What Hollywood Film Award tells about This Year Oscar Race?

The 17th Hollywood Film Awards, the first awards of the 2013 film awards season, was held on Monday night at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Some of the actors had a brilliant start for future trophies. Let's take a look at previous winner and how they succeed at Oscars.

Among the big winners are Sandra Bullock for best actress, Matthew McConaughey for best actor, Julia Roberts for supp. actress and Jake Gyllenhaal for supp. actor. Without a closer look, there is no big correlation between HFA and Oscar winners, but it has correctly predicted win of Marion Cotillard, Christoph Waltz, Christopher Plummer, Forest Whitaker in respective years. Also most of HFA winners got Oscar nominations for the same film (for example, Casey Affleck)

Lee Daniels champed the nomination of Director of the year, for its work in controversial The Butler and Steve McQueen was awarded for Breakthrough Directing. Tom Hooper & Kathryn Bigelow won Hollywood and Oscar trophies the same time. Also, last year nominee David O'Russel champed HFA but could not make it at Academy Awards (still nominated).

Also, Monsters University wins Best Animated Feature nomination, which can easily result in respective Oscar, as in case of Rango, Toy Story 3, Ratatouille, Finding Nemo. And every other winner got Academy Award nomination without win. This might mean that MU is one of the front runners this year.

Whatever Hollywood Film Awards winners mean for Oscars race, it is still important that awards season has just started, bringing some very fine performances allover. 

See the winners here

Movie Review: Wadjda [2013] - Oscar Watch

Wadjda is Saudi Arabian submission on Oscars. This country is competing for the first time ever. And frankly speaking, this is quite impressive start, that might result in first nomination.

Wadjda is a school girl who has a dream of driving a bike, which is mostly considered to be a "boys' thing" in her community. That's why she is the only one standing for her dream, without even a little support of family. To collect 800 riyals (price of bike), she decides to compete in Quran competition to win 1000 riyals. Starting from zero and despite all complications, she beats every school girl.

This movie is about many many things. But mostly how big a dream can come and how those inhuman traditions shape persons, narrow their minds and how some of them still are sparkle of light in "darkness". Plot mostly concentrates on Wadjda, but it still exposes bad habits and traditions of Arabian society - problems in family, outside family and at schools. But those supporting stories are quietly playing behind this little girl's strive for dreams. 

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Poster: August Osage County

This is awesome. What a great poster showing Julia Roberts beating the crap out of Meryl Streep. The first screenings were followed by huge buzz about the dinner scene, which could bring Oscar nominations to both actresses and this poster is just continuation of this most talked part of film.

You can see Oscar Predictions for August: Osage County HERE

Movie Review: Despicable Me 2 [2013]

Despicable Me 2 has more minions then Despicable Me and therefore it's lot more funnier. And I can tell, nothing can get any more hilarious then this animation, it made me cry tears & roll on the cinema floor. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but mostly I could not help myself giggling.

Gru is done with evil stuff and he's back to normal life, trying to be a good father to three adorable daughters. He produces and sell jams, which are not delicious, but he's happy, cause he finally got family. Girls love him very much, however they still want mom, so they try to get someone for their daddy, which most does not work.

Their lives get a little messy when Gru is hired by anti-villain league to fight against world's most dangerous villains. Together with the AVL agent, Lucy Wilde, Gru concludes that his prime suspect is the presumed dead supervillain, El Macho, whose teenage son likes his eldest daughter, Margo. Because of his growing mutual attraction to Lucy, Gru seems on the wrong track even as his minions are being quietly kidnapped en masse for some malevolent purpose.

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Musings on `American Horror Story: Coven` Premiere

Witches of Coven

Finally, very much anticipated third season of American Horror Story has arrived with a story of witches who are trying to survive in a modern world, after being persecuted in past centuries. I shall not start proving how phenomenal this series is, actually the only show which totally terrifies and astonishes me with superb story, masterful acting and brilliant directing.

From now on, the horrors happen in a Coven aka Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies - a mysterious school in New Orleans for witches. Episode Bitchcraft opens with flashback to quite distant past and introduces Madame Delphine LaLaurie (Kathy Bates) - a slave owner, who inhumanly tortures them to keep herself forever young. She's later killed by a Voodoo - a girlfriend to one of her victims. 

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Movie Review: Gravity [2013]

Don't let go

Do you know, why 3D was invented? I do. Because we had to see this in 3D, because Gravity is the best film experience I've ever had, just like Life of Pi last year, and Avatar four years ago. Director Alfonso Cuarón managed bring absolutely different experience of breathtaking visuals, bright colors and great directing.

Gravity follows a medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and an astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) working together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space, where even one mistake can cost you a life. Since there is no one in the film except those two and Dr. Stone is left alone quite shortly after the movie starts, there are no much dialogues, however it still manages to keep you tense and stressed any minute of it, mostly because technically perfectly made visual & 3D effects.

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Movie Review: In Bloom [2013] - Oscar Watch

In Bloom is a Georgian submission on Oscars. Movie's original title literally translates as "Long Bright Days" and tells a story of two young best friends during early years of Georgian independence in 1992. Story of these two girls expose problems of our society which most of Georgians still face nowadays: domestic violence, ignorance, struggle between generations of parents and children.

Eka & Natia are two teenagers living in extremely violent society, where you have no chance to find justice, or somebody to support you, even your family. This is war going inside of families and outside of them and mostly because grownups (parents) are not capable of dialing their lives. Sadly, their children get more harmed than they do. It is time when boyfriends give guns to their girlfriends, instead of some fluffy gifts, to ensure that they are safe, when underage boys can beat to death anybody they wish and when nobody cares if somebody gets killed in front of them. It's a story of massive ignorance of actions that are believed to be immoral, at least, today.

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Who Would You Cast in HBO's `American Gods`?

HBO continues to amaze its viewers with more brilliant sci-fis. After smashing success of Game of Thrones, it plans 6 seasons of Neil Gaiman's award winning fantasy book American Gods. The book, which I've never read, promises a lot with very interesting and original idea of combining all mythological gods and new ones. Here you can see Odin, Anubis, Loki and modern deities of internet, celebrities, television, etc. You think that the last ones have no chance with olds? Brace yourself, gods in this book (and show) gain power according to how strongly people believe in them, so God of Google can be more tough then Jesus, Odin, Zeus altogether. 

The good thing about American Gods is that every supernatural creature is real in it, just like dragons in Game of Thrones and personally, I think that it's going to be better then any series, including Supernatural. Unfortunately, HBO is not sure about airing date (it was announced as 2013, however), since Gaiman is still processing the pilot script. Accordingly, producers have not announced the cast, which gives me a time to wonder who I'd love to see as gods.

Lets start (list of gods are taken from book, which means they might not be in show):

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