Not a whole lot of love for genre pictures at the Oscars this year. The Avengers got just one nomination, for Visual Effects, where it was joined by online punching-bag Prometheus. Both of them will probably lose to Life of Pi.
The good news is that some fan-favorite actors scored big. Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for Best Actress — not for The Hunger Games, but rather for her work in Silver Linings Playbook. She plays a woman suffering from a variety of mental illnesses so who knows, maybe she’ll even win. And though The Dark Knight Rises was shut out, Anne Hathaway got a Supporting Actress nod for playing Fantine in Les Misérables, and she’s pretty much a lock. Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, was also nominated for Les Misérables, but let’s face it, he has no chance.
The Hobbit got three nominations, for Visual Effects, Makeup, and Production Design. Not bad until you remember that the last Middle-earth epic nabbed eleven nominations, and won all of ‘em.
Plus we have to mention: John Williams picked up his 48th nomination for Lincoln. Pretty sure that’s a record. And weirdly enough, the Simpsons are now Oscar nominees. Something called Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare” is up for Best Animated Short.
At least we can always look forward to making fun of the fashions. This year the Academy Awards air on February 24th.
Edit: Thanks to Pablo for pointing out that new Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy (along with Steven Spielberg) was nominated for producing Lincoln! It’s the front-runner for Best Picture, too.
Well, this is horrible. A man wearing a gas mask fired into the crowd at movie theater in Colorado during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. 12 are dead and at least 50 others were injured, some of them children and teens.
The gunman is in custody. At least two guns have been found.
It’s Friday the 13th! And thus, reader Justin LaSalata sent in this image of ‘Vader Voorhees.’ May it make your day!
Community finale throws in some Star Wars. The sitcom’s second-season finale last night had a fair share of Star Wars references. ‘For a Few Paintballs More’ is now online, but you’ll want to watch part 1 – the full-on Western pastiche ‘Fistful of Paintballs’. (And if you haven’t seen their first paintball episode, last year’s ‘Modern Warfare’ yet… You should.)
NBC declines David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman. The network didn’t pick up the pilot, which starred Friday Night Lights’ Adrianne Palicki in the title role. Image leaks (both intentional and unintentional) failed to excite the cranky denizens of the internet, but more importantly, the pilot earned mixed reviews from test audiences.
Don’t try this at home.‘Batman’ was arrested earlier this week in in Petoskey, Michigan.
Naturally. There’s been at least one official Star Wars cookbook, so of course Star Trek has one, too.
And the catsuit goes to… Warner Bros. announced today that Anne Hathaway has been cast as Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Reaction has been mixed, but I’m willing to wait and see. (Remember when Heath Ledger was cast?) Earlier rumors claimed there’s a second female lead yet to be cast as well.
Also revealed is that Tom Hardy will play Bane, one of Batman’s newer (well, 1993) foes. Unlike Hathaway, whose performance is bound to be judged harshly against Michelle Pfeiffer’s take on the character (among others,) Hardy has much less baggage to overcome. Bane’s only film appearance thus far was in the much-derided Batman and Robin as a henchmen to Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy.
X-Men: First Class. DC not your thing? Hero Complex visits the set of the X-Men prequel, which stars James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the young Professor X and Magneto. (Lingering question: Will January Jones actually convince us she’s not Betty Draper, budding supervillain?) There are another couple photos at /Film. And lastly, check out the teaser poster at AICN.
Buffy. Joss Whedon talks to Entertainment Weekly about the Season 8 comics. Warning: Massive spoilers. If you don’t risk them but still feel like getting depressive about something, Blastr has seven Whedon projects we’ll never see, almost all of which look better than Dollhouse.
A Game of Thrones. There’s been so much news on the HBO adaption over the past few weeks that I can’t keep up, but one thing you don’t want to miss is the latest teaser.
Santa Maul would be well amiss if he did not pay tribute to the Joker this holiday season. He has it on good authority that Batman does indeed have a tendency to smell worse than a 501st changing room after a warm-weather march.
Santa Maul is also sure that he should be linking to Rebelscum’s holiday gift guide. He assumes most of you will be quite aware of these items already, but would rather not be pestered by that gangly social media elf of theirs.
No big shockers here: The late Heath Ledger received Best Supporting Actor and WALL-EBest Animated Film. Less predictable was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button winning Best Visual Effects over The Dark Knight and Iron Man. Button also took Art Direction and Makeup, while The Dark Knight nabbed Sound Editing.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Online Sensation, in the 35th Annual People’s Choice Awards, beating out other such online sensations as “Paris Hilton’s response to McCain ad”. In the other geeky categories, Heroes nabbed the spot for Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show, Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman got favorite superhero, and Christian and Heath beat out Harrison and Shia for Favorite On Screen Match Up. The Dark Knight beat out Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Iron Man for both favorite movie and favorite action movie.
Fans up in arms over casting: M. Night Shyamalan is making a movie version of Nickelodeon’s animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the first casting choices were announced last week. The problem? Well, Avatar is set in an Asian-inspired world, with a multiethnic cartoon cast, and the live-action choices thus far are entirely caucasian. Naturally, fans are pissed.
(And since y’all would probably stone me if I didn’t include this, let’s not forget Avatar’s primary Star Wars connections: The Clone Wars’ Dave Filoni directed several episodes, while Mark Hamill voiced Fire Lord Ozai, the show’s ultimate antagonist.)
Club Jade is a group of (mostly) female fans who love Star Wars - particularly the Expanded Universe novels - and other things of that nature. You can also follow us on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook!
The good news is that some fan-favorite actors scored big. Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for Best Actress — not for The Hunger Games, but rather for her work in Silver Linings Playbook. She plays a woman suffering from a variety of mental illnesses so who knows, maybe she’ll even win. And though The Dark Knight Rises was shut out, Anne Hathaway got a Supporting Actress nod for playing Fantine in Les Misérables, and she’s pretty much a lock. Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, was also nominated for Les Misérables, but let’s face it, he has no chance.
It’s Friday the 13th! And thus, reader Justin LaSalata sent in this image of ‘Vader Voorhees.’ May it make your day!
And the catsuit goes to… Warner Bros. announced today that 
Santa Maul would be well amiss if he did not pay tribute to the Joker this holiday season. He has it on good authority that Batman does indeed have a tendency to smell worse than a 501st changing room after a warm-weather march.
Fans up in arms over casting: M. Night Shyamalan is making a movie version of Nickelodeon’s animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the 
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