JLooney.com

You all know how much I like movies, right?

I do.

A lot.

And I see lots of ‘em. Well, I enjoy a good contest, too, and since nobody else I know is having an Oscar’s contest, I figured I would.

On Sunday, March 7th, ABC will air the 82nd Academy Awards®. I’ve decided to hold a contest, and the winner get’s a $50 Visa Gift Card from me. It’s pretty easy. Pick who you think will win, and the person that get’s the most correct answer’s wins. Easy, right? Here are the categories that will be used for the contest, and the nominees in each one:

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air

Best Actor in a leading Role
Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
George Clooney (Up In The Air)
Colin Firth (A Single Man)
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Matt Damon (Invictus)
Woody Harrelson (The Messenger)
Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Helen Mirren (The Last Station)
Carey Mulligan (An Education)
Gabourey Sidibe (Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire)
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Penélope Cruz (Nine)
Vera Farmiga (Up In The Air)
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart)
Anna Kendrick (Up In The Air)
Mo’Nique (Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire)

Best Director
James Cameron (Avatar)
Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
Lee Daniels (Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire)
Jason Reitman (Up In The Air)

Best Animated Feature
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

In the event of a tie, there will be a movie trivia quiz to decide the winner.

Email your picks to me by clicking here, or just email me at j@brandfoundry.org with “2010 Oscar Contest Entry” in the subject line.

All entries MUST be received by midnight MST on Saturday March 6th, 2010.

Oh, and as a secondary contest, the person who refers the MOST new people to my site to enter the contest wins a $25 Visa Gift Card. Sweet, huh? Just tell whoever you refer to start their email with “referred by: ” so I’ll know where they came from. If your friends don’t include that, I can’t count ‘em.

And the $50 Oscar Visa Gift Card goes to….

It’s that time of year again! No, Not Christmas (although it’s almost as exciting for me), but Oscar season! The nominees were announced yesterday, and I’m familiar with just about all the nominees and their performances, so this should be a good season. for me for picking the winners. We’ll see.

And the nominees are…

Best Picture

Avatar
With Earth an ecological disaster, a corporation sets its sights on the distant planet Pandora, which possesses a mineral that can be used as a valuable energy source. To overcome the resistance of the planet’s indigenous population, the Na’vi, former Marine Jake Sully is sent to infiltrate the society as a part-human, part-Na’vi avatar who can operate on Pandora while Jake himself remains in a twilight sleep.
(trailer)

The Blind Side
African-American teenager Michael Oher has been in and out of the foster care system throughout his difficult childhood. When suburban mom Leigh Anne Tuohy, whose children are Michael’s schoolmates, discovers him living on the streets, he gains a home with the Tuohy family and receives the stability and encouragement he needs to develop his talents as a football player.
(Trailer)

District 9
The arrival of an enormous disabled spaceship over Johannesburg, South Africa, has led to the establishment of a refugee camp on the city’s outskirts for the ship’s starving, stranded aliens. Leading an attempt to relocate its inhabitants to a more remote location is security expert Wikus van de Merwe, whose lack of knowledge about the visitors will undergo a dramatic change when he becomes infected with an alien substance.
(Trailer)

An Education
When Jenny, a 16-year-old English schoolgirl, finds herself the object of a calculated seduction by a charming older man, she is by turns wary, flattered, and disarmed by his interest. As their relationship develops, Jenny is drawn deeper into a sophisticated world of wealth and style that may be too good to be true.
(Trailer)

The Hurt Locker
As the war in Iraq continues, Staff Sgt. William James carries out one of the most dangerous of all military assignments: bomb defusing. While James thrives on the job’s risks ans seems to live only for the adrenalin rush, the head of his support team, Sgt. JT Sanborn, becomes increasingly worried by what he feels is a growing recklessness in James’s behavior.
(Trailer)

