Top 10 little-known and under-appreciated movies of 2011

As a movie lover I look forward to February. The Oscars, as silly as they are, give me an opportunity to re-visit my movie going experience from the previous year.

With a few notable exceptions, many of the films that I liked did not get nominated by the academy. That's okay. I know that my tastes aren't as mainstream as most, but just to give these films a little more exposure I made my own top 10 list.

The films represented here weren't necessarily my favorites, but they were among my favorites. Many people haven't seen them (as evidenced by their small box office numbers).

To make it easier on the reader I have also given preference to movies that are already available on DVD and (most) are available on Netflix Streaming for immediate viewing^*.

Assuming you didn't just skip all of this and go right to the list, you can do so now.

Stuff Smart People Like: Oscars Contest and Live-Tweet via #SmartyOscars

Ladies and gentlemen the time is almost upon us to sit in our favorite chairs and waste three hours of our lives watching self-important people celebrate how awesome they are. That's right, we are talking about the Oscars!

We know that Billy Crystal won't be enough to keep the average member of Smarty Nation glued to the TV, so we decided to "personalize" the experience.

To that end we are doing two things:

1. We are holding an "Oscar pick em'" contest. You can make your picks below. The person with most correct picks will win a $25 amazon gift code. You must make your picks by 11:59pm on February 25th to be eligible for the prize. Good luck!
2. We will also be live-tweeting during the Oscars via our own personal twitter accounts (@edomaniac, @mrbenalexander, @NeuroJay, Dean is a Luddite) and our main account @smartppllike. You can join in by following us and using the hashtag #SmartyOscars in your posts during the event.

If Oscar nominated movie posters told the truth

This is awesome. A collection of movie posters with altered, more honest, titles. For instance, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo becomes "All the Rape, No Subtitles" and The Help becomes "White People Solve Racism." Unfortunately, the main link to the whole collection isn't working currently, but this site has quite a few of them.

Oscar Surprises and Snubs

I was all set to create my "Surprises and Snubs" post for the Oscars when I found out that SFGate had already beat me to it with a list that pretty clearly aligns with my thoughts. You can find it here.

I would add a few things:

1. Shailene Woodley should have received a nomination for best supporting actress because of her excellent work in The Descendants. She stole every scene in the film. Including those that she shared with George Clooney.
2. Though I haven't seen either film, I am surprised that Tilda Swinton didn't get a nod for her work in We Need to Talk About Kevin and that the film Young Adult received zero nominations as the buzz around that movie suggests to me that it was worthy of some acclaim.

Your thoughts?

Academy Award Nominations Announced

Hey folks. The Academy Awards nominees have been announced.

Quick thoughts:

• 9 films are competing for best picture 
• Hugo got the most nominations (11)
• None of the five nominees for best animated film were made by Pixar
• I could be wrong, but I think all but one of the nominated directors have been nominated at least once before (Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist).
• Melissa McCarthy, Jonah Hill, and Rooney Mara were all nominated for acting awards.
• Surprise! Meryl Streep got another nomination. I've lost count, but I think that makes 16 total nominations.

The Oscar contest for the blog will be online soon. The awards will be held Sunday, Feb 26^th.