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Winning both the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival Closing Awards, Ryan Cooper's Fruitvale has had a serious effect on viewers and proved a career-launching first feature from writer and director Ryan Coogler. Based on real-life muder of Oscar Grant, the film follows the 22-year old Bay Area resident who crosses paths with friends, family, enemies, and strangers on the last day of 2008. The stunning debut "that's the sort of material you might more readily except in be covered in a documentary" stars Chad Michael Murray, Octavia Spencer, Michael B. Jordan, and Kevin Durand—produced by Forrest Whitaker.

Fruitvale, a drama based on a 2009 shooting in Oakland, California, took home the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival last night. 

The general consensus is that the 84th annual Academy Awards were a giant mushroom cloud of boring, unfunny failure, dropped from the broken-down Enola Gay that is Billy Crystal. You know it's going to be bad when there's blackface in the first five minutes. In a Midnight In Paris send-up. With Justin Bieber. The song parodies were painful. (If creepy middle-aged dude is the vibe the Oscars want in a host, let's make it someone likeable next year: Jeff Goldblum for Oscars host!)

With the speed of a lumbering engine powered by critical hubris and self-importance, the 84th Academy Awards nominations dropped into our newsfeeds this morning with predictable result. Did you know that people liked The Descendants this year, The Artist as well? Brad Pitt and George Clooney scored the requisite Hollywood heartthrob acting votes (they will lose to the no-name French guy who doesn't talk), while Meryl Streep got her due for sticking around. Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese were also nominated, just like they always are. It's another Oscar ceremony, y'all!