Academy Award Nominations -2010

Best motion picture of the year

• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
  
• The Kids Are All Right
• The King's Speech
• 127 Hours
• The Social Network
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit
• Winter's Bone

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Javier Bardem in "Biutiful"
• Jeff Bridges in "True Grit"
• Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network"
• Colin Firth in "The King's Speech"
• James Franco in "127 Hours"

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• Christian Bale in "The Fighter"
• John Hawkes in "Winter's Bone"
• Jeremy Renner in "The Town"
• Mark Ruffalo in "The Kids Are All Right"
• Geoffrey Rush in "The King's Speech" 

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Annette Bening in "The Kids Are All Right"
• Nicole Kidman in "Rabbit Hole"
• Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"
• Natalie Portman in "Black Swan"
• Michelle Williams in "Blue Valentine"

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Amy Adams in "The Fighter"
• Helena Bonham Carter in "The King's Speech"
• Melissa Leo in "The Fighter" 
• Hailee Steinfeld in "True Grit"
• Jacki Weaver in "Animal Kingdom"

Best animated feature film of the year

• How to Train Your Dragon, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
• The Illusionist,  Sylvain Chomet
• Toy Story 3, Lee Unkrich

Art Direction

• Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney), Robert Stromberg (Production Design), Karen O'Hara (Set Decoration)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros.), Stuart Craig (Production Design), Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration)
• Inception (Warner Bros.), Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (Set Decoration)/span>
• The King's Speech (Paramount), Eve Stewart (Production Design), Judy Farr (Set Decoration)
• True Grit (Paramount), Jess Gonchor (Production Design), Nancy Haigh (Set Decoration)

Achievement in Cinematography

• Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Matthew Libatique
• Inception (Warner Bros.) Wally Pfister
• The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Danny Cohen
• The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Jeff Cronenweth
• True Grit (Paramount) Roger Deakins

Achievement in costume design

• Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) Colleen Atwood
• I Am Love (Magnolia Pictures) Antonella Cannarozzi
• The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Jenny Beavan
• The Tempest (Miramax) Sandy Powell
• True Grit (Paramount) Mary Zophres

Achievement in directing

• Black Swan (Fox Searchlight), Darren Aronofsky
• The Fighter (Paramount), David O. Russell
• The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Tom Hooper
• The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing), David Fincher
• True Grit (Paramount), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Best Documentary Feature

• Exit through the Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency) Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz A Paranoid Pictures Production
• Gasland Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic A Gasland Production
• Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics) Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs A Representational Pictures Production
• Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment) Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger An Outpost Films Production
• Waste Land Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley (Arthouse Films) An Almega Projects Production

Best documentary short subject

• Killing in the Name Nominees to be determined A Moxie Firecracker Films Production
• Poster Girl Nominees to be determined A Portrayal Films Production
• Strangers No More Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon A Simon & Goodman Picture Company Production
• Sun Come Up Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger A Sun Come Up Production
• The Warriors of Qiugang Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon A Thomas Lennon Films Production

Achievement in film editing

• Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Andrew Weisblum
• The Fighter Paramount Pamela Martin
• The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Tariq Anwar
• 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Jon Harris
• The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Best foreign language film of the year

• Biutiful Mexico
• Dogtooth Greece
• In a Better World Denmark
• Incendies Canada
• Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) Algeria

Achievement in makeup

• Achievement in makeup (Sony Pictures Classics) Adrien Morot
• The Way Back (Newmarket Films in association with Wrekin Hill Entertainment and Image Entertainment) Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
• The Wolfman (Universal) Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

• How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount) John Powell
• Inception (Warner Bros.) Hans Zimmer
• The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Alexandre Desplat
• 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) A.R. Rahman
• The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• Coming Home from Country Strong (Sony Pictures Releasing (Screen Gems)) Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
• I See the Light from Tangled (Walt Disney) Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
• If I Rise from 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
• We Belong Together from Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Best animated short film

• Day & Night (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production Teddy Newton
• The Gruffalo A Magic Light Pictures Production Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
• Let's Pollute A Geefwee Boedoe Production Geefwee Boedoe
• The Lost Thing (Nick Batzias for Madman Entertainment) A Passion Pictures Australia Production Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
• Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) A Sacrebleu Production Bastien Dubois

Best live action short film

• The Confession (National Film and Television School) A National Film and Television School Production Tanel Toom
• The Crush (Network Ireland Television) A Purdy Pictures Production Michael Creagh
• God of Love A Luke Matheny Production Luke Matheny
• Na Wewe (Premium Films) A CUT! Production Ivan Goldschmidt
• Wish 143 A Swing and Shift Films/Union Pictures Production Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

