Oscars 2012 Nominations: Here We Go Again...

The tradition of complaining about the Academy Awards officially begins this morning as the nominations for the 84^th annual ceremony were announced. As expected there were snubs, both expected (No Drive love whatsoever and Andy Serkis was shut out for Rise of the Apes, just don't act surprised. They're snobbish towards motion-capture acting!) and those listed in the "Really?!" category (No Michael Fassbender Best Actor nod for Shame). On the flip side, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close scoring for Best Picture drew audible groans heard wide across the interwebs, mainly Twitter.

Surprisingly, Martin Scorsese's Hugo led the pack with 11 nominations followed by The Artist (Odds on favorite to win) with 10.

Here's the full list:

Best Picture
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo 
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
Alexander Payne - The Descendants
Martin Scorsese- Hugo
Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris 
Terrence Malick - The Tree of Life 

Best Actor
Demián Bichir - A Better Life
George Clooney - The Descendants
Jean Dujardin - The Artist
Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt - Moneyball

Best Actress
Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis - The Help
Rooney Mara - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams - My Week With Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor 
Kenneth Branagh - My Week With Marilyn
Jonah Hill - Moneyball
Nick Nolte - Warrior
Christopher Plummer - Beginners
Max Von Sydow - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo - The Artist
Jessica Chastain - The Help
Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer - The Help 

Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor - Margin Call
Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris
Asghar Farhadi - A Separation

Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Jim Rash & Nat Faxon - The Descendants
John Logan - Hugo
George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Beau Willimon - The Ides of March
Aaron Sorkin & Steven Zaillian - Moneyball
Peter Straughan & Bridget O’Connor - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Animated Film
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango 

Best Foreign Language Film
Bullhead (Belgium)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)

Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski Go For Another Eccentric Biopic in Big Eyes

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have a God given knack for fictionalizing the lives of offbeat personalities.

Ed Wood – the story about a guy who loved making movies as much as he did wearing women's clothes. The People Vs. Larry Flynt centering on an otherwise loathsome toad rightfully fighting for freedom of speech even if it involves pornography. Man on the Moon – a classic rise to fame story of a comedian known for toying with everyone including his loves one only to become the boy who cried wolf. All great movies on subjects one normally wouldn't focus on. Check them out if you haven't.

THR says they're back at it again writing and directing Big Eyes detailing the story of Margaret and Walter Keane, the couple responsible for the popular for its time, and creepy by today's standards upon reflection, pop-eyed art during the 1960s. Only things got heated when Water took all the glory for the work since it was sold under his name when it was Margaret who was behind it all. Divorce, lawsuits and a show-off where Margaret painted the presiding judge in court to prove herself followed.

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Reynolds will play the couple with Tim Burton producing.

Relativity and The Weinstein Company Kiss & Make-Up Over The Crow

If anything's going to stop The Crow reboot/remake/re-whatever from happening, we can no longer blame (or thank, in many circles) that legal tongue-thrashing between Relativity Media and The Weinstein Company, Coming Soon tells us:

"The lawsuit between Relativity Media and The Weinstein Company concerning THE CROW has been amicably settled out of court, and the parties will continue to work on the film together as planned. In addition, Relativity Media has discussed all of its claims against The Weinstein Company for any wrongdoing regarding the release and distribution of NINE, ad The Weinstein Company has dismissed all of its claims against Relativity Media."

Now all they need is a director, screenwriter and actor since the last batch including Bradley Cooper left faster than you can say, "Is this 1994?" and an audience not exactly hungering for a return for this franchise.

Well There Goes That Surprise in The Walking Dead

If you're a Walking Dead fan, then this won't come as a surprise to you. For the rest, it will and for a good portion of you on either side, you may not want to know this. So read ahead at your own caution. AKA: Spoiler alert.

TNT won't say a word, but Variety hears Jon Bernthal is in "early conversations" with the network to headline L.A. Noir, the period-piece crime drama spearheaded by his former Walking Dead boss Frank Darabont.

Cut to the chase, they're telling us Shane (Rick's no so best friend growing increasingly unstable as season two progressed) meets his end as this season closes out leaving Bernthal the opportunity to look for work, and progress his career while it's hot further.

All things considered, yeah I'm surprised. Shane's fate in the Robert Kirkman comics, I knew. But they've so far kept Shane around further than that clearly picking and choosing from the source material while going in their own direction; a direction that seems dictated to waiting around Hershel's farm and looking for Sophia.

The Rick/Lori/Shane triangle was the kind of soap opera (returning from a presumed death, best friend sleeping with your wife behind your back, maybe getting her pregnant if we're following the comics) to keep the show going in between zombie head explosions.

Resident Evil: Retribution Trailer or Where Did All the Zombies Go?

Not that we're talking about a series I hold to my heart or anything, but I wasn't the only one to notice there were approximately zero zombies over the course of that minute and eighteen seconds, right?

