With the Academy Awards still fresh in our minds, we can think of all the great films 20111 brought us. It is easy to forget that year also had tons of stinkers and flops, but the Razzie Awards are here to remind us.

The Razzie Award nominees have been announced, and their aren’t too many surprises. Adam Sandler has a record 11 nominations, and that’s not including nominations that are tied to his Happy Madison productions. Three films by the production company, Buck Larsen: Born to be a Star, Just Go With It, and Jack & Jill, all have multiple nominations each.

The Razzies, or Golden Raspberry awards, were created in 1980 as an antidote to the Oscars. They are usually held on the eve of the Academy Awards, but this year are moving to 1 April. Traditionally, stars do not turn up to collect their awards, but good sports over the years have included Paul Verhoeven in 1996 (worst director and worst picture for Showgirls), Halle Berry for 2005′s Catwoman and Sandra Bullock for 2010′s All About Steve.

Check out the nominations after the jump, and be sure to keep an eye out for these “winners” when they are announced on April 1.

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Just when you thought every possible Hollywood on-screen couple has been put together, another that totally takes us for a loop comes along. Hitting theaters in October, you can see Trespass starring both Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage. What?

That’s right, Ghost Rider and Satine from Moulin Rouge are joining forces to bring you Trespass, a Joel Shumacher film. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried. Here’s the film’s synopsis.

In a private, wealthy community, priority is placed on security and no exception is made for the Miller family’s estate.  Behind their pristine walls and manicured gardens, Kyle (Nicolas Cage), a fast-talking businessman, has entrusted the mansion’s renovation to his stunning wife, Sarah (Nicole Kidman).

But between making those big decisions and keeping tabs on their defiant teenage daughter (Liana Liberato), Sarah often finds herself distracted by a young, handsome worker (Cam Gigandet) at their home. Nothing is what it seems, and it will take a group of cold-blooded criminals led by Elias (Ben Mendelsohn), who have been planning a vicious home invasion for months, to bring the Miller family together. When they storm the manor, everyone is tangled up in betrayal, deception, temptation and scheming. Kyle, Sarah and Avery will take the ultimate risk to make it out with their lives – and their family – intact.

Think of it as Dog Days of Summer meets The Strangers with the simple twist of being a Schumacher film. Check out the trailer after the jump and catch the film in theaters and VOD on October 14th.

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This may be the biggest year for the Academy Awards, as some major Hollywood players are going up against some fresh newcomers. Eyeballs everywhere will be glued to ABC on Sunday, February 27th at 8PM E/5PM P when the awards show goes live. But before that, we decided to do some picking of our own with the staff’s predictions for each award.

For a full list of the nominees, check out our previous article on the subject. Now, on to the predictions.

Best Picture

Shannon Hood-The Social Network. It had early and consistent momentum all year, and the Academy appears to be trying to shake up their stodgy image. This would be the perfect film to put their money where their mouth is.

Matt Raub – True Grit. Not only are the Coens a regular in the “I Have an Oscar” club, but this testament to classic western films is definitely one for record books, between its all-star cast and gritty (no pun intended) visual style, this one definitely deserves the golden statue.

Chris Ullrich – True Grit. Even though this was a pretty great year for movies and there are many excellent choices in this category, True Grit stands on its own as my pick. As an example of pure movie storytelling, this Coen Brothers masterpiece excels on every level and delivers a pure entertainment experience you will want to revisit many more times in the future.

Cortney Zamm – The Social Network. There’s a lot of great films in this category, some of them from my favorite directors and starring my favorite people. But the one that combined all of the essential elements of filmmaking into a truly gorgeous, compelling, and memorable film was The Social Network.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the  nominees for the 83rd annual award ceremony this morning. The King’s Speech was the front-runner with 12 nominations. Overall, there weren’t too many surprises.

Many were disappointed  that Christopher Nolan did not receive a best director nod, but as a consolation prize, Inception was nominated as a contender for best picture.
True Grit did quite well, with Hailee Steinfeld nabbing a best supporting actress nod, and nominations for best picture, best director(s), best actor, and best adapted screenplay. Winter’s Bone was recognized for best actress, best picture, and best adapted screenplay. Dogtooth, Jackie Weaver, and Javier Bardem were nice surprises.

Here are the nominees in the order that they were announced.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld True Grit
Jackie Weaver Animal Kingdom

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale The Fighter
John Hawkes Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner The Town
Mark Ruffalo The Kids Are All Right
Jeffrey Rush The King’s Speech

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I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

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The Screen Actor’s Guild has announced their nominees for best in film and television for 2110.  Since these awards are voted on by other actors, they usually carry a certain prestige. Rosario Dawson and Angie Harmon announced the guild’s nominees this morning in Los Angeles.

For those keeping score, The King’s Speech leads the film pack with four nominations, along with Black Swan. On the TV side, Modern Family came in with 4 awards, followed by Dexter, Glee, and Mad Men with three nominations each.

The awards will be  given on Sunday, January  30th on TBS. For a complete list of nominees, visit the official SAG website.

