Oscar Nominee Luncheon (2011)

OK, I’ll totally admit it…aside from actually attending the Cannes Film Festival, one of my dreams is to attend the Academy’s annual Oscar Nominee Luncheon. And, I ain’t picky, I don’t need to attend as a nominee. No way. Hell..I’d wait tables or, you know, make lattes for them if it got me in the door!

I mean…check out these pics and tell me this does not look like the coolest event of the entire award season. No pressure to win, no live-television audience, just all the free food, drink and movie star snapshots you can stomach. So awesome!

Oooo, hey, come to think of it, I made scads of lattes for Ms. Bening when I worked at Peet’s, so, who knows…maybe she’ll give me a recommendation for next year. Either way, sign me up!

Christopher Nolan wins WGA award for “Inception”

On Saturday night, Oscar nominee Christopher Nolan came one step closer to winning an Academy Award when he took home the WGA’s prestigious Best Original Screenplay award for “Inception”. Whoo-hoo! Finally someone that I actually voted for wins the top prize. So cool!

Of course, Nolan will have a tougher fight at the Oscars, where he’ll square off in the Best Original Screenplay category with Academy-favorite Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” and David Seidler’s amazing script for “The King’s Speech”, which wasn’t eligible for WGA consideration. So, here’s hoping the sci-fi geeks in the Academy follow the WGA’s lead and give Nolan his due.

In fact, maybe I should hire someone cool like this to plant the idea in their heads right now. Hmmm…

Anne Hathaway & James Franco to co-host the Oscars?!

Wow…what a strange and kinda shockingly-cool pick. We’ve always loved Anne Hathaway and she has been game for anything on a number of award shows recently.  And James Franco is just plain cool in anything. Seriously, he even managed to make a guest-starring gig on “General Hospital” cool.

Yep, he was on a soap opera, like, all last summer. I’m just saying, the dude is cool, not to mention totally versatile. He writes short stories too!

So, yay for both of them. Who knows, maybe their combined newbie host energy will make the Academy Awards a lot more fun? The only weird thing would be if Franco snags a Best Actor nomination for his rocking turn in “127Hours”. What does he do, like, excuse himself and hurry out into the audience to hear his name read? And better yet, what if he actually wins? Does he hold the award next to him the rest of the night? Weirdness.

Either way, kudos to the Oscar producers for thinking completely outside the box with this year’s Academy Awards host picks. Too cool!