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.

We all love LEGO. Everybody grew up with them, so they all hold a special place in our collective hearts. Except for those who grew up with Mega Bloks, but nobody liked those kids growing up anyway.

The world of LEGO has been celebrated more lately as franchises like LEGO Batman and LEGO Star Wars have taken over our consoles. Now we get even more of this fully manifested world as one cinema fan has captured some of our favorite Oscar nominated films and turned them into LEGO.

The remade scenes come from LEGO artist Alex Eylar, who has tons of creations over at MOCPaged. This site is completely dedicated to people making stuff out of their favorite LEGOs so it’s particularly awesome.

While you try to ponder that business model, take a look at some of our favorite Oscar nominated scenes after the jump and comment with guesses on which films these scenes are inspired from. Good luck!

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

Today the Director’s Guild of America announced its nominations for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in feature films 2010. As the DGA nominations are traditionally considered an indicator of who might end up with the Oscar in the same category, these nominations, and the winner, are watched pretty closely.

The nominations are :

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David O. Russell, The Fighter

I’m a little surprised that the Coen brothers were not nominated for True Grit. They’ve won the award before three years ago, for No Country for Old Men, so I thought they may be nominated again this year. I would bet they were choice number six on the list and just didn’t make the cut. Besides, I think Fincher is a lock for this, and probably the Oscar as well, so it’s not such a bad thing.

The winner will be announced at the DGA’s annual awards dinner Jan. 29 at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland. Who do you think will win, and who do you want to win?

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.

Indeed it is the time of year when inevitability the lists appear and people pick their favorites of 2010. Some have already done their lists and some, like me, like to wait a bit. That said and since I don’t want to be accused of not following trends, I will also be making a list (or two) of my picks of the best of 2010. However, in the interest of clarity and brevity (or neither), I’m going to pick my top 5 (or so) things in the main categories we cover here at The Flickcast.

Although, as our own John Carle covered the best of 2010 in games so well already, I won’t make much (if any) a list of those and will just mention my two favorites. In case you’re not familiar with those main categories we cover, they are as follows: Movies, TV, Comics, Games, Tech and all things Geek.

So, to that end, here’s my list (or lists really) of my picks of the top stuff of 2010.

Movies

Inception – I love smart movies and this one is pretty damn smart. Featuring great performances, a mind-bending plot and twists galore, director Christopher Nolan delivers with one entertaining ride I was talking about for weeks (and months) afterward. And with all the ways I can get distracted by other things, to still be taking about this movie now is a testament to just how great it is.

True Grit – I love Westerns and this one will go down as truly one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and the rest of the cast are superb and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld owns the screen. She is definitely one to watch. Plus, the Coen brothers have a genuine love and reverence for the classic Western conventions, even when they twist and turn them into new and even more compelling shapes.

The Social Network – When I first heard of this movie I was skeptical, as probably most were, about how interesting a movie about Facebook really could be. I had nothing to worry about. This brilliant film, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, delivers on all levels and tells a compelling story of one of the most impressive success stories in history. Along the way it also shows us a little something about the nature of greed, friendship and the real cost of success.

Winter’s Bone – This tale of a real heroes journey to find out what happened to her father before the bank forecloses on her home resonated with me for quite some time after watching this film. Jennifer Lawrence as the young mother and John Hawkes as her meth-snorting uncle really deliver top performances. Part crime movie, part thriller and part coming-of-age-story this film’s stark realism takes you into a world you didn’t know existed and holds you there until the lights come up.

The Fighter is the perfect award season movie. It’s based on a true story, it showcases some great acting, and it’s uplifting. It’s the type of movie that allows you to leave the theater happy and proud. How many times does that happen?

Director David O. Russell managed to bring a magnificent cast to this story about a working class boxer who is making one last push for a title. Mark Wahlberg plays Mickey Ward, a welterweight whose career  has been horribly mismanaged by his overbearing mother Alice (played by Melissa Leo).

In fact, his entire boxing career has been a family affair. His seven sisters frequently offer up unwanted opinions.  What a treat they are, swilling beer in their acid washed jeans and sporting amazing bang claws on the top of the heads. They steadfastly stand behind anything their mother says.

His half-brother Dickey is Mickey’s trainer, whenever he is not passed out in a crack flophouse. Dickey just floats about, showing up whenever it is convenient. Poor Dad is too beaten down by Alice to speak up.

The family completely enables Dickey.  Everyone knows what is going on with him, but no one dares to acknowledge it. After all, he’s the apple of their eye, because long ago, when Dicky was boxing, he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard.  Dickey has been the pride of Lowell ever since.  There is a documentary crew from HBO following Dicky around. He thinks it is for his comeback.  It’s really to show the chronic effects of crack use.

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

It may look a bit like Oscar fodder, but the very first trailer for The Fighter starring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg has hit the web, and it looks like it could be the next Rocky. At least, that seems to be what it’s going for.

The film comes from David O. Russell, the man who brought us I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings starring George Clooney and Ice Cube. It follows the story of boxer “Irish” Micky Ward as he broke into the sport in the mid 1980s.

The movie pits Bale and Wahlberg together as contentious brothers, who’s tension will drive the film and that looks to be a major appeal from the trailer. Also joining in is Oscar nominee Amy Adams, who plays Wahlberg’s love interest.

This script has been on the shelf for quite some time, with nearly half a dozen rewrites and changed studio hands countless times more. It looks like it’s finally found a home at Paramount and will hit theaters on December 10th.

Check out the first full trailer after the jump.

In news that will most likely be met with meh by the major cable outlets, production company Relativity Media announced that it will make a deal with movie rental giant Netflix to stream its content via the service. While that may not sound impressive, the other part of this deal will see Relativity bypassing traditional home video routs and cable stations like HBO or Showtime and going directly to Neflix’s streaming movie service.

With the backing of backing larger companies like Lions Gate Entertainment, Sony Pictures, and Universal Studios, Relativity will grant Netflix first rights to stream popular movies that are typically sent to premium cable channels like Starz, HBO, and Showtime following the movie’s DVD release. This arrangement is seen as a major development because it’s the first time a major movie producer has turned to online distribution for its movies and not gone the traditional route.

Could this be the start of a trend? We’ll see. It would probably seem like more of a big deal (at least to me) if the movies were a bit more impressive and if HBO and Showtime didn’t seem more concerned with creating original programming than showing movies. Still, it is an interesting development to be sure. Time will tell if it has an impact on other companies and if they join in.

The deal is set to launch with movies Skyline and The Fighter, featuring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, with more titles to follow soon.