The trailer for Resident Evil: Retribution, from Yahoo! Movies, figures everyone associates Milla Jovovich with the video game-cum-film franchise instead of the undead. I suppose that logic isn't entirely unjustified. But are they selling a movie with Jovovich and monsters, of which hypothetical zombies may appear or Sony products?

Michael Shannon Talks The Man of Steel - Continues Being Awesome

Repeating the same studio-sanctioned stories over and over again about how the director and co-stars are wonderful, the script was so amazing that it was the dealmaker and how fun it was to make the movie. Michael Shannon is still new to this process.

If you've been following his comments to the press since joining The Man of Steel, then hopefully you found them as refreshing as I have. Shannon isn't being a snob or ungrateful for the opportunity playing Zod. He just doesn't sugar-coat everything and present it in a fashion to please the lowest common denominator of our nerd culture: the fanboys.

A culture that he tells Hero Complex baffles him:

"There are legions of fans salivating, who will literally spend the next year and a half looking at the clock, waiting for this movie. That's just the way it is. I don't know why. Me, personally, I'm not a huge fan. I can't even read comic books. I don't know which panel to look at next. I hardly ever know what any of the characters are talking about. So, no, I am not one of them. But there are a lot of them. They're out there. And they really want to talk to me about this movie!"

As you can guess, these honest answers can (and have) gotten feedback from his bosses to shut up:

"I got signaled that less is more. It’s kind of curious. It is Superman. So I think everybody kind of knows what happens, you know? Nothing’s going to be a huge shock."

He doesn't have the same pressure as new Superman Henry Cavill, who will tell everyone how much he loves the character and read the comic-books for research even if he didn't (Bombshell: people in showbiz do lie although I believe Cavill, in this case, is being sincere). Shannon's in a different position. One movie and he's out.

Come on, you really think Zod won't eat it at the end?

Matthew Lillard Joins Trouble With the Curve

This is a case of weird timing.

Caught a rerun of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit last night – don't judge, it was late, I was tired and nothing else was on. The second-banana special guest of the week (Carol Burnett was the Big Kahuna) was Matthew Lillard. Maybe it was the extra rolls on his cheeks or his pervert-looking mustache. But Lillard disappeared into that character without an ounce of Stu from Scream or Shaggy.

So it was weird to see on EW this morning low and behold, Lillard landed a plum role co-starring next to Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams in Trouble With the Curve. The drama, not directed by Eastwood but Robert Lorenz (When was the last time he starred in a vehicle that he also didn't helm?), centers on an a baseball scout trying to come to grip with going blind and taking his estranged daughter on a scouting trip. Lillard will play a rival scout.

He's currently appearing in The Descendants, a film on its way to several Oscars (for its star George Clooney and possibly its director Alexander Payne) and getting the actor back into the limelight for the first time in quite a bit.

Joel Edgerton – Great Actor, Now Screenwriter

Who knew?

That's what makes people like Joel Edgerton great. They can pull a rabbit out of their hat when you had no idea they were a magician to begin with. We knew the guy could act his way out of a paper bag (See: Animal Kingdom and Warrior). Just had no inkling he could write his way out too and the guy remains so low-profile in the public eye that this doesn't feel like a case of a production company just buying a spec from the sheer "hotness" of an actor's career.

THR says the Aussie thesp sold his spec script One Night Stand to New Regency closing the deal at the tail end of last year. The trades describe it as "an honest look at a man and a woman in the aftermath of a one-night stand."

Hence the title, I guess.

The Power of Chuck Norris - Making Expendables 2 PG-13?

I hate it when someone falls back on, "You just don't get it, man!" as their point to a rival argument’s counter-point. But I’m gonna be that guy and tell Chuck Norris he just doesn't get it.

You see, Norris gave an interview with Gazeta (and translated by Expendables Premiere) explaining certain drawbacks to participating in The Expendables 2 before the producers, so keen to have him involved, caved in to his requests before signing up:

"In Expendables 2, there was a lot of vulgar dialogue in the screenplay. For this reason, many young people wouldn't be able to watch this. But I don't play in movies like this. Due to that I said I won't be a part of that if the hardcore language is not erased. Producers accepted my conditions and the movie will be classified in the category of PG-13."

The point of the first Expendables was to make a movie harkening back to another time; when action movies were stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey with muscled-up, manly-man tough guys (like Norris in the Delta Forces and Missing in Actions) in the hero and villain roles, violence, and yes, language. That's what made it so appealing for three out of the coveted four-quads in August 2010.

Norris isn't being a jerk here. It's a reasonable request, truth be told. But he's simply missing the point of the whole enterprise to begin with.

Rugrats Fake Trailer is the Creepiest/Awesomest Thing You'll See Online

Leave it to Funny or Die (via Pajiba) to visualize how a live-action Rugrats movie could look and constructed as a psychological thriller involving the murder of Grandpa Pickles.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that fake trailer is why the Internet was invented.