Best Picture

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

Best Actor – Leading

• Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
• George Clooney – Up in the Air
• Colin Firth – A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman – Invictus
• Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker

Best Actress – Leading

• Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren – The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan – An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
• Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia

Best Actor – Supporting

• Matt Damon – Invictus
• Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Best Actress – Supporting

• Penelope Cruz – Nine
• Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
• Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
• Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
• Mo’Nique – Precious

Best Director

• Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
• James Cameron – Avatar
• Lee Daniels – Precious
• Jason Reitman – Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds

Best Original Screenplay

• The Hurt Locker – Mark Boal
• Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino
• The Messenger – Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman
• A Serious Man – Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
• Up – Bop Peterson, Pete Docter, Thomas McCarthy

Best Adapted Screenplay

• District 9 – Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
• An Education – Nick Hornby
• In the Loop – Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
• Precious – Geoffrey Fletcher
• Up in the Air – Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner

Best Cinematography

• Avatar – Mauro Fiore
• The White Ribbon – Christian Berger
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – Bruno Delbonnel
• The Hurt Locker – Barry Ackroyd
• Inglourious Basterds – Robert Richardson

Best Editing

• Avatar – Stephen E. Rivkin, John Refoua, James Cameron
• District 9 – Julian Clarke
• The Hurt Locker – Bob Murawski, Chris Innis
• Inglourious Basterds – Sally Menke
• Precious – Joe Klotz

Best Art Direction

• Avatar – Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – David Warren, Anastasia Masaro, Caroline Smith
• Nine – John Myhre, Gordon Sim
• Sherlock Holmes – Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
• The Young Victoria – Patrice Vermette, Maggie Gray

Best Costume Design

• Bright Star
• Coco Before Chanel
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• Nine
• The Young Victoria

Best Makeup

• Il Divo
• Star Trek
• The Young Victoria

Best Original Score

• Avatar – James Horner
• Fantastic Mr. Fox – Alexandre Desplat
• The Hurt Locker – Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders
• Sherlock Holmes – Hans Zimmer
• Up – Michael Giacchino

Best Original Song

• Crazy Heart – “The Weary Kind”
• Paris 36 – “Loin de Paname”
• Nine – “Take It All”
• The Princess and the Frog – “Almost There”
• The Princess and the Frog – “Down in New Orleans”

Best Sound Mixing

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Sound Editing

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Up

Best Visual Effects

• Avatar
• District 9
• Star Trek

Best Animated Feature

• Coraline
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Secret of Kells
• Up

Best Foreign Language Film

• Ajami (Israel)
• The White Ribbon (Germany)
• The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina)
• A Prophet (France)
• The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)

Best Documentary – Feature

• Burma VJ
• The Cove
• Food, Inc.
• The Most Dangerous Man in America
• Which Way Home

Ingredients:

• Salt
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil plus 2 tablespoons, divided
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 5 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 1 pound penne pasta
• 1/2 cup shredded basil
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 pound fresh salted mozzarella, sliced or cubed
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Directions:

Put a large pot of salted water on for the pasta. Meanwhile, prepare your sauce. In a large skillet, heat 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook until just fragrant, about 1 minute or less. Add the tomatoes and cook them for 3 to 5 minutes, just until they begin to release some of their juice.

Cook the pasta in the pot of salted boiling water for 12 to 13 minutes until al dente. Drain the pasta. Add the pasta and basil to the pan with the tomatoes and toss. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve the pasta in bowls, equally distribute the fresh mozzarella and grated Parmesan between the bowls. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the bowls of pasta and serve immediately.

Serves: 4

Smoked Salmon Pasta

Ingredients:

• 4 oz. mini-Farfalle (bow-tie) pasta
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 3 oz. smoked salmon, flaked (comes in package near tuna section)
• 2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• Black pepper

Directions:

1. Cook pasta al dente. Drain.
2. While pasta is cooking, saute onion in olive oil over medium heat 3-5 minutes in a large skillet.
3. Add heavy whipping cream and capers.
4. Cook until liquid is reduced by half and remove from heat.
5. Stir salmon, dill, lemon juice and pasta into cream sauce.
6. Season with pepper and parmesan cheese.

