Tag: the hobbit

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Oscars nominations boring as ever for genre fans

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.

May the odds be ever in her favorThe 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.

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Other worlds: Walton, Gaiman win Hugos

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.

A Song of Ice And Fire. A hilarious Storm of Swords ‘It Gets Better’ PSA. Yes, of course there are spoilers. Or, you can read what GRRM has revealed of the Targaryen conquest of Westeros from the upcoming The World of Ice and Fire.

Lists. io9 picks fall’s must-read SF/F books and explores the mermaid trend in YA.

Records. The Hunger Games series has outsold Harry Potter – at least on Amazon.

Also: Ray Bradbury’s FBI file / Lev Grossman interviews Terry Brooks / Ursula Le Guin’s Noble Prize odds / Dark Tower adaption not so dead after all?