Lego Fever!

There seems to be some kind of weird LEGO craze going around at the moment... A couple weeks ago The LEGO Movie opened in the States to consistently positive reviews (Metacritic: 82; Rotten Tomatoes: 96%), and The Hollywood Reporter's just reported that the film, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (21 Jump Street, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), has sailed past the $200 million mark in global box office receipts.

---

The Simpsons are jumping on board the bandwagon too, with an episode that will be completely animated in LEGO...

---

And here's a freelance designer who's gone and redesigned the posters for this year's Oscars Best Picture nominees in LEGO...

---

And if you ever wanted to see the trailer for Liam Neeson's forthcoming thriller Non-Stop redone in LEGO, now you can too:

---

Not enough LEGO for you? We do have a bunch of LEGO toons available to rent...

LEGO - Friends: Dolphin Cruise
LEGO - Friends: Stephanie's Surprise Party
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu
LEGO - Legends of Chima: Vol 1
LEGO - Legends of Chima: Vol 2
LEGO - Legends of Chima: Vol 3
LEGO - Hero Factory: Savage Planet
LEGO - Friends: New Girl in Town
LEGO - Star Wars: The Padawan Menace
LEGO - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out
LEGO - Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles
LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers
LEGO Batman - The Movie: DC Super Heroes Unite
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 1
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 2
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 3
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 4

OK I think that should be enough LEGO talk for now.

Gravity starring... Arnold Schwarzenegger

What if Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Sandra Bullock in Gravity? Here's the frighteningly convincing answer:

The Nominees are...

Best Motion Picture of the Year 
(Don't know anything about these films? Vulture's primer is worth reading!)
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Christian Bale for American Hustle
Bruce Dern for Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street 
Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave
Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Amy Adams for American Hustle
Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock for Gravity
Judi Dench for Philomena
Meryl Streep for August: Osage County

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role 
Barkhad Abdi for Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper for American Hustle
Jonah Hill for The Wolf of Wall Street
Michael Fassbender for 12 Years a Slave
Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Sally Hawkins for Blue Jasmine
Julia Roberts for August: Osage County
Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave
Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle
June Squibb for Nebraska

Best Achievement in Directing 
Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity 
Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave
David O. Russell for American Hustle
Martin Scorsese for The Wolf of Wall Street
Alexander Payne for Nebraska

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year 
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Ernest and Celestine
Frozen
The Wind Rises

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year 
The Broken Circle Breakdown: Felix Van Groeningen (Belgium)
The Missing Picture: Rithy Panh (Cambodia)
Jagten: Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)
The Great Beauty: Paolo Sorrentin (Italy)
Omar: Hany Abu-Assad (Palestine)

For all the nominations, head over to IMDB.

---

Or if you'd prefer watching Thor announce the nominees, watch this:

Jimmy Carter on Argo

Former US President Jimmy Carter, who served when the events that inspired Argo occurred, gives his 2 cents on the Oscar winner (note: best to see this only if you've seen the film).

2013 Oscars Wrap-Up...in GIFS

In case you missed the ceremony...

More here at MTV Movies Blog.

Roasting the Nominees

With the Oscars a few days away and media and industry buzz going off the charts, sometimes a fresh perspective is necessary to balance out all the noise. Especially if it's coming from the inside, like this voter - an anonymous veteran director - who's shared his views on the nominees with The Hollywood Reporter. I really enjoyed his no-holds-barred cutting-through-the-bullshit tone; he isn't afraid to get nasty (Django Unchained is described as "Quentin Tarantino almost masturbating for three hours"), but mostly I found his thoughts fairly on the nose - he clearly knows what he's talking about. Or maybe like him, I just really want Zero Dark Thirty to win big...

Anatomy of a Trailer

By now moviegoers should be familiar with the generally hyperbolic audio-visual sensation offered by modern Hollywood trailers (i.e. increasingly fast-cutting of money shots set to loud booming music). But if you really want to get into the details of trailer analysis, New York Times have taken it a step further by breaking down the trailers for 5 of this year's 9 Best Picture Nominees into cleverly devised interactive graphs that show shot length and exactly where in the movie the clips are taken from. You can see some fascinating patterns emerging from the different approaches. Click here to read more. Very cool stuff.