Serves: 2

1. Amelie
2. City of God
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Lost in Translation
5. The Royal Tenenbaums
6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
7. The Assassination of Jesse James
8. Y Tu Mama Tambien
9. Lord of the Rings (Trilogy)
10. Adaptation
11. Memento
12. Closer
13. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
14. Requiem for a Dream
15. The Motorcycle Diaries
16. Kill Bill
17. Punch-Drunk Love
18. Amores Perros
19. Shaun of the Dead
20. I Heart Huckabees
21. There Will Be Blood
22. Talk to Her
23. Let the Right One In
24. Almost Famous
25. Duck Season

Runner-Ups: The Life Aquatic, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, Little Miss Sunshine, Oldboy, Minority Report, Sideways, About Schmidt, Bad Education, Batman Begins, A Serious Man, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Squid and the Whale, Brick, Finding Nemo, and Mystic River.

MY FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2009

1. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective
2. Intuit by Ramona Falls
3. Embryonic by The Flaming Lips
4. Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear
5. Noble Beast by Andrew Bird
6. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
7. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix
8. Hospice by The Antlers
9. Wild Young Hearts by the Noisettes
10. Hold Time by M. Ward
11. Actor by St. Vincent

Honorable Mention: Fall Be Kind EP by Animal Collective (This five-track EP is actually stronger than some of these LPs!)
Personal Favorite: Wilco (the Album) by Wilco (While not as strong as some of these more innovative albums, Wilco is one of my favorite bands and I really enjoyed their latest endeavor.)

MY FAVORITE FILMS OF 2009

1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Where the Wild Things Are
3. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
   
4. A Serious Man
5. Moon
6. The Road
   
7. District 9
8. World’s Greatest Dad
   
9. Star Trek
10. Paranormal Activity

Honorable Mention: 2012 (for being such an awesome piece of shit)
Guilty Pleasure of the Year: The Box (atrocious acting from Cameron Diaz, and semi-cheesy story, but I’m a huge Richard Kelly fan and I love his style. It was like a feature-length episode of The Twilight Zone complete with one of the best scores of the year from Arcade Fire.)

What albums/movies am I missing from my list? Do share. I will say it’s unlikely anything will knock Animal Collective off the top of my list, as I’m convinced MPP is not only the best album of the year but also one of the best of the decade. I know it’s been hyped so much that now it’s not cool to like it anymore, but I just can’t help it. As far as movies go…there’s still a lot I have to see (such as An Education, The Road, A Serious Man, Avatar, etc.). So that list will likely change, but Inglourious Basterds will be hard to beat. I just loved it.

RIP Michael Jackson.

A sweet, electro remix of Billie Jean by Mathematikal.

Bonnaroo. Festival. City. Community. Culture. Whatever you want to label it – there’s nothing like it. My second time at the event was incredible. Lots of great bands and lots of great fun, plus the weather wasn’t half bad. I can’t wait to go back!

We arrived in Manchester, Tennessee around 5:00am and we finally got through security and to our campsite by 7:00am. We were right next to the VIP camping so we had a very short walk to get into Centeroo (where the bands play) and we could even see the What Stage from our campsite! It was perfect. We set up our tents as some ferocious clouds moved in, and right when we were finished nailing the last stake into the ground the rain came pouring down. It rained a good half-hour and drenched everything in sight. Mud was everywhere before the festival had even begun. But really this was a blessing in disguise as the rain we got on Thursday kept everything moist enough that we didn’t have a dust storm like the last time I went (breathing dust is not pleasant nor is it healthy).

Storm moving over Bonnaroo

Below I have summarized each show I saw and you can click here to check out how I rated each band…

• Janelle Monae - She was excellent. Great stage presence and lots of fun! Great way to kick off Bonnaroo. I’d love to see her again. She is so good live.

