tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37977049869606360762024-03-07T16:29:52.895-05:00Christopher Plummer's Tympani RoomThe Internet's Best <a href="http://adhocadventure.blogspot.com/2006/11/and-now-its-time-for-watching-el-topo.html">UMF</a> Support ResourcePlaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.comBlogger540125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-44936805040635243582015-02-22T11:04:00.000-05:002015-02-22T19:13:41.863-05:00Oscars 2015 (Or the Totally Expected Virtue of Ignorance) Part The Second<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">AAAAND We're Back</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">WRITING (Adapted
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Adapted is right, if
we’re talking about adapting selectively, as with Jason Hall’s American Sniper
script. He produced a script that was just perfect for Clint Eastwood: Unquestioning
as far as good wars or bad, but primarily concerned with how men survive being
men, during and after manly battlefields of man-ness. (Also good at pretending
to be evenhanded while not missing a step in portraying most Iraqis we meet as
“savages”)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Not sure the academy
wants all that much more trouble than it’s already courted this year, so
they’ll probably go with either Theory of Everything or Imitation Game, take
your pick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both are very safe, boring
screenplays. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">One Academy member
is already (anonymously) on record as having turned off Inherent Vice after 15
minutes, so challenging is perhaps out <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">(IV is possibly my
favorite PTA screenplay, and captures the feeling of reading a Pynchon novel
almost eerily, which is a feeling of being terribly lost, but laughing
insatiably for paragraphs on end)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Whiplash is a tight
screenplay, and honestly should be the one to win tonight, but it won’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Should Win: Whiplash<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Will Win: The Theory
of Everything<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Probably Theory of Everything, because everyone likes Stephen Hawking and he never talked about wishing he could have killed Katrina victims.</span></div>
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WRITING (Original Screenplay)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6sokIfGW7o8OjdfzpmPioJAJF7TYg-3rpMkFtDUk6fIkF9TO_HPsnchn28hNlFpTxMRSkq3Saq_hjdLf941r33gvlV1eSLLNCLwLVr1lJVOw4f3vXCQuOzpFZZhRG0OB8hgg-P49UyhI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.46.12+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6sokIfGW7o8OjdfzpmPioJAJF7TYg-3rpMkFtDUk6fIkF9TO_HPsnchn28hNlFpTxMRSkq3Saq_hjdLf941r33gvlV1eSLLNCLwLVr1lJVOw4f3vXCQuOzpFZZhRG0OB8hgg-P49UyhI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.46.12+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Oh Birdman. You are
the living impression of what “regular folks” think Hollywood folks think of
themselves. Maybe it’s accurate, in that sense? But this is an incredibly leaden
screenplay, borne down by its obsession with GREATNESS. (That only. ACTORS. Are
Capable of.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is probably why
you will win best picture, but come on, the actors and Lubezki’s sweet glide
are what give Birdman any life, not this bitter, contempt filled screed against
the young, “selling out”, and COMMERCE.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Boyhood is a pretty
neat screenplay, and it doesn’t matter if it was fleshed out in improvisation
or not (speaking of Mike Leigh), but I don’t think it deserves to win for that.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Foxcatcher is a fine
script, but that’s just not what you may immediately think of when walking out
of that movie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I would expect Grand
Budapest to win, and it’s a magnificently funny, sweetly elegiac script, one of
Wes Anderson’s best.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Shout out to Dan Gilroy’s awesome Nightcrawler script though, a brilliant piece
of work, but about incredibly nasty people. Th script feels like a true heir
to Chayevsky, but that was a different time, and the level of ugliness it reaches almost guarantees it’s lucky to be nominated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Should Win: Nightcrawler<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Will Win: The Grand
Budapest Hotel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Should be Nightcrawler; will be Birdman.</span></div>
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ACTOR In a Lead Role<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipACiNBS0ubllQEysBhjIsHGiiWNKYwjWfh6d8DGQxX4zAUPyMHM9jnA-DWo7eiig2-t2jZ1ihJXKmmKzBsNRJ1oLBdTpD4mHzxJcssj6K96D7kS7Ac6nDFZPSobSWYbpvv-fsvD0tdyw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.50.32+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipACiNBS0ubllQEysBhjIsHGiiWNKYwjWfh6d8DGQxX4zAUPyMHM9jnA-DWo7eiig2-t2jZ1ihJXKmmKzBsNRJ1oLBdTpD4mHzxJcssj6K96D7kS7Ac6nDFZPSobSWYbpvv-fsvD0tdyw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.50.32+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There’s just no
place for David Oyelowo’s MLK here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I mean, we simply
HAD to nominate Steve Carell for playing a weirdo (in a Drama. It’s harder.). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, as we (academy voters) all know,
Selma’s just not that good of a movie!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Benedict Cumberbatch
got to play Asbergers AND Gay, but what we really LOVE is play-acting
disability, so Eddie Redmayne, this one’s yours to lose! Either way, white guy
geniuses with issues = Hard Tough Honest Acting #HTHA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Unless of course Michael
Keaton takes the gold for playing the guy who JUST WANTS TO ART. Hmm. We love
that too, conceptually. No icky non-white centered social justice there,
either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Bradley Cooper is
honestly quite effective as Chris Kyle, or there’d be no B.O. gross to aid in
the controversy. He plays a perfect cipher for all your good or bad Real
America feelings, rather than the real Chris Kyle. We can separate our politics
from art, which is why American Sniper is good and Selma is not good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Should Win: Eh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Will Win: Eddie
Redmayne<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>LIVIA:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">What a race—a thirsty lizardmonster, Beetlejuice, Michael Scott, the least funny cast member of Wet Hot American Summer, and England’s answer to what I imagine embryonic foxes look like. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Let’s start with the lizardmonster, who doesn’t seem to understand that having legions of inexplicably devoted Anglophiles doesn’t always translate to Oscar gold. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Next time, don’t hustle so hard. Beetlejuice, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">I love you, but after seeing Birdman, I actually thought your performance was the weakest of the three leads. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">I expected so much more based on the hype. Michael Scott, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Jay liked you in Foxcatcher, and that’s good enough for me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Cooper, get better or get bent. I’m tired of seeing you half-ass your way through movies where you are the weakest link (where is my ten dollar refund for American Hustle, BITCH…I was NOT JOKING about that last year). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Eddie Redmayne, I owe you an apology, because right up until the start of The Theory of Everything, I was coming up with vicious fox-based personal attacks to lobby at you. I was wrong. You were great in that movie, and you deserve to beat Keaton…BUT YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BEAT RALPH FIENNES OR JAKE GYLLENHAAL, both of whom blew everyone else in this category out of the water. Seriously, I’ve never been that impressed by Gyllenhaal, but he is amazing in Nightcrawler.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Jake Gyllenhaal. OH, WAIT. Eddie Redmayne.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">ACTRESS in a Lead
Role<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Only one nominee in
this category is in a Best pic nom, and that’s Felicity Jones, and she’s the
best part of a mediocre adversity-based biopic. Without her, Redmayne’s got
nothin’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Wild sounds more
tolerable than Into The Wild, but I still have a hard time summoning the will
to see a movie about hiking (or rock climbing. Or Naturing at all, really, sans
WAR. Either you’re getting eaten by a bear IRL, or pass). Sorry, Reese
Witherspoon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I loved Rosamund
Pike in Gone Girl, and nice stab at the zeitgeist, there, Oscars, but does her
role in this need to be heralded over Carmen Ejogo’s in Selma? Haha of course
it does. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Marion Cotillard is
probably deservedly nominated, but it’s been kind of hard to see Two Days, One
Night for most people yet, myself included.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Julianne Moore will
probably win for Still Alice, which I haven’t seen yet, because it sure sounds fun
(and by all accounts doesn’t live up to her work in it). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Still, Julianne
Moore winning is great, because Julianne Moore is fucking awesome. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Should Win: Felicity
Jones<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Will Win: Julianne
Moore<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>LIVIA:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Fun fact: there are very few actors that my mom despises, but when she does find fault with one, she will carry her hatred for them until the end of time. It’s one of many things I love about her. Daryl Hannah is one of these women. Julianne Moore is another. Don’t worry, I’ve already prepared her for what will inevitably happen <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_54010457" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">tomorrow</span></span> night. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Pity poor Rosamund Pike, who had to act like she enjoyed kissing both Ben Affleck AND Neil Patrick Harris, but only got to bathe in ONE of their gushing blood pools during Gone Girl. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Reese Witherspoon, Tilda Swinton would like to have a word with you about how you managed to steal her nomination for Snowpiercer. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Meet her out back by the loading dock. You definitely won’t be turned into a living ice sculpture, it’s fine, YOU’RE AN AMERICAN CITIZEN.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Julianne Moore</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">BEST DIRECTING:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-utXS9z5E1_-uu03bqb1imATTPFezs4z8EIdm4Lx2WMBkVK6gTBU-nC8Mat9Zis8j5WlydGPcaDnxR-LDgynSunTPNmLAueuO5eF5DHOPGnvPTWAzX27kZPkJ2FfgNVX0M7KedwnZWwk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.55.20+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-utXS9z5E1_-uu03bqb1imATTPFezs4z8EIdm4Lx2WMBkVK6gTBU-nC8Mat9Zis8j5WlydGPcaDnxR-LDgynSunTPNmLAueuO5eF5DHOPGnvPTWAzX27kZPkJ2FfgNVX0M7KedwnZWwk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.55.20+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Morten Tyldum has
apparently made good films before Imitation Game (Headhunters, starring Jamie
Lannister). He is apparently a real person, and not in fact a pseudonym Tom
Hooper uses when he wants to be somehow less expressive. I mean, Imitation Game
is fine, it’s not bad, it’s just very dull as far as the direction goes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">How in the hell do
you watch TIG, and then watch Selma, and decide Ava DuVernay has made a film
with “no art to it” as one academy voter anonymously derided it? Just baffling.
