That wonderful time of year has arrived again, when the Academy announces the highest nomination honour in the motion picture industry. Taking into account the rule-book changes they introduced this year, you could say that the nominations are more exciting than last years—however, let’s not stress those changes, and rather focus on the actual nominations.

No big surprises this year, not even with ten Best Picture nominations. The Blind Side being nominated for Best Picture could be considered a mild surprise, but the rest of the nominees were set-in-stone for months. The Princess and the Frog not receiving a Best Original Score nomination was somewhat odd, but the two Best Original Song ones kind-of balance it out.

Overall, Avatar and The Hurt Locker received the most Academy Award nominations—nine. Again, not a surprise. Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds received eight, previous-darling-put-to-shame Nine only four (including only one for the music—a travesty for a musical), my favourite of the year, Precious, received Best Picture, Best Actress and Supporting Actress, Best Directing, Editing, and Adapted Screenplay nominations (six), the same as Up in the Air with Clooney a Best Actor nominee, Pixar’s Up followed in the footsteps of WALL-E and received five Golden Boy nominations, and Star Trek received three technical nominations.

Best Picture

• Avatar (James Cameron and Jon Landau)
• The Blind Side (T.B.D.)
• District 9 (Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham)
• An Education (Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey)
• The Hurt Locker (T.B.D.)
• Inglourious Basterds (Lawrence Bender)
• Precious (Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness)
• A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
• Up (Jonas Rivera)
• Up in the Air (Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman)

Read More »

Click here.

The Catholic Church adhering to their anti-contraception-based, homophobic, traditionalist and conservative dogma deserves notice in my opinion. I may not agree with any of their ideas (not anymore, at least), something must be said for them remaining firmly dogmatic and not budging from their principles. The Church truly believes it represents God on earth and that they have always done so. As such, it would be odd to throw away dogma that has represented God in the past—it would be an outright admission of being wrong, and, thusly, not being able to be trusted ever.

Yes, in that capacity I truly take notice of the Catholic Church—as I do fundamentalists. In my opinion, it is simply fact that religion and progressive do not go together; that religion and liberal concepts do not go together; and that religion and change are two incompatible concepts as well.

That is what makes the bible such a human book—without a doubt written by humans, for humans, and containing only human concepts. Read More »

Happy New Year, drunken fools.

Gelukkig Nieuwjaar, hooggeëerde mede-Nederlanders.

After a long break, it appears that I’m back to blogging again. Between everything at university; working on Aleksandr Magazine and other sites; writing short stories and poems; sending out lacklustre work to The New Yorker and the Virginia Quarterly Review, and some better work to the same Virginia, as well as the Boston Review and Columbia Journal; and, having absolutely no blogging inspiration, this little vixen was left abandoned and ignored.

However, no more of that! I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, I have to say. Not only am I way behind on the film ratings articles, I also haven’t shared much of my colourless and tedious life of the last six month with you—for shame! (Not that there’s really that much to share, but, whatever. Just roll with it.) Well, that’s definitely going to change from now on.

I do not know how it feels to be a second-rate citizen by law, growing up in a liberal and progressive country, but I do know how it feels to be considered second-rate and to be treated like you are worth nothing.

It still amazes me that evolved and cultured people in this day and age can look at someone who is unlike themselves and proclaim that person to be less of a human being. Especially those who cling on to “morals” and “family values.” Is it not the ultimate moral thing to help, respect and love your fellow man, a member of the extended family of human beings, regardless of gender, sexual preference, ethnicity and/or religious preference?

Why is it that in the twenty-first century people are still discriminated against, when we have all this wicked history to fall back on in our considerations? Have some learned nothing from the past?

I hope that we someday can all look back at this time as world-changing—a time in which true equality was achieved. However, the roadblocks ahead of us first need to be bulldozed before we can get to a peaceful and equal future. And with dreams and hope alone that will never happen. Passivity’s time has expired and only through social and political actions, militant if necessary, can we eradicate the poisonous brume and finally get to a clear and unclouded existence.