Achievement in sound editing

• Inception (Warner Bros.) Richard King
• Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
• Tron: Legacy (Walt Disney) Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
• True Grit (Paramount) Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
• Unstoppable (20th Century Fox) Mark P. Stoeckinger

Achievement in sound mixing

• Inception (Warner Bros.) Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
• The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
• Salt (Sony Pictures Releasing) Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
• The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
• True Grit (Paramount) Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland

Achievement in visual effects

• Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros.) Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
• Hereafter (Warner Bros.) Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
• Inception (Warner Bros.) Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
• Iron Man 2 (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment, Distributed by Paramount) Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

Adapted screenplay

• 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
• The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing), Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
• Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Michael Arndt. Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
• True Grit (Paramount), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• Winter's Bone (Roadside Attractions), Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Original screenplay

• Another Year (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Mike Leigh
• The Fighter (Paramount), Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
• Inception (Warner Bros.), Written by Christopher Nolan
• The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features), Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
• The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Seidler

Stop Worrying..!!!

At any day or any time have you thought about the missing happiness or energy level, which you normally have at the start of a year??

I don’t know whether you came across such questions before in your life, but my mind raised this question today while I was planning to celebrate the commencement of 2011. Initially I struggled in finalizing an answer, but once I reached, it seemed simple for me.

To put the answer precisely in a word, I am terming it as “Worry”.

We worry about so many things in our life even by knowing that those circumstances cannot be changed. This is the major problem of our life. Just read the following to understand easily.

• We worry about the scams of the politicians
• We worry about our country’s status
• We worry about ourselves
• We worry about our son, daughter, siblings, cousins, in laws, neighbors, etc..,

As I always insist on being optimist in my posts, let’s try the above sentences by replacing just a single word ‘care’ for ‘worry’. Now you will sense the dramatic changes in those sentences.

• We care about the scams of the politicians
• We care about our country’s status
• We care about ourselves
• We care about our son, daughter, siblings, cousins, in laws, neighbors, etc..,

Being positive always helps you to be energetic and lead a happy life. Take for instance that, when you worry about your country only negative thoughts will flow into your mind about it, but the same will be reversed into positive thoughts when you care about your nation. So the thing I am trying to convey in this post is don’t worry for the things, try to care about it. Surely you will feel a lot of change within you and your surroundings.

Even if the story is common, every chapter in a book is different. Likewise every chapter of our life i.e., years will be different. As a new chapter begins tomorrow, let’s stop worrying and take care of the things around us. Have a positive 2011.

2010 !!!

We have just a day more to complete the year of 2010. So it’s time for me to take a look at the paths I had traveled along this one year.

It’s a year like Shankar’s movie for me. I had a smooth start and then a roller coaster ride in middle and finally a happy ending climax. I like to term 2010 as a year of whistle blowing, because that word suits for  me, my country and also the entire world.

It’s because many things about me, both positive and negative, have been blown out by the persons around me. By knowingly and unknowingly they corrected me to travel in a good path. There are several persons who are completely responsible for the changes in me.

India too needs such personalities, because for the whole year the news we hear from our media are scams and frauds. Exposing such activities to public is a good thing, but those aspects are yet to be corrected by the people in high command. As a rapidly developing nation we need those changes soon to be happened and those changes are possible only when the people are changed. But leaving all aside if you think that did we experience only the negatives? No, there are positives things happened for us to celebrate. Here I tried to come out with such things which I can remember.

When it comes to politics, 2010 is the year of scams. But the happiest thing is almost all of the scams are been exposed and politicians are switching over to correction mode. Every person is informed about the scams and frauds by our efficient media. But sad thing is they focused only about such things. We have achieved several things in sports, arts and in business.

In sports, we organized common wealth games successfully; our athletes and sports persons won several medals in Asiad and CWG. In cricket, Team India is the leader in test rankings and they performed well for the complete year. Importantly Sachin Tendulkar created history by scoring 200 runs as individual highest in ODI’s. In Arts, A.R. Rahman’s music has reached round the globe and he is the most wanted composer in Hollywood. And finally in Business, our empires have been extended to almost all continents by great business emperors of  India.

This says we have lots of achievements to celebrate and remember for 2010. Celebration is the key word for everyone at both ends of a year. So let’s cherish our achievements of this year and perish our negatives in the forthcoming year.

