Hugo Awards Nominations

Just in time for the 2013 premiere of Doctor Who, which begins in about 90 minutes, the Hugo Awards have released their nominations. To refresh your memory, the Hugo Awards are given out every year since 1953 honoring "excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy." The complete list of nominations is long with categories ranging from novels, editors, graphic novels, etc. Let's take a look at their TV and film nominations this year!

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

• Doctor Who, “The Angels Take Manhattan”
• Doctor Who, “Asylum of the Daleks”
• Doctor Who, “The Snowmen”
• Fringe, “Letters of Transit”
• Game of Thrones, “Blackwater”

This is the fourth year in a row that Doctor Who has grabbed three of the five slots in this category. That's just insane. Now, I love the show and the episodes they usually nominate are damn worthy, but I wished this group was able to recognize other shows as much as they do this one. Of course, you would think this might cause some sort of vote splitting. You would be wrong. In fact, since the show's reboot in 2005, it has won every single year except one (Joss Whedon's Doctor Horrible won in 2009). So while one of those episodes will probably win, I'm rooting for the other two episodes nominated as they both feature exquisite turning points for two respected series.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

• The Avengers
• The Cabin in the Woods
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• The Hunger Games
• Looper

I'm a tad disappointed not to see Chronicle or even Life of Pi (was that eligible?), but how can I really complain about a short list that contains 3 of my top 10 favorite films of last year? Top geek of the year, Joss Whedon, expectantly double-dipped while Peter Jackson continues his Middle Earth streak with the Hugo Awards by being nominated here after picking up the win for all three of the Lord of the Rings films a few years ago. I'm slightly rooting for The Cabin in the Woods, which surprises even myself, but there you go.

Birthday Girl: Lucy Lawless

I've been in a flu-induced haze the past week or so, but I can't pass up the opportunity to wish Xena, warrior princess, herself a happy birthday. Of course, it's actress Lucy Lawless who celebrates her 45th birthday today despite not looking a day over 30 if you ask me. No matter how many roles she takes from now to eternity though, she will always be that kick-ass Amazon princess who tousled with Hercules, crossed hairs with Ares the god of war, had a complicated history with Julius Caesar, pissed off the archangel Michael, and had a sapphic relationship with sidekick/friend Gabrielle. Yeah, I saw every episode of that show. Judge me all you want.

Her series ended the summer of 2001 and she took a slight break, opting to only appear in small cameos in various films and TV shows. She made her biggest comeback playing D'Anna Biers in Battlestar Galactica in 2005 unbeknownst to most of the fans that she would end up playing a big part of the show's final seasons. More recently she's found more regular work on Starz's Spartacus as one of the leads and guest starring on Parks and Recreation as a love interest to Ron Swanson himself. Not too shabby!

Everyone Loves An Irish Boy

Meant to blog about TV and stuff, but it's been such a long ass week and an even longer weekend that I didn't even get to do a St. Patrick's Day post. Then I saw this very lovely image of Once Upon A Time's Colin O'Donoghue on Tumblr and I think it just speaks for itself really.

And might as well briefly talk about Once Upon A Time, which hilariously didn't feature the good pirate on its episode tonight. It doesn't matter though since they welcomed back the equally hot Irish actor Jamie Dornan to reprise his role as the Sheriff for a special flashback episode.

Seriously, say what you will about this show, but it sure does know how to cast hot men. Oh right, the show. Well, I actually don't have much to say. It was certainly great seeing how the curse played out from the very beginning and how it affected Regina and it's wonderful to finally find out who Ethan Embry's character really is. But I'm curious to see how exactly the show will handle the "real world" encroaching on their little town.

Quick TV Thoughts...

Forgot to talk about TV last week, but it was mostly fine since many of my usual shows took their usual break post-February sweeps. But not those non-broadcast shows though which all kept chugging right along including one show I haven't nearly talked about all season even though I really should have been aka Shameless.

Give Emmy Rossum an Emmy Already

I had to really catch up on this show which is exactly what I did over the weekend marathoning the last five episodes. The fact that Emmy Rossum hasn't even been nominated for an Emmy yet for her role as Fiona Gallagher on Shameless is an absolutely travesty, but she has only gotten even better in this also pretty damn good third season of the show. Perhaps it's the case of both the show and the character working together flawlessly because the more the show keeps crapping on Fiona and her family, the more the actors and their characters are given a chance to show their mettle. But really it's Rossum who's the show's MVP with her most recent courtroom scene to try and get guardianship of her siblings a slam dunk for Emmy consideration in a perfect world. I also want to praise William H. Macy for really committing to playing one of the most heinous characters on TV I have had the displeasure of watching as well as the rest of the ensemble who give nothing about 100% to their roles. If you aren't watching this show yet, you're missing out.

