Without further ado…

* The nominations for 83rd Academy Awards were announced this morning. It’s pretty much a holiday in my house. This morning my wife and I went through and marked what remaining films we still need to catch… which really is just The King’s Speech. 

* Unfortunately, the exhibit is now gone, but when Pixar was set up at the Oakland Museum, the Zoetrope had me mesmerized for about an hour. You can see it here. 

* Go Into The Story compiles a collection of  Diablo Cody interview responses.

* Talib Kweli released his first indie album, Gutter Rainbows, which is available now (digital only).

* Catch Adele‘s concert that she put on yesterday in London. She performs songs from her upcoming album, 21.

Below is a collection of interesting reads for this week’s Tuesday’s Links:

Scott Myers at Go Into The Story posted an excerpt from Stephen King’s article in a 1986 issue of The Writer on the 12 aspects of successful writing.

The New York Times launched an “Awards Season” page on their site, which features numerous articles on films likely to have their name called during upcoming Oscar awards. 

Christy Grosz of The Hollywood Reporter wrote an article on screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and his writing process.  It seems he’s a bit of a note card whore.

I’ve mentioned his work numerous times, and Marc Johns has now incorporated his illustrations into desktop artwork for desktops and for iPads and iPhones.  They’re available for free via Etsy.

This is a short film entitled “A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever,” which is claimed to be the 11th Best Picture Nomination of 2009.  It was put together by my new idols, Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher.

Brian & Nick’s website can be found here.

Despite my high consumption of vitamin C and washing of hands anal-ness, that dreaded cold that has been spreading around has found its way into my lungs.

Bastard.

I’ve got too much to do to slow down at all.  I’m a little behind on my Superhero pages, plus there are other writing assignments that can’t wait.

In regards to the Oscar nominations, overall I agree with most of their choices.  I am disappointed, however, in the ten nominations for Best Picture. 

Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Up
Up in the Air
An Education
The Blind Side
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man

The intention of increasing the number of nominees, supposedly, was to allow more room for genres that don’t normally get recognition to do so.  Great!  So, I see Up there, which would have probably unfairly been snubbed had there only been five nominations, but–

An Education?  A Serious Man? 

Both fit into the popularly-nominated drama category, yet neither can hold a candle to Up in the Air or The Hurt Locker. 

Where’s The Hangover?  Geez… I would have even been happier to see Paranormal Activity there.  At least that way, there would be more variety instead of the handful of drama flicks that have no chance in hell of winning.

Perhaps increasing the number of nominees to ten is simply a way to get people to go to the movies more, like my wife suspects.  I guess it’s worked.  We’re planning on going to see The Blind Side this week, when normally a movie like that would only be a Netflix pick.  Suckers…