FILM

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

JEFF BRIDGES / Rooster Cogburn – TRUE GRIT

ROBERT DUVALL / Felix Bush – GET LOW

JESSE EISENBERG / Mark Zuckerberg -THE SOCIAL NETWORK

COLIN FIRTH / King George VI – THE KING’S SPEECH

JAMES FRANCO / Aron Ralston – 127 HOURS

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

ANNETTE BENING / Nic - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

NICOLE KIDMAN / Becca – RABBIT HOLE

JENNIFER LAWRENCE / Ree Dolly – WINTER’S BONE

NATALIE PORTMAN / Nina Sayers – BLACK SWAN

HILARY SWANK / Betty Anne Waters – CONVICTION

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Rabbit Hole is a gut churning look at the aftermath one couple is left with after losing their four-year old son.  Stark, raw, and devastating, the movie delivers a voyeuristic look into the life of Becca and Howie, who are struggling day to day eight months after the death of their son.

You always hear how common it is for couples to split up after the death of a child, and it is easy to understand why.  This movie shows us the dissolution of Becca and Howie’s marriage in a unflinching, yet nuanced way.

Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) handle their grief in drastically different ways.  Howie openly weeps while watching home videos of his son every night, while Becca takes a more pragmatic approach to her grief.

Howie prefers to leave every trace of their son intact-the fingerprints on doorknobs, the bedroom left precisely as it was before his death.  Becca wants to move out of the house that harbors far too many painful memories for her to bear.

He sees these things as memories that keep his son alive, she is haunted by those very same memories. Where is the middle ground?  No one is really wrong here.

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Just two weeks  before filming was to begin,  Nicholas Cage has pulled out of Joel Schumacher’s Trespass. According to reports, Cage is on vacation and will stay in the Bahamas.

Rather than waiting for the star, the studio plans to keep the film on schedule and will move forward without Cage. The studio is currently scrambling for a replacement. The rumored forerunner for the role is Liev Schreiber.

In the film, Cage was set to play opposite Nicole Kidman as a husband who is kidnapped with his wife by a group of thugs looking for ransom. The problems began when Cage decided that he rather play one of the kidnappers instead of the lead male role.

One thing is for sure, Cage isn’t known for pulling out of projects or turning down roles. Even with a recent streak of wins such as Knowing and Kick-Ass, Cage has taken on some horrible roles in films like The Wicker Man, Next, Ghost Rider, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Astro Boy, Bangkok Dangerous and the upcoming Season of the Witch.

How bad could a role be that the man who was the “star” of The Wicker Man remake decided to drop out? Could it be that Schumacher is past his prime and is making a film that even Cage knows is horrible? Or is it another bad move by Cage who may end up regretting it? Only time will tell.

While director Rob Marshall is curruntly donning his tri-corner hat and swashbuckling pants for Pirate of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides, he’s still doing some press for his film Nine, which hits DVD and Blu-ray on May 4th.

Marshall’s Nine made a few splashes last year, getting nominated for four Academy Awards and winning a few Satellite Awards. Marshall managed to take the excitement and aesthetic of 2002′s Chicago and put it into the setting of Italian cinema in the late 1960s.

The film also spared no expense on cast with names like Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, and Judi Dench. We’ll be bringing you more features from the DVD release as we draw closer to the date, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, check out a look at director Rob Marshall after the jump.

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About thirty minutes into Rob Marshall’s musical Nine, I kept getting a nagging sense of déjà vu. It finally dawned on me that the movie reminded me a lot of All That Jazz, the 1979 musical directed by Bob Fosse. That movie starred the late Roy Scheider, who portrayed a brilliant choreographer experiencing an existential crisis in the days leading up to a big Broadway production. He copes with his pathos by popping pills and chasing women, and his self destructive ways ultimately cost him the love and respect of his daughter and those closest to him.

In Nine, Daniel Day Lewis plays a brilliant Italian director who experiences an existential crisis in the days leading up to the first day of filming for his new movie. He is a scoundrel, and has so many entanglements with various women that it ultimately threatens his health, marriage and relationships, not to mention the movie.

As soon as I got home, I started researching and found out that All That Jazz and Nine were both based on Federico Fellini’s 1963 film 8 1/2, which is widely considered a masterpiece in most film circles. While All That Jazz was Bob Fosse’s re-imagining of 8 1/2 with autobiographical components liberally interwoven, Nine is a more faithful adaptation of the story.

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We’ve been covering this movie quite a bit here at The Flickcast, mostly because it looks really good. Previously, we brought you some nice pictures from the film, an outstanding preview video and an exclusive clip.

Now, here’s your first look at the full trailer for Rob Marshall’s upcoming musical extravaganza NINE, which first appeared over at Apple’s trailer site. In this trailer, we’re given much more of the story from the film, which concerns disillusioned director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life.

We also get a peek at some of the acting performances, which even though this is obviously a musical, will still feature prominently in the film — especially when you’ve assembled the acting talent of stars such as Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Judi Dench.

Check out the new trailer after the jump. NINE opens in NY and LA on December 18 and everywhere else on Christmas Day.

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As you may know, this Rob Marshall directed film is loosely based on Fellini’s 8 1/2. It tells the musical story of film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) who’s facing a mid-life crisis. As he struggles to complete his latest film he examines his career, his life and the relationships with the various women in it.

If the quality of a film can be judged by the quality of its behind the scenes featurette, then I can safely say that Rob Marshall’s NINE is going to be one heck of a film.  I’ve also included some new pics from the film as well which further illustrate just how great this movie is going to look.

Put all that together with the stellar cast and Marshall’s unquestioned ability to execute terrific musicals and NINE looks to have all the making of a hit. Be sure to check out the behind the scenes video and pics after the jump.

NINE, featuring Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson and Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson, hits theaters on Christmas day.

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