My Oscar Predictions - All 24 Categories!

 

My Oscar Predictions

for

The 85th Academy Awards

 

 

 

Another year of movies has come and gone. Tomorrow The Oscars will determine the best of the best in film. There are really only two clarifications I need to make before I make my predictions. 1) With these first categories dealing with Documentaries, Short Films, and Foreign Films, I am just guessing randomly. I have about zero knowledge of these categories, but it's still fun to try and guess the winner. I will start my picks with the boring categories and end with the bigger ones. 2) My picks for the bigger categories are those I believe the Academy will pick. My picks are not meant to reflect whom I would prefer to win, though there are sure to be some instances where my preferences will coincide with the actual winners. So, with that out of the way let's get started!

The 1st Annual Todd Awards - Winners

The 1st Annual Todd Awards

-Winners-

The time is here. I have decided to post the winners of The Todd Awards on the eve of the Oscars so that the Oscar winners will not affect my own personal choices for the categories that are similar. Please do not confuse this list with my own Oscar predictions for the two are very different. These are my own awards. Not everyone will agree with my choices, because we all have our own preferences and these are just mine. Hopefully, there will be some that you support or can, at least, appreciate. Without further ado, here are the winners:

Redbox Review: "End of Watch"

End of Watch

Director: David Ayer
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick, and Frank Grillo.
Rated R for strong violence, some disturbing images, pervasive language including sexual references, and some drug use.

This week, End of Watch arrived at Redbox. This was one I had meant to see while in theaters, but just never got around to it. This is a hard hitting, in-your-face look at what two cops go through every day in one of the most dangerous cities in America. Let me start out by saying this movie is not for everybody. It contains extreme language that is constant throughout the movie and some disturbing violent content. If those are things that you can deal with then End of Watch may be worth your time.

Need a Redbox? Check out "The Perks of Being a Wallflower".

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Director: Steve Chbosky
Cast: Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, and Paul Rudd.
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, drug and alcohol use, sexual content including references, and a fight - all involving teens.

There have been many films about a teenage outsider just trying to survive high school and, if possible, win the heart of that one amazing girl. Perks is another one of those stories. What makes this film stand out is its great young cast and the subtle, yet honest, performance by Logan Lerman. The late John Hughes once said that adults tend to treat teenagers and their problems as inferior to real adult problems. According to Hughes, when you are a teenager and you are going through those problems, they are as real as anything, and because they are real they should not dismissed so easily. Writer/director Steve Chbosky definitely applies what Hughes was saying with this film.

Charlie (Lerman) is starting his freshman year shortly after losing his best friend to suicide. He has no friends and not even his older sister will sit with him at lunch. Charlie often writes letters to some mysterious penpal (possibly himself) describing his feelings. He also talks about an aunt that was his best friend before her death when he was just a boy. Soon, Charlie is befriended by a free spirited senior, Patrick (Ezra Miller), and his step sister, Sam (Emma Watson). Charlie quickly begins falling for Sam as he spends more time with her discovering how much they have in common especially when it comes to music and literature. As the school year comes to an end Charlie must prepare to let Sam go off to college, and he must come to terms with what really happened with his aunt.

As I briefly mentioned before, this young cast is just fantastic. Ezra Miller has a stand out performance as the fun, yet sensitive Patrick. Emma Watson proves that she has the potential to have a wonderful career outside of the Harry Potter universe. There is great warmth and charm that she brings to her character. Logan Lerman is sensational as Charlie. His character could have easily been too bland or Lerman could have overacted some scenes, but instead he brings Charlie to life in such a believable way. Great writing and great characters make a great movie.

 

RATING:  A-

 

Movie Review: "Safe Haven" Made Me Not Want a Haven, Ever.

Safe Haven

Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Cast: Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, Cobie Smulders
Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving threatening behavior, and for violence and sexuality.

Let me just start by saying I am not entirely opposed to "chick flicks". If I am in a sappy enough mood I can find enjoyment from The Notebook. Last year's The Vow, however, gave me a very bad taste in my mouth for the genre. Safe Haven did not help. At least The Notebook had two lead actors who are actually very talented. It seems like each Nicholas Sparks adaptation gets less and less talented actors for the leads, yet somehow these movies keep bringing in the big bucks. Forgive me as I pick the movie apart:

The plot. Katie (Julianne Hough) flees from a violent relationship with an obsessed cop tracking her down. Sounds a lot like Sleeping with the Enemy, but at least that film focused more on the thriller side of the story than the love story. Not the case with Safe Haven. Katie ends up in a beautiful town in North Carolina where her future love, Alex (Josh Duhamel), awaits her. They begin a romance, but then Katie's troubled past catches up to her and threatens to ruin her new life with Alex.

