OSCAR 2011

The Oscar nominees for 2011 in the most important categories are:


BEST PICTURE:
                      Black Swan
                      The Fighter
                      Inception
                      The Kids Are All Right
                      The King's Speech
                      127 Hours
                      The Social Network
                      True Grit
                      Toy Story 3
                      Winter's Bone


BEST ACTOR:
                     Javier Bardem - Biutiful
                     Jeff Bridges - True Grit
                     Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
                     Colin Firth - The King's Speech
                     James Franco - 127 Hours


BEST ACTRESS:
                        Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
                        Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
                        Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
                        Natalie Portman - Black Swan
                        Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine


BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
                                     Black Swan
                                     Inception
                                     The King's Speech
                                     The Social Network
                                     True Grit


BEST DIRECTOR:
                         Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan
                         David O. Russell - The Fighter
                         Tom Hooper - The King's Speech
                         David Fincher - The Social Network
                         Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen - True Grit


BEST EDITING:
                      Andrew Weisblum - Black Swan
                      Pamela Martin - The Fighter
                      Tariq Anwar - The King's Speech
                      Jon Harris - 127 Hours
                      Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter - The Social Network


MOST NOMINATED PICTURES: The King's Speech - 12 Nominations
                                             True Grit - 10 Nominations
                                             Inception - 8 Nominations
                                             The Social Network - 8 Nominations


My favorite movie, Black Swan, only got 5 nominations. Let's see what happens when the Oscar winners are announced on February 27! I wish Natalie Portman (Black Swan) wins at least the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She is doing one of her best performances in this movie and deserves this award.

                    
                    

ON THEATERS THIS FRIDAY, JANUARY 14:

THE GREEN HORNET

STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Action & Adventure, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Comedy

DIRECTOR: Michel Gondry

CAST: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Cristoph Waltz, Tom Wilkinson

PLOT: Britt Reid is the son of LA’s most prominent and respected media magnate and perfectly happy to maintain a directionless existence on the party scene – until his father mysteriously dies, leaving Britt his vast media empire.


Striking an unlikely friendship with one of his father’s more industrious and inventive employees, Kato, they see their chance to do something meaningful for the first time in their lives: fight crime.


But in order to do this, they decide to become criminals themselves – protecting the law by breaking it, Britt becomes the vigilante The Green Hornet as he and Kato hit the streets.The Green Hornet and Kato quickly start making a name for themselves, and with the help of Britt’s new secretary, Lenore Case, they begin hunting down the man who controls LA’s gritty underworld: Benjamin Chudnofsky. But Chudnofsky has plans of his own: to swat down The Green Hornet once and for all.


COMMENTS: This movie is based on a popular 70's TV series, starring Bruce Lee as Kato, and should appeal to both teens and adults who were fans of the original series.


WHAT TO EXPECT: A superhero comedy that will pull in teens. It contains some off-color jokes, sexual innuendo, and alcohol-fueled partying.


See Trailer

THE DILEMMA

STUDIO: Universal Studios

RATING: PG-13

GENRE: Comedy

DIRECTOR: Ron Howard

CAST: Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder, Kevin James, Vince Vaughn

PLOT: Since college, confirmed bachelor Ronny (Vaughn) and happily married Nick (James) have been friends for a long time. Now partners in an auto design firm, the two pals are vying to land a dream project that would launch their company. With Ronny's girlfriend, Beth (Connelly), and Nick's wife, Geneva (Ryder), by their sides, they're unbeatable. But Ronny's world is turned upside down when he inadvertently sees Geneva out with another man and makes it his mission to get answers. As the amateur investigation dissolves his world into comic mayhem, he learns that Nick has a few secrets of his own. Now, with the clock ticking and pressure mounting on the biggest presentation of their careers, Ronny must decide how and when he will reveal the truth to his best friend.

COMMENTS: Comedy about friendship and infidelity that revolves around a relatively mature concept.

WHAT TO EXPECT: Lots of scenes focusing on honesty, integrity, and who's sleeping with whom, as well as plenty of slapstick laughs and improbable situations to keep the film from getting too heavy.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side Of The Moon" was released in March 24, 1973, becoming one of the most successful albums of all times and selling more than 35 million copies worldwide. This album was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at Abbey Road Studios in London and it's been considered as an icon in rock music history. The group used impressive sound effects, like sampled sounds of clinking coins and cash registers turned intro rhythmic accompaniment, much before the advent of digital recording, and used some of the most advanced recording techniques for that time like multitrack recording and tape loops.


"The Dark Side Of The Moon" remained on Billboard's 200 album chart for 741 weeks straight and then for another two years when it was remastered back in 1994.


The recording engineer for this album was Alan Parsons.

Watch a live performance of "Money", one of the best tracks of this classic album:

NATALIE PORTMAN

Natalie Hershlag was born on June 9, 1981 in Jerusalem, Israel, as the only child of a family that moved to the United States when she was 3 years old. At the age of 12, she made her first important role in the film "The Professional" adopting Natalie Portman as her stage name. After that, Natalie played roles in such films as "Star Wars"-Episodes I, II, III, "Anywhere But Here", "Where The Heart Is", and "Closer", among many others, for which she received an Oscar nomination.


Now playing in theaters is "Black Swan", an intense and brilliant psychodrama, where Natalie plays one of her most astonishing performances as Nina Sayers, a young New York ballet dancer that is chosen to play the dual role of the Swan Queen in a new version of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake".


Nina's life has been completely consumed with dance and controlled by her mother and now her biggest challenge has come to play at the same time the White Swan (Odette), with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan (Odile), with guile and sensuality.
Nina is able to play the White Swan perfectly, but the Black Swan character fits better to a new dancer in the company, Lily, who becomes her greatest rival, since she has the darkness she needs to embrace the Black Swan characteristics.


The ballet company's director puts hard pressure on Nina, ruthlessly confronting her to explore her dark side, to find the visceral and the real in the role of Odile.
And so Nina's metamorphosis begins, and the film moves gradually into layers of brilliant, wrenching dysfunction when she gets more and more in touch with her dark side with a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.


This is a complex, compelling, and never ordinary movie, but is also one of 2010 best. I strongly recommend it to those who like to see excellent performances and technically excellent movies.




See movie trailer:

CORNELIUS DUPREE JR.

After being 30 years in prison, Cornelius Dupree Jr., a Texas man was released after prosecutors declared him innocent!
DNA tests recently done excluded him as the person who robbed and raped a 26-year-old Dallas woman in 1979.
Dupree was just 20 when he was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980. Now he's 51, and the most shocking fact is that, according to the Associated Press, Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001, more than any other state.


Now I ask myself some questions:

• What is next for people like Dupree, that have been wrongly convicted and have spent many years in prison wasting their lives? They are going just to tell him "Hey, We're really sorry about this "little" mistake", and that's it?
• Now that he's 51, is he going to be able to start a new life?
• From now on is he going to have the same energy to study, work or run his own business after spending his most productive years behind bars?
• Has the government some special programs or aids for people like him?
• How people like him can recover all those wasted years?

ABOUT THE BEATLES

One of my favorite classic rock groups has been definitely THE BEATLES. Today, January 3rd, in 1970 they did their last recording session for a complete song, without John Lennon, who had already abandoned the group. McCartney, Harrison, and Starr met in the studio to record a new version of the song "I ME MINE" to be included in the "Let It Be" album; the recording sessions for this legendary album were made in 1969, but that particular song was not properly recorded at that time.

"I Me Mine" was the last new song recorded by The Beatles without John Lennon. In August 1969 were the last recording sessions where all four Beatles were present.