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This Sunday, March 7, Barbara Walters will host her final Academy Awards special. After 29 years, the 80-year-old veteran journalist is ready to pass the duty along to someone else. Who better to take it on than MTV's Josh Horowitz?

He'll need some help though. Josh is a pro, but these are Barbara Walters' shoes he's trying to fill. Just learning to walk in heels is going to be a challenge! Fortunately, Josh has a lot of friends out in the world. People like "Avatar" star Stephen Lang, "A Serious Man" star Fred Melamed and "The Hurt Locker" star Anthony Mackie. They're all pulling for him -- wellll, maybe not Mackie -- and they've all got some words to share, as you'll see in the video below.

Make sure you follow us on Sunday night for ongoing Oscar coverage, starting at 6pm with Hollywood Crush's red carpet fashion coverage and a live streaming red carpet show. Then head over here to Movies Blog at 8pm to follow our live blog of the ceremony. Should be a fun night... let us know your predictions in the comments section below.

Tags A Serious Man, Anthony Mackie, avatar, Fred Melamed, Stephen Lang, the hurt locker, Video

FROM MTV.COM: Days after winning its seventh-straight weekend at the box office, "Avatar" nabbed nine nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, tying "The Hurt Locker" for most Oscar nods in 2010. "Inglourious Basterds" garnered eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, while "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" and "Up in the Air" collected six and "Up" secured five.

For the first time since 1943, when "Casablanca" triumphed, the Oscars have selected 10 nominees in the Best Picture category, rather than the usual five. Despite the increased number, there were few surprises. Joining Cameron's big blue-alien epic are "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds," "Up in the Air," "Precious, "District 9," "An Education," "A Serious Man," "Up" and "The Blind Side."

Continue reading Oscar Nominations Led By 'Avatar,' 'Hurt Locker'

Tags A Serious Man, An Education, avatar, district 9, inglourious basterds, Precious, The Blind Side, the hurt locker, up, up in the air

FROM MTV.COM: The 2010 Oscar nominations are in! "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" are the two leaders, each with nine nominations, including the big ones for Best Picture and Best Director. "Up" and "District 9" are among some of the surprises in the newly expanded Best Picture category, which now features 10 nominees. Expect to see plenty of opining in the days and weeks leading up to the March 7 awards show. But for now, here's your list of nominees!

Best Picture
"Avatar"
"The Blind Side"
"District 9"
"An Education"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
"A Serious Man"
"Up"
"Up in the Air"

Continue reading Oscar Nominations 2010: The List Is In!

Tags A Serious Man, An Education, avatar, district 9, inglourious basterds, Precious, The Blind Side, the hurt locker, up, up in the air

2009 was a year of delights at the movies. The list below testifies to that. It doesn't rival '07 when two examples of virtual moviemaking perfection were released--namely "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" but '09 may have been filled with as many unexpectedly joyful film going experiences as I can remember in a single calendar year.

From sitting in the first public screening of what should have been a forgetful and frivolous romantic comedy on a frigid night in Park City (see #8) to being flabbergasted by the inventiveness of a would-be sci-fi auteur (whose name I couldn't spell or pronounce at the time, see #7) for 112 riveting minutes. Franchises were reborn. Genres were injected with new life. Stephen Sommers made a watchable film called "G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra." Young filmmakers came of age. And one mad genius with the heart of a pussycat and 300 million at his disposal opened our eyes once more to how a night at the movies can make us feel.

THE TOP TEN (er ELEVEN) Read more...

Tags 500 days of summer, A Serious Man, An Education, Anvil, avatar, Bright Star, district 9, inglorious basterds, star trek, up in the air, where the wild things are

By rights, Ethan and Joel Coen should not be the massively successful filmmakers they are. I’m not impugning their talent, skill or artistry with that statement; it's more that their movies are very, very strange. Weird by any standard, which makes it occasionally shocking to sit back and look at their success in popular culture.

Their movies, especially those made in the past ten years, are sold as mainstream motion pictures when they their tone and content should really sentence them to a boutique indie theater existence. When people gravitate towards entertainment that is easy to understand and comfortable to watch, how is it that guys who make something as densely surreal as “Barton Fink” or as willfully grim and ambiguous as “No Country For Old Men” are two of America’s favorite moviemakers? Read more...

