News: First Trailer for "Moneyball"

     When I made my Top 5 Anticipated of 2011 list, I put "Moneyball" on top partly because of the people involved ("The Social Network" writer Aaron Sorkin, "Capote" director Bennet Miller, and actors such as Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jonah Hill, and Chris Pratt), but mostly because of the interesting subject matter. How do you make a movie about a typical style of general managing? It's not the most obvious subject matter to explore on screen, which is why I'm so curious to see how it is executed. Well we now have our first glimpse of how it will be done with the film's trailer. Obviously, it is always hard to pick a movie's success based on the trailer, so I don't want to put too much stock in it, but it still looks very promising. Check it out for yourself and make up your own mind down below.

News: "Django Unchained" Gets a Release Date

     Christmas 2012 folks, I'm already counting down the days (and not because I believe it will be the end of the world). If you're a reader of this blog, then you probably know I am an avid fan of everything Quentin Tarantino does. The man has yet to make a film that falls short of "masterpiece" in my book, making him without a doubt my all-time favorite director. This is why I wait with baited breath for his next release, "Django Unchained", a spaghetti "Southern" about an escaped slave who teams up with a bounty hunter to free his wife and take revenge on her slave holder. We already know that Tarantino alum Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson are singed up for the film and it looks more and more like Leonardo DiCaprio will be playing the part of the film's villain (which is extremely exciting for me, seeing as DiCaprio is my favorite working actor). The lead role of Django is still up for grabs, but it looks like original frontrunner Will Smith will not be taking on the controversial role. Right now, the three names being floated around are Jaime Foxx, Chris Tucker, and Idris Elba (who created the very memorable character Stringer Bell on the greatest dramatic television show ever, "The Wire"). Whoever Tarantino picks, at least now we know when we will get to see the finished product, Christmas 2012. While I had wished it would be coming out a little sooner than that, I just happy to get a release date. It looks like in the year 2012, Christmas will be the best day of the year for reasons that has absolutely nothing to do with the holiday.

News: Oscar Finds a Happy-Medium

     If your a close follower of the Academy Awards (or an obsessed nerd such as myself), then you'll know that the previous two Oscars the Academy has experimented with expanding the Best Picture lineup to ten nominations, after it had retained five slots for the big kahuna of awards since 1944. I have generally been a fan of the ten nominee category because I felt it has allowed the Academy to spotlight a larger array of movies and genres, but some have felt that doubling the amount of nominees has diluted the prestige of a Best Picture nomination.

     Well today, the Academy announced a compromise between these two positions. Instead of strictly have either five or ten nominated films, the number of Best Picture nominees will now be a variable number, depending on how many films receive over 5% first-place Best Picture votes from Academy member. Now the category will still retain a minimum of five nominees and a maximum of ten nominees (even if 4 or fewer, or 11 or higher, films receive over 5% first-place votes), but this means each year we could have anywhere from the old-fashioned five, to the new ten. Apparently, if this practice had been in place over the last few years, we would of had years with 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, but not 10 Best Picture nominees.

     It's an interesting idea, and though I was okay with the ten nominations, it will definitely make the announcement of the nominees much more exciting. It will also make prognosticators work much harder, for now no will can even be sure how many films will be nominated, much less which films it will be. It is also likely to make debates much more heated, because now ever attack can be seen as direct attempt to lower a film's popularity just enough to make it miss the cut. It will be very interesting to see how it all plays out. If you want to see the official announcement yourself, along with some other minor changes the Academy made in a few other categories, click here.