Oscar nominations 2010 finally came out in the early morning. The Oscar nominations 2010 were largely predictable, at least in the acting categories. Most of the expected actors got in, as did the expected directors, but the most suspense was for Best Picture. In this year of 10 Best Picture nominees instead of five, there was much debate over what might fill out the field. At last, the Oscar nominations 2010 answered that with a couple of surprises - though whether there will be any more surprises this Oscar season is unknown.

Several films were locks to get in, and they did, as Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, Up In The Air and Up got in as expected. But to fill out the field, the Academy overlooked Oscar bait like Invictus and Nine, and went for small films like An Education and A Serious Man, and blockbusters like The Blind Side and District 9.

These four surprise movies added some intrigue this morning, but the Oscar nominations 2010 were largely predictable elsewhere. In the acting categories, most pundits probably got the vast majority of their picks right.

Best Actor nominees were Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman and Jeremy Renner, as projected for a while. Best Actress is made up of Sandra Bullock, Helen Mirren, Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe and Meryl Streep, which was inevitable.

For Best Supporting Actor, Christoph Waltz is heavily favored over Matt Damon, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Plummer and Stanley Tucci. The only slight acting surprise was in Best Supporting Actress, as Maggie Gyllenhaal got in for Crazy Heart, joining Penelope Cruz, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick and Mo’Nique.

The Oscar nominations 2010 had one surprise for Best Director as well. Precious’ Lee Daniels got in over Clint Eastwood for the final spot, joining James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino and Jason Reitman.

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One thing magazines love to do is call dibs on who will be the new “It” celebrities in the year to come. Sometimes they pick stars whose careers are destined to take off, occasionally they make incredible calls with near-nobodies who later become A-listers, and usually the majority of their picks fade into oblivion.

While we’d like to think celeb bible Vanity Fair puts a great deal of thought and planning into its annual “New Hollywood” issue, this year the editors really limited their scope when it came to choosing the next big stars. (Or perhaps they overemphasized the “Fair”? ) Every woman on its new cover is extremely thin and very, very white. Unless Vanity Fair considers one redhead to be diversity, we feel the need to cry foul.

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Since the release of the Twilight sequel New Moon, centering on the love triangle between theNew Moon characters of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner, millions of Twilight Saga fans have seen almost everything from the hit film. Although much of New Moon has appeared online, there are still a few deleted New Moon scenes floating around the Twilight web.

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New Moon, the second film in the Twilight Saga, has been one of the biggest money makers of 2009 grossing over $660 million worldwide at the box office. Given the popularity of New Moon and all things Twilight, New Moon is still one of the most popular films as we head into 2010. Twilighters still have to wait until New Moon hits DVD and Blu-ray in 2010, but we have two still shots from New Moon deleted scenes that found their way online.

From the two deleted New Moon images, Twilight fans get to see Rachelle Lefevre as New Moon Victoria, who has since been replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard for The Twilight Saga Eclipse. New Moon fans also get to check out Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen as Pattinson talks to Ashley Greene in the New Moon role of Alice Cullen as she stands in front of Bella Swan’s house.

(VIA THE DEADBOLT)

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Sony has quantified its latest round of pink slips at 450 layoffs, or 6% of the Culver City studio’s worldwide work force.

Another 100 open positions will be eliminated. More than half of the layoffs will hit its home-entertainment division and areas of IT staffing, reflecting the continuing decline in DVD revenue. Most of the pink slips will affect U.S. employees.

In March, Sony laid off about 250 employees and eliminated 100 open positions.

Sony Pictures Entertainment co-toppers Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal attributed the moves to a changing entertainment landscape.

“Amy and I have spent a lot of time thinking and talking and worrying about the impact that this has on people,” Lynton said. “We understand that they’re very, very difficult. We also, though, have to look to the future and make sure that the people who we do work with every day have a very good work environment and that the environment that we’ve created collectively, as a studio together, is the best possible one moving forward.”

Added Pascal: “Our industry is affected by two things: It’s affected by the economy, of course, and it’s affected by technology. Over the last two years, it’s changed people’s DVD buying habits, which has had a huge effect on our company and the industry at large.”

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There’s a new crop of female rising stars in Hollywood and they’re poised to take over!

Vanity Fair is set to release its annual Hollywood issue and this year the mag features a bevy of Hollywood’s young leading ladies.

Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan, Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall, Amanda Seyfried, Mia Wasikowska, Anna Kendrick, Emma Stone and Evan Rachel Wood all grace the cover of the mag that will hit newsstands in New York and LA on February 3 and nationwide on February 9.

“It’s such an iconic spread, that it’s a real honor to be a part of that. And coming on and seeing all these other actresses… it was an experience that you don’t have every day,” Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland, told the mag.

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For Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood issue a few years back, photographer Annie Leibovitz created a classic image of a film director at work. Posing beneath a stormy sky, George Clooney stood with his shirt ripped open, trousers tucked rakishly into his boots, arms outstretched – a young Orson Welles meets Michelangelo’s vision of God. His crew were a crowd of female models in flesh-coloured lingerie; not the obvious costume for a camera operator, but there you are. This was the auteur as masculine genius, a warrior amid a sea of passive women.

This has long been the archetype of the film director, but over the last few months a host of women have been making waves: Sam Taylor-Wood with Nowhere Boy, Lone Scherfig with An Education, Andrea Arnold with Fish Tank. Then there are Kathryn Bigelow and Jane Campion, both trailing Oscar buzz for The Hurt Locker and Bright Star respectively.

READ ARTICLE AT THE GUARDIAN UK

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Steve Sabol, the easygoing president of NFL Films and one of football’s great storytellers, has a handwritten sign on his desk that reads, “The buck doesn’t even pause here.”

Like his father Ed before him, Sabol wants his company’s filmmakers to spread their creative wings, take risks, find new ways to tell stories.

It’s that creativity that helped build NFL Films into the empire it is today, changed how we watch football, and has left a significant imprint on Hollywood.

READ ARTICLE AT LA TIMES

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In a miracle of brains over brawn, Kathryn Bigelow has just become the first woman to win best director for her film The Hurt Locker, beating her ex-husband’s behemoth, Avatar. Bigelow’s unprecedented success at the Directors’ Guild of America Awards, which often predict the Oscar results, is a sign that cinema is in a thrilling state of flux.

How counter-intuitive that Bigelow’s tense, minimalist Iraq war film should outdo James Cameron’s maximalist 3-D blue aliens, especially when only seven female directors have even been nominated in the 62 years of the awards. Yet Bigelow’s win, and Cameron’s rethink of the entire business of film-making, are both first blasts in a revolution. (And possibly an explanation of their divorce — just too much excitement for one household.)

As one big British movie honcho said last week: “After Avatar, film will never be the same again.” It’s not merely that aliens pulled in a box office take of nearly $2 billion worldwide, submerging Titanic as the biggest grossing film; it’s that Avatar was so retina-ravishing (despite leaden dialogue) that viewers will expect that same excitement for their tenner every time. No longer will flaccid rom-coms or chipmunk squeakquels make the grade. The moviegoer wants not merely action, but interaction.

READ ARTICLE AT THE TIMES UK

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Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Stars: Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel
Studio: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The Plot: Beth (Bell) is a young, ambitious New Yorker who is completely unlucky in love. However, when she impulsively steals some coins from a reputed fountain of love during a whirlwind trip to Rome, she finds herself aggressively pursued by a band of suitors.

EDGE OF DARKNESS

Director: Martin Campbell
Stars: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

The Plot: As homicide detective Thomas Craven (Gibson) investigates the death of his activist daughter, he uncovers not only her secret life, but a corporate cover-up and government collusion that attracts an agent (Winstone) tasked with cleaning up the evidence.

SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS

Director: Hue Rhodes
Stars: Steve Buscemi, Romany Malco, Sarah Silverman
Studio: IndieVest Pictures

The Plot: John (Buscemi) is a compulsive gambler who fled Las Vegas for a more normal life and steady job at an auto insurance company in Albuquerque. Tasked with co-investigating a dubious car accident, however, John finds himself back on the road to Sin City.

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It was built on sex, lies and videotape. Also “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” And “Pulp Fiction,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “The English Patient” and “The Postman.” Plus Quentin Tarantino, Matt and Ben, Gwyneth and Renee, and a foul-mouthed Jersey clerk named Smith.

And yesterday, it finally faded out.

Thirty-one years after it started – and 17 years after its founding brothers, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, fatally sold the company to Disney – Miramax has shut down for good.

According to its Mouse Factory overlords, its New York and Los Angeles offices will be swept clean. Its 80 employees will fill out unemployment applications. Its few remaining, unreleased movies? Sold off quickly to cable, probably, and forgotten.

The story of Miramax will be harder to forget.

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