Inglourious Basterds
Shosanna, a resourceful young movie theater owner fighting to stay one step ahead of the Nazis in occupied France, plots her revenge on the man responsible for her family’s death, the flamboyant Col. Hans Landa. Her plan brings her in contact with Lt. Aldo Raine, who leads a group of Jewish soldiers known as the Basterds in a savage campaign behind enemy lines.
(Trailer)

Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Sixteen-year-old Precious Jones is overweight, nearly illiterate, and the victim of horrific physical and verbal abuse at the hands of her mother and father. Facing a seemingly hopeless future, Precious transfers to a new school, where a dedicated teacher and fellow classmates offer the unhappy young girl a chance for a new life.
(Trailer)

A Serious Man
In a series of escalating personal catastrophes, physics professor Larry Gopnik finds himself facing an unfaithful wife, ungrateful children, a troubled brother-in-law and poison pen letters at work. But Gopnik is a fundamentally decent man, and he tries, with increasing despair, to respond rationally and fairly to trials befitting a modern-day Job.
(Trailer)

Up
Carl Fredricksen, a gruff, lonely old man, thwarts an attempt to force him out of his home by launching it into the air with hundreds of helium balloons. As he sets his sights on South America, however, Carl discovers he has an inadvertent stowaway: a Boy Scout named Russell who was trapped on his front porch.
(Trailer)

Up In The Air
Ryan Bingham is a corporate downsizer who spends his days in hotels, airports, and airplanes as he travels around the country laying off other companies’ workers with polished finesse. His pursuit of a life without emotional connections is called into question, however, by his interactions with two women, one a sophisticated fellow traveler and the other an inexperienced young colleague.
(Trailer)

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Jeff Bridges
Crazy Heart

Jeff Bridges portrays Bad Blake, a washed-up country-western singer whose meeting with a young journalist may help him to turn his life around.

George Clooney
Up In The Air

As Ryan Bingham, George Clooney plays a man who makes his living firing people and who prides himself on the absence of emotional connections in his life.

Colin Firth
A Single Man

Colin Firth plays George, a gay man in the early 1960s who must hide his grief over the death of his lover.

Morgan Freeman
Invictus

Morgan Freeman portrays Nelson Mandela, the South African president who seizes on the chances of the national rugby team in the World Cup as a means of uniting his troubled country.

Jeremy Renner
The Hurt Locker

Jeremy Renner portrays Staff Sergeant William James, a bomb defuser in Iraq who thrives on the risk and danger of his job.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Sandra Bullock
The Blind Side

Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, a suburban mom who takes in a homeless African-American teenager and encourages his talents as a football player.

Helen Mirren
The Last Station

As Sofya, Helen Mirren portrays the wife of author Leo Tolstoy, a woman locked in a battle with her husband’s admirers over the disposition of his royalties.

Carey Mulligan
An Education

Carey Mulligan plays Jenny, an English schoolgirl who is seduced by the charms of an older man.

.

Gabourey Sidibe
Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

As Precious, Gabourey Sidibe plays a pregnant teenager who struggles to overcome years of abuse at the hands of her parents.

.

Meryl Streep
Julie & Julia

Meryl Streep portrays cookbook author Julia Child, whose years in France with her husband inspire her to study the art of French cooking.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Matt Damon
Invictus

Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar, the captain of the South African rugby team that becomes a surprising unifying force for a divided nation.

Woody Harrelson
The Messenger

As Captain Tony Stone, Woody Harrelson plays a military officer struggling to maintain his sobriety as he delivers news of soldiers’ deaths to their families.

Christopher Plummer
The Last Station

Christopher Plummer portrays Tolstoy, the great Russian writer who finds himself torn in his final years between his wife and his devoted admirers.

StanleyTucci
The Lovely Bones

As George Harvey, Stanley Tucci plays a serial killer who murders his neighbors’ 14-year-old daughter.

.

Christoph Waltz
Inglourious Basterds

Christoph Waltz plays Col. Hans Landa, a sinister Nazi officer with a talent for seeking out people in hiding.

Best Actress In A Supporting Role

Penelope Cruz
Nine

Penélope Cruz portrays Carla, the passionate mistress of a married film director.