But Wait! Keri Russell Kicks Ass Too!

Another show you should probably be watching is The Americans which I still maintain, after a few episodes in, is a hybrid of Mad Men, Homeland, and Alias in all the best ways. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell's performances with or without the spy wigs are captivating especially in this latest episode that forced both of them to really think about their mission, their loyalty to it above all else, and to each other. Rhys this season seemed to have had the flashier role so far, but Russell is slowly catching up to him with one scene in particular as she expressed her "displeasure" to new handler played by Margo Martindale. And I haven't even mentioned Noah Emmerich and his tense subplot with his informant/kinda paramour Nina.

No One Likes Andrea, but Michonne is Funny

I'm not an Andrea hater or anything like many people are, but her affinity with the Governor irks me. I get that she isn't exactly privy to the same information us the audience have, but is she so seriously emotionally bonded to him that it has become difficult to actually convince her he's not right in the head even after all of the evidence? Thankfully we took a breather last week to follow just Rick, Carl, and Michonne into Rick's hometown to get more guns enabling us to not only get to know Michonne more finally, but to also reunite with Morgan from the pilot. It was probably one of the season's strongest episode mostly because Lennie James painted such a heartbreaking bleak character study.

Girls Delves Deeper Into Its Characters

So Hannah has OCD? I'll go along with it, especially since it's at least giving a dimension to Hannah that I actually don't find annoying plus I always love finding more about her checkered history with her parents. It was also nice to see Adam again and this time acting shockingly (and to be honest unnervingly) normal, even going on a relatively charming blind date. And though I love Shoshanna and Ray together, Shoshanna's impromptu make-out session brought a smile to my face. No real comment on Marnie's or Jessa's existential crises, but Marnie singing to Ray was definitely a highlight.

Trailer Break: Much Ado About Nothing

We're just three months away from another Joss Whedon film appearing on the big screen! Last time that happened, Whedon managed to deliver a mega-blockbuster superhero film that was a box office phenomenon as well as an unexpected critical hit. This time around he trades in Marvel Studios and explosions for Williams Shakespeare and elocution.

Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing has been one of my most anticipated film ever since I found out about its existence on my birthday two years ago. That was also the day they wrapped filming and decided to share the news with the world that Whedon was adapting one of Shakespeare's play into a film and was intent on filling his ensemble with who's who of Whedon players such as Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, and Tom Lenk. The film had its world premiere last year at the Toronto Film Festival and was picked up by Lionsgate which will release the film this summer June 7th 2013. And now it has a shiny brand new trailer which I have seen half a dozen times already:



Fun, right? And doesn't it just seem like Whedon videotaping a bunch of his friends who he has invited over his house to re-enact some Shakespeare while partaking in some food and alcohol? There's something so low-key and charming about that and I cannot wait to see the end result.

Birthday Boy: Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston celebrates his 57th birthday today and while that's not any sort of milestone, I think it's nigh time he gets a bit of love on my blog. He is after all the star of one of my favorite shows Breaking Bad for which he has won three Emmy Awards and as well as his first SAG Award which he just received a couple months ago. He also picked up his second SAG Award that night as part of the ensemble for Argo which of course went on to win Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. And if you think all he can do is act in a drama, don't forget that he was also Emmy nominated multiple times for his work in Malcolm in the Middle about a decade ago and was very recently nominated for a DGA Award for directing an episode of Modern Family.

So to say that professionally Cranston is doing well would probably be a bit of an understatement, but it makes thinking about his future that more intriguing. It will certainly be curious to see what lies next for him after Breaking Bad ends its run this summer. Will he parlay his TV successes with more leading film roles as opposed to the more ensemble roles he has taken or will he continue as a TV actor, but perhaps go back to doing lighter fare ala Malcolm in the Middle and less like Breaking Bad? Or perhaps he will take a break in front of the camera to direct as he has been doing that more lately. The sky is the limit!

We're off to see the Wizard!

