Mary's Award Nonimations for 2010

**Winners have a double asterisk

Best Actor

**Christian Bale - The Fighter
George Clooney - The American
Colin Firth - The King's Speech
Leo DiCaprio- Inception
Robert Duvall - Get Low
Ewan McGregor - Ghost Writer
Kodi Smit-McPhee - Let Me In
James Franco - 127 Hours

Best Supporting Actor

**Ewan McGregor - I Love You, Philip Morris
Sam Rockwell - Conviction
Jeremy Renner - The Town
Lucas Black - Get Low
Giovanni Ribisi - Middle Men

Best Actress

**Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Natalie Portman - Black Swan
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Tilda Swinton - I Am Love
Carey Mulligan - Never Let Me Go
Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit

Best Supporting Actress

**Barbara Hershey - Black Swan
Mia Wasikowska - The Kids Are All Right
Mia Wasikowska - I Am Love
Rebecca Hall - The Town
Amy Adams - Fighter

Melissa Leo - The Fighter

**Actually, the entire cast of Winter’s Bone should be nominated.

Best Movie

**True Grit
I Love you, Philip Morris
The Town
Inception
The Kids Are All Right

Great Acting in these flicks, but "Best Movie"? I don't think so:

Black Swan - Too Weird
Winter's Bone - Too Depressing
I Am Love - Didn't get Tilda's attraction to her lover
127 Hours - Not much story, too much with the regrets
King's Speech - Too slow
The Fighter - I hated all the characters

Best Foreign Film

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor)
**The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
The Secret in Their Eyes* - Actually this already won Best Foreign Film last year!

Best Documentary:

**Oceans
Babies
Waiting for Superman
Inside Job
NOTE: I never saw Exit Through the Gift Shop, but that will probably win

How Do You Know

Chick Flick, Comedy
3 stars
Cute movie, better than I expected. Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd star as two people who meet on a blind date on the worst day of their lives. Another wrinkle is Witherspoon is already dating Owen Wilson. Jack Nicholson co-stars as Rudd’s father. My complaints are that the film did not really tell you what the characters occupations were. At least I knew from the previews that Wilson was one of the Washington Nationals baseball players, but they don’t tell you this until halfway through the film. Witherspoon plays women’s softball? Baseball? But she gets cut from the team at the beginning of the movie, and now she is out of work. I wasn’t aware there was a professional women’s ball club? Rudd works for some sort of financial company, but even that is left very vague. It’s a cute romance, and since most Chick Flicks suck anyway, this one is better than most this year, since thank God there are no silly pratfalls. Cute Romance.

I Love You, Philip Morris

Indie, Comedy
4.5 stars
Loved it! It’s probably best not to know anything about the movie going in, so I’ll save the “what’s it about” for the end here, but I’ll tell you it’s not for homophobes. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor star in this very quirky, funny and original film. This is probably the first time I’ve seen Ewan McGregor become so immersed in his character, that I forgot who I was watching – i.e. excellent acting on his part, and Carrey was really good here too (not the crazy, out of control Carrey we are used to). Really good, mostly light and quirky, but it did make me cry once or twice, only to make me laugh again a few minutes later. Don’t read any further if you don’t want to know what it’s about. Carrey stars as a suppressed homosexual who finally comes out of the closet only to learn “it’s really expensive being gay”, so he turns to cons to make enough cash to support his new flashy lifestyle. McGregor co-stars as the love of Carrey’s life, and as I said earlier, I thought he was fantastic. Very good movie.

True Grit

Drama, Dry Comedy
5 stars
Excellent movie, and I don’t even like Westerns! The real star is Hailee Steinfeld as a brainy 14 year old girl who hires a mean and nasty U.S. Marshal (Jeff Bridges) to hunt down and capture the man who killed her father (Josh Brolin in a too-short role as the bad guy). Along for the ride is Matt Damon as a Texas Ranger who also wants to capture Brolin. Thanks to the talented Coen Brothers’ screenplay and direction, the plain-spoken dialogue and wry humor are just right mix for a gritty, but amusing tale. I never saw the original John Wayne version, but Jim, who is a big John Wayne fan, liked the new version better. Excellent acting, excellent film, just go see it.

Little Fockers

Comedy
2.5 stars
Only for Focker fans. Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro star as in-laws at odds again. Expect much the same humor as in the two previous films, no better, no worse. Too bad Barbara Streisand’s role was so small because she was the best part of movie. This time Jessica Alba co-stars as a pharmaceutical rep who tries to seduce Stiller. While I appreciate the writers trying to come up with a new storyline, it seemed like her role dragged down the story. As usual, Dustin Hoffman and Owen Wilson co-star, but Babs was the best. Don’t even rent it; wait for cable.

Gulliver’s Travels

Comedy
3 stars
Cute, passable comedy starring Jack Black as a mailroom clerk who finds himself on a trip to the Bermuda Triangle only to wake up tied down by hundreds of tiny people. Emily Blunt plays a tiny princess and Amanda Peet plays Black’s love interest. I enjoyed the special effects, but I wouldn’t bring young ones unless you want them repeating “lame ass”. It’s a cute take on the classic tale, but not the best effort.

The King’s Speech

Indie, Period
4 stars
Slow, but good. Based on a true story, Colin Firth stars as a stammering king-to-be George VI, who seeks assistance from an unconventional speech therapist, Geoffrey Rush. Costars include Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Peirce and Michael Gambon. There are some amusing scenes, mostly when Rush’s colorful character emerges on screen and especially when Firth goes on a swearing rant. Firth was excellent as the royal stutterer but my money is still on Christian Bale as Best Actor. Good movie.