My favorites of 2010 -Part two

In my previous posts i listed out my favorites in entertainment sector. Now in this I am going for sports and politics and news makers.

Sports:

1. Virender Sehwag 
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Saina Nehwal
4. M.S.Dhoni
5. Gagan Narang

Politics:

1. Manmohan Singh
2. Nitish Kumar
3. Narendra Modi
4. M.Karunanidhi

Newsmakers:

1. Julian Assange
2. Mark Zuckerberg
3. A. Raja
4. Kanimozhi
5. Niira Radia.

I had considered the persons in both ways and listed the favorites.








P.S: Please add up your favorites in comments here so that i could know something which i missed here.

My favorites of 2010

We are in the last days of the great year 2010. Everybody started to list their favorites of this year in various departments. Now it’ turn to list mine.

Movie:

1. Nandalala
2. Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya
3. Inception
4. Ayirathil oruvan
5. Angadi theru
6. Raavanan
7. Enthiran

Albums:

1. Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya -A.R. Rahman
2.  Aadukalam -G.V. Prakash Kumar
3. Enthiran -A.R. Rahman
4.  Engeyum Kadhal -Harris Jayaraj
5.  Naan Mahan Alla -Yuvan Shankar Raja
6.  Manmadhan Ambu -Devi Sri Prasad

Songs:

1. Aromale -Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya
2.  Mannipaaya -Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya
3.  Ayyayo -Aadukalam
4.  Dhimu Dhimu -Engeyum Kadhal
5.  Irumbile -Enthiran

Positive Vs Negative

I had seen many people perform self-analysis and trying to identify the positive and negative aspects of them. Some goes to an extent of asking the close ones to identify it. Even I had the habit for past couple of years. But for the past few days my mind raised a question that why we doing this.

The answer is simple, we believe removing our negative things will help us to grow higher, we believe successful peoples have only the positive aspects. Almost every people say negative things will act as a hurdle in  relationships. Believe me all of the above is just an illusion and the reality is entirely different from it.

If it is possible to remove our negative aspects, then there will not be any uniqueness among human beings. We are human’s, we do have our uniqueness which others races cannot have. Take for instance about me, I have several positive as well as negative aspects and the persons who are close to me know about both sides clearly. They never complained about the negatives I have, because they loved my positive side.

Successful peoples never have only the positive sides. They do have these negative aspects, but they wrap it under their positives. Most successful persons in this world do the following things,

•     Developing their positive skills
•     Being optimistic to use their negative sides also for successes
•     Importantly they hide their negatives.

The thing I am trying to tell is focus on your positive aspects to develop it big so that people will not care about your other side. Remember even a particle is said to be an atom only if it has a proton and electron. Physics say for the flow of energy we need both positive and negative terminals, likewise we need both aspects within us to have a good flow of life.

So don’t worry about the negative side of you, develop your positives and lead a great life.

Journey of life

 “Life to me is a journey – you never know what may be your next destination”

                                                                                                             – David Russell.

Life is always related to journey by philosophers and eminent speakers. There are several quotes said by them in relating life with journey. Is there a relationship? I tried to explore it in this post.

To make your journey smooth you will always need to choose a good path to travel, the same applies for your life. You need to choose a suitable path for you and that should also be a good path in order to make your life sweet and enjoyable.

The important thing in a journey is you will have several vehicles coming at you in opposite direction. If you like vehicle, you observe it and admire it. But you never consider it once it passes away. In life you should admire the persons who are opposite in nature, but never care about them once they moved away from you. Because persons with different or opposite to us will always have a lesson to teach or a special thing to admire. 

At some point you will have to overtake the front runners of your journey. It is possible only by great efficiency and precise timing. The front runners in your life are the competitors in workplace, business and for wooing a girl. In order to win them be efficient and empower yourself. Timing is the great influencing factor here, because in life you can get back everything you lose except time.

The medium used for the journey always changes, so do the co-passengers. Accept your changes in life with open hands, because you will not have the same perception and persons with you always. Like you explore new place for each second in a travel, change yourselves according to the present world. 

I hope you love to drive by own in a journey rather than keeping a driver. That’s always sweet. Don’t let others shape the course of your life, steer yourself with abundant energy, don’t confuse at cross roads, follow your own path and reach the desired destination. 

I wish you a sweet journey for long time. And I also believe that by making you to read this post made me a co-passenger of your journey.