Best Picture

The Oscar Noms are:

Best Picture

• “Black Swan” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
• “The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
• “Inception” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
• “The Kids Are All Right” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
• “The King's Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
• “127 Hours” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
• “The Social Network” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
• “Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
• “True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
• “Winter's Bone" Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

I've seen Inception, The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3 & The Social Network. 

The film I want to win I haven't seen- The King's Speech. Who doesn't want Darcy to win an oscar? And have Colin Firth give an adorable acceptance speech. 

The Social Network will probably win. After watching Inception last night, that's perfectly all right with me. Inception was pretty much a one trick pony spun out to the maximum. Once you figure out the sleep sabotage and dream layering concept, the rest of the film is a shoot-em-up action flick with cardboard characters just going through the motions. Nothing new there. Even the mind trip is old news. Ever seen Memento or the Sixth Sense? 

I'm glad to enjoy Inception for what it is, a smart action film, but it's nothing better and it's certainly not original. The Social Network, on the other hand, is interesting for its here-now-ness. The film is about a current socio-political-media moment and tangles with the messy issues of today. Gender & technology- that's interesting. The Social Network  has flaws but it has generated useful and though provoking discourse. That already makes it 10x more interesting than Titanic, a previous best picture win. 

The Kids Are All Right was another messy movie that certainly had some problems when it came to representing queerness. It's too alternative to win best picture, but I'm glad it was nominated. Toy Story 3 was awesome. The first #3 of anything to be that good! 

Rent...a bridesmaid dress!

Everyday life doesn’t present much opportunity for glitz and glamour. So before now, I had never considered using Rent the Runway’s Netflix like service for designer clothes. But this summer I have three weddings to attend and suddenly the new RTR Wedding collection is making a lot of sense. I want to look good, I don’t want a shcmancy dress I will never wear again crowding valuable Manhattan closet real estate, and I don’t want to spend a lot of money. Problem solved!

Rent the Runway is a website where you can rent designer fashions. They mail it to you, you wear it & mail it back. Now they have added fashion rentals for the bride, bridesmaid and guests. Bridesmaid dress rentals will start at $65 and include a one-day fitting in addition to an 8-day rental period.

The best feature of the Rent the Runway Weddings collection is without a doubt the Bridesmaid dresses. They were designed exclusively for RTR in collaboration with designers like Badgley Mischka, Robert Rodriguez and Nicole Miller. Jenny Fleiss, President and Co-Founder of Rent the Runway stated, “Bridesmaid dresses are the quintessential dress women only wear once. With Rent the Runway Weddings, we’ll finally solve the ‘27 Dresses’ problem.” The bride can retain control of her color scheme- there are a variety of different styles all with the same color. Which means if you are busty, you can rock the dress with straps. If you are leggy, go a little shorter. And it’s already coordinated! I’m definitely sold on this feature. Just enough direction for the bride and freedom for the bridesmaids.

There are no traditional wedding dresses, which makes sense because wedding dresses are such emotional minefields that you really can’t do that whole process online. But they do offer a range of social dresses you might need for your wedding- engagement party, rehearsal dinner, bachelorette party, etc. Jennifer Hyman, CEO and Co-Founder of Rent the Runway stated, “We found on average that each bride was buying up to six dresses for all occasions surrounding her wedding. As a result, we’ve made a portion of the site dedicated to helping the bride find dresses for all of these events with personal recommendations from our RTR Stylists.” Those stylists can also answer your questions and provide fitting guidance, which is an extra bonus for the DIY bride. And if you really wanted a modern bride look in a great designer dress, you could just search through their database of existing dresses in white. They also have some great bling to rent. People will be looking at your cleavage for all the right reasons!

The Wedding feature will be up and running on Tuesday so check it out.