Several indie and lesser-known critical-darlings received little-to-no love from the Hollywood Foreign Press, including titles like The Tree of Life , Warrior , Drive , Martha Marcy May Marlene , and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy . Similarly, there were more than a few surprising snubs (no Best Director nod for David Fincher on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ? No Winnie the Pooh for Best Animated Feature?) and certain films fared far better than anticipated (namely, The Ides of March ). However, there were also more than a few no-brainers (ex. Meryl Streep being nominated for The Iron Lady ) and some rather unexpected choices (ex. Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Lov

Surprisingly, neither Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin nor Disney's 2D animated critical darling, Winnie the Pooh , is a contender for Best Animated Feature. However, despite Stephen Daldry's critic-dividing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close landing a Best Pic nod over a more universally-beloved title like, say, Warrior , that selection was (unfortunately) expec

So you've heard all the talk, accusations and screaming about the film Hounddog (or as many spelling-impaired people are writing it: Houndog ) screening at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival starring Dakota Fanning but haven't seen the film festival games guide|https://moviefestivalhub.com/. The big question on people's mind is "Just how outrageous or explicit was that rape sce

Filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius' black-and-white silent film homage, The Artist , led the way with six Globe nods total; co-writer/helmer Alexander Payne's The Descendants and director Tate Taylor's The Help were close behind. That heavily-praised dramedy and popular literary adaptation (respectively) managed to snag five nominations each, putting them one ahead of Descendants star George Clooney's latest directorial effort, The Ides of March and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris , which each stacked up four nods. Steven Spielberg's latest dramatic offering, War Horse , was right behind that pair with three nominations in technical categories; Albert Nobbs also managed to secure three nods, in the areas of acting and original music, while Moneyball landed three for Best Drama, Actor, and Screenp

In terms of the awards themselves, the biggest change came with the number of nominees for the most important category, Best Picture. Instead of the usual 5 nominees which always ended in negative feedback due to the non-inclusion of major hits such as The Dark Knight at last year's presentation, the academy saw fit to bump the number of nominees up to 10 rather than improve the selection process. So now, we're left with a few legitimate contenders and a bunch of filler movies that would never have been nominated in previous ye

As you may already be well aware of, the Academy made some very significant changes to the format of this year's Oscars event. In addition to the usual attempts at cutting back on the "thank you" speeches and quickening up of the program, the ceremony this year completely removed the performances of the best song nominees. Yet it was curious (read: it didn't belong) to see interpretive dance routines in the presentations for Best Original Sc

All in all, the event was solid for an industry awards presentation but to the viewers at home, it wasn't that exciting or up beat. There were a lot of good movies to choose from this year and I think we all would of liked to see Quentin Tarantino and his Inglourious Basterds get a little more cre

So, all in all, just another year at the Oscars - complete with plenty of obvious choices, surprising snubs, and a handful of unexpected nominations. Whether or not the actual winners list will be quite so predictable - or, perhaps, mix things up a bit - that remains to be s

On the TV side: the mini-series Mildred Pierce landed four nods, including acting nominations for stars Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce, and Evan Rachel Wood. Showtime's Homeland , HBO's Boardwalk Empire , and ABC's Modern Family each landed three nods, while HBO's hit fantasy series Game of Thrones and FX's successful spooky romp American Horror Story also managed to secure two nominations (including, in the coveted Best Dramatic Television Series category). Sadly, AMC's critical smash, Breaking Bad , only landed a Best Actor

In the end the family manages to at least partially gain back the trust of the art world by finally documenting on film themselves Marla creating a painting called "Ocean" from start to finish. Although that particular painting does share similarities to prior paintings, it actually seems less sophisticated than those that have come before. Since then they have documented another painting from start to finish called "Rain", which does seem to be closer to the style of the earlier painti

The other thing that bothered me that I alluded to above was that I've never seen a 12 year old wearing just underwear in a movie in so many scenes. There were also instances of her lifting her dress to carry fruit or to pull something she'd been carrying out of her underwear. I can only assume the point of that was to show that she was very un-self-conscious about her body, but this doesn't jive with her constantly wanting to kiss her best friend. That indicates to me that she is starting to enter puberty which I would think comes with an increased sense of priv