Remember back in elementary school, when they'd have a field day out in the playground with the 50 yard dash and a potato sack race, and how it almost didn't matter what place you came in because the teachers would just hand out participation ribbons to every single kid anyway? I do. With awards season upon us, it almost feels like a Hollywood Field Day, with every movie that came out in 2008 getting some kind of accolade or nomination. I half expect to walk into theaters and see every movie poster sporting a maroon participation ribbon. Along with the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards and the Razzies and all those other ones that have been in the news, well, here are some more.

I'll probably be disowned by everyone I know for saying this, but I think Leonardo DiCaprio is overrated. By no means am I saying that he's not a decent actor -- he can hold his own -- but I've never really thought the guy could transform himself into other people. He can emote with the best of them, and the man can deliver a line, but whenever I see him onscreen, I see Leonardo DiCaprio, not whatever character he's playing. Then again, I was sitting in the very front row directly in front of the air conditioner output when I went to see Titanic, which got coincidentally frigid right about the time Jack was freezing to death in the water, which made for a seriously miserable movie experience, so maybe I have a DiCaprio mental block. Anyway, whenever Leonardo decides on a role, it's always big news, and his latest pick is no exception.

Having just enjoyed the Blu-ray version of Iron Man while off on my holiday vacation (I don't have a pretty HDTV or surround-sound system of my own, so I take advantage of other people's whenever possible), my eyes are pretty sharply tuned for any news about the film's sequel. And back home not more than three days (with my 27" 1999 bulbous Panasonic and two dusty Sony speakers that I can't turn up because I live in an apartment) what should I spy, but not only Iron Man 2 news, but Iron Man 2 villain casting news! It turns out that both Mickey Rourke -- fresh off of yesterday's The Expendables casting session -- and Sam Rockwell are in talks to join the film.

Relative Hollywood newcomer Garrett Hedlund's IMDb page will now be bookended with similar credits, as the actor, who got his start in 2004's Troy, has just been cast as the lead in 2011's Tron. And yes, that whole Tron 2.0 - TR2N - Tron 2 business has finally been put to rest, as the sequel to the 1982 cult classic has finally settled on a title, which will be... the exact same as the original.

Let me start off by saying that I am not a big fan of Smallville. It's done some interesting things lately by bringing in more superheroes and supervillains from the comics, but before this season, I hadn't watched in years. So I am not some kind of Kreukaholic. I think Kristin Kreuk is pretty, and has a pleasant speaking voice, and I would like to see her in other roles, but that's about it. So when I found out that she was cast as Chun Li in the new Street Fighter movie, I was excited, since I love that game. Little did I know that the studio would later decide that they had made some kind of mistake.

Just as award season is being kicked off with the Golden Globes this Sunday, where they feed and give drinks to the Hollywood elite (oh, and praise the best of the best in movies and TV -- sometimes I forget that they do that, too), the rest of us get to enjoy a certain amount of schadenfreude with the announcement of The 29th Annual Razzies, highlighting the somewhat more prevalent worst of the worst in Hollywood. While I don't necessarily agree with every single movie The Razzies nominate, the awards do tend to validate my taste, particularly this year, when I can state with pride that I did not see a single one of the films nominated for Worst Picture. The list, after the jump.

It's hard to believe that a few years ago, Sylvester Stallone was pretty much off the radar, playing a villain in a Spy Kids movie with his glory days largely behind him. Now, after making another Rocky movie and another Rambo movie, all of a sudden everyone wants to work with him. (Let this be a lesson to all those actors out there who don't want to be in franchises.) As previously reported, Sly has written a new action movie for himself to direct and star in, and the cast he's assembled so far -- combined with the actors he's still going after -- is mind-bogglingly awesome.

Even though 2008 was a good year for the box office, budgetary concerns remain foremost in many studios' thoughts. What better way to help shore up cash intake than to make movies with huge merchandising potential? Look at the blockbuster Transformers, for example. Hasbro will be following up with a sequel, as well as movies based on their board games, like Candy Land, Monopoly, and the ol' party-pleaser, the Oujia board. Not to be outdone, Mattel will be getting into the action with a live-action Barbie movie and a movie revolving around their Hot Wheels toy line. Man, it's like the Mattel and Mars Bar Quick Energy Chocobot Hour come to life.

Sometimes a director will torpedo ticket sales for his own movie because he feels it just didn't live up to its promise, as Matthieu Kassovitz did when his Babylon A.D. sucked like a Hoover. It's rarer that a director will discourage fans from seeing a movie because he feels it's really good. Rarer, and you might say, downright illogical. But there is sort of a method to Robert B. Weide's madness when he tells us we shouldn't buy the Region 1 DVD for his film How to Lose Friends & Alienate People. Weide believes in the movie, loves the movie, but the DVD just doesn't cut it.

While some people were excited to see Titanic duo Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio teaming up again for Revolutionary Road, some of us were eagerly waiting for another big movie pair-up... for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, co-stars of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Not only will they buddy up again as comic book geeks for 2010's Paul (which the two also wrote) but they've also just been confirmed for Steven Spielberg's big-screen adaptation of Belgian artist Hergé's comic strips, The Adventures of Tintin. The two will play Thompson and Thompson, a pair of bumbling detectives who will be showing up earlier in than they did in Hergé's work, where they first stumbled onto the scene in Tintin's fourth adventure.