.

Vera Farmiga
Up In The Air

As Alex Goran, Vera Farmiga plays a business traveler who begins a no-strings-attached affair with a man she meets in a hotel bar.

.

Maggie Gyllenhaal
Crazy Heart

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Jean Craddock, a journalist whose love and admiration for a broken-down country-western singer may change his life.

Anna Kendrick
Up In The Air

As Natalie Keener, Anna Kendrick plays an ambitious but inexperienced young woman who is sent on an eye-opening series of trips with a veteran colleague.

Mo’Nique
Precious: Based O)n The Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Mo’Nique portrays Mary, an abusive mother whose cruel behavior has had a devastating effect on her pregnant teenage daughter.

Best Director

James Cameron
Avatar

Kathryn Bigelow
The Hurt Locker

Quentin Tarantino
Inglourious Basterds

Lee Daniels
Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Jason Reitman
Up In The Air

It’s been two weeks since I watched a screening of The Book of Eli, and I’m still not sure if I liked it.

It’s not that it’s that complex of a film, really. It just gave me plenty to think about, and I’m sure some of my own personal religious beliefs may play into my indecision as well (more on that later).

The basic premise is that the hero is a nomad travelling through a post-apocalyptic world trying to reach an unknown destination, and is confronted by bands of violent drifters whom he dispatches with a certain amount of hollywood-style flair. No, it’s not the 30th anniversary of The Road Warrior, but it easily could be.

With it’s sun-bleached and washed out color palette (there are scenes that look nearly black-and-white), the cinematography easily makes a believable backdroP for our hero’s plight. In the opening scene, Eli (Denzel Washington) is ambushed by a group of drifters. He asks them kindly to let him be on his way. They (of course) ignore his request, and he quickly (and graphically) slaughters them all.

As it turns out, Eli is on a holy mission, being directed by a voice he heard, and he is carrying a book which he reads from every night as he listens to music from a (now ancient) 2nd generation iPod run from a cumbersome 12-volt battery. He reads, he fights, he falls asleep to music. A simple man, to be sure.

When he happens upon a small settlement that is run by local bad guy Carnegie (Gary Oldman), his only wish is to slip in and out mostly unnoticed and be on his way. Trouble is, Carnegie has been looking for a very specific book, one that is actually a weapon. You can probably figure out who has the book he’s looking for.

Well, as fate would have it, Eli causes a scene in Carnegie’s bar, the two meet, Carnegie finds out that Eli has what he’s looking for, Eli escapes, he’s followed by the bartender from Carnegie’s place (Mila Kunis), he tells her to go back, she doesn’t, they run from Carnegie together, he catches them. Then it gets a little more interesting.

I’m not going to give away the ending, as pretty much everything that happens from that point on in the movie is what’s left me undecided. There’s a few plot twists, and there’s one that may be so subtle I didn’t recognize it at first. I’ve got to watch it again to be sure, but if it IS the plot twist I suspect, this film is pretty damn good. If it’s not, it’s merely mediocre.

One of the parts I struggle with (without giving too much away) is that the book Eli is carrying is a King James Bible. I don’t take any issue with that per se, but the film bordered on the evangelical a few times, which I didn’t enjoy, even though I understand the reasoning behind it and it’s semi-relevance to the plot.

It’s not a bad film, but it’s certainly not for everyone.

2.5/5

I like George Clooney. A lot. I know he doesn’t have tremendous range. I mean, he pretty much plays himself in every picture he’s in, and when he tries to do something different it’s just not believable. But I like who George Clooney is, and I’d much rather watch him play himself than David Schwimmer do the same thing.

So it was with no small amount of excitement that I sat down in the theater to watch “Up In The Air”, and I was enamored of the experience. I did my best not to have high expectations. I’d read the glowing reviews and was a little skeptical at all of the gushing accolades some critics gave this film, but I have to say I agree.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney) is one of the top performers at a “career transition” firm, which means he basically flies around the country firing people when a company decides to downsize and the managers don’t have the wherewithal or cojones to do it themselves.

