Oscar Nominee Analysis: Best Picture

To help myself stay sane, instead of doing EVERYTHING right here and right now, I'm going to break down each category day-by-day, beginning with the biggest award of the Oscars, Best Picture.

Best Picture

The Artist

The Descendants

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

For the most part, the Academy did pretty well here. For the first time in history, there are nine films nomination for Best Picture; and out of the nine, there is only one I didn’t fully expect: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Now, how could a film like this be nominated? Three reasons: 1) Scott Rudin is one of the most well known, and best liked movie producers in the business; 2) Stephen Daldry is loved by the Academy; 3) Screenwriter Eric Roth, who has brought to life films such as Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. What would I do to fix this? Take out Extremely Loud, include either Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Tinker Tailor, or Drive, and that would be my remedy. I know War Horse is getting a lot of heat for being nominated, but it was a pretty good movie so I won’t argue against it, and I feel the same way with The Help. I will say, it was a pleasent surprise to see The Tree of Life here. Many others, including myself, could not have predicted it being there, but this may be due to the fact that the Academy loves Malick. It also would have been nice to see love for what's being hailed by critics as the best film of the year, A Separation, but that would be asking too much of the Academy to give a foreign language film a Best Picture nom. A nice surprise would have been Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 gathering a nomination, but the Academy wouldn't do that.

Films I Haven't Seen: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close; Moneyball

Rottentomatoes Ratings: 
The Artist: 97%
Moneyball: 95%
Hugo: 94%
Midnight in Paris:93%
The Descendants: 89%
The Tree of Life: 84%
War Horse: 77%
The Help: 76%
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: 47%

Snubs:
A Separation: 99%
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2: 96%
Drive: 93%
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: 87%
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: 84%

Thankgiving Break

I apologize for the lack of postings over the past few days...been enjoying my Thanksgiving break. But I promise, I will have numerous tid-bits for you all!!!

• Reviews on The Muppets, The Descendants, and Hugo.
• Images from The Dark Knight Rises
• Start giving some thoughts on the Oscar race
• My list of the top films to see in December!

Anywho, I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving!

SWAT Team Raids Set of World War Z; News on Alexander Payne's Newest Film

I've seen and heard about a lot of weird shit that's happened in the production of the film. But this is something that even baffles me. On Monday, a SWAT team raided a warehouse in Budapest that was holding weapons that were being used as props in his upcoming movie World War Z. Sources tell Us Weekly that Brad Pitt, both the star and a producer for the film, "is furious." The police seized 85 fully-functional weapons, majority of them being automatic, military-style assault rifles. The guns came with paper claiming that they were non-functional. This paperwork was wrong. The guns are actually in working order, which is an extremely huge issue. The film is already over budget and over schedule, so this whole delay certainly does not help the film being released on time. The film is set to be released December 21st, 2012.

After the break, certain budgetary issues with Alexander Payne's newest film, Nebraska.