So a lot has happened in the week and a half I wasn’t blogging. I went on vacation, Payton made it to a Super Bowl, and for the first time in a long time the President delivered the State of the Union to a Democratic house (I should go away more often). Anyway, lot to get though so let’s get right to it, shall we…
SALMA HAYEK’S TATAS
I would not be doing myself justice if I did not lead with the Oscars. Oscar nomination day is my Christmas and Oscar night is my New Years. Truth be told, I don’t know if it’s that I am so preoccupied or just getting older, but for the first time since I began caring about this wholly inane event…well, I wasn’t pissed when the nominations were announced. In fact, I was downright “blah”.
To put this all into context, ME, your humble narrator, goes into a tizzy every year daming those “old fogies at the Academy” for their safe and unexciting nominations. Always saying, “No so and so should have been nominated over so and so, and because there overlooked so and so the state of film is going into the crapper.” (Over dramatic? Yes. But this is entertainment my friends…and I have noting else in my life to talk about since baseball season is over). All this deep seeded personal seething culminates in about an hour long rant at the end to the end of the actual Oscar broadcast when I proceed to talk passionately about how “once again all the wrong stuff won”. Case in point, Forrest Gump winning over Pulp Fiction or Shawshank Redemption sent me on a rampage that I have still not come down from. That one still hits me right in the A.B.C.
To reiterate, I don’t know if it’s that I am getting older, or that I was more concerned about other things, but I would like to think that for the first time (in a long time), the Academy actually got (most) of their nominations right.
Here were my initial thoughts…
Dreamgirls – I have made it no secret that I was not a fan of this film. Therefore, I could not be more pleased that it was (as everyone is saying right now) “snubbed”. I don’t think it was “snubbed”, I just think it was a weak film. I am thrilled about Eddie and Hudson though, they are the film. If you recall, I myself had them both as my ONLY Dreamgirls nominations when I sent out the 2006 list. Here’s a Fun Fact, Dreamgirls is the first film in Oscar history to lead the pack in total number of nominations, and not get a Best Picture nod. I think this fact just about sums up the films pre-buzz, release, and longevity…lot’s of noise, but nothing to show for it. I am cheering for Eddie to win though. That guy deserves an Oscar already…forget the obvious stuff like Coming to America and The Nutty Professor, but go back and look at him in Bowfinger. Hands down his GREATEST performance. The guy plays two characters and all he does is wear a pair of glasses to differentiate between the two. Everything else is just Eddie! The guy is a genius!
Borat – This is my one gripe with the Academy this year. I’m upset that this film did not get a Best Picture and Best Actor nod (It go what I like to call the “Too Cool For School” nomination. This is the Best Screenplay Nom. Over the last ten to fifteen years, all the films which I think should land a Best Picture Nom always get shunned to the screenplay category. It seems like the Academy tries to save face by giving them this one and only nod, and then saying “Hey, we’re cool…we recognized the film”. Case in point, here are some films that were shunned to just a Screenplay Nom – Out of Sight, Trainspotting, A Simple Plan, The Royal Tenenbaums, and the list goes on and on).
In my humble opinion, there was no film more influential or groundbreaking this year, and for this reason it deserves a Best Picture nod. I still believe there would be no Borat film without the success of the first Jackass film. But the fact is, where Jackass was a DV film with just a series of segments, Borat found a way to turn the DV segments into an actual movie with a narrative spine.
It’s a perfect blend of reality and scripted comedy. Like The Matrix, I guarantee, that for the next ten years people will be trying to knock of the style of this film. It inspired a whole new genre of filmmaking, and for this reason alone it deserves a Best Picture nod.
And it would not be fair to not mention that the whole thing was held together by the sheer audacity and twisted brilliance of Sacha Baron Cohen. Who gave one of the most ballsy and literally dangerous performances I have ever seen,
Little Miss Sunshine – I love this movie, and once again, not to toot my own horn…but I called for the Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin noms, and I got them. Very happy.
Babel – This is my Lion King, my Forrest Gump, my Braveheart. This is the film that everyone loved, and I just wished I had my two hours back. Which leads me too…
The Mexicans – When I really think about it, I feel the reason I am so content with this year’s nominations is that there were certain people selected that I have been trying to bring out of “Geekville” and into the public’s consciousness for some time. Two people in particular from this year’s noms are Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron.
As a geeky fan boy, to me Del Toro is on the level of Sami Raimi and Peter Jackson. The guy started out kicking ass in horror films and then worked his way to respectability. When I saw Del Toro’s Cronos for the first time almost ten years ago I was hooked. I knew this guy was the bee’s knees, and Pan’s Labyrinth is a perfect blending of all this talents (By the way, he is also the director of one of the most underrated action films/comic book films of all time. Don’t laugh, but if you haven’t see in Blade 2, go out and rent it. It is unreal. What he does with this sequel is criminal…no Blade film should have ever been that good).
Now to Cuaron. It’s no secret that I think Children of Men was the best film of the year, but I am not as upset as you’d think that it did not get more noms. I think it’s because I came to terms with how badly Universal screwed the film over with it’s release…so I guess I can’t blame the Academy for this. Anyway, Cuaron is a visual genious, but what makes him truly special is that he treats character and story with as much love and care as he does his visuals. If you haven’t seen it…well, just go out and rent all his films. They are not only eye candy, but there is something about them that truly touches the heart (Yes, even Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban…where the best parts of the film are not the lavish set and GFX pieces, but the intimate moments between characters. The guy single handedly saved the Potter film series and also set the bar for all other Potter films to follow. That is saying quite a bit for one of the most successful franchises of all time).
Jesus Camp – This is the film that is going to make me go nuts on Oscar night…I just know it. In my mind, there hasn’t been a more powerful or more important doc made this whole year, and when Jesus Camp looses to that mediocre Al Gore film I’m going to go off. Now I am going to stop all you haters before you respond to me and say how important and influential the Gore film was because you know what? You’re right! It was a highly important and relevant film, BUT it is not the BEST Documentary of the year.
Marty – I would be remiss if I did not mention my main man Marty Scorsese. Right now I am going to guarantee The Departed wins Best Picture. The ONLY thing that will make me go off on Oscar night (besides Will Smith winning for that piece of shit film) would be Marty walking away empty handed as Best Director. If ANYONE other than Clint wins they should go up to the podium, thank the Academy, graciously decline the award, and then hand it to Marty (I say other than Clint, because although I don’t think he should win, the guy is one of our modern masters…so you can’t be pissed if/when he wins an award…it’s just this is not his year).
Paul Greengrass, Stephen Frears, Alejandro González Iñárritu, although all talented, owe everything to directors like Marty. It just does not make sense for one of them to have an Oscar if Marty does not. And don’t give me that whole, “Well, Hitchcock never won an Oscar” bullshit because Hitch never lost of Robert Redford and Kevin Costner. I will say this and be done, Scorsese lost the Best Directing Award to Redford with Ordinary People, and he lost to Costner with Dances with Wolves, and what did Marty have….oh, just Raging Bull and Goodfellas. It’s a crime.
Well, that’s all I have to say about Oscar now…I am sure more will seep out of my brain soon. So stay tuned.
OH WAIT, ONE MORE THING…did anyone see how hot Salma looked when she announced the nominations? I mean come on, could she have looked any more lovely at 5:30am PST. I think not…I love me some Salma!
FLOP ACES
OK, so a couple of weeks ago I made a big to-do about Smokin’ Aces, and how it got hosed with its release date. Well, it opened this weekend, I forked over $10.25, and just hated it…and if I were the studio, I would close it next weekend. This film sucked! I mean flat out blew donkey balls. It was boring, convoluted, and just way too high on itself for its own good. I am deeply disappointed in Joe Carnahan, and I hope this sophomore slump does not translate to his next film (I loved Narc, and hope he goes back to that type of film next). I 100% eat my words on this one folks, the studios had it right, it should have been buried on January 26…because it was that bad (although, based on my 5:00pm crowd at Regal Union Square…it might have a fair showing at the BO…but that don’t matter…bad, Bad, BAd, BAD).
OK, NO MORE MR. NICE GAIUS!
So for a couple of years now my trusted and loved geek droogies have been talking up the Sci-Fi channel show Battlestar Galactica. They keep telling me how, “up my alley” it is, and like Deadwood, how the show seemed to “crawl out of my highly opinioned subconsciousness.” (I know, I have some very strange friends…but it’s not what you think. We don’t sit around playing competitive X Box 360 over the internet all day…in fact I don’t even own a gaming station. No, WE choose to hang out in movie theater lobbies and make fun of people’s ticket purchases. I am so John Cusack from High Fidelity I know.)
Anyway, before my brief vacation last week, my wife asked me to go grab her the third season of Charmed on DVD for the trip (FYI…this is a major sore point between my sweetie and I…she now owns four season of that god forsaken show, and she is pleading with me to make it a part of my DVD collection. I just can’t…I will not have that trash sitting on a shelf with the likes of The Shield, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, and The Muppet Show…not your problem, I know, but I just wanted to share).
Anyway, when I was at the Virgin Mega Store purchasing Charmed, I happen to pass the Battlestar Galactica DVDs and figured; “What the hell, try the first season, see what all the fuss is about, and if you don’t like it…well you can just trade in the box set for some other used DVDs you want.”
Well, there is no trading in going on here (in fact I have since bought the second season and am tearing through it now). THIS SHOW ROCKS! I am not a big sci-fi genre guy, I take it in the minimal form of the Star Wars movies and the Alien films (BTW…notice how I called the Star Wars trilogy “movies”, and the Alien series “films”…not a mistake my friends…not a mistake).
I promise a more in depth posting on the show after I finish the third season, but let me say this…It is such a well thought out, crafted, acted, and executed show. I want to urge all of you to at least rent the first season, it’s not a huge commitment. In fact the first season wasn’t a season at all, it was just a quick 3 hour mini-series that blossomed into a series. I challenge any one of your to watch those 3 hours and tell me you are not hooked. The show FRACKING rocks!
THIS IS 2007
So ever since I pointed out Somkin’ Aces as a film I was looking forward too, I’ve been thinking about putting together a very, very, very preliminary list of my most anticipated films for 2007. It will be interesting to see how some of these films play out. Now, before I continue, since this is MY blog, I am giving myself free reign to alter the list as the year goes along. I of course will keep everyone posted as I do. Here we go…
1. Spiderman 3 – OBVOUSLY! (Release Date: May 4, 2007)
2. Knocked Up – Judd Apatow’s follow up film to The 40 Year Old Virgin. Not only is Apatow my god…well, yeah, he is my GOD, there is nothing else. (Release Date: June 1, 2007)
3. The Simpson’s Movie – Is an explanation needed? (Release Date: July 27, 2007)
4. Sunshine – My all time favorite director Danny Boyle tackles sci-fi with this fracked up story about restarting the sun. (Release Date: March 16, 2007)
5. Ratatoullie – From the writer, director, and studio that brought us The Incredibles. PLUS it has the voice of Patton Oswalt in it. Awsomeness! (Release Date: June 29, 2007)
6. Hot Fuzz – Follow up to Shaun of the Dead, looks hilarious (Release Date: March 9, 2007)
7. Reno 911: Miami – Ahem, see my Borat will spawn a new breed of films like it…line from the above section. Either way, the TV show rocks, and the film will rock as well. I want me some short shorts! (Release Date: March 9, 2007)
8. Grindhouse – I see anything Tarantino and Rodriguez make, but this concept sounds way cool. Two B-Horror films for the price of one. Count me in! (Release Date: April 6, 2007)
9. The Bourne Supremacy – The first two were great! I am a self proclaimed Damon, lover. And with Greengrass back directing, and Joan Allen to be the foil what else could they do? Oh, just maybe add David Stratherian to the mix? Well they did just that. I just hope they can see it in their heart to either get Julia Styles to take her clothes off or just kill her character. I’d be fine with either one. (Release Date: August 3, 2007)
10. Zodiac – Give me Fincher and give me a fracked up killer, and I am a happy lad. (Release Date: March 2, 2007)
11. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – I love the fact that they chose a first time director, and as anyone who has read the books knows, we are going to be getting into some heavy stuff. Something wicked this way comes my friends. (Release Date: July 13, 2007)
12. Charlie Wilson’s War – Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman…need I see more? (Release Date: December 25, 2007)
13. Stardust – Mathew Vaughn’s follow-up film to the incredible Layer Cake. This fantasy meets comedy tale looks weird as hell, but I’m giving Vaughn the benefit of the doubt. (Release Date: July 27, 2007)
14. Ocean’s 13 – Everyone is back except for Zeta-Jones and that horse toothed bee-otch Julia Roberts. In her place they’ve upgraded with Al Pacino and he Ellen Barkin. NICE! (Release Date: June 8, 2007)
15. The Tourist – Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman in a fracked up stalker sex thriller. Fine with me (Release Date: TBD)
And here are some other titles to keep an eye on, that I will cover in the next list:
Norbit, Breach, Black Snake Moan, The Astronaut Farmer, 300, Reign Over Me, Blades of Gory, Rescue Dawn, Spring Breakdown, The Kingdom, 28 Weeks Later, Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, Live Free or Die Hard, Transformers, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Rush Hour 3, Super Bad, 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, Bee Movie, Fred Clause, Hairspray
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