The Oscars

All around the world, there are various organizations and festivals that recognize achievements in cinema. In the U.S. alone there are over 70. On March 7, the Annual Academy Awards, the most prestigious of the awards, will be held in the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Normally, only 5 movies are nominated for best picture, however, this year 10 were selected. Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, and Up In The Air. I disagree with some of the movies that were selected, for instance, The Blind Side is a pretty good movie; it's entertaining and is easy to follow. The problem with the Blind Side is that it has no depth and it is a movie that is easy to make, easy to carry out. The audience will like this movie because it's a success story. Not Oscar worthy in my opinion.
Avatar, I'm embarrassed to say, I have not seen. Up in the Air is very much worthy of an Oscar, George Clooney made a hell of a performance. District 9 is a movie with a genre that is not very "Oscar friendly", science fiction, but the acting by the main character is phenomenal, he does an excellent job of transmitting emotion. Inglorious Basterds is another crowd pleaser, not Oscar worthy, but the antagonist of the film is an extraordinary actor and should win an Oscar for best supporting actor.
Up is a great movie and I am all for it being nominated, however, Up in the Air is the winner for me out of the ones I have seen.
The rest I have not seem either because I haven't had the time (A Serious Man, Avatar, The Hurt Locker, An Education) or because they are so depressing it's ridiculous (Precious).

Cruel Intentions, not the best movie but a must see

There are like 1000 different Cruel Intentions movies, I haven't bothered to watch any of them except for the first one. The movie was released in 1999; Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, and Sarah Michelle Gellar star in it. People over their twenties would probably consider this movie to be ridiculous, if you are younger though, it definitely is a must see. It's a movie about two wealthy adolescents, their parents are married to eachother and they have nothing to do but spend money.
Sebastian (Phillippe), prides himself in ruining girl's lives by lying to them in order to get them into bed. Kathryn (Michelle Gellar) has a double life, she appears to be the perfect daughter and perfect student but she is a promiscuous girl who wants to sleep with everybody just for fun while trying to keep her reputation intact. Reese Witherspoon plays Annette, a virginal girl from Kansas who is the next school Headmaster's daughter. Sebastian, bored with his mediocre conquests, sets himself the nearly impossible goal of lying his way into bed with her. Kathryn is doubtful that he will accomplish his goal and makes a bet with him. The rest of the movie is about Sebastian trying to make Annette sleep with him and falling for her in the process. There is also a sub-plot that involves Sebastian awakening another innocent girl's libido, a girl who unknowingly stole Kathryn's boyfriend.
It's basically a story about adolescence and how, when at that age, people take life too seriously. Sebastian ends up dying because he dives in front of a car that was about to run over Annette while she was trying to save him from a fight with the innocent girl's boyfriend.
This movie teaches us two things; the first one, don't take life too seriously. The second lesson it teaches is that what goes around comes around.
A truly ridiculous movie if you overanalyze it, but worth watching.

Jack Nicholson vs. Robert De Niro

When an actor is considered to be extremely talented at his craft, more than average, he/she is considered to be the actor of his/her generation.
Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson, along with a few others, such as Al Pacino and Meryl Streep, are considered to be the actors of their generation. Today I will compare Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro, they both are considered to be some of the greatest actors ever by critics. I won't lie and say that I have seen every single movie that they have been in; however, I have seen enough to make a decent desicion regarding which of the two is better at his craft.

Jack Nicholson can do everything, he can make audiences laugh, like he did in the movie Anger Management, feel desperation like he did in the movie The Shining, or make one sympathize him like in the movie Something's Gotta Give. He is so observant and executes his roles so well that he can transmit many different emotions. His roles are diverse, from a dying man who regrets not living his life to the fullest in The Bucket List to a cowardly mob boss in The Departed. He has won three Oscars for best actor in a leading role (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Terms of Endearment, and As Good as it Gets).

Robert De Niro is also a great actor, he does the role of mobster better than anybody like in Casino and in Goodfellas. He has won two Oscars, one for best actor in a leading role (Raging Bull) and one for best supporting actor (The Godfather Part II). His roles, however, aren't as diverse, he usually plays a serious, cold character. In Meet the Parents, he is a jelous and suspicious father, in Analyze This he plays a disturbed mob boss, in 15 Minutes he plays a respectable detective. He hasn't made the best choices in the movies he is in though, Show Time was pretty bad and Stardust was even worse.

In conclusion, even though they are both great actors, Jack Nicholson dominates more genres than Robert De Niro does. Robert De Niro can be monotonous in his roles and Jack Nicholson is much broader in his roles. Even if Robert De Niro is the best mobster out there, Jack Nicholson does everything else better. Nicholson has been more selective, he has made better choices in the movies that he is in.

Movies

Movies are a wonderful source of entertainment; they teach us things, make us feel happy, sad, angry, frustrated, scared, relieved, and they make us laugh. The main reason why most of us like movies is for their ability to transport us into another world. When we watch a movie we forget our troubles, we let go of the stress in our lives temporarily. We are influenced by movies, they dictate the new styles, who is the most popular celebrity, even the way we talk. People come together to watch movies, we go to our friend's homes, or to our significant other's home, or people come to ours to watch a movie. We talk about them afterwards and discuss what we thought was most interesting about the film or talk about what we learned from it. Ever since I can remember I have loved movies, the way good actors transmit their feelings and the way a good director portrays his vision.
Hollywood is the place where most movies are made; its where most studios are located and it has given us various icons throughout its history, icons such as Charles Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Marylin Monroe, Rudolph Valentino, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and many more. These names are some of the first ones, today there are also a great number of outstanding actors such as Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, George Clooney, Clive Owen, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and a few more. Good actors are not commonly seen, most movies out there are terribly done, they have horrible acting, not very good directing, and sometimes even the writing is terrible. It is not an easy thing to do, to make a good movie. We can blame that on people's unquenchable thirst for fame and how they will do anything to star in a movie but that is a whole different subject.
There are movies which are made with extremely low budgets, a recent one would be Paranormal Activity which was made with only $15,000; other movies are made with huge budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars like Lord of the Rings or Avatar.
Other countries make their own movies as well, however no other country's movies are as popular as American movies.
I love a good movie, the genre doesn't matter as long as it is done well.