Selma is not a perfect film, but it is a great film, and is by any fair rubric
an example of a fine directorial achievement. But she’s not as good as Morten
Tyldum, apparently, who made a perfectly adequate BBC original picture. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Bennett Miller has a
great eye for making movies that stand still, and I mean that as a compliment. Capote
and Foxcatcher (moreso than Moneyball) are very specifically, glacially paced.
Not for everyone, but I appreciated the Miller-gaze.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I am not quite in
agreement with a certain critic (who wrote a great <a href="http://thedissolve.com/reviews/1152-birdman/">review</a>) that Alejandro
Gonzales Inarritu is a total hack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kind
of enjoyed the experience of Birdman, but I’m squarely on the side of it being
an empty, narcissistic, myopic little movie. If it’s satirizing its characters’
self-obsession, if it refutes or doesn’t refute the silly little drama critic that
tortures poor Birdman, I would not know after a viewing of the movie. That
feels less like a rich ambiguity here and more like a lot of cleverly
orchestrated punting. That makes this a movie somewhat saved by its
presentation, so perhaps that is an achievement in directing after all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I’d be tempted to
give this to Wes Anderson, were I in the position to choose. I’m not a Wes
Anderson apologist. I’m a Wes Anderson enthusiast, and GBH is my second
favorite of all of his movies. It’s everything he does well, magnified and
celebrated, a richly satisfying example of someone running on all his
cylinders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sympathetic with people
who say they hate his movies, since his movies have melodies that are
instantaneously recognizable as his and his alone. We know if we like the
sounds of certain bands or not. But I can’t help but be on his side for the
same reason. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But Richard
Linklater should be recognized here, not just for the singular and
unprecedented artistic achievement of Boyhood (yes very good, you’ve heard of
the Up series, but that doesn’t change anything). He should be honored for an
amazing, unique, brilliant body of work as well. I was moved by Boyhood in an
unexpected, cumulative way. If it isn’t universal in its experiences, it is still
immersive in a way I’m not sure any movie has ever pulled off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Should Win: Richard
Linklater<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Will Win: Alejandro
Gonzales Inarritu<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>LIVIA:</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Linklater had to deal with Ethan Hawke for twelve years. That trumps a bunch of frankly self-indulgent and jarring long takes. It also trumps making a human dollhouse, no matter how beautiful that dollhouse is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Richard Linklater</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">BEST PICTURE:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UF-zoBFl8KfOrSxkENFl61zQ2Tr_Bb_GAg-N8K2nAlaxLhNAGis07dMce_milBC-5MACuZs1aYNfzJOvNzJrp96qx8KN93RlQje6Jrdl4yLm6lg3hcq8-9vsLZiGwvNftdL3PcDm8fQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.59.29+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UF-zoBFl8KfOrSxkENFl61zQ2Tr_Bb_GAg-N8K2nAlaxLhNAGis07dMce_milBC-5MACuZs1aYNfzJOvNzJrp96qx8KN93RlQje6Jrdl4yLm6lg3hcq8-9vsLZiGwvNftdL3PcDm8fQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.59.29+AM.png" height="400" width="276" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Whiplash: Awesome
movie, deservedly nominated, not going to win.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br />
The Theory of Everything/The Imitation Game: One of these may well win, and I
wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Theory Of Everything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">American
Sniper:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yeah, they’re not going there.
I’m pretty conflicted on this one. It is everything politically you think it
is. It’s also every inch a Clint Eastwood movie, and my knee-jerk response is
to read it that way first. It’s a relic of a picture, presented to us in a very
different political climate than Eastwood films of yore, but its values are no
different than any Clint Eastwood films from back in the day. Either he buried
them with Unforgiven or he didn’t. In Sniper, There’s no time to think about
the causes of war. Just time to think about what it does to Men. It may actually
be the most effective and purely compelling film he’s made in years. And it may
well be a useful window for liberals into how conservative America views a
whole host of things. But Iraq is not Cowboys and Indians, Clint. Sorry. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Birdman:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This one’s going to win, I can just feel it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Grand Budapest
Hotel:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My twitter feed is going to be a
pretty bitter TL on Monday morning, if this takes the trophy, since I love
funny twitter/politics twitter enough that it kind of overshadows film critic
twitter sometimes. I love Wes Anderson and am never going to be any sorrier about
that than those of you that hate him are about the hatin’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Boyhood:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something has changed in the air, and it
probably won’t be Boyhood that takes the whole night, but it’s a sweet,
wonderful film, and it’s coming from the guy who made Slacker and Bernie.
Wouldn’t that be a great win? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Selma: It’s almost
as if, instead of making a white-savior centered narrative, POC got together
and made a movie about the hard work of building a successful activist movement
to fight back against White Supremacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And then the same
academy that anointed Crash a best picture winner, declaring racism “something
everybody is a little, regardless of race”, was unmoved. None of this has been
at all surprising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">When the producers
of Birdman or Theory of Everything take the stage tomorrow night, you will have
seen everything you already know about the Academy Awards manifest itself
unsurprisingly, and it’s beneath us all at this point to even bother going to
bed angry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">LIVIA:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">The Academy should be disgusted with itself for throwing a Best Picture nomination at Selma while ignoring it in all other major categories. I’m not sure how it’s possible to insult a movie by nominating it for Best Picture, but they found a way. Selma deserved so much more than this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">If I wanted to watch a jingoistic, logically flawed mess with infuriating characters, The Newsroom is available on demand, so get lost, American Sniper. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">I went in to Birdman prepared to despise it, but I actually enjoyed watching it because of the quality of the performances. That being said, it is NOT Best Picture material, and if it wins, it’s because they want to make themselves feel better about taking Michael Keaton’s Oscar away from him. Also, it has one of the five worst endings I’ve ever seen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Boyhood will probably win, and it’s a good movie, although I don’t think people are still going to be talking about it in ten years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">The Theory of Everything is a movie about two things: Eddie Redmayne and varying shades of mint for the costume design. Great performance, but not Best Picture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">If I had a vote—and one day, after they finally accept my Harry Potter/Land Before Time crossover screenplay, I will—I would cast it for Grand Budapest Hotel, which is the best thing Anderson has ever done.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 14.7200012207031px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Boyhood</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 14.7200012207031px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;">AND that's a wrap, thanks, Livia, and thanks to all who've read this far. Happy Awards Event Show Everyone!</span></span></div>
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Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-49502932033861582162015-02-22T10:36:00.001-05:002015-02-22T11:06:41.171-05:00Oscars 2015 (Or the Totally Expected Virtue of Ignorance) Part One<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Oh, hello, <a href="https://twitter.com/Eegah">Eegah</a> here! I didn’t see you there. Just now, you see, I had this year’s nominees list open in front of me, and was suddenly knocked forward into a slick, glinting (but now slowly friscalating) whiteness singularity. I’m whiter than I was even a second ago. My Dave Matthews Band CDs have suddenly appeared in front of me, from a tipped over box labeled 1998. And I have a strong urge to watch Sliding Doors. I’m sure this will pass. I'll be joined today in pics-giving by the great Livia, who is currently sporting those dark tinted eye exam glasses just so she can manage to see the blank page she's typing on, for it is currently taking whiteness lessons from the nominees....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Who are all white.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Let’s get this started:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGYKgjORP05J2qrisBLuAaVr9HoRBNXXUzHTOczwhP0_omZ8nljvfCWiXkbidLzmnS-q9dYoEWIyocgpCBqloowcpIKpm4vu3WH2X76OiMzmb0Bh7DFl8mm_UOH_8SbHrVbLmAS-3vDU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+9.40.29+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGYKgjORP05J2qrisBLuAaVr9HoRBNXXUzHTOczwhP0_omZ8nljvfCWiXkbidLzmnS-q9dYoEWIyocgpCBqloowcpIKpm4vu3WH2X76OiMzmb0Bh7DFl8mm_UOH_8SbHrVbLmAS-3vDU/s320/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+9.40.29+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>EEGAH</i>:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It’s entirely possible you’ve had a chance to see the movies in this category by now (unlike with the Best Actress category), but I still have not seen Wild. I would give it to Laura Dern, solely to honor Laura Paleobotanist Dern, but alas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Keira Knightley in Imitation Game does nothing particularly strenuous as the smart Woman supporting. A. Smarter. Genius. Guy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> No one deserves an Oscar simply for Meryl-stomping into a role for which she doesn’t have the vocal range. Better luck next time, Silkwood.
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Emma Stone makes an impression in Birdman, as Millennial who TEXTS (and SEXTS and sulks, damn kids these days).