Animated Short: Paperman

If you caught Wreck It-Ralph at the movies, you would've probably been charmed by Paperman, a gorgeous animated short from John Kahrs and Walt Disney Animation Studios that harks back to the era of silent storytelling. But for those who missed it, it's now available to view on Youtube and totally worth six minutes of your day. The music swells a bit too much at the end for me, but that doesn't take away from the fact this is one of the most beautiful things Disney has produced lately and I hope to see more of this exquisite blend of hand-drawn and CGI animation from them in the future.

Snubbed at the Oscars

Every year many worthy movies go entirely unnoticed by the Oscars, but it's no secret that the voters have specific types of movies/stars/filmmakers they prefer to be awarded. JoBlo's made a video comp highlighting some noticeable absences in this year's ceremony. Regardless of what I thought of the film, I was pretty surprised that Spielberg's technically dazzling The Adventures of Tintin wasn't even nominated for Best Animated Film. And Senna, no doco nod?? I dug seeing Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) and Michael Shannon (Take Shelter) in the vid - they were among the best performances I saw last year and should really receive more recognition.

‘‘I picked Captain Bligh because I liked his hat."

For those of you out there that enjoy good art direction and something a little left of centre, here is a great gallery of short vignettes from The New York Times starring some of the hottest Oscar contenders playing some of the most iconic villainous archetypes the screen has seen. Simple, powerful and vibrant.

Plus a few insights from the actors on where they're coming from and/or what they're channeling: here.

Oscar Nom Noms

And they're in! My quick take on who will/might/should win in these categories...

BEST PICTURE
The Social Network - I think The King's Speech would be the safer option, being a prestige-like period piece tailored to the Academy. But The Social Network is more "now", relevant to our times, and besides it's popped up in more Critics' Top 10 lists than any other film last year that I can remember - not that that's any gauge of the voters' tastes, but surely it's a measure of near-universal acclaim. I can definitely see Aaron Sorkin walking away with Best Adapted Screenplay though...

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
James Franco (127 Hours) - he's hosting the ceremony too, so wouldn't it just be swell if he did win?? And the Academy loves a good physically agonizing performance don't they?

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Natalie Portman (Black Swan) - this and Jennifer Lawrence's performance in Winter's Bone kind of blew everyone away, just 'cos they weren't expected. But we can count on Academy boringness to award Annette Benning or Nicole Kidman. Wouldn't mind seeing Michelle Williams winning...

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
David Fincher (The Social Network) - torn between Aronofsky and Fincher. Aronofsky's Black Swan is wilder and rougher on the edges than Fincher's sleek The Social Network, so I can see the award going to Fincher. But what do I know - I generally get these things horribly wrong, but it's fun to speculate...

The Post-Oscars Thing

Between busily adding movies to the site and watching a live web stream of the Oscars yesterday afternoon (and also tweeting), I didn't really get a complete feel for how it all went down, but it seems like the general consensus is that it was another ho-hum year, even though it was reportedly the most watched Oscars in five years. One surprising, perfectly cringey and awkward moment is worth mentioning - it's been called "Kanye moment" of the Oscars: during the Best Documentary Short award - which went to Music By Prudence - director-producer Roger Ross Williams was ambushed on stage by producer Elinor Burkett, who went on to hog the microphone for the rest of the acceptance speech. Watch the video below and then head over to Salon to read an interview with the filmmakers about what happened:

Roger Corman Receives Oscar!

Fans of B-movies will be pleased to learn that director/producer Roger Corman (83-years-old but still looking well!) received an Academy Award at the Oscar Governor's Ball on Saturday night for lifetime achievement. Longtime fan Quentin Tarantino gave an affectionate, charismatic speech, and Corman alumni Jonathan Demme presented the award to the influential low-budget filmmaker. Some big faces in the audience, including Steven Spielberg, George "I Devoted My Life to Star Wars" Lucas, Ron Howard and Jack Nicholson, who all in one way or another have crossed paths with Corman. The ceremony was untelevised but you can watch footage over here. Actress Lauren Bacall and cinematographer Gordon Willis also received awards.

Trailers for a few Corman titles we stock:

A Bucket of Blood (1959)


Little Shop of Horrors (1960)


Premature Burial (1962)