Oscars 2011

I'm looking forward to the Oscars coverage tomorrow, from the Red Carpet to interviews of the winners. Although there seemed to be some controversy over the choice of hosts, I think both James Franco and Anne Hathaway will be great for this year's ceremony. I am a fan of both of these very talented stars and love the films they've been in. Now, onto my favorites...here are the ones I hope will win tomorrow, along with guesses as to the winners will be in a few categories.

• Best Picture - "127 Hours," "Inception," or "The King's Speech"
• Best Director - Darren Aronofsky, "Black Swan"
• Best Actor - James Franco, "127 Hours"
• Best Actress - Natalie Portman, "Black Swan"
• Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale, "The Fighter"
• Best Supporting Actress - Amy Adams, "The Fighter"
• Best Original Screenplay - "Inception"
• Best Adapted Screenplay - "127 Hours"
• Best Animated Feature - "Toy Story 3"
• Best Foreign Language Film - "Biutiful"
• Best Documentary Feature - "Inside Job"
• Best Animated Short - ?
• Best Documentary Short - ?
• Best Art Direction - "Alice in Wonderland" or "Inception"
• Best Cinematography - "Inception"
• Best Costume Design - "Alice in Wonderland"
• Best Film Editing - "127 Hours" or "Black Swan"
• Best Live Action Short - ?
• Best Original Score - "127 Hours" or "Inception"
• Best Original Song - "If I Rise," "127 Hours"
• Best Makeup - "The Wolfman"
• Best Visual Effects - "Inception"
• Best Sound Editing - "Inception"
• Best Sound Mixing - "Inception"

I can't really choose for the three short film categories, not knowing much at all about the nominees. Also, I was glad to see "The Wolfman" had been nominated for Best Makeup. Some remakes aren't very good, as most people might say, and I usually agree that the original is better. However, that particular remake was really good due to the atmospheric look it was given, as well as the time period and filming locations it was set to.

My Favorite Directors

In honor of Oscars weekend, here is a list of my favorite directors in no particular order, including a sampling of their films.

• James Cameron - Aliens, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, True Lies, The Abyss, Titanic
• Steven Spielberg - Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T., Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds (2005)
• George Lucas - Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Terry Gilliam - Casanova, The Brothers Grimm, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• M. Night Shyamalan - The 6th Sense, Signs, The Village, Lady in the Water
• Mimi Leder - Deep Impact
• Brian Helgeland - A Knight's Tale, The Order
• Peter Jackson - Lord of the Rings, King Kong (2005)
• Tim Burton - Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland
• Sean Penn - Into the Wild
• Clint Eastwood - Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Space Cowboys, Hereafter, Invictus, Letters from Iwo Jima, Changeling, J. Edgar
• Wolfgang Peterson - Troy, The Neverending Story, The Perfect Storm, Poseidon (2006)
• Ridley Scott - Alien, Legend, Gladiator, Thelma & Louise, White Squall, Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood (2010)
• Ron Howard - Apollo 13, Far and Away, The Da Vinci Code, Frost / Nixon
• John Hughes - The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Uncle Buck
• Gore Verbinski - The Weather Man, Pirates of the Caribbean
• Cameron Crowe - Elizabethtown, Jerry Maguire, Singles, Say Anything
• Shawn Levy - Night at the Museum, Date Night
• Roland Emmerich - The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Independence Day, Godzilla (1998)
• Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight, Inception, The Prestige
• Martin Scorsese - Shutter Island, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York, The Aviator
• Danny Boyle - 127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire

Who are some of your favorite directors and why?

Film Class Update

During the last three nights in film class, we watched "Double Indemnity" as an example of the film noir genre, followed by "On the Waterfront" to represent the 1950s.


I saw "Double Indemnity" before on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and loved it from that first viewing. My in-class screenings of "On the Waterfront" was the first time I saw that film, yet also was an instant favorite. Both films have are loaded with such great talent.


Most recently, we watched the French new wave film, "Breathless," which had a lot of jump cuts. As mentioned in the class, French new wave filmmakers were fans of classic Hollywood and "Breathless" showed some elements of that through the lead male character.


Along with film screenings, the process of writing a semester term paper has begun. I'm writing my paper on "Rebel Without a Cause," one of the film choices we were given, and I just need to get one more source for the bibliography. We had to turn in our thesis statements during this week's class meeting, so now it's onto the rough drafts.

127 Hours (2010)

I haven't been able to see "127 Hours" yet for various reasons. However, I have a free pass to use at my local Regal cinema and will be writing a film review on the Danny Boyle film for my campus news. So, I'll probably try to see it within the coming week. I only know one person who has seen it at this point, even after it was given a wider release. Before the wider release, I tried to find where it was playing near me. No exaggeration, it was only playing at two theaters within a 75 mile radius of where I live. One was in Center City Philadelphia, and the other was somewhere in northern New Jersey (or the uppermost part of Central New Jersey). Neither of those theaters would have honored my free pass, since they were part of different cinema companies. So I'm glad that this film was finally given a wider release in theaters.

Anyway, once I see "127 Hours" and write my review of it, I'll post a link to it instead of posting the actual review on here. Going by the previews I've seen, James Franco does a great job in it and is well-deserving of his nominations. He is one of those actors that I feel will win at the Oscars during his career.