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The real winner here, in a walk, is Patricia Arquette, for playing a truly three-dimensional character, anchoring the increasingly powerful arc of a 12 year project as much and maybe more than anyone else does in Boyhood.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Should Win: Patricia Arquette</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Will Win: Patricia Arquette</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>LIVIA</i>:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Patricia Arquette deserves to win, but not just for letting them film what happens to a normal human woman’s face over 12 years. She deserves to win because she wiped the floor with these other bitches (no shade to Emma Stone, who was great), and because she was married to Thomas Jane and she deserves something good to balance that out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Keira, I have developed an odd tolerance for you, despite your many terrible choices in the past, and despite Jay making me watch your UNCONSCIONABLE adaptation of Dr. Zhivago, but this is not your year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Meryl, for you, I go directly to the tape of our post Into the Woods analysis: “Meryl Streep should have two of her Oscars rescinded for her performance here. She liberally changes tempo, sometimes within the same LYRIC, and whines through most of her high notes. And then she belts, and she sounds like a different person. Because that is a different person. Y'all, I saw Mama Mia, and I saw the rest of this movie. That is not her belting those mezzo notes. It's just not. Meryl has a belt double, and it's obvious. Her performance of the Witch Veggie Rap is the third most embarrassing thing I have ever seen an actor do onscreen. The other two were also in this movie. The other two were Johnny Depp.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Patricia Arquette</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> COSTUME DESIGN</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i><br />
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<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Were there any 18<sup>th</sup> century dramas this year?
Could that attest to why this category is actually interesting and competitive?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> This excludes Into
The Woods, which is as misbegotten and tonally drained an experience as you
could get from such rich source material, be it in costuming, singing, or in
the act of generally looking at it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Maleficent, at least insofar as the main character is
concerned, has perfect costume design, and I also truly dig the 70s threads in
Inherent Vice, man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But I have a feeling Grand Budapest Hotel will walk away with more than a few
of these technical awards. Every costume
looks great in it anyways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Are we honestly going to stand here and pretend that it’s hard to make Angelina Jolie look like a seductive dragon-monster? Are we just going to act like slapping horns and some cheek contour on a bitch deserves a statuette? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">However, BETTER THAT THAN INTO THE WOODS, which <span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial;">looked like third rate trash rented from </span>the Haleakala Community College Theatre and Bait Shop, with a generous grant from Party City. Meryl's sexy witch dress looked like Cruella de Vil developed a pipe cleaner fetish, and Rapunzel looked like she was wearing a faded American Girl doll nightgown (and not even a good doll, but like Samantha's poor neighbor who worked in the factory all day). Even the stepsisters looked like garbage. It was like Les Mis of the Forest. I mean, COME ON, they couldn't even make the stepsisters look garish, because apparently they were going for a patina of gritty realism IN A MOVIE WHERE A COW EATS A SHOE AND EMITS A POTION THAT RESTORES YOUTH. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Give the award to the only nominee that actually deserves it: Grand Budapest Hotel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Grand Budapest Hotel</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">SOUND MIXING/SOUND EDITING<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5uDgIug4Tvi8UBBzGrcUDh7lSNWP4m-dsHrmprIjBpdJnPlzLaA_8Edn7aIQVRP-Ay9xzmvmDvTOnL_XIPF9Yo1RZb8gTqAaHkaqx2s8oHpnMvIeESUIdduFznFzA1BweXGokLFLfBoA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.00.40+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5uDgIug4Tvi8UBBzGrcUDh7lSNWP4m-dsHrmprIjBpdJnPlzLaA_8Edn7aIQVRP-Ay9xzmvmDvTOnL_XIPF9Yo1RZb8gTqAaHkaqx2s8oHpnMvIeESUIdduFznFzA1BweXGokLFLfBoA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.00.40+AM.png" height="283" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>EEGAH</i>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">No strong feelings in either category (do you know very many
folks who have strong feelings in these categories? Or can distinguish the two
in their heads?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Look, I love Interstellar, it’s amazing, but surely we’re
not awarding it in either category where it suffers the most? Caught more of
the dialogue second go-round, but still.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">For Sound Mixing, Whiplash should win, definitely. It’s
sonically perfect and precise in ways it has to be to accomplish its mission. But it’ll probably lose to American Sniper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sound Editing:</span><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: The Hobbit BOT5A or something<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: American Sniper<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sound Mixing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Whiplash<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: American Sniper<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Whiplash</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Interstellar</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">FILM EDITING:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX_1BZMs8aOqBFesdDeN7slvh3wbjFl7IkSHQt6xn4mLreipn5YEQDF16fnuGnZjcOlrIk4MFe7zqaVBrFgaIm9OjzyUdOBl3LWUXreiAOAxpH-V8qQSJyxgdqIAP42wC8p8JBr3heJ3A/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.05.56+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX_1BZMs8aOqBFesdDeN7slvh3wbjFl7IkSHQt6xn4mLreipn5YEQDF16fnuGnZjcOlrIk4MFe7zqaVBrFgaIm9OjzyUdOBl3LWUXreiAOAxpH-V8qQSJyxgdqIAP42wC8p8JBr3heJ3A/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.05.56+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Another strong and competitive technical category here (we
don’t really get to random, unsynchronised territory until later category), it
really comes down to a knockout fight between two tough contenders that present
very different strategies through their editing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">(I’ll go ahead and mark off American Sniper, GBH, and seriously,
The Imitation Game. Imitation Game, what, you want credit for scenes following
sequentially with the narrative? Congratulations on that victory!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In one corner, you have Whiplash, the most exciting movie of
2014 in many, many, ways, the effect of which would not exist without the
absolute precision of its technical and musical elements. I’ve never seen
anything like this movie, and that’s really hammered home in its excellent,
jaw-dropping final sequence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then over here you have Boyhood, which subtly accomplishes
so much with its editing we can barely notice the seems. The markers for time’s
passage are unobtrusive yet clear, and I have a strong feeling the editor made
it look way easier than that could possibly be.
This is a hard one for me, but I’m going to have to root for Whiplash,
at least in this Indie Battle Royale category.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Whiplash<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: Boyhood<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: This seems like the kind of place they might throw The Imitation Game a bone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnk1NydXMaeBmmSMMGmPKJTTtiUKa6GrSXIunCFZYCfzlMOjqT_VTg5kSbqb61V7Tgmm4tuq6uP74yHHafgMxnc9yqqEKz4dxKAIIMl52puTs8TbWYmaTYSfvZr8DoPDxyl1-ykuiX6D0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.08.37+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnk1NydXMaeBmmSMMGmPKJTTtiUKa6GrSXIunCFZYCfzlMOjqT_VTg5kSbqb61V7Tgmm4tuq6uP74yHHafgMxnc9yqqEKz4dxKAIIMl52puTs8TbWYmaTYSfvZr8DoPDxyl1-ykuiX6D0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.08.37+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">All but one of the nominees here are actually for movies
that also got a Best Picture nod? How novel!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To get to that one first, I am not watching The Judge. That is not going to happen. The Judge looks like a slightly edgier version
of the movie within a movie they’re shooting in State and Maine. Small town
life, right? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">America. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Who doesn’t love Robert Duvall? It’s nice to nominate
someone’s legacy, but sorry, not with this movie. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Ethan Hawke is sympathetic and consistent throughout
Boyhood, which is obviously an accomplishment (a huge accomplishment for the
kids there as well!), but I think the trophy for this one will go to Arquette. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Mark Ruffalo is very good in Foxcatcher, a movie a few dozen
people have seen, probably not all of them academy voters. It’d be pretty funny
if new Hulk just kept beating Old NortonHulk in everything he ever does, but I
don’t think we’re gonna see those fireworks this time around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This one’s J.K. Simmons’ to lose, and quite deservedly,
since he’s the scariest horror movie monster in recent memory. Voters may have
completely missed that Whiplash is a full-on horror genre picture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Simmons’ big challenger here is of course, the one, the only,
Edward “Odets” Norton. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Actor. Writer. Director. Producer. Dramaturg. Gaffer. Hard
Dick Haver. On-set philatelist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here he plays all of that and then some, and it’s a very
believable performance, within a premise that’s about a million miles from any
actual lived experience. Perhaps he deserves credit for riffing somewhat on his
