This week sees the release of a few Academy Award nominees and winners, some new tv shows and some movies coming to Blu-ray for the first time. Among the ones we’re most interested in this week are Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, The Boondock Saints II, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The Commish and Up in the Air (with George Clooney and Anna Kendrick, pictured above.)

Check them out:

Movies

Capitalism: A Love Story (Blu-ray and DVD)

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit And The Pendulum ~ Lorielle New, Stephen Hansen, Bart Voitila (Blu-ray and DVD)

Falling for Grace ~ Gale Harold, Fay Ann Lee, Billy Asher (Blu-ray and DVD)

Hachi: A Dog’s Tale ~ Richard Gere, Joan Allen, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Blu-ray and DVD)

Nine Dead ~ Melissa Joan Hart, John Terry, Lawrence Turner (Blu-ray and DVD)

Old Dogs ~ John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Robin Williams, Seth Green (Blu-ray and DVD)

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The Winners

Just call her the giant slayer. Kathryn Bigelow and her modest little Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker beat out the behemoth box office champ Avatar for best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best editing, best sound editing, and best sound mixing. Bigelow made history, becoming the first female ever to win the award for directing.

James Cameron and company (Avatar) left with a total of three trophies: best visual effects, best art direction and best cinematography. The cinematography award seemed a little odd. After all, most of this film was computer generated, wasn’t it?

There were no real surprises in the acting categories. Best supporting actress went to Mo’nique for Precious, best supporting actor Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds, best actress was Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side, and Jeff Bridges finally won for Crazy Heart.

Up won best animated feature and best original score, while El Secreto do Sus Ojos (Argentina) won best foreign picture. The Cove won best documentary. For an expanded list of major category winners, scroll to the bottom of the article.

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Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire won Best Feature and a total of 5 awards last night at the 25th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards. Comedian Eddie Izzard served as Master of Ceremonies at the late-night show at LA Live’s event deck in downtown Los Angeles.

Here are all the winners:

BEST FEATURE
Producers Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness, Gary Magness for Precious

BEST DIRECTOR
Lee Daniels for Precious

BEST FIRST FEATURE
Scott Cooper, Robert Duvall, Rob Carliner, Judy Cairo, T Bone Burnett for Crazy Heart

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD for Best Feature made for under $500,000
Lynn Shelton for Humpday

BEST SCREENPLAY
Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber for 500 Days of Summer

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Geoffrey Fletcher for Precious

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This week on The Flickcast, Matt and Chris fly solo as they take on Sunday’s Golden Globes. Some surprises, some reliefs, and Matt talks Christina Hendricks while Chris talks Mo’Nique. They also discuss some other stories making waves including Apple’s announcement next week, and what that could mean for users of the iPhone, as well as Marc Webb getting to take on the reboot of Spider-Man.

Since it was just the two of them this week, Chris and Matt both got cocky and opted for two picks. Matt went with The Adventures of Power, an indie comedy starring Ari Gold (not Jeremy Piven) and the silver screen adaptation of Tucker Max’s I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, which hits DVD on January 26th. Chris also had two picks, as he went with Paul Thoman Anderson’s Magnolia on Blu-ray, which we’ll have a review of next week, and Whiteout starring Kate Beckinsale.

Sorry for the tardiness of the episode, but due to how much Matt and Chris gushed about the Golden Globes, we think it’s well worth the wait. As usual, if you have any comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

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The 67th annual Golden Globes awards took place last night, and Avatar walked away top honors of  Best Picture and Best Director, fueling speculation that it is gaining momentum going into the Oscar nomination race. Avatar and Crazy Heart picked up two awards each, but there were no lopsided wins this year.

Critical darling The Hurt Locker was shut out and went home empty handed.  The Hurt Locker has been cleaning up top honors at Critic Circle awards nationwide. Up in the Air was nominated for six awards, but only won for Best Screenplay.

Veteran actors Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep won acting awards, and delivered particularly elegant and classy acceptance speeches.

On the television side, Dexter fared well, with John Lithgow and Michael C. Hall both winning acting awards.  HBO’s film Grey Gardens won two awards as well.  Mad Men won for Best Television Series, Drama and freshman series Glee won for best Television Series, Comedy or Musical.

A complete list of winners follows. Also, be sure to check out our photo gallery of all the winners after the jump.

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I can’t really say that I enjoyed watching Precious. To do so would make me categorically misogynistic. Precious ( Based On The Book ‘Push’ by Sapphire) is a brutally punishing look into the life of an economically depressed 16 year old living in a ghetto with her insidiously evil mother. It is jarring, unflinching, and depressing. That is not to say that it is not a good movie, but don’t go expecting a joyful denouement to the story arc. Things are not wrapped up in a typical tidy Hollywood bow.

Precious is played by outstanding newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. She is an obese, dark-skinned, illiterate 16 year old pregnant with her second child. Her first child is mentally handicapped (Precious lovingly refers to her as Monglo) and is kept from Precious at a grandmother’s house. The only time Precious gets to see her child is when it is time for a social worker to visit the home.

The child is brought into the home so that the social worker will believe she lives there. This ensures that Mary, the mother of Precious, (played  by Mo’Nique) gets her welfare check. As soon as the visits are concluded, Mary drops the toddler like unwanted garbage.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the two pregnancies are the product of her very own father, and his repeated raping of Precious. Mary resents the “attention” that her mate has given Precious, and acts out her hatred toward the girl every single day. Her seriously warped logic concludes that Precious brought the rape(s) upon herself, and caused her father to abandon the twisted family.

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