have mastery of film credits, but I am getting closer to a fuller understanding of their complex code. Added to the arcane pantheon of Key Grips and Gaffers (my confusion over this term stemming from early exposure to British colloquialism) is the Foley, whose very cool job I learned about while browsing around Vimeo

Look At Your Blog, Now Back At Mine

Hello Ladies,

Guess who's back? I'll attribute it to not really watching TV on TV any more, but somehow I managed to miss the return of Isaiah Mustafa ("Old Spice Guy") to the internets. And he has brought gifts! No, not two tickets to that thing you love, but new commercials. Oh, and they returned on my birthday. Awesome.








Obligatory: probably the best parody of the commercials, done by no less than Grover!

Bowties are Cool

WANT



Bowties are Cool by TheArtOfMJ - $9

Forget SFX, Real Life Is Way Crazier

Sure, special effects have their place. But compared to the awesomeness of 1080p slowmo, there are some things I think can be better left to conventional cinematography. Also, someone get Ok Go one of these cameras.


Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.

An Advanced Guide To M. Night Shyamalan

While I may never forgive him for The Last Airbender Mr. Shyamalan has managed to make third-act twists interesting and sometimes (sometimes) even shocking. I'm fond of twists, and apparently so is Aaron Diaz - author of the awesome webcomic Dresden Codak from whence this guide comes.