reputation. It’s certainly more straightforward than the rest of the movie. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But I think it’ll be Simmons for the win.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: J.K. Simmons<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win J.K. Simmons<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Supporting Actor</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Special shoutout to my mother, who shot me a look of unadulterated disappointment when I said Robert Duvall was “an okay actor”, and then wouldn’t look at me for another twenty minutes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Boyhood deserves credit for making me tolerate—and yes, even appreciate—sentient trash bag Ethan Hawke, whose crimes against Shakespeare are as numerous as they are deplorable. You know that episode of True Blood where Eric dismissively says that New York smells like pee? Ethan Hawke looks like he smells like pee, all the time, whether he’s in a movie or not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Setting that aside, the role in Boyhood really does make him shine, like a penny plucked from a gutter soaked in pee. EDWARD NORTON, YOU ARE A GOD, and I applaud you from the deepest recesses of my soul. Your performance in this movie is sublime, mainly because I think Jesse and I manifested this character for you through our decade of mean-spirited jokes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Should be Norton, but WILL be Simmons, and who can begrudge him? He’s wonderful, and he doesn’t make people want to kill themselves when they work with him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">PRODUCTION DESIGN:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLdpaC4IcHgGva_3q9y8OFlQyxMMnvL2cm9SCjZGP3Jb1Kc7YrA9I5Vrhp4eZxtTvZXfkRmjPIwAB7d8KpLNaXgrAl5caYoYSTgKNe3Ul93EBXcxkrh1-5cl7ZWrewPmNY0KPV1-nPUY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.10.58+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfLdpaC4IcHgGva_3q9y8OFlQyxMMnvL2cm9SCjZGP3Jb1Kc7YrA9I5Vrhp4eZxtTvZXfkRmjPIwAB7d8KpLNaXgrAl5caYoYSTgKNe3Ul93EBXcxkrh1-5cl7ZWrewPmNY0KPV1-nPUY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.10.58+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Interstellar. I’m a
little amazed, or maybe not, that for all the back and forth on this one, the
silliness over scientific accuracy in a Work of Fiction (FFS, enough), we
completely ignored the world building that was going on here? Sure, there’s the
<i>dying</i> Earth, but also the other
planets we visit, and the vessels that get us there. Deserves to win, over Imitation Game’s Masterpiece
Theatre look (Oh, you shot in England), and certainly over Into The Woods’ “we
shot on the same set as Daniel Craig’s Defiance” greyed-out look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But it’ll go to Grand Budapest, because this is the year Wes
Anderson’s model boxes get him all those awards (and I’m partial to it
anyways).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Interstellar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: If it’s Into the Woods, I WILL KILL. Grand Budapest Hotel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">MAKEUP And HAIRSTYLING:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7I91kbIIrNvEXgpsk23EuCZLnllYQUwektE3f3jHVpEGid1BgP68KDxFpUWILQNudhKNvX8JULs1bap3YcA7ujAbt0isX2CJTHggrHLKQHhCOVjkhctzLXMMab9bw25Fi1CoV9GHLUOQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.13.29+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7I91kbIIrNvEXgpsk23EuCZLnllYQUwektE3f3jHVpEGid1BgP68KDxFpUWILQNudhKNvX8JULs1bap3YcA7ujAbt0isX2CJTHggrHLKQHhCOVjkhctzLXMMab9bw25Fi1CoV9GHLUOQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.13.29+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So Maleficent isn’t nominated here? Huh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And look, as for the actual nominees, there’s nothing <i>wrong</i> with Steve Carell’s DuPont nose, exactly, but it’s a pretty
showy thing to do (see also, The Hours, obvs.)<b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b>Grand Budapest will win. You gotta
bring it for Tilda, and they did (she’s brilliant in her five or so minutes in
this one. Note to Clint Eastwood, this is how you do old person makeup)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Guardians Of The
Galaxy would be a greatly deserved win (somebody had to be in charge of putting
blue on Michael Rooker everyday, think about that)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But of course<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win:
Guardians of the Galaxy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: The Grand
Budapest Hotel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sorry, Foxcatcher, but you just slapped a nose on Carell’s face, so don’t look to this category to slake your Oscar thirst. Occasional birthmarks and pencil-thin mustaches aren’t exactly lighting up the world, either. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Voters, throw a bone to your boy Bradley Cooper, who you seem to inexplicably love even though he’s given only two good performances, one of which was voice capture for a passive-aggressive raccoon space warrior. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is to say NOTHING of the majesty of Lee Pace Blue Face, which is the name of my future production company. Guardians must be rewarded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Guardians of the Galaxy</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">VISUAL EFFECTS:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUUiMHfUxTdvFwt_WTD-HBW-81FG9c6Md8PbUQInjK63_VC8CG2cmn_CSdD1xWfiMQRDJKX7VOC5hDC5hv0TvlWimro2Wmzuytq01X1gOsuJEBBH4ikVGqQNMp_vtOdm1nz3UzJ8kltc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.16.14+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUUiMHfUxTdvFwt_WTD-HBW-81FG9c6Md8PbUQInjK63_VC8CG2cmn_CSdD1xWfiMQRDJKX7VOC5hDC5hv0TvlWimro2Wmzuytq01X1gOsuJEBBH4ikVGqQNMp_vtOdm1nz3UzJ8kltc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.16.14+AM.png" height="320" width="294" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Captain America 2,
Guardians, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men DOFP: At their best, they’re
still mostly reliant on computer animation (no problem when the concept is as
winning as a Groot)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Interstellar uses
CGI as well, plenty, but the awesome practical effects should be rewarded! (TARS,
for example). More Mixed Approaches!
Please!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Apes are a close
second for me, and will probably win for expressiveness alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should win:
Interstellar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: Apes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: I’m sorry, were there OTHER movies that featured a screaming ape firing a machine gun while riding a horse through a wall of flame? Tough competition in this category, but COME ON. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is some next level sorcery.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">MUSIC (Original Score)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyON2uAgCA5ArPJw6a04A03Iol4DnjquXH2rzLGch6yRGN41abh_4SWYSIoFiA-7WW65tPujCrVDZ2VQ7oW5DoGUSFUw2s2jlRmZtoX6Apgb2GPDuSLIUqN-PQEoOxA5WalnHbOX7up24/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.19.37+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyON2uAgCA5ArPJw6a04A03Iol4DnjquXH2rzLGch6yRGN41abh_4SWYSIoFiA-7WW65tPujCrVDZ2VQ7oW5DoGUSFUw2s2jlRmZtoX6Apgb2GPDuSLIUqN-PQEoOxA5WalnHbOX7up24/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.19.37+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Interstellar, again,
has a memorable, wondrously emotional score, one of Hans Zimmer’s best.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But this is another
one where Grand Budapest’s brand of romanticism will win out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Hans Zimmer <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: Alexandre Desplat. (For GBH, not Bletchley
Circle: Boys Edition, for which he’s also nominated)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA: </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: I thought it was Interstellar, but I bet the Academy thinks it’s Theory of Everything, so we’ll go with that. It’s melodic, repetitive, and ENDLESS.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">MUSIC (Best Song)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuj9dIj_xs_v5mXFogafcopX6ITQL5br14brrI4hDofRtg0KUqPqpRvP_L5sl-ZHmstrcTpgZnSP-boCLMEzpJdxSCNWbRZc6vSSJX_4Yxibh8X3Z2s69GnV_XNMciBFh5jdgjfjNrrU8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.22.41+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuj9dIj_xs_v5mXFogafcopX6ITQL5br14brrI4hDofRtg0KUqPqpRvP_L5sl-ZHmstrcTpgZnSP-boCLMEzpJdxSCNWbRZc6vSSJX_4Yxibh8X3Z2s69GnV_XNMciBFh5jdgjfjNrrU8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.22.41+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Yes, Lego Movie was
snubbed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">No, Everything Is Awesome winning won’t make that any better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Can you imagine the
Academy pissing off both Selma supporters and Lego Movie fans at once by giving
Selma its only Oscar for Common and John Legend’s rendition of Glory? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Everything Is Awesome<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: Glory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /><i><br /></i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: What a garbage category this year. I guess Everything is Awesome?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">CINEMATOGRAPHY<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaf9ajdX94NwnAB2QtSD3xvR2NHx3wEWjMWJWvceP9MnDk0zZPDMmbjK2_FGtTbgTSV3XxgOxfoN5VDJb_dNUUOy7dUAzVwsf_VfwCRuWdoWowdrZkEK2RJhdYWtc1k2eCRG6d_c_rO5w/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.24.41+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaf9ajdX94NwnAB2QtSD3xvR2NHx3wEWjMWJWvceP9MnDk0zZPDMmbjK2_FGtTbgTSV3XxgOxfoN5VDJb_dNUUOy7dUAzVwsf_VfwCRuWdoWowdrZkEK2RJhdYWtc1k2eCRG6d_c_rO5w/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.24.41+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Every consecutive
year it seems I go in hard for Emmanuel Lubezki, but the streak is over. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Granted, Lubezki very nearly rescues Birdman from its premise and makes it seem
like a movie it ultimately isn’t. That takes skill, but he’s demonstrated that
skill already for directors superior (and some inferior) to Inarritu. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I’m also a big Roger
Deakins fan, who this year shot Unbroken, which judging by the trailer is
mostly brown and white? I can’t remember, and am not that interested in the movie,
sorry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I love Mike Leigh,
and hate that Mr. Turner hasn’t played near me yet. Dick Pope also shot Leigh’s
beautiful, joyous Gilbert & Sullivan biopic/Mikado origin story, Topsy
Turvy, which is the best looking Blu Ray disc I own, so again, I’m actually