Janelle Monae crowdsurfing

• White Rabbits - They were okay. I only caught the last part of their show.
• Hockey - These guys were crazy but their music isn’t really my thing. They seemed like posers. Blah.
• Chairlift - They pretty much sucked. Interesting show but the music is just way too NOISY and annoying.
• Passion Pit - Oh how I love this band. Excellent show.

Passion Pit

• Tobacco - It started raining right when he started his set, but that just made it better. Great stuff.
• Katzenjammer - This all-female group from Norway rocked the stage. Fun show!

Katzenjammer jammin with a sweet bass guitar

• Gomez - I really like their earlier albums so I was glad they played some older stuff. But their new stuff sounds like Dave Matthews, which is not a good thing at all.
• Animal Collective - Despite the blazing sun and drunk frat boys trying to mosh to “My Girls,” they put on a good show. Lovely. I wish they had played at night though. It would have been so much better.

Animal Collective

• Santigold - If you ever have a chance to see her, DO IT! She is GREAT live. I left early to catch Grizzly Bear but really wish I would have stayed.
• Grizzly Bear - Chilled in the grass while they played their beautiful tunes.
• TV on the Radio - Again with the heat trying to ruin the show! Despite that, they did pretty good I guess. Kind of underwhelming. Third time seeing them. They like to change their songs up a lot when they play live, which can be fun but I wish they would have stuck with their original arrangements.
• David Byrne - Only stayed for a few songs as I wanted to rest up before the night shows began. He was great though.
• Phoenix - Best show I saw at Bonnaroo. TONS of energy and fun dancing and madness. Can’t wait to see them at Monolith in September!

Phoenix and a cool glowstick squid

• Femi Kuti & the Positive Force - I made the decision to skip Crystal Castles, who I have seen before, to catch this band because a few people said not to miss them. I’m glad I didn’t. Their music style is known as “Afro-beat” which is a blend of American jazz and funk with African percussion and vocals. They were incredible and I’m glad I saw them, even though everyone was raving about Crystal Castles.
• Pretty Lights - Probably my personal favorite at Bonnaroo. Their music is a wide mixture of electronic, downtempo, funk and hip hop that blends together into a beautiful, high-energy sound. They played a three-hour set and I was there for every second of it. They had total control of their audience. It was amazing.

• Paul Oakenfold - I am glad I picked Pretty Lights over his show, but he still knows how to throw a techno house dance party. I only caught a bit of the end of his show before heading back to my tent to catch some sleep because the sun was coming up and he was still going strong. That’s Bonnaroo for you!
• Bon Iver - What a perfect start to a Saturday afternoon. One of the best shows I saw. He brought Elvis Perkins out on stage during “For Emma” and a beautiful, stunning cover of Yo La Tengo’s “I Feel Like Going Home” and he got the whole crowd singing the ‘what might have been lost’ line during “The Wolves (Act I and II).” It was incredible.
• Wilco - I missed Of Montreal (who had a HUGE crowd) in order to get a good spot for Wilco. Slight regrets, but Wilco is one of my favorite bands. Third time I’ve seen them and the best. They played a few new songs and lots of older. Great samplings, though I left the show craving “Via Chicago” which they did not play and is my favorite Wilco song. But it’s all good. A couple of hot air balloons flew over the grounds during their show and hung out for a bit to listen to Wilco. It was cool. Again…only at Bonnaroo.

Hot air balloon flying over Wilco’s set

• Yeasayer – Another highly-anticipated show that did not let me down. Very trippy band and lots of fun live. And they had lots of cool lights (spheres and whatnot, reminded me of Sigur Ros) so that was fun. I’d love to see them again.

