Oscar winners announced early!

Oh no, wait, these are the BAFTA winners. It's all the same. Really.

The Academy is going to have to pull it together and do something completely unexpected so that we don't get bored of the same people making the same speech every time they win in the same category. I would suggest that the easiest way to do this would be to cut Kate Winslet out of the ceremony completely.

"Oh Cias, why do you dislike Kate Winslet so?"

Because I can.

Why the sag face?

While the Oscars are always the main course, the Screen Actors Guild Awards are certainly a tasty appetizer. The SAG awards are particularly appealing because you get the beauty of an awards show without all of the nuts and bolts. And by nuts and bolts, I mean all of the awards are for acting, so you don't have to listen to any sound crews or cinematographers thanking their children at home "who really should be in bed, but were allowed to stay up tonight!" How nice for you. Nothing but sparkly celebrities tonight though.

I was particularly pleased to see our young and talented Dev Patel nominated for best supporting actor. I even had a slight glimmer of hope that he may walk away with it; but then I remembered Heath Ledger. A scan of Heath's award's list comes up with him having won every time he's been nominated for his role as the Joker, with the exception of the Satellite Award- which went, by some amazing twist of fate, to Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road.

Anyway, while it wasn't the acting that made Slumdog Millionaire the great film that it was- that can be attributed to Danny Boyle's genius, and an amazing screenplay- I was glad to see SAG and BAFTA throw Dev Patel a bone. I really hope that when the smoke clears after Slumdog this young man doesn't disappear into obscurity.

Wait, there was a point to all of this...oh yes: Watch the SAG awards, if anything they'll provide a nice distraction from the crippling loneliness. Or is that just me?

My awards show has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R. My awards show has a second name, it's P-R-E-D-I-C-T-A-B-L-E...

This year's Academy Awards nominees were announced this morning.

There aren't many surprises in this year's list. They certainly gave Gran Torino the shaft; it wasn't a great movie, but I assumed that since it was Clint's last horrah they'd give him something. Viola Davis got her best supporting actress for Doubt, which I was relieved to see. And oh happiest of happy days, Kate Winslet's Golden Globe sweeping performance in Revolutionary Road is nowhere to be found on this list. Unfortunately, looking at her competitors, she seems to have a very good chance of winning best actress for The Reader. How kind of them to give Anne Hathaway a nomination, she seems like a nice young girl. I don't know what Robert Downey Jr. did in Tropic Thunder but it must have been amazing. Once again, no Michael Sheen, I was a little dissapointed. The Dark Knight got quite a few nominations, which is exciting, but no best picture or director. And Slumdog cleaned up nicely, and will...clean up even...more....nicerly at the actual ceremony. The Wrestler only got two nominations, best song not being one of them, which was strange and unfortunate. No acting nominations for Slumdog or Burn After Reading. Too many nominations for Benjamin Button. And why is the Reader up for best picture? I don't say that because I hated it, it just doesn't seem to carry the same weight as its competitors. Also, I hated it.

Now we will hold our breath until Febraury 22nd. The excitment of the anticipation is worth the price of buying a small ventilator.

Now I have to buy a new laptop...

And it's all Kate Winslet's fault. Since her Golden Globe wins there have been 120 articles about her on the imdb newsfeed. So now my keyboard is broken because after the first ten articles I just started puking all over it every time I read another one.

How much do you want to bet she spends the rest of her life resenting this child?

"Oh no, wait, you mean that was the guy who made Swept Away? I guess he might have had this coming ."

I couldn't really understand what Sacha Baron Cohen was saying half the time, so this joke went completely over my head. How dare a comedian make jokes about an acclaimed director like Guy Ritchie. Is acclaimed the right word?

And the Golden Globes matter because....?

Apparently the Globes merit me spending my Sunday afternoon playing guessing games. I suppose it's better than me crying alone in the corner. Yeah, you heard me.

Best Motion Picture- Drama
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy
Mamma Mia!

Best Actor- Drama
Sean Penn for Doubt

Best Actor- Musical or Comedy
James Franco for The Dark Knight

Best Supporting Actress
Kate Winslet for The Reader (even though it really, really, should be Viola Davis for Doubt...)

Best Director
Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Screenplay
Slumdog Millionaire

This is the part where I decide there are too many categories. So, I'll just put a list of names, and they'll be in order of how the list of nominations appears on the IMDB site.

WALL-E "Down to Earth"

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

WALL-E

Il y a longtempts que je t'aime

Dexter

30 Rock

A Raisin in the Sun...because the name is funny...

Ralph Fiennes

Catherine Keener

Alec Baldwin

Tina Fey

Michael C. Hall

January Jones

Neil Patrick Harris

Dianne Wiest

Rick Moranis: "Honey, I hate our kids!"

Gosh, everyone's getting on the Sam Mendes train. Who keeps giving this man a camera? And why does he keep making movies about why the lives of my parents are, essentially, wasted and meaningless? If everyone were a self-centred jerk like the characters in his movies, the population decline would be so severe that the dolphins would surely overthrow us.

If you are, however, a fan of Mr. Mendes, you can get both Jarhead and Road to Perdition at 2 for $10 in your local Wal-Mart remainder bin. You'd think he'd take the hint...

Introduction Part I: Cias

Cias is a student in her second year of undergraduate study at the University of Toronto where she studies philosophy and theology. In junior high Cias watched The Royal Tenebaums and decided that she could get away with pretending to know how to appreciate movies. She has been doing this up to this day, and will continue to do this in this blog. Cias doesn't know much about movies beyond what she sees with her eyes and thinks with her brain. For this reason, her reviews will be coming from an uninformed and unexperienced mind; so please don't be offended if you thought Twilight was the film event of the year and she disagrees with you, she probably just doesn't know what she's talking about. Cias loves Catholicism, the Office, movies, sarcasm, and Oxford commas. She dislikes dogs, theatre, and Roger Ebert.

It's pronounced chai-iss.

Top Five:

The Royal Tenebaums
Apocalypse Now
The Apartment
Amadeus
Pineapple Express

...these are subject to change, all the time.