pretty angry I still haven’t seen Mr. Turner yet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Ida is the best looking
B & W picture I’ve seen in awhile, but it will likely win in the Foreign
Category.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Robert Yeoman’s
serves WA’s multiple aspect ratios and time periods beautifully in Grand
Budapest, and will most likely get caught up in the movie’s award sweep.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Robert
Yeoman<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: Robert
Yeoman<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: DO NOT REWARD BIRDMAN FOR ENDLESS STATIC SHOTS OF BACKSTAGE HALLWAYS. Please just give it to Anderson and be done.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">SHORTS </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA15cvOE2WUMZiWuGGLovMo8m2L8wT68dcVwwWijOl7G35CchpKb0B0C0BrZ2N0narmbGzQk5lWUb1rl4GS2jfxT7Sfp_EwaXArr7mzecKi9eRwMBgdI0yOhDdawIx06VzszPYYsFjrjY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.26.57+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA15cvOE2WUMZiWuGGLovMo8m2L8wT68dcVwwWijOl7G35CchpKb0B0C0BrZ2N0narmbGzQk5lWUb1rl4GS2jfxT7Sfp_EwaXArr7mzecKi9eRwMBgdI0yOhDdawIx06VzszPYYsFjrjY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.26.57+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA15cvOE2WUMZiWuGGLovMo8m2L8wT68dcVwwWijOl7G35CchpKb0B0C0BrZ2N0narmbGzQk5lWUb1rl4GS2jfxT7Sfp_EwaXArr7mzecKi9eRwMBgdI0yOhDdawIx06VzszPYYsFjrjY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.26.57+AM.png" height="242" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_iETl7VTpGxmFeotHF2bqn1YOG1BJoraEIdm5a6NZrNxmXz1x2DxrXcKVth9MQilDvrX3Q0v_Vpk444WeGd7Rg4kUoIlKWLgk63oXF-7EkM_vtZwDtSIyxMiJnS18czfd2jgl_2guSqY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.27.03+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_iETl7VTpGxmFeotHF2bqn1YOG1BJoraEIdm5a6NZrNxmXz1x2DxrXcKVth9MQilDvrX3Q0v_Vpk444WeGd7Rg4kUoIlKWLgk63oXF-7EkM_vtZwDtSIyxMiJnS18czfd2jgl_2guSqY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.27.03+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_iETl7VTpGxmFeotHF2bqn1YOG1BJoraEIdm5a6NZrNxmXz1x2DxrXcKVth9MQilDvrX3Q0v_Vpk444WeGd7Rg4kUoIlKWLgk63oXF-7EkM_vtZwDtSIyxMiJnS18czfd2jgl_2guSqY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.27.03+AM.png" /></span></a><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>EEGAH: </i> None for me this, year. Livvy?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Live Action Short</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner:Aya</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Animated Short</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Feast</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Documentary Short</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">BEST ANIMATED FILM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicp7OSowW-E4SSsOjWWML2W1Fic5D2DaG4S5aTLtqsQtAUkRCzL9r9PBBDB8OQ6oz-n3TbVxAoxz8a9rKzoYDld0XbAlv8H4VQuKU6i7FvmuTKskZZab_25UZxaD65mRjFlQOrk6iGJQg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.30.42+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicp7OSowW-E4SSsOjWWML2W1Fic5D2DaG4S5aTLtqsQtAUkRCzL9r9PBBDB8OQ6oz-n3TbVxAoxz8a9rKzoYDld0XbAlv8H4VQuKU6i7FvmuTKskZZab_25UZxaD65mRjFlQOrk6iGJQg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.30.42+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Wish I’d seen
anything on this list but How To Train Your Dragon 2 (which has a great middle
act and a very messy finale).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Song of the Sea and
The Tale of Princess Kaguya are both fine films or so I’ve heard. I’ve heard
Big Hero 6 is fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It’s probably going
to How To Train Your Dragon? Who knows?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Probably Song of the Sea? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: How To
Train Your Dragon 2<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: How to Train Your Dragon 2. And yeah, I’m sorry, it WAS better than The Lego Movie, even though it is a sequel. It has these things called emotional stakes. That’s right; I’m coming out as the only person in America who thought The Lego Movie was just meh.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">BEST DOCUMENTARY<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2-pSSs8pS2_W5XLH-Hld8l-iaxhe_UcjAl7Q5hL-DvdJd8ILLaTJGonV-ysfNSttTRDthtpIN-zffrfuqgiBuyWt-FLH-OFevYSfclQCncTkbGnpTFJBasWOQEs1gjn8hEYUjt15akyY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.32.33+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2-pSSs8pS2_W5XLH-Hld8l-iaxhe_UcjAl7Q5hL-DvdJd8ILLaTJGonV-ysfNSttTRDthtpIN-zffrfuqgiBuyWt-FLH-OFevYSfclQCncTkbGnpTFJBasWOQEs1gjn8hEYUjt15akyY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.32.33+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This, along with
Best Foreign Film are always interesting categories, because I think they serve
to make us aware of movies that we might otherwise miss. Really, the best thing
a silly awards show can do, right? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Except this year both categories have egregious snubs. All I’ve seen of the Doc
noms is Virunga, which is on Netflix, is fine, but not a great movie. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I’m sure Citizenfour
is no doubt a very good film, but it didn’t get to any theaters around me, and
isn’t on VOD yet, so I can offer no opinion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The others are all
out there for rent or are about to be, so you can see Last Days in Vietnam,
Salt of the Earth, and Finding Vivian Maier soon and/or easily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Where, oh where is
Life Itself on this list? An academy that apparently loved Roger Ebert like the
rest of us, still somehow has such a huge Steve James blind spot they can’t
even be bothered to nominate his work when it’s about the world’s most beloved
film lover? I’m still shocked about this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should Win: Life
Itself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Will Win: Virunga<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">LIVIA:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Virunga</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">BEST FOREIGN
LANGUAGE FILM<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha1swNOfYCGDVBlTAVE0m46kP6Gq7KkekHkmpfoVY-iSoioHVHuLcCo1p7Ryr1kNGkIrv76sNPsrRoLGYZxytX5qZ6ewhkub9zbFupszzl1ifbT-nrJNogP-bvGHnYPbxpCWPf9pgESXY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.33.51+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha1swNOfYCGDVBlTAVE0m46kP6Gq7KkekHkmpfoVY-iSoioHVHuLcCo1p7Ryr1kNGkIrv76sNPsrRoLGYZxytX5qZ6ewhkub9zbFupszzl1ifbT-nrJNogP-bvGHnYPbxpCWPf9pgESXY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-02-22+at+10.33.51+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">EEGAH:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here it’s a little
less emotionally perplexing for me, since of the nominees there’s a clear
front-runner (though I’ve been wrong about that before).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Ida is a great
movie, a great period piece, and consummately acted, shot and directed. It’s on
Netflix, and is highly recommended.
Timbuktu has huge critical support, but it’s not available to most of us
yet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It becomes even more
annoying that it’s Best Foreign Language Film and not simply Best Foreign film
when one considers the exclusion of a movie like Australia’s The Babadook. It’s
a full on horror film, which would have probably been mitigated somewhat with the
presence of subtitles, but sure makes a compelling argument for opening up the
category to English Language foreign films as well. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>LIVIA:</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winner: Poland, or Russia? Think I’ll go with Leviathan here.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br />Once Caesar has been cast out for committing an act of violence (interpreted by the chimp as the defense of a loved one), he makes contact with other imprisoned apes, finds one that can also perform and understand sign language, and well, a few more steps from that and you've got yourself an ape tea party (would that both of these factions would head to the hills together).
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<br />That's the plot, as most people choose to see it, avoiding much conversation about the <i>Splice</i>-like father-child relationship here between Caesar and James Franco's character. You would think after working with chimpanzees this long Franco'd accept the obvious, that no matter how many injections of smarty serum you give 'em, they're still chimps, they're still going to reach a point where they're going to be well out of your control. If things had happened a little differently, we might've seen any of the truly unsettling scenarios such an odd relationship would produce. We'd have a much stranger film, for better or worse. Prequels are prequels, however, so the show must go on, humanity must eventually die, and eventually apes must rule (and fracture politically into a enough factions to include nuclear warhead worshippers).
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<br />The second film to debut in as many months focusing on the mistakes of embarrassingly stupid parents is the moderately compelling, Guillermo Del Toro scripted <i>Don't Be Afraid of the Dark</i>. Guy Pierce and Katie Holmes play a New England couple who bring Pierce's estranged (and largely ignored) 8 year old daughter to the old house Pierce is restoring for Architectural Design. Caught up with his young girlfriend and obsessed with getting a great cover for the magazine, Pierce doesn't notice in the slightest that dark forces exist within the bowels of the estate. Holmes, the less dumb of the two (perhaps because she's not actually the little girl's mother?) investigates the history of the William Blake inspired painter who lived in the house, and basically tracks down the history of the little tooth fairy monsters, almost too late.
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<br />Pierce determines that his girlfriend's various ripped up dresses are the fault of his daughter, brought about by jealousy. He doesn't really ask questions when the grounds keeper shows up stabbed by various tools and sharp objects, all over his body, more likely the result of a tiny monster attack than a fall down the cellar stairs. He refuses to believe that sinister creatures are plotting to steal his daughter and eat her teeth (a premise introduced to the audience in the most gruesome way possible, in the first few minutes of the film). Scene by scene we (from the honed Del Torian point of view of the little girl) grow convinced that Pierce is very stupid indeed. Holmes, who catches up with the viewers just in time, takes on a decent, heroic role in the film. Her character becomes more sympathetic than we'd expect.
