A couple of trips to the cinema

I missed a lot of movies this year already - Sherlock Homes, Legion, The Blind Side, Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, The Princess and the Frog, among others. So when some of my friends invited me to watch a movie with them, I decided to go.

So my first official trip to the cinema in 2010 was to watch Valentine's Day. With a star-studded cast, I was expecting this to be something like "Love Actually". As it turns out, the film fell bit flat. I just didn't connect with almost all the characters and could have cared less how their love lives turned out.

I also saw Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief last weekend. I didn't know what it was about prior to watching it so I had no expectations. And I do have to say that the movie opened with a lot of potential. With a couple of pretty intense scenes early on, I started to look forward to what was going to happen. But a quarter of the way into the movie, it kinda turned into a teen chick flick that sorta lost direction and ended with a significant lack of oomph.

Not sure what film I'll get to see next. In any case I hope it's better than my first two of 2010.

Hope For Haiti: 'Hallelujah'

Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris perform the Leonard Cohen Classic "Hallelujah" during the 'Hope For Haiti' Telethon to raise money for Earthquake victims in Haiti.


Video uploaded in youtube by user HopeForHaiti

Haiti earthquake victims still need our help:

www.hopeforhaiti.com
www.helphaitinow.org
www.hopeforhaitinow.org

16. And counting.

The nominations for this year's Oscar awards were released early last week and once again, Meryl Streep nabs a best actress nomination for her amazing performance in Julie & Julia. Of course, the buzz generated by "The Blind Side" and the fact that Sandra Bullock is Hollywood's darling this year virtually ensures that Meryl won't win a third Oscar (second for best actress). But her record for most nominations gets even more massive, given that she held the record with her 13th nomination and has now gone three better. If she keeps at it, she may just end her career with more than 20 nominations! (And hopefully, a couple more trophies. I mean seriously, she has to win another Oscar some time soon!)

The interesting thing about the Oscars this year is that 10 films were nominated for Best Picture. Apparently, there used to be 10 best picture nominees back in the day. This means that aside from the expected nominees like 'Avatar' and the 'Hurt Locker', a few other good (if not great) films of 2009 also made the cut, including 'Up' and 'District 9'. 'Up' is only the second animated film in history to be nominated for a best picture award (the first was 'Beauty and the Beast'). It's also nominated for 'Best Animated Film' so I'd be majorly shocked if it doesn't win that award.