Jake Gittes

I almost did, but changed it to ZDT in the last moment. Also, Guy Pearce for best supporting actor:

I totally voted for Killer Joe in ensemble, actor and supporting actress. Thomas Haden Church just missed out on supporting actor. Cloud Atlas and ZDT are in 3 acting categories with me too.

Same. I had like 10 contenders, and that was not having seen Django and The Master.

Savages, Taken 2, Total Recall, Safe House and THG from me

Dunno about that either. I mean, War Horse made $1.5m. Lincoln should just be happy if it makes more than that.

You mean OW? Not even half that.

I think it wasn't eligible cause it was made for HBO and was never in theaters. It's great though. Abramovic is an incredible woman. Also, loved the cameos by James Franco and Orlando Bloom. "Are you an actor?"

It went from 757 to 1256. Will definitely be over $99m by the time the holiday weekend is over, should cross 100 by Friday.

I find the direction great in the way it takes the material and treats it without much cinematic flair, but at the same time doesn't reduce the film to a TV documentary, instead finding a fine middle ground. It's a procedural taken to the extreme: going step by step through cold hard facts, with an atmosphere of mostly ordinary corridors and offices, underlined by sustained low-key intensity - it's a determined, meticulous, obsessive film about determined, meticulous, obsessive people. It's a laconic and perfectly fitting style, and by the end of the film, all those individual scenes add up very well to show just how massive and all-consuming the work of finding UBL was. That all doesn't mean that the film is sterile and simply goes through the motions, as Bigelow has a couple of tricks up her sleeve with regards to storytelling, suspense and audience manipulation. Take just the opening scenes: the first thing you hear is a desperate phone call from one of the Twin Towers, it's unexpected, immediate and bone-chilling. From there Bigelow immediately cuts to a detainee being tortured, and she takes you on a bit of an emotional journey: after that phone call you want to see this guy get tortured, no matter how big or small his contribution to the attacks might have been. But it's not long before the lack of visual flair, along with the way the actual torture goes down, bumps you back into reality to make you realize how cruel, pointless and not black-and-white it all is. In these opening scenes, Bigelow is also hardly concerned with pointing out to the audience who the protagonist is: not knowing anything about its plot, you might as well think Dan is the main character, and wonder just where the hell can he go from here. Alas, turns out it's not him, but he's not forgotten, and moves in a completely natural way to being a supporting character. Staying with Dan for a moment, it's precisely Bigelow's directorial restraint that helps emphasize two great points: the way Dan first simply tortures Ahmar and then simply has a perfectly friendly conversation with him helps the latter situation look and feel almost perverse. Then, the way Dan goes from torturing people in Pakistan to pushing papers in DC makes you wonder just how many other people you see walking down those corridors might have come from the same background. What if Kyle Chandler's character did that too once? What about Mark Strong's character? Bigelow doesn't spell it out, but she doesn't need to: it's a perfectly natural question for you to ask once you put two and two together. Then there's the suspense, approached differently in two key pre-raid sequences: the explosion at the restaurant and the explosion of the car on the CIA territory. In the first instance, it comes completely out of nowhere; in the second one, you immediately fear the worst and think that yeah, the worst is likely going to happen, but hope until the last second that it won't; it's all drawn out and tense and anxious as hell. Both times, Bigelow's approach completely works. I've probably already written too much here, so I'll just quickly mention that I find equally great the raid scene, the comparison of Maya to America itself that's made totally clear in the final scene, complete with the "well, what now?" question. There's also an argument to be made about the movie painting a full picture of what "modern warfare/manhunt" is like (all those giant monitors, tons of document work, "we don't deal in certainty we deal in probability" etc), but that plays second fiddle to the whole obsession/procedural thing. The score suits the mood perfectly, the editing is masterful, all the actors nail it - there aren't a lot of showy moments, but the movie's realistic tone extends fully to its characters - these are real people you're watching. So there you have it.

Haven't seen Martin and Whoopi, of those that followed, gotta be Jackman. He didn't set the Kodak on fire, but as far as I recall it was a fairly fun show and Hugh was a much more engaging host than Stewart, Crystal, Baldwin & Martin and Franco & Hathaway.

Yeah. This is exactly why so many people consider the word overused and bordering on meaningless

I'd watch that. If you get my drift.

There aren't any during the holiday season aka in between Halloween and January, so I suppose the horror crowd just gets hungry.

Alas, not seeing Django until Jan 22/23 and The Master until February, so won't have those in my ballot.

Do all movies count, or only those that had an American release?

For some historyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaPMpD4oxDAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_VJtDZBttY

Don't know anyone else with this level of natural charisma. Also, sunglasses. And Angelica Huston looking the best she's ever looked. Kinda love how Sorkin speaks exactly the same way as his characters in the real world. Also, the most deserved win of that night.

A pretentious movie (or book, or any piece of art, really), to me, is something that pretends it's saying more than it actually does, or places more weight and importance on its subject than the subject warrants. It's definitely an overused word in online community, but I do believe it can be used appropriately and I don't shy away from using it when it's really the best way to describe how I feel. Of course, I also explain why exactly I feel that way; different movies can be made in exactly the same way, but in one case it will be justified, and in other case it won't. In that sense, it's most definitely wrong to describe as "pretentious" all movies that are slow-paced or all movies that have open endings. In the case of movies, or any other art form, everything is subjective.

Add me there

Also, Trintignant slaps Riva in Amour and DDL slaps JGL in Lincoln

I think that would have been more interesting, but that actor gave a great performance once he did show himself. Not having seen LDC in Django, that caller gets my vote as the most despicable villain of last year.

Ever since thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTWI33cOMF0I've thought Downey and Law could make for pretty good hosts.

I didn't even see the image and I still liked it.

127 Hours was great, and I gotta say I liked it much more than Slumdog. Everyone talks only about how Nolan was snubbed of a director nomination 2 years ago, but I think Boyle was equally snubbed. His skill of making movies less like stories and more like audio/visual experiences fit the subject matter perfectly.

The hidden gem in the Coens' collection. And to me personally, the best example of when I saw a film for the first time and didn't quite get it, but was curious enough to see it for a second time, during which everything just perfectly came together. Brilliant movie.