This post is part of Nathaniel's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series in which the participants must post a single image from a movie he or she deems as the "best shot" for any particular reason.

I've been taking a slight blogging hiatus after awards season and February sweeps, but I had to come back just in time for the season premiere of Hit Me With Your Best Shot aka one of my favorite film blog series. The first film on dock is the visually captivating gem of a film The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, I didn't get to re-watch the film before writing this post, but I actually think that was a good thing, because I'm pretty sure I would have just been tempted to post screencaps of every other scene--from the gorgeous sepia-toned Kansas farm all the way to the luscious technicolor of Oz. Instead I went with this group shot from behind as they skip along the yellow brick road.

It's not the super famous shot of the group on the yellow brick road heading straight for the glittering spires of Emerald City, but it is their first group shot together. The film has countless of scenes like this, with the characters heading into the unknown, the long yellow brick road ahead of them. It's a shot that isn't immediately iconic, but definitely representative of the film and is one of my favorites. Plus it's also the last reprise of that wonderful catchy "We're Off to See the Wizard" song, which I love, love so very much...

We're off to see the wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
We hear he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was
If ever, oh ever a wiz there was, The Wizard of Oz is one because
Because, because, because, because, because
Because of the wonderful things he does
We're off to see the wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Argo and Life of Pi Win Big at the Oscars

When the most surprising result came in Sound Editing (a tie!), then you know it was a predictable night. It was a long night full of music and mostly expected winners. For my part, I did 18/24 (75%) in my predictions which is on the high side for me. The full list of winners is below:

Best Picture: Argo
Best Director: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Best Lead Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Best Lead Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
Best Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, Argo
Best Foreign Language Film: Amour
Best Animated Film: Brave
Best Original Score: Life of Pi
Best Original Song: "Skyfall," Skyfall
Best Editing: Argo
Best Production Design: Lincoln
Best Cinematography: Life of Pi
Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina
Best Makeup and Hair: Les Misérables
Best Documentary: Searching for Sugar Man
Best Documentary Short: Inocente
Best Animated Short: Paperman
Best Live Action Short: Curfew
Best Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall
Best Sound Mixing: Les Misérables
Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi

4 - Life of Pi
3 - Argo, Les Misérables
2 - Lincoln, Django Unchained, Skyfall
1 - Silver Linings Playbook, Brave, Amour, Anna Karenina, Zero Dark Thirty, Searching for Sugar Man, Paperman, Curfew, Inocente

As expected, Argo took home Best Picture and two more awards for its screenplay and editing. Ben Affleck gave an impassioned acceptance speech thanking everyone from his peers to his wife and probably most importantly to Canada. It was Ang Lee's Life of Pi, however, that walked home with the most trophies with four wins including a second Best Director Oscar for Lee, perhaps my favorite win of the whole night. Other wins that I love were actually in the Animated Short and Live Action Short categories with my both my favorites Paperman and Curfew winning. Now can someone please turn the latter into a kickass HBO/Showtime series, please? The Golden Globes were the only major award show that predicted the acting categories, but then again they do have the advantage of two Actor/Actress awards. In any case, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence, Christoph Waltz, and Anne Hathaway all won with both ladies picking up their first Oscars with their second nominations and Day-Lewis and Waltz winning their third and second Oscars respectively. Day-Lewis is the first man to win Best Actor three times. Seeing him getting handed an Oscar trophy by Meryl Streep was definitely one of the highlights of the evening that unfortunately was hampered by a host that didn't quite gel with the occasion.

Now, I wouldn't say Seth Macfarlane was a terrible host, but more often than not his jokes fell flat or worst were tinged with the kind of sophomoric humor he's famous for. He wasn't exactly helped by whoever wrote the banter for the presenters or structured the show with the former falling into either awkward or forgettable and the latter lacking any kind of flow. Some of that had to do with the still confounding decision to suddenly make this year's theme "Music in Film" which seemed to have been decided solely based on their desire to get the entire Les Misérables cast to sing on stage. To their credit, their performance of "One Day More" was sufficiently great as were the performances by former Oscar winners Catherine Zeta Jones and Jennifer Hudson. And yet the whole theme still felt less than fully realized even if you factored in performances by Shirley Bassey, Barbra Streisand, Adele (halfway to EGOT!), Nora Jones, Kristen Chenoweth, Channing Tatum, Charlize Theron, Daniel Radcliffe, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. All were great, of course, but I wished more elements of this bloated ceremony were played out to the Jaws score. Though getting Michelle Obama to present Best Picture (after that misdirection with Jack Nicholson) was pretty brilliant.

