Good news for all you Ender’s Game fans out there as there is finally some forward motion on the film. Ender’s Game has had a long journey getting from a novel to the big screen and finally has a production blog. Even though there is only a single image posted so far, producer Roberto Orci promises to have exclusives from the film over the next year. This would include guest appearances by well known cast members.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Orson Scott Card book series, here is a synopsis. Set in Earth’s future, the plot presents an imperiled humankind who have barely survived two conflicts with the Formics, an insect like alien species that are usually called “Buggers”. These aliens act much like gigantic super smart Earth ants and are very protective of their queen. In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, an international fleet maintains a school to find and train future fleet commanders.

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!

This week on The Flickcast brings more insight, innovation and innuendo from your favorite co-hosts. That’s right, Chris and Matt are back and discussing all sorts of new and returning topics.

Some of those topics include the Oscars, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Call of Duty: Black Ops Map Packs, the Verizon iPhone, Fantastic Four developments, Smallville’s final season and potential spin-offs, the Dead Space 2 ads and much more.

Chris and Matt also made new picks this week including Matt’s pick of the Sam Raimi film Darkman the and Chris’ pick of the new Starz series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

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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