You Don't Know Jack

Well, here we are. These are my first ever awards. I posted my nominations yesterday (I actually posted them in early January, but I made revisions). Let's get it started! BEST DOCUMENTARY: Exit Through the Gift Shop BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Inception BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC: Hans Zimmer (Inception) BEST EDITING: The Social Network (Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter) BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Matthew Libatique (Black Swan) BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: A Prophet BEST SCREENPLAY (ORIGINAL/ADAPTED): Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) BEST DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams (The Fighter) BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christian Bale (The Fighter) BEST ACTRESS: Natalie Portman (Black Swan) BEST ACTOR: Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) BEST PICTURE: The Social Network

As each Oscar is announced I will post the nominees, the eventual winner and my two cents. There are going to be some shocking winners I am certain, as well as some funny moments. I will say a word or two about the fashions, the celebs, and so on and so forth. --What a pitch-perfect start to the Oscars. --Franco and Hatheway are off to a good start. --"You just got Inceptioned." Haha, Alec Baldwin. --Tom Hanks needs to be in more movies. Seriously. ART DIRECTION: Alice in Wonderland Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I Inception The King's Speech True Grit You have got to be kidding me! How did Inception not win this award? Inception is obviously getting a bad rap for being so amazing and inventive. Alice in Wonderland was simply awful. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Black Swan Inception The King's Speech The Social Network True Grit Hooray! They got one right! Black Swan must have been a close second, but Inception deserved this one. Christopher Nolan really outdid hims...

Jacks are wild this award season, as I'm releasing my first annual award nominations. I will release the winner tomorrow (possibly after the Oscars tonight). I haven't seen every film this calender year, but I've seen over 80% of the ones worth watching. If I haven't seen a film, it can NOT be nominated. Simple as that. These are 2010 films only, so two of the films I nominated for best foreign language film were nominated for Oscars last year. But these aren't the Oscars, they're the best films of 2010. So let's get to it, here are your first annual You Don't Know Jack's! Best Picture: Black Swan Inception Let Me In Monsters Shutter Island The Fighter The Kids Are All Right The King's Speech The Social Network The Town Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King's Speech) Jeff Bridges (True Grit) Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter) Robert Duvall (Get Low) Best Actress: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right) Emma Stone (Ea...

For those of you who don't know what the Razzies are, they're the awards given to the worst films of the year. It's always fun to make fun of the absolutely terrible films we see. So these are the worst films of 2010. Winners will be in bold . The Last Airbender, Sex and the City 2, Eclipse and Vampires Suck cleaned up. Enjoy! WORST PICTURE: Eclipse Sex and the City 2 The Bounty Hunter The Last Airbender Vampires Suck WORST ACTOR: Ashton Kutcher ('Killers' and 'Valentine's Day') Gerard Butler (The Bounty Hunter) Jack Black (Gulliver's Travels) Robert Pattinson ('Eclipse' and 'Remember Me') Taylor Lautner ('Eclipse' and 'Valentine's Day') WORST ACTRESS: Jennifer Aniston ('The Bounty Hunter' and 'The Switch') Kristen Stewart (Eclipse) Megan Fox (Jonah Hex) Miley Cyrus (The Last Song) The Four "Gal Pals" in Sex and the City 2 (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon...

The Independent Spirit Awards took place this afternoon and they're now airing on IFC. Instead of listing the hundred or so nominations, I will just name the winners. I like these Awards because this is where the little guys get a little credit. BEST FEATURE Black Swan BEST DIRECTOR Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) BEST FIRST FEATURE Aaron Schneider (Get Low) BEST SCREENPLAY Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) BEST FEMALE LEAD Natalie Portman (Black Swan) BEST MALE LEAD James Franco (127 Hours) BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE Dale Dickey (Winter’s Bone) BEST SUPPORTING MALE John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone) BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Matthew Libatique (Black Swan) BEST DOCUMENTARY Exit Through The Gift Shop BEST FOREIGN FILM The King’s Speech

Just because this film will probably win best picture at the Oscars this upcoming weekend doesn't mean I'm obligated to like it. I knew the acting was going to be very good, but director Tom Hooper (The Damned United, John Adams) is still rather young. The screenplay was written by David Seidler, whose body of work is less than impressive. Despite having some question marks going in, this film lived up to the hype. Does it deserve best picture? I'm not certain of that, but it's a damn good British film. Colin Firth (A Single Man, Love Actually) is coming off the best performance of his career in A Single Man , and he outdid it by a wide margin here. Firth probably deserves best actor; he's that good. Firth plays Prince Albert "Bertie", the Duke of York. He's the second son of King George V (Michael Gambon). He has a normal family with a wife and two kids. His wife Elizabeth, played by Helena Bonham Carter (Fight Club, Big Fish), always stands by his si...

After a couple laugh-less and bewildering films (Grown Ups, You Don't Mess with the Zohan), director Dennis Dugan and Adam Sandler seem to finally remember what constitutes as funny. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from Just Go with It , but I'm glad I took the time to see it. I grew up watching Sandler (Big Daddy, Happy Gilmore) and Dugan (I Now Pronounce you Chuck & Larry, The Benchwarmers) films. Their films certainly aren't art, but they always manage to put a much needed smile on my face. Grown Ups was trying to hard to reach a younger audience and You Don't Mess with the Zohan was just way over-the-top. But this one is more of your 50 First Dates type of Sandler film, although not nearly as good. Yes, this film is awfully funny at times, but it also has heart. Sandler plays Danny, a ladies-man who tricks women into believing he's married but in a troubled relationship. He uses his old wedding ring as a prop. Women take pity on him because of th...

I'm going to keep this review short, because there's only so much I can say without giving anything away. For those of you who probably don't know a single thing about this film, it's a documentary. Although there's speculation that this film is a "mockumentary" or fake, the filmmakers still claim it's 100% real. Whether it's fake or real matters none to me. This is an interesting cautionary tale with a few twists and turns along the way. New York City filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel "Rel" Schulman begin documenting Yaniv "Nev" Schulman's (Rel's brother) Facebook relationship with a Michigan family. Why they first began filming in the first place is beyond me, but it paid off. Nev is a photographer and about a year ago he received a painting in the mail. The painting was a replica of a photo he took, which made the front page of a local magazine. The painting came with a letter from an eight year old girl named Abby. So...

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this film. "Monster" movies these days usually have bad casts, poor scripts and below average special effects. I think it's safe to say that this isn't your typical "monster" flick. First time director Gareth Edwards had a $800,00 budget and he used every penny of it. Normally, a film like this would cost anywhere from 20 to 50 million dollars. Edwards not only directed this film, he wrote the script, did the visual effects, the cinematography and was the production designer. That's a tall order, but I'd say Edwards succeeded. Edwards hired two actors, Whitney Able (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Unearthed) and Scoot McNairy (Bobby, Art School Confidential). Everyone else you see in the film is a real person with no acting experience. Edwards and a small crew ventured to South America with their two actors with nothing but a small storyline and some cameras. It's amazing what they accomplished down there...