Overall, there are plenty of good things one could remember about this year's ceremony and I'd rather focus on those than on any of the bad things. For example, was it just me or did everyone seem to love Beasts of the Southern Wild and Quvenzhané Wallis? That's good! Focus on that! Who cares if it was the only Best Picture nominee to walk home empty handed? That's bad. We're ignoring that! And with that... see y'all next year!

Final Thoughts Before the Oscars

You've heard it already said elsewhere, but this year's Oscar race has been more open and competitive than in recent years. This is very true especially in regards to a handful of categories, but for Best Picture, it's all but over since Argo will most surely take the top prize tonight after picking up Best Picture notices at the BFCA, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs, not to mention nearly sweeping the guild awards including PGA, WGA, DGA, and picking up the SAG Ensemble Award. In fact, its director Ben Affleck has also been picking up every single Best Director award post-Oscar nominations, which means he should be the favorite... oh, wait he wasn't nominated for Best Director! This perceived "snub" during Oscar nomination morning, as many people believe, somehow benefited his film catapulting him and his film into the front-runner status. I think the wind was already blowing in that direction especially with that film's making Hollywood out as the hero of its story, but that surprise development certainly set the tone for the rest of awards season.

Despite Argo's domination, the director snub emboldened the other films nominated and all of them had great reasons to think they could derail the presumed front-runner. Zero Dark Thirty for one was a hit with critics winning more critic awards for its film, director, and actress and won the season's first major award at the National Board of Review, but unlike with Argo its director snub for Kathryn Bigelow coupled with increased media scrutiny hampered the film's chances to take it all the way. Then there's Lincoln, a film perfectly timed to release right after the presidential election, which also received the most Oscar nominations, is also the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee, and has a slam-dunk Oscar win with Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor. But it's the Harvey Weinstein-led campaign Silver Linings Playbook that could possibly play spoiler especially with its recent wins at the BAFTAs and Spirit Awards.

Speaking of Silver Linings Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence seems poised to win Actress despite going up against Jessica Chastain who seemed to be in the driver's seat pre-Oscar nominations as well as the oldest and youngest Oscar nominees ever in Emmanuelle Riva and Quvenzhané Wallis respectively. Those latter actors' films, small as they were, shocked everyone by getting Picture-Director nominations with Amour a virtual lock for Foreign Film. Another virtual lock is Anne Hathaway who will get the one high-profile award for the divisive Les Misérables (which should be noted still garnered good reviews and big box office numbers). The last acting category is also the most up-in-the air with the Supporting Actor trophy literally could be given to any of the (previously Oscar nominated old and white) men in the category. My acting predictions was conservative as I picked all of the SAG winners: Day-Lewis, Lawrence, Jones, and Hathaway.

With most of the directing awards going to Affleck and Bigelow this season, this category really is quite open with Steven Spielberg having the slight edge, but many pundits (and myself) think it could go to Ang Lee, the only director to be nominated at the Oscars, DGA, BFCA, BAFTA, and Golden Globes this year. Lee's film Life of Pi, with 11 Oscar nominations, is also set to win the most trophies with the possibility of dominating the techinical awards though facing some competition from Anna Karenina and Skyfall. Both of those films pleasantly surprised with the handful of nominations they received, but the latter will certainly be honored with the series' first Oscar win with Adele's song "Skyfall" a mortal lock and even if that doesn't happen, the series will be honored for its 50th anniversary during the big show.

All of this talk about winning and such is no consolation to those who ended up not receiving nominations such as Spirit Award winners Matthew McConaughey and John Hawkes or the WGA-nominated screenwriters for Looper and Perks of Being a Wallflower. Even films that looked like they could've been big with the Academy, such as The Master and Moonrise Kingdom, were probably too auteur-driven and only picked up a few nominations and none for Picture. But like every awards season, there will always be those left out, for better or worse. It's hard to say how the earlier nomination deadline and the extended period between nominations and award show effected everything this year, but it certainly made many pundits antsy to say the least. It probably proved useful to the Best Picture nominees, however, at least in terms of box office as this crop grossed a record high $300+ million post-nominations and with 6 films making over $90 million before the ceremony.

In any case, there are certainly way more important things than "awards season," but this year more than any other has been very interesting to follow. To be honest, I'm just hoping for a good show even though I have my reservations with Seth McFarlane hosting (he'll never top what Amy Poehler and Tina Fey did at the Golden Globes) and the seemingly endless musical moments planned for the big show including a pointless tribute to musicals of the past decade. My favorite film, Perks of Being a Wallflower, isn't nominated for anything, so I'm pretty much sitting pretty, but three of my top 5 films could win a bunch. I'm not including Joss Whedon's film The Avengers since the biggest film of last year was only nominated for one Oscar (Visual Effects) and it's unlikely to win even that one. Oh well, can't have everything you want! Argofuckyourself!

Related links:
Click here to see my official predictions.
Click here to see my own personal ballot.
Click here to see my initial thoughts on the Oscar nominations.
Click here to see all my posts on "Awards Season."

Quick TV Thoughts...

It's difficult to get my head to remember the past week's TV especially with my mind focused on tonight's Academy Awards. Nonetheless, just some brief thoughts on some of the shows...

A Firm Divided in The Good Wife

The Good Wife returns after its brief hiatus with a predictably excellent episode that features not only the welcome end of the debt storyline, but also a storyline that put Elsbeth and Eli together. For the latter, seeing these two breakout characters teaming up to fix Eli's problems was something to behold and I just think the show should find a way to make Elsbeth a series regular already. As for the debt storyline, the firm is all of a sudden in the black and in fact showing profits which makes the existing partners re-think their previous partnership offers to Alicia, Cary, and their fellow fourth-year associates. This creates a fun and tense episode pitting Alicia and Cary against Will and Diane and coloring their mock trial. I love it when Alicia and Cary partner up, but of course in the end the partners decide to offer partnership to just one person: Alicia. Thankfully she accepted showing great growth for her character, but what does this mean for her relationship with Cary? She also kissed Will... drama!

Sad, But Tense Revenge

I've been more frustrated than in love with some of the story beats and character work on this show this season, but I thought last Sunday's episode was quite spectacular especially with regards to anything dealing with Emily-Amanda. Knowing someone was going to die by the end of the episode made every scene in the boat tense and in the end I'm just very saddened to see Margarita Levieva leave the show, since her character, compared to most, was the one that grew the most and I'm really going to miss her. With her death and Helen Crowley's, it's certainly a turning point for the show this season which I'm hoping gets better in the second half. Give Nolan more to do and can we just stop humoring this whole Aiden deal?

Once Upon A Time Expands Family Tree

Everyone probably should've expected this from the very beginning, but this all important pivotal episode of the show finally confirmed it: Henry's family tree is FUCKED UP. We all finally found out that his long-lost father is also Gold's long-lost son! We all predicted this, but to finally see the all of the characters realized this as well was a fun moment for the show and I think everyone involved handled it well. It'll be very interesting to see what this means especially once they're back to Storybrooke. Certainly Regina will be pissed that yet again someone she loathes is blood-related to her adopted son.

I Love You and I Like You Parks & Rec

The wedding episode of Ben and Leslie was everything I could have hoped for. It even seems silly to write about what I loved about it, because it would pretty much just be EVERYTHING. From everyone working together to Leslie's amazing wedding dress to Ron giving Leslie awar to those wedding vows with those black & white flashback scenes... it was glorious. I heard this was written as a series finale if need be and though I would've been depressed if it was, it would've let the show go out with one of its best episodes. They then followed that episode with another one that takes place after the honeymoon is over and it was pretty much an episode to make everything go back to normal again. It was a good and funny episode with Leslie dealing with surviving a correspondent's lunch and Ben getting used to his new job at Sweetums. Renew this show, NBC, or face my wrath!

Miscellaneous TV Thoughts

No time to talk about any more TV, but just want to say quickly that I think How I Met Your Mother has been slightly on fire this month with a strong episode this past week that highlights the show's unreliable narrators. Castle also began its usual sweeps two-parter this time putting Alexis in danger. I just wish the threat was actually real, you know? I also liked this week's Girls episode though a step down from two weeks of really great episode, but I liked putting Ray and Adam together and that Marnie/Hannah phone scene in the end was genius. And finally, how could I not love Community's Inspector Spacetime convention episode?