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<br /><i>Fright Night</i> has Toni Collette playing an un-stupid parent, which in movie suburbia-land means she's playing an actual character. The new film, as well as the original, share enough of each other's plots that the characters all gradually discover that without a doubt, yes, the man next door is a vampire. Once Collette's house is ignited from the inside by Colin Farrel's sexy vampire ripping the gas-line from under the backyard and lighting it with a zippo, there's very little doubt of the danger he poses. This remake is fairly inventive, pretty funny throughout, brilliantly cast, and having just the right cocktail of suspense and cheeky creepiness, deserves its place next to the silly eighties classic. It also uses one real-estate sign very, very effectively.
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<br />People who enjoyed the original film probably had a cynical reaction to the announcement of the remake. They'd probably be surprised to hear that the movie we got is almost as good. The box-office punished this particular remake for being good, or perhaps just for being obscure enough to teenagers nowadays that it didn't register at all what it was, except for it being one more vampire flick. The less than $20 million box-office gross is possibly revenue from David Tenant fans. Serves Hollywood right for making something entertaining.
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<br />Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-48878792027094113632011-07-31T19:06:00.028-05:002011-07-31T21:36:32.233-05:00Summer '11The summer belongs to pop the way the fall belongs to (sometimes) loftier fare. The rules of bad and good still apply to summer movies, and there is no reason why blockbuster summers can't give us plausible great movie candidates. There's also no certainty that the Oscar season will always give us splendor or profundity. With that in mind, and with apologies for missing <i>Bridesmades</i>, <i>Bad Teacher</i>, <i>Cars 2</i>, <i>Pirates 4.0</i> and <i>Green Lantern</i>: <br /><br />X-Men: First Class<br /><br />This clunker of a reboot, fun in spite of its obvious flaws, is actually a period piece (obligatory costume design nomination in sight?). Set in 1961, the flick gets in front of the incipient 1960s chic that's being brought on by Mad Men. To drive this home, it even has January Jones inhabiting the role of Emma Frost (perhaps too icily for general audiences, who, unfamiliar with her Betty Draper, have unfairly mocked her "dry" delivery). The plot materializes X-Men younglings in front of our very eyes much the way the Star Trek reboot did, only this new cast barely has time to really stand out from each other, save for maybe Nicholas Hoult's Hank McCoy/Beast. James McAvoy has little to do but debate Michael Fassbender's Magneto throughout the movie, puzzlingly urging Erik at one point to show mercy to the two warring armies he's lobbing missiles at, actually saying to this Holocaust survivor, "they are just following orders." The X-Men race against time to halt nuclear war during the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an interesting thing to include in a film aimed at teenagers, who may have vaguely heard of Kennedy and Castro at this point in their lives. If there's one great thing in the movie, it's Michael Fassbender, whose Magneto is sympathetic, fearsome, completely awesome, and as much hero as anti-hero. <br /><br />Thor<br /><br />The second Marvel movie in as many weeks, this summer, Thor is probably the goofiest of all big-budget superhero movies, but still falls short of the goofiness a Thor movie really deserves. This in spite of direction by Kenneth Branagh and production design by Bo Welch. That ought to give us something either brilliant or ghastly, but instead we get middling, Marvel micro-managed good behavior. Shame, really. A complete brat before expulsion from Asgard, a fish out-of-water who meets three useless humans midway through, and a perfectly boring day-saver by the end, Thor himself really hasn't got much to offer aside from his Rocky Horror-style sex-ness. The mid-section of this movie has been unfavorably compared to the Dolph Lundgren <i>Masters of the Universe</i>, as they share essentially the same plot. Asgard is beautifully designed, the rainbow bridge is worth every penny they spent on it, I enjoyed Loki, and Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba's Asgardian turns, and hey look, it's Rene Russo! She's still in movies!<br /><br /><br />Super 8<br /><br />Is it the destination or the journey? Is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin">MacGuffin</a> really what we want to discover? There were two different movies going on with Super 8, one that was non-existent, throbbing in the heads of moviegoers expecting to have their minds blown (no doubt influenced by the marketing), and the other, the film we got, a loving tribute to Amblin Entertainment, produced by Amblin and J.J. Abrams, who himself was just the right age when E.T., Close Encounters and The Goonies came out in the late seventies and early eighties. For those who have positive associations with multiple bright blue lense-flares and children throttling through the suburbs on their bicycles, saving the day, this movie had plenty to keep your heart aflutter. To those expecting a mind-bender, you no doubt left disappointed. It's interesting that I haven't seen anyone state the obvious, that J.J. Abrams is doing for Spielberg here essentially the same thing that Todd Haynes did in honor of Douglas Sirk with <i>Far From Heaven</i>. Both films couldn't be more different in style or tone, but both pay loving tribute to very specific kinds of films, made by very specific kinds of directors.<br /><br />(Note: This is the most child-endangeringest movie in many years)<br /><br />Tranformers: Dark of the Moon<br /><br />Did you spend nearly three hours oppressed under the mighty weight of yet another dull, incoherent, homophobic paean to what's dead inside us all? I did too, it sucked, but it sucked in that big American way that only Michael Bay's big clanging truck nutz can be sucked on. It's just a movie, critics, a movie borne of the equivalent of the GDPs of two or three developing nations, all so we could watch Optimus hide while humans suffer and die, Bumblebee could be traipsed in front of a firing squad only to triumph at the last minute, and all so Shia LaBeouf could be castrated in the most homophobic way possible by Ken Jeong. We became Rome long before the production of these movies. We'll likely have a few more like these before the fall. <br /><br />Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2:<br /><br />This one ties everything together about as well as you could expect, leaving out plenty, but following the best due course it could, which was to include all the bullet points so as to not incur the wrath of millions of die-hard Rowling fans. That being said, this movie is often rousing, closing out a series that was already on par with Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones for serving us high adventure and serving it well. There are times when this series has left out crucial structural character details, like Molly Weasley going to clean out the Boggart in Order of the Phoenix, only to have it turn into the rotating bodies of her beloved children, Harry as well. We get her payoff in this last flick, but it's more of a payoff if you've read the books. Still, one can forgive the filmmakers for leaving out much of the plot minutiae, rules of Harry and Voldemort's connection, etc. This series has more MacGuffins than any eight films could possibly include. What works in books makes for anti-narrative in films, sometimes. We'll never know if what was excluded would work if filmed, so to enjoy the movies is really to enjoy the full immersion of this beautiful world, and revel in the absolutely revelatory acting of its expansive British cast, of which much has been said, but of which Alan Rickman above all deserves Oscar attention later this year. His work is beautiful, as was Rowling's in creating his character, and while every character shines in the movies at one point or another, Rickman's Severus Snape (not forgetting Ralph Fiennes's amazing Voldemort), really dominates my memory of this wonderful film. <br /><br />The Tree of Life<br /><br />Terence Malick's Full-blown American Opera and Book of Job is a summer movie too. It's really far more ambitious than anything that's come out this summer, this year, or in many years. That's been the focus of much discussion of the movie, but for now, I'll focus on its astonishing, absorbing, painstakingly detailed account of a childhood. The scenes in Texas from the point of view of the young Sean Penn character (Brad Pitt playing his father), the slow, often quiet, sometimes jolting, sometime dangerous life of a pre-teen boy against a backdrop of a fifties small town, is really one of the best pieces of out-of-body-experience Americana I've ever seen. As he deals with a domineering, austere father, an outdoor life more compelling than television, a hair-raising trip into a stranger's house that was all the more plausible in the fifties than it ever would be in our time of locked doors, a receptive audience is taken on a journey in those scenes as well as the now famous dawn-of-time scenes, which rightly anoint the film as a peer with 2001: A Space Odyssey.<br /><br />Captain America: The First Avenger<br /><br />This whole summer has been a time machine, hasn't it? So much Americana, whether it's the 40s, 50s, 60s, or a J.J. Abrams remembered 1979, America seems to be turning back the clock in its fiction, pedalling as fast as it can away from our uncertain future. But Captain America is not sad, not depressing, even when comparing its old-fashioned heroic outlook to that of our current morass. It's fun, a little exciting, and full of rich performances by Toby Jones, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanly Tucci and our dependable leads, perhaps not so rich, but still serviceable, Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell. It's directed with wit and good humor by Joe Johnston, will remind you more than once of his splendid <i>The Rocketeer</i>, and is the last stop on the road to next summer's <i>The Avengers</i>, which for all this lead-up and stretched-out origin-story excess from recent Marvel films, better be a rapturous outburst of owning. <br /><br />I'm still on board for Cowboys & Aliens, will remain open-minded about that damned dirty ape movie, and am going nowhere near a smurf if I can help it. Stay tuned.