It's not that the plot is awful. It's not original, but there are some interesting elements to be found. The problem is that it was so boring. It seemed to take forever to tell something that could have been told in about 20-30 minutes but why not drag it out, right? I felt no concern for any of the characters because I knew how they would turn out. Hough and Duhamel are adequate at best. There were definitely moments where Julianne Hough's beautiful looks could not overshadow her failed attempts at being angry or charming. Though the disaster that is this movie is not entirely the actors' fault. Yes, I'm looking at you, Nicholas Sparks.

You may have heard about the twist surprise ending. It's so blatantly stupid that it boils my blood. Reader beware because here comes a major spoiler alert. If you still have intentions of seeing the movie and don't want it ruined then stop reading now! Still here? Ok, let's get into it. So upon arriving in the small town, Katie makes a new friend named Jo (Cobie Smulders). Throughout the movie, Katie warms up to Jo and the two confide in each other and take walks together. At the end of the movie, Alex gives Katie a letter that was written by his late wife before she died of cancer. The letter is addressed to the woman who Alex would fall in love with. Alright, I'm fine with that. There's potential with what's written in the letter. But then there is a picture with the letter (why would there be a picture of the dead wife for the new girl to see? Random), and guess who it is??? JO!!! She was dead the whole time!! Are you effing kidding me?! So either Katie is crazy by imagining Jo or Jo is actually a ghost who decides to hang out with her husband's future love (by the way, how did Jo know that Katie would be the one?) instead of maybe comforting her struggling son. I guess Nicholas Sparks was trying to be as creative as The Sixth Sense, but he failed miserably. One of the worst endings I've ever seen.

The only redeeming qualities found in Safe Haven are the actors' good looks, the adorable little girl who plays Josh Duhamel's daughter, and the beauty of North Carolina. That is it.

RATING:  D

The 1st Annual Todd Awards (2012)

The 1st Annual Todd Awards

 

-Nominations-

I have decided to further indulge my obsession with movies by creating my own little movie awards. Every year, the Oscars let me down in some of the big categories. Last year was a huge disappointment all around, not only with the winners ("The Artist"), but with many of the nominees as well. Most of the time the Academy Awards tend to recognize the more artistic films of the year rather than blockbusters. I do agree that most of the better films are not the summer blockbusters we flock to see, but unlike the Academy, I feel that not all blockbusters should be overlooked.

Need a Redbox? Check Out "Here Comes the Boom".

Here Comes the Boom

Director: Frank Coraci
Cast: Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Bas Rutten, and Henry Winkler.
Rated PG for bouts of MMA sports violence, some rude humor, and language.

Despite what many may think, I do not see every movie that comes to theaters. Though I like Kevin James, this one just did not appeal to me. However, I was told by some family and friends that I should check it out. Here Comes the Boom arrived in Redbox this past week so I decided to give it a try, and I was pleasantly surprised.


Kevin James does so much better on his own than he does when he tags alone with Adam Sandler whose comedic touch has rapidly declined since the early 2000s. James plays Scott Voss, a discouraged Biology teacher who once had a flare for teaching but has since found no motivation in his job. When the school needs to make budget cuts they decide to give the music program the axe. This directly affects Voss's fellow colleague played by Henry Winkler. Voss decides he will not let his good friend lose his job and resolves to raise the money himself to save the music program. After seeing a UFC fight he learns that the loser of the fight was paid $10,000. A former wrestler in college, Voss elects to begin training not to win, but to lose in the UFC. What follows is a funny ride.

If you are a fan of Kevin James then you will definitely find the humor here. This is a movie that the whole family can enjoy aside from a little MMA violence which is nothing too grotesque or cringe-worthy. At the heart of the film is a touching story with some motivational themes. For $1.20 at Redbox, Here Comes the Boom was worth every penny. Oh, and how great does Salma Hayek look even in her late 40s?!

 

RATING:  B