Tags A Serious Man, Coen Brothers, ehtan coen, joel coen

Call them "cult classics." "Guilty pleasures." "Comfort movies." We all have a mental rolodex of flicks that may not be terribly popular but, for one reason or another, they resonate in a very special way. Maybe you saw it at the right moment. Maybe you just see gold where everyone else sees feces. Whatever the case, these are the special favorites that you keep stashed away for sick days. Here are some of ours.

I saw "A Serious Man" last night. It was excellent. Better than that even. Joel and Ethan Coen have wrangled quite a few star-powered talents into quirky, offbeat roles over the years, but "Serious" excels even without a George Clooney or a Jeff Bridges in your face for the whole time. It is easily my favorite effort from the brothers Coen since "The Big Lebowski."

What's funny to me now is, I didn't even care for "Lebowski" the first time I saw it. Welcome to this week's Sick Day Stash. Read more...

Tags A Serious Man, ethan coen, joel coen, the big lebowski

Please excuse the delay in running this week's Box Office Poll. I experienced some technical difficulties when working from home yesterday, so I put this post off for today. What a week we're in for movies. I don't know about y'all, but every wide release that opens is on my list as well as a fair few of the limited releases. So let's get to it.

Tough to say what the big one for the week is going to be. I think the top contender -- though not necessarily by a wide margin -- is "Zombieland," a comedy-horror flick starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. As a zombie apocalypse sweeps across the world, the foursome set out on a cross-country trip to... well I'm not entirely sure. They kill lots of zombies though. Read more...

Tags A Serious Man, abigail breslin, Bright Star, capitalism: a love story, Drew Barrymore, ellen page, emma stone, ethan coen, Jane Campion, Jesse Eisenberg, joel coen, juliette lewis, kristen wiig, marcia gay harden, michael moore, More Than A Game, Paranormal Activity, ricky gervais, The Boys Are Back, The Invention of Lying, toy story, toy story 2, toy story 3, whip it, woody harrelson, zoe bell, zombieland

"Barton Fink" is a difficult movie to classify. It's also one of the best efforts from filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen, the guys behind bonafide classics like "The Big Lebowski," "Fargo" and "No Country for Old Men." Not to mention "Fink," which is held in high regard by just about everyone who's seen it. The story -- about a playwright, the titular Fink (John Turturro), who tries to beat writer's block while residing in a Hollywood hotel -- sounds fairly innocuous, but it's all in the delivery.

The movie is a touchstone within the Coen's oeuvre, but it doesn't really carry the same cult appeal that the similarly genre-bending "The Big Lebowski" does. As such, I never in a million years would have expected a "Barton Fink" sequel. And yet, that's exactly what the brothers hinted at when they spoke to MTV's Josh Horowitz at the Toronto International Film Festival, where they were promoting "A Serious Man," which hits theaters on October 2. Read more...

Tags A Serious Man, ethan coen, joel coen, john turturro, Old Fink

Who can forget The Jesus? John Turturro's crazed, pedophile bowler in "The Big Lebowski" is an unforgettable character, even with no more than five or 10 minutes of screen time. He's so popular that there's long been a rumor percolating that filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen would break out a Jesus spin-off movie. Turturro is very insistent about it, as you can see in this video from back in June...

I'm afraid that the actor's excitement just isn't enough to spur the Coen brothers into action. There's always hope of course, but MTV's Josh Horowitz spoke with the siblings last week at the Toronto International Film Festival -- where they were promoting "A Serious Man," which hits theaters on October 2 -- and things are not looking good. Read more...

Tags A Serious Man, ethan coen, joel coen, john turturro

This weekend, my people will gather will their families to celebrate the high holy holiday of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Following the weekend festivities, Jews enter into a week of repentence, concluding with a day of fasting on Yom Kippur.

Technically, you're not supposed to be watching TV during Rosh Hashana, a certified "day of rest." I was raised in a reformed household though, so we play by a looser set of rules than more observant practitioners. Togetherness in my own family is usually punctuated by a movie or two. And since the Coen brothers' intensely Jewish "A Serious Man" doesn't hit theaters for a few more weeks, we've got to make do with what's watchable at home. Here are a few suggestions to bring along for your own gatherings... Read more...

Tags A Serious Man, Blazing Saddles, Fiddler on the Roof, Schindler's List, School Ties, the big lebowski