Yeasayer and their cool light show

• MGMT – What can I say…major letdown. So much hype surrounded their performance and so it was disappointing to see a total lack of energy. They suck live. And the new songs they played were pretty awful. I left the show early because I wasn’t feeling the electricity.
• moe. – I stumbled upon this band after leaving the MGMT show. I had never heard them but I knew they were a jam band, which I am not really into normally. They were surprisingly good (especially their low-key chill songs). I’m not gonna run out and buy their albums, but I was glad I checked them out.

moe. at This Tent

• Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – I’m not really a fan of this band, mostly because I’m not into punk rock, but they’re definitely good musicians and their music is tons better than any other punk rock I’ve heard. I saw them at Lollapalooza a couple years ago, much better this time.
• Andrew Bird – Another one of the best shows I saw this year. He is incredible live. You should all see him sometime. He is such an talented musician. He messed up with some loops on a song and kept starting over just so it would sound perfect. It did. 
• Band of Horses – Second time I’ve seen them. They are really good live. I only watched half of their show in order to catch Neko Case, but that’s only cause I saw them last year at Monolith. I thought I was going to pass out during the show. I had not eaten much of anything all day and so the lack of energy plus the blazing sun got to me.
• Neko Case - Good way to finish up Bonnaroo 2009. She is really good live. I was not fond of her bringing that stupid Triumph comedian dog puppet on stage to sing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” though. The puppet was not funny. Neko was not funny. The song was painful (only because of the puppet dog’s harsh, loud rasp). Neko is much better without a puppet backup singer. But enough griping, she really was great.

After Neko we headed back to our campsite to pack up and head back to Springfield that night. We lucked out in being close to the edge of our campsite and our neighbors left early too so we could get out. I wouldn’t recommend planning on leaving Bonnaroo on a Sunday night. It’s nice if you can but not always possible if your neighbors have no intentions of leaving that night too.

It was a fun and memorable experience. Bonnaroo is a little slice of heaven. Can’t wait to go back.

Do you have a short film collecting dust on the shelf?  One you’ve shot in the past few years?

We’re less than two weeks away from the submission cut off so here’s 5 simple reasons why, if you’re a filmmaker in SW Missouri, you should submit to the Springfield Little Film Festival:

1. It’s a chance to have your work shown off to the public at a great venue.
2. Whether you’re an entrant, or a finalist, or a winner, it looks good on your job or graduate school application.
3. It’s for a good cause – helping future film students achieve their dreams.
4. It’s a chance to share your work with the community.
5. Two words: after party.

So what are you waiting for?  Pull out that film and submit it before the June 30th deadline!

(via Diana Botsford)

Tonight I am heading to Manchester, Tennessee for BONNAROO! I’m stoked. It’s an 8-hour drive and we should be arriving around 3am, where we’ll probably have a 1-3 hour wait to get in. It takes a while to squeeze 80,000 people into an enclosed area, especially when they have to search every vehicle going in. Then we’ll be setting up camp and probably trying to get some sleep before the sun wakes us up in a couple of hours. Luckily this week it’s supposed to be 10 degrees cooler than when I went two years ago, so maybe the sun won’t turn our tents into ovens by 8am! Bonnaroo isn’t quite the best camping experience between the heat, the bugs, the odors, the dust, the mud, the sulfur water, the lack of a campfire. But those problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in the crazy world of Bonnaroo.

Here are the artists I plan on seeing each day:

Thursday

• Janelle Monae
• White Rabbits
• Delta Spirit
• Hockey
• Those Darlins
• Chairlift
• Passion Pit
• American Princes
• Tobacco

Friday

• Katzenjammer
• Gomez
• Animal Collective
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Grizzly Bear or Santigold (can’t decide)
• TV on the Radio
• David Byrne (w/ Dirty Projectors, Santigold, St.Vincent, & Katzenjammer)
• Phoenix
• Crystal Castles
• Pretty Lights
• Paul Oakenfold

Saturday

• Elvis Perkins
• Robyn Hitchcock
• Bon Iver
• of Montreal
• Wilco
• The Mars Volta
• Russian Circles
• Bruce Springsteen
• Yeasayer
• MGMT

Sunday

• Cage the Elephant
• Mike Farris
• Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
• Citizen Cope
• Andrew Bird
• Band of Horses
• Phish