As a side note, there are a few montages throughout the film of people reacting to the news that they’re being let go. These are real people, not actors. Director Jason Reitman wanted these vignettes to be as real as possible, and so he put out a call to people who had been recently let go, put them in front of the camera, and told them to say everything they had wanted to say when they had been let go. It’s an amazingly visceral enhancement to an already top-notch film.

Back to the story. Bingham likes his job, probably more than is natural. He likes to fly. He likes staying in hotels. He likes being on the road. In fact, he likes it so much, he does his best to stay there, dreading the few days each year that he’s forced, through scheduling and circumstance, to be at his apartment. Flying all over the country is not just his job, it’s his lifestyle. In fact, his life goal is to accumulate a certain number of frequent-flier miles. He carries this number in mind always, and doesn’t spend a dime unless it goes towards this elusive goal number.

Enter Natalie Keener (played by Anna Kendrick), a young, brilliant, and progressive new member of the team that’s working to revolutionize the way the company does business. She proposes to migrate the work of firing people from face-to-face conversations to a video-conferencing model, thereby saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in air travel and hotel accommodations. The boss (Jason Bateman) is all over it, and loves the idea. Of course, Bingham is vehemently opposed to the idea, and in an impromptu meeting with Keener and the boss, illustrates his point by asking her to roleplay a firing-via-videoconference with him right there on the spot, with him playing the role of the about-to-be-canned employee. The result of his deft vivisection and humiliation of her is that the boss sends her on the road with him so she can “learn the ropes” and improve her methodology, which neither of them is thrilled with, albeit for very different reasons.

I thought that this pairing might lead to some romantic involvement between the two of them, but as Bingham overhears in one of her conversations with her fiancée, “He’s. like, OLD!”

There’s sharp, witty, and downright funny dialogue throughout, and the acting is impeccable (with the exception of an overly-dramatic and over-acted emotional breakdown scene). The story wraps up in a very real and believable way, not the typical neatly-packaged-with-ribbon-and-a-bow Hollywood ending, which I really appreciate.

In short, this is a great movie worth seeing, all of the praise has been well-deserved.

4/5

It’s a sports movie. Now, if you like sports movies (I do), it’s a pretty good one, but just understand that even though it’s got Matt Damon in it, and Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, it is a sports movie. The underdog always wins.

Like all the good sports movies, this one’s based on a true story. In 1990 when Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa, he faced some pretty big challenges. I mean, although Apartheid had officially ended, the nation was still fractured with both sides eyeing the other warily, seeing who would jump first. The white minority still looked at the blacks as second-class citizens, and the blacks still viewed the whites as their oppressors.  Not exactly an ideal situation for the country’s first black president to walk in to, y’know?

But Mandela is a pretty smart fella, and he knows that pretty much everyone in his country likes rugby. So if they have a team that they can ALL cheer for, it’ll help in breaking down some walls and fostering some healing. So he talks to the captain of the national rugby team, Francois Pienaar (Damon), and lets him know that he’s got to win the upcoming World Cup, which is a pretty tall order, since they kinda suck. But this is a sports movie, remember? This is how it works.

Now there’s no “training montage” which actually makes this film better, but as the story moves on, the team gets better and better, and although they qualify for the World Cup automatically since they’re the host country, they’re only a 2-1 underdog. There IS a “rising to the top montage”, which shows the South African team blasting the shite out of everyone else, all the way up to the New Zealand All Blacks, who (of course) are significantly and hopelessly better than them.

Now, I don’t wanna give anything away here, but again, this IS a sports movie – you can figure out what happens. The South African team wins, the nation is untied, rainbows and unicorns, etc., etc., etc.

I know I sound a little cynical here, but like I said – IT’S A SPORTS MOVIE.

If you like sports movies, and I really do, you’ll like Invictus. When it comes out on DVD you can put it on the shelf next to “Remember the Titans” and “Miracle”.

3.5/5