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-20656702506037282962011-07-04T15:45:00.019-05:002011-07-04T17:02:59.713-05:00More Than Meets the Eye (No Homo)The movie critic tropes in service of hating Michael Bay films are as self-perpetuating as his movies. I have tried to approach each Transformers film with a ritual shedding of my film critic skin. After all, where else am I going to see a spectacle of this magnitude, in service of pure action picture id and technological worshipfulness? I really have, each time, tried to localize my thoughts and feelings into another part of my brain and see if my reptilian side can just tap into whatever collective unconscious instinct of ours has boosted the box office receipts for these films into the stratosphere. There I was this go-around, doing a smart-thoughts squelching mind-keigel, when what happened? The summer of 2011 fanboy-movie interjection into the events of the early 1960's pulled me right back out of my parietal lobe. <br /><br /> The movie begins in 1961, and traces its events with the run-up to the moon-landing, positing that we discovered signs of extra-terrestrial life on the moon and that the sole purpose of the mission was to discover what was there before the Russians did. Cut to the landing, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin discover a wrecked Autobot spacecraft. This is all recreated with stock footage and digitally altered historical scenes. It's a ten or fifteen minute opener, requiring more patience from the audience than I ever expected Michael Bay to ask of us. <br /><br /> The mild goodwill that this engenders is spent rapidly as the film returns us to what has to be the worst collection of human characters in a sci-fi/fantasy picture I've ever encountered. The Witwicky family, spazzes all, Megan Fox's replacement model, who serves only to distract the heteros in the audience from their own impatience with the presence of dialogue, and John Turturro's purely awful ex-CIA agent, all are basically useless for the two hours or so we spend with them. The cartoon movie from 1986 didn't rely so heavily on its human characters. Its Autobots and Decepticons were themselves imbued with human characteristics of bravery, self-sacrifice, heroism, a sense of humor, sympathy, or outright ruthless evilness, and the human characters were relegated to the sidelines. I prefer that approach to imbuing no characters, human or machine, with any appealing or believable characteristics whatsoever.<br /><br /> Still my real complaint with these films has been less to do with the appalling tone or values on display, or the casual racism and homophobia (more on <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> in a moment), but more with the fact that I grew up with the Transformers, and here they just don't feel right. There's too many gears and crap flying around their bodies when they transform, too much detail on each of them, to the point where they often seem formless and indistinct, whether in close-up or longshot. Put them in a remotely cybertronian environment, especially in the case of Decepticons, and the effect is practically camouflage. I wish I could say the editing restraints of 3-D (perhaps the only restraint Michael Bay has encountered to his filmmaking in some fifteen years) make the transformers' scenes more comprehensible, but I don't really think they do.<br /><br /> This is the first film in this series to contain a dramatic plot of some kind, and it deals with Sam Witwicky's emergence into manhood and independence after terrible emasculation. At the start, he has the hottest girlfriend imaginable, but he can't find a job and is forced into a mailroom at some vaguely fascist corporation. It is at this job that an Asian scientist and conspiracy theorist corners him and all but homosexually rapes him in a bathroom stall to get him to admit to being in league with the autobots. I don't know how to adequately describe this scene. It's the most homophobic trash I've seen in a movie aimed at children in, perhaps my entire life. It's like Takeshi Miike done very poorly. After being gay-raped in a bathroom stall and his girlfriend dominated by Patrick Dempsey's evil Decepticon lieutenant character, he flails through the next hour or so until, after the apocalypse starts in Chicago, a marine (Josh Duhamel) hands him a gun. He is now a man. Arc achieved.<br /><br /> A central plot point involves an Autobot act of subterfuge that fools the Decepticons into thinking they've left Earth. They then take over Chicago and start murdering thousands of people, incinerating them like it's Spielberg's War of the Worlds. This is a film aimed at little kids, right? What are they (or we) to make of the Autobots allowing so many humans to lose their lives, just to convince us humans how much we need them? That's not the Optimus I grew up with. He then repeatedly says, arriving just a few moments after several innocent bystanders are annihilated, with regard to Decepticons, "We will kill them all". A far cry from the selfless heroism of "One shall stand, one shall fall". <br /> <br /> The twice repeated mockery of Barack Obama, the flick's absolute militarism, its desperate attempt to tack on feelings of victory even after the Lincoln Memorial is destroyed and Chicago is left in ruins, is all just base pandering to a whole section of this country that can't accept that we've lost two wars and are in serious disrepair, as a nation. That we beat the Decepticons is really cold comfort, right? <br /><br /> The set-pieces are fearsome, large, and kind of amazing, particularly an extended sequence of a building falling over while our human protagonists are inside it (which goes on for nearly half an hour). The last hour and a half is so extensive indeed in its action sequences that we are ourselves cowed by its might, and perhaps many of us led to believe this is what an "awesome" movie looks like. In reality it's a cold, empty film, committed to distracting us from our own directionless present. <br /><br /> And with all that dudgeon I seemed to have felt and expressed, it's still just a movie, somehow marginally better than the second one. Someone asked me why John Malkovich and Frances McDormand would accept work in garbage like this (to say nothing of Alan Tudyk!). The reason should be obvious. Add up the total gross of the last five Coen Brothers or Spike Jonze films, and a Miss Pettigrew film, your total won't come close to one of these. I say bless them, all of them, may they each have been paid many riches.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-73173653158059946452011-05-10T20:01:00.006-05:002011-05-11T08:56:49.833-05:00Norse Gods and MonstersThe Thor of comic-dom is the most risible character in the Marvel canon, the campiest of all their roster, second only in oafishness to the Hulk (who, of course, can’t help it). He’s given to aggressive histrionics, is silly to his core, and still somehow never draws too much attention to himself in Kenneth Branagh’s uneven, at times entertaining volume in the new Marvel Movie-verse.<br /><br /> Chris Hemsworth is perfectly adequate for Thor’s looks, but isn’t given much room to enunciate from a script that seems to want to cover only the basic ground of the story while never really having much fun. It’s mostly the clever, sometimes beautiful production design, and Kenneth Branagh’s light, barely noticeable direction that achieves the movie’s fairly blithe tone.<br /><br /> Branagh is man-for-hire here, and it’s easy to forget he’s involved in this at all. His films of Shakespeare’s plays have made him a good choice to handle the high mythology and lineal conflicts, but methinks total creative control of this franchise, handed to this director, would’ve been a high-camp experience to put the previous Wolverine entry to shame.<br /><br /> If Marvel has exerted its creative control, that hasn’t produced a movie that takes itself too seriously, either. The film is at its most entertaining in its God-out-of-Asgard scenes set in New Mexico, where Natalie Portman portrays a hunter for signals of extra-terrestrial life, assisted by her stock character/Juno wannabe, and Stellan Skarsgard (whom it was decreed had to be in a Thor movie with that name and lineage). The three main human characters frame the story of Thor’s banishment from Asgard when they discover his fallen body, only to have their backed up evidence taken from them by S.H.I.E.L.D. (Clark Gregg’s cameo here, to frame everything with the upcoming Avengers movie, is welcome and dependable)<br /><br /> The story also involves the ages old conflict between the gods of Asgard and the snow-giants of Jotunheim (or somesuch realm). Anthony Hopkins plays Odin more or less in his sleep, until of course he’s literally put to sleep later on. There’s a trusty team of Thor’s Power-Ranger-like sidekicks who eventually escape to Earth during Loki’s ascendance to the throne, and Idris Elba plays Heimdall (a name I had to look up), guard of the realm.<br /><br /> That’s right, Idris Elba. Squint and you’ll see him through the armor. The true nature of Loki (Tom HIddleston) is revealed soon after Thor’s banishment by Odin, which sets in motion a plot that you will barely remember upon leaving the theater, unless you’re one of a handful of truly committed Thor fans.<br /><br /> The images of Asgard, the mystical (and kind of mystifying) interplanetary transport device, stood guard with dignified authority by Elba’s Hiemdall, the surprising inclusion of Rene Russo, and the general high-adventure feeling of this undertaking, make it better than you might expect. The rainbow bridge, the golden towers, the glinting armor, the not-overlong battle scenes, are all visually very beautiful and engaging. Asgard might be an excitingly memorable place in the movies.<br /><br /> It is possible that Thor has never been made into a film before due to technology being insufficient until recent times to render the final product something not laughably unwatchable. The awesome success of Marvel movies and the impending Avengers film have made this entry altogether inevitable. Hard to say whether more camp would’ve made it even more memorable, but then maybe after the experience of Wolverine, toeing the line was a good choice. In the direction of camp, this installment doesn't even come close.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-27636025990296773432011-03-02T13:24:00.004-05:002011-03-02T13:27:43.077-05:00BrrrrreakbeatI have never seen this video's antecedent, but I'm guessing it sums that all up:<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="450" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zqzBGlWa0jo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br />(Other goodies from the Stantons' new album are supplemental with this healthy dose of <a href="http://soundcloud.com/stantonwarriors/stanton-warriors-live-from-avalon-hollywood-07-01-11">bass</a>!)Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-65263937268209901532011-01-28T14:42:00.008-05:002011-01-28T15:11:55.499-05:00Ffffact Vs FictionMost people aren’t born a king or a queen. Woe to those who want not the burden. Consider, in Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech, poor George VI, unable even to complete a simple public reading due to his speech impediment. Were he not played with such reasonable humor and simple goodness by Colin Firth, American audiences would be turning their noses at him, as do most of this film’s detractors. Now is not a fashionable time for our thoughts to turn to royalty, certainly not a time to whitewash German appeasement.<br /><br /> Good thing then that our protagonist here is neither the humble Firth or certainly Timothy Spall’s glaring Winston Churchill, but Geoffrey Rush’s perspicacious speech therapist. Yes, we have here the story of a Duke who inherits the throne on account of Edward VIII’s moral turpitude, a story awash in both scandalous palace intrigue and sudden realignment of the throne to the public’s full support against the Nazis (never minding of course the actual turn of events in history outlined <a href=”http://www.slate.com/id/2282194/”>here</a>, in what could not reasonably be called a review of the film in question).<br /><br /> That these events all lead to Neville Chamerlain’s and King George’s appeasement to the Nazis and the surrender of the Sudetenland is something we can all look up for ourselves (would Europe have fared better under Edward VIII?).<br /><br /> These may be questions for a film to ask, but they are not central to the action of <i>this</i> film. The King's Speech isn't celebrating the glories of the Monarchy, and indeed, the concept of divine right is nothing if not mocked by Rush’s speech therapist, and still more subtly skewered by Derek Jacobi’s portrayal of a pompous sycophant of an archbishop.<br /><br /> The joy of the film is in the deep friendship between George and Lionel, eventually transcending their different stations in life, and indeed, lasting the rest of their lives. Rush’s Lionel is the sharpest character here, the fool (who loves Shakespeare), who needles and disarms the King until the bond they share becomes the ultimate authority in the room. In order to unlock the key to Firth's stammer, he must first reduce him to vulnerabilities. The Australian insouciance with which he must dismantle royal airs is barely masked mischief for him. <br /> <br /> If we are expected by some observers to view this film as an apology for appeasement and a bad reading of history, the actual experience proves that feeling difficult to achieve. It’s an electric thrill, terrifically exciting, more fun than the best action flick this year. The King’s Speech has reached the number two slot at the box office this week, and is this year's most successful indie besides Black Swan and the Coens’ True Grit. This is not because Americans are by and large sympathetic to the Monarchy.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-37637179249007111312010-12-24T13:59:00.006-05:002010-12-24T18:57:25.754-05:00Beats and Breaks of 20102010 began in a "chillwave", or at least that's what the kids were calling it. Dubstep was either in ascendancy or decline, depending on who you talked to, and either way, high energy sounds (especially rock-centric ones) were on the way out. For the most part, the trend away from rock and roll continued (my hetero-lifemate and I defied the trend, perhaps giving it a good send-off down south with this <a href="http://flannelchannel.mypodcast.com/2010/02/DJs_WanaB_Flannel_Boys_DJ_WanaB_vs_Flannel_Boy_21210-287242.html">mix</a>), early in the year. <br /><br />The electro-banger persisted, in spite of those of us on the other side of that Geiger-counter begging people to stop remaking <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2nmgcVbfKE">Pon De Floor</a> with a 4/4 (or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N1OQvJ5v2k">morse-code</a>).<br /><br />What follows then is an off-year list, one in which narrative builds gave way to experimentation rather than the search for climactic moments. What did I look for in my sets? The same things I always do, stuff that's good on or off the floor, with or without pills, of the moment but not a slave to it, and quite possibly crossover music for the bleep-blop resistant. <br /><br />Here goes, in no particular order:<br /><br />Jamie Lidell - I Wanna Be Your Telephone (Tiga's Party like it's 19909 mix)<br /><br />Smooth, instrumentally spare, loquacious and surprisingly epic, this is a down, slow and dirty groove good for catchin' 'em unawares. Only for adventurous DJs (DO NOT SPEED THIS UP! 118bpm is just right, don't ruin it):<br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/btmJhLf_AI4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/btmJhLf_AI4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />Scissor Sisters - Invisible Light (Siriusmo mix)<br /><br />From the Teutonic wonder-kid, this remix is harmonious with the original, able to stand on its own, and just absolutely smashes it, through and through:<br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gcgDw6pB_Sk?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gcgDw6pB_Sk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />BT - Le Nocturne de Lumiere<br /><br />Go ahead, count the notes. Count the edits. Count the sheer number of sounds. I dare you. Or just take it in. This is what BT does. <i>These Hopeful Machines</i> is as much an attempt at mainstream success as BT has tried since <i>Emotional Technology</i>, and as such it is a beautiful, powerfully earnest, but genuinely emotional and frankly transcendent record of electronic music. The man writes music for healing that works as dance music. I don't care what style you're into, you simply must hear BT, whatever he's doing. This is the most "underground" cut on the record, deep into the second disc, but even at his most anthemic, he could make the most hardened dance-music cynic sit up. As well we all should: <br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8jjhr84wrw8?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8jjhr84wrw8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />Om Unit - Searching (Adam Freeland mix)<br /><br />Adam Freeland has had an amazing year, and he's done it on the DL. After two years working on and touring from his Freeland album <i>Cope</i>, he's turned back to DJ sets, touring and trainspotting. His ears manage to find un-charted records that yearn to be heard, making him a DJ in the classical sense. Do yourself a favor, and go download his most recent set <a href="http://soundcloud.com/adamfreeland/adam-freeland-snowstorm-in-africa-clash-podcast">here</a>. My goodness, new things you will hear. The set also includes this bangarang fucking remix of Om Unit from late summer:<br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KXBpkMexpLs?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KXBpkMexpLs?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />TWR72 - Shock<br /><br />The Walk & Rogerseventytwo are two Dutch guys with wild imaginations. To me, this record is breaks. Period. It's the boom-tap, baby, just wobbly, and then that build and release? Flawless. Listen <a href="http://hypem.com/#!/item/1245b/TWR72+-+Shock"> here</a>.<br /><br />Ramadanman - Work Them<br /><br />This kid is twelve or some shit. And he has this kind of rhythm structure in his brain. Whatever, he's the closest thing to dubstep I'm really embracing right now, though there are others. This guy won me over with this song, slowly and gradually, and then I began to discover his other work, which is really impressive for a young-un. He's the most accessible experimenter of 2010. Also, this track is definitely breaks, not dub, in case you wanna fight about it:<br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xWxMVc2LZLQ?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xWxMVc2LZLQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />Coin Operated Boy - Trust Me (Clouds mix)<br />Heard this track in an Evil Nine set, really contrasted the disco-vibe of theirs, in a good way. Gnarly, that's what this is, and that's what Clouds is. Just sick as fuck:<br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YBSMOhv9QsY?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YBSMOhv9QsY?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />Evil Nine - Auto<br /><br />Speaking of their disco-vibe, they've really rocked it out with that. Their brand new label <i>For Lovers</i> and three sets of long-form DJ mixes have really changed their direction for them in the past year. Still, don't fret, they remain, as ever, Evil Nine. Here's a clip previewing their new three-track EP, Auto being the track one: <br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cpdf0rp8dqs?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cpdf0rp8dqs?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />Sandro Silva & Anjiro Rijo - Fifty What (Dem Slackers mix)<br /><br />Every DJ needs a good Hattori Hanzo sword, and here's one crafted by Dem Slackers, another ridiculously young producer, this time out of the Netherlands:<br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MVfgJ_612DY?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MVfgJ_612DY?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object><br /><br />Cassius - I <3 U So<br /><br />We're gonna finish it off with some elder statesmen, the classic duo you may remember from the time of Fatboy Slim and Basement Jaxx (as if now isn't also their time), here's some remarkable and gorgeous stuff from Cassius, producing perhaps the first instance of "Frenchstep" I'm aware of. Take it away, 2010:<br /><object width="150" height="100"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/S6mbPzVgLws?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/S6mbPzVgLws?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="150" height="100"></embed></object>Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-36666537373374226072010-11-29T20:48:00.019-05:002010-11-29T23:57:21.734-05:00Fair GameNeither agitprop nor Jason Bourne-esque spycraft lie at the heart of Doug Liman's Valerie Plame thriller <i>Fair Game</i>. Few attempts are made to elevate your heartrate on the way to a well-known conclusion, and no attempt is made to heavily propagandize the events that lead to that well-known conclusion. Instead, what we have is a strange, thoroughly implausible domestic drama, wherein a hot-headed husband's big mouth gets his wife fired, forcing him to hit the road to clear her name (not to mention provide for their family). Were it not for the events depicted centering so closely on the actual, real world outing of Plame, none of what transpires in the film would have the slightest verisimilitude.<br /><br /> That conflict between the pragmatic, good soldier Plame and the truth-seeking, jusice demanding Wilson is really the main-thread of the movie, which is doubtless an improvement over the Michael Moore speechifying or Oliver Stone psychodrama you might be expecting. <br /><br />Naomi Watts's Plame and Sean Penn's Joe Wilson are each a workmanlike rendition of a type we've seen lately, the Mr and Mrs. Smith couple, a la Prizzi's Honor (and played out in five or six other films this year). The difference here is they're not superhuman or smug or overtly comical (or assassins). They're real people, extraordinary public servants or not. Things are most interesting here when we see Plame's matter-of-fact approach to concealing her identity, going on the job, interrogating people and collecting intelligence, and finally dealing with her exposure to the limelight. <br /><br />Watts has a resume filled with serious, difficult roles, and a nack for playing them flawlessly. Penn's close-to-the-heart portrayal of Wilson as a boorish, passionate blow-hard, pursuing the truth at great peril to both of their livelihoods, is as you would imagine it. He's quite good, as usual, and plays the character without over-playing his own personal politics.<br /><br />The film is not distractingly partisan, save for finding us the fattest Karl Rove in Hollywood. It depicts the Cheney underlings who cooked the books