8:52PM Thursday
January 10, 2013

Welcome back Movie Hivers!  This week the grand daddy of all movie awards, the Oscars, made their annual announcement of the best in film.  There were some surprises such as how in the world did Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow get snubbed for best director and of course some not so surprising nominations, Les Miserables for example.  This weekend one of the best picture nominees opens and a film that got pushed back from last September.  For my Blu-ray/DVD Pick of the Week it is the return of Judge Dredd in Dredd.  This was a solid adaptation of one of the more obscure comic book characters that didn't get much attention.  Lets get to the movies.

Top Story

The 85th Annual Academy Award Nominations

BEST PICTURE

• Argo
• Amour
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Django Unchained
• Les Miserables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty

BEST DIRECTOR 

• Ang Lee – Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg – Lincoln

• David O. Russell - Silver Linings Playbook

• Michael Haneke – Amour

• Benh Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST ACTOR

• Denzel Washington – Flight
• Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables
• Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
• Joauquin Phoenix - The Master

• Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook

BEST ACTRESS 

• Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
• Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook

• Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild

• Naomi Watts – The Impossible
• Emmanuelle Riva – Amour

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 

• Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln

• Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook

• Alan Arkin – Argo
• Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
• Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS 

• Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables
• Helen Hunt – The Sessions
• Sally Field – Lincoln
• Amy Adams – The Master 

• Jacki Weaver - Silver Linings Playbook

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Mark Boal – Zero Dark Thirty

• Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained
• Michael Haneke – Amour
• Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom 
• John Gatins – Flight

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Tony Kushner – Lincoln
• Chris Terrio – Argo

• David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook

• David Magee – Life of Pi
• Lucy Alibar, Behn Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE 

• Amour – Austria
• No – Chile

• A Royal Affair – Barbara
• Kon-Tiki – Norway
• War Witch - Canada

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• Frankenweenie
• Brave
• ParaNorman
• Wreck-It Ralph
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE 

• The Gatekeepers
• How to Survive a Plague
• Searching for Sugar Man
• 5 Broken Cameras
• The Invisible War 

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT 

• Inocente
• Kings Point
• Mondays at Racine
• Open Heart
• Redemption

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN 

• Lincoln
• Life of Pi
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Anna Karenina
• Les Miserables 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 

• Claudio Miranda – Life of Pi
• Roger Deakins – Skyfall
• Janusz Kaminski – Lincoln
• Robert Richardson – Django Unchained
• Seamus McGarvey – Anna Karenina

BEST FILM EDITING 

• William Goldenberg, Dylan Tichenor – Zero Dark Thirty
• William Goldenberg – Argo
• Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers – Silver Linings Playbook
• Michael Kahn – Lincoln
• Tim Squyers – Life of Pi

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE 

• Dario Marianelli – Anna Karenina
• Mychael Danna – Life of Pi
• Thomas Newman – Skyfall
• John Williams – Lincoln
• Alexandre Desplat – Argo

BEST ORIGINAL SONG 

• “Skyfall” – Skyfall
• “Suddenly” – Les Miserables
•  “Pi’s Lullaby” – Life of Pi
• “Before My Time” – Chasing Ice
• “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” – Ted

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS 

• Life of Pi
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Prometheus
• Snow White and the Huntsman
• The Avengers 

BEST COSTUME DESIGN 

• Lincoln
• Anna Karenina
• Les Miserables
• Mirror Mirror
• Snow White and the Huntsman

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING 

• Hitchcock
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Les Miserables

BEST SOUND EDITING

• Skyfall
• Argo
• Zero Dark Thirty
• Life of Pi
• Django Unchained

BEST SOUND MIXING 

• Skyfall
• Lincoln
• Life of Pi
• Les Miserables
• Argo 

BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) 

• Adam and Dog
• Fresh Guacamole
• Head over Heels
• The Longest Daycare
• Paperman  

BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE-ACTION) 

• Asad
• Buzkashi Boys
• Curfew
• Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)
• Henry

Movies Opening This Weekend

Zero Dark Thirty - Rated R - Starring Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler and Mark Strong

A chronicle of the decade-long hung for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May 2011.  

Gangster Squad - Rated R - Starring Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Sean Penn

A chronicle of the LAPD's fight to keep East Coast Mafia types out of Los Angeles in the 1940s and 50s.

The Impossible - Rated PG-13 - Starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts

Based on the true story of one families survival after the devastating tsunami that hit southeast Asia in 2004.  

A Haunted House - Rated R - Starring Marlon Wayans, Essence Atkins and David Koechner

This spoof on the Paranormal Activity movies follows in the same footsteps of the Scary Movie franchise.  

Blu-ray/DVD Pick of the Week - Dredd  

Judge Dredd is a character that deserved a much better film than the one Stallone gave him way back in the 90s.  While I won't say this Dredd is knocked it out of the park I will say that it's much closer to the original iteration found the comics 2000 A.D.  It's dark, gritty, grimey, dirty and most of all bloody, but what do you expect from a story that has 800 million people living inside a city smaller than the size of Los Angeles and with a police force that can only respond to about 10% of the emergency calls (I remember the number being close to that, but I may be mistaken)?  

Dredd has a pretty simple plot, but it's in the execution that makes this film quite the ride to go on.  We get to follow Dredd (Karl Urban, who growls like the best of them and plays the role in such such stark contrast from his character Bones in Star Trek) on a typical day of policing (or judging in this case) in the heart of Mega City One.  One of the only places left on Earth that can support human life.  After a bizarre triple homicide inside one of the cities most notorious high rises Dredd and his new protege, Anderson (Olivia Thirlby from Juno, who kicks some serious ass in this movie), decide this is the case they are going to take.  Big mistake, becuase this place is ran by Ma-Ma (a scary and scarred Lena Headey) and with the building completely locked down and the two Judges trapped inside Ma-Ma unleashes her army of evil and it's up to Dredd and Anderson to fight their way to the top to stop her reign of terror.  

I got to see this movie in 3D and I have to say it looked pretty darn cool especially with the amazing work from director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire).  I mentioned before that the movie is extremely bloody, but the camera and effects work at play here makes all the blood and gore seem like an art project.  It's both beautiful and disgusting to behold.  If you have the capabilities to watch it in 3D I highly recommend it.  

This may not be the movie that takes Dredd to the hierarchy of comic book movies, but it's a solid action movie with some great performances and certainly redeems the character when you think about what Stallone did to him (I AM THE LAUUUUUUUW!!!).