Here’s a shout-out for Naomi Watts, and I am afraid she'll need it. She's the sole Oscar nominee from director J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible, and that means she has a real uphill climb for a win. Watts is up against four other nominees in the Best Actress category — Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) and 9-year old Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts Of The Southern Wild) — whose movies have the additional momentum of a Best Picture nomination. It's a huge disadvantage now that the Academy at large is voting, not just the actors branch. more »
The Academy Award nominations brought good news and bad news to one of my favorite movies of the year. Les Misérables eight nominations including Best Picture, Actor, for Hugh Jackman, and Supporting Actress, for Anne Hathaway. That ain't chopped liver, but the highly publicized snubbing of its director Tom Hooper along with its absence in all-important bellwether categories like screenplay and editing means what was once considered a front runner is now a real long shot to actually win Oscar’s top prize. more »
Movieline would like to welcome Pete Hammond to the pages of this site with a new column that we're calling Hammond on Film. If you love movies, then you're probably familiar with Pete's byline. He's the Awards columnist for our sister site, Deadline Hollywood, as well as a veteran movie critic who has written more than 600 reviews for the best-selling Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and, most recently, was the film critic for Boxoffice Magazine and Boxoffice.com. He has also reviewed features for CNN. For his first column, Pete takes a close look at Judd Apatow's This Is 40, which opens Dec. 21.
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