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.
Awards. The Hugo Award winners were announced at Worldcon this past weekend. Taking Best Novel was Jo Walton’s Among Others, beating out George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons and works by China Miéville, James S. A. Corey and Mira Grant. (Walton also won the Nebula for the book.) Other writing prizes went to Kij Johnson, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu and more.
The dramatic presentation awards went to Game of Thrones S1 and Neil Gaiman for his Doctor Who episode ‘The Doctor’s Wife.’ (Gaiman took the opportunity to announce he’s writing another episode for the show.) Also noteworthy to us, SF Signal winning for Best Fanzine!
Tolkien. With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit adaption now being three films, the second has been retitled The Desolation of Smaug, with There and Back Again now being the third installment. I fully expect it to contain at least an hour of various slow-motion endings. But seriously, it looks like there was a lot of hints dropped at DragonCon.
Dwarves! Hobbits! Peter Jackson! Martin Freeman! Ian McKellen! Elijah Wood! 3-D! A hell of a lot about shooting in 3-D, actually. (Mirkwood: Ye olde Pandora?)
From shelves to HBO.Game of Thrones has a premiere date: April 17th. If you’re a big A Song of Ice and Fire fan than Winter is Coming’s summary of the show’s 15-minute press peek is worth a read. (GRRM was also on hand to talk about the series.) And last of all, new set photos!
In other adaptation news… There’s an interview with Hunger Games director Gary Ross in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly that’s definitely worth a read if you’re a fan of the books. Meanwhile, Elijah Wood has signed on for The Hobbit. Frodo doesn’t appear in the book, but EW speculates that Jackson may use the character in a narrative framing device.
Bookstores. Things aren’t looking too good for the Borders, while rival Barnes & Noble is reporting record holiday sales. Now I generally prefer B&N, but hope Borders is able to pull through; The loss of such a large chain could have disastrous effects.
People. Author Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Coraline) and musician Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls) tied the knot last week. Naturally, they both blogged about it. Congrats!
Baby, why you gotta be so sparkly? There’s actual, serious talk about splitting the fourth Twilight book into two movies. After all, Harry Potter is doing it, and just think of all that squeeful allowance cash beckoning. At this rate, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part I: The Pillowing will be out next Christmas. All signs point to beige, and a possible endorsement deal with the old-timey Gap.
It is RDJ, after all. The first official poster for Iron Man 2 has arrived, and it looks kind of familiar…. Oh my god.Entertainment Weekly has kindly provided a primer on War Machine for the soon-to-be eager slash fangirls.
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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.
Awards. The 
From shelves to HBO. Game of Thrones has a premiere date: April 17th. If you’re a big A Song of Ice and Fire fan than Winter is Coming’s summary of the show’s 
Baby, why you gotta be so sparkly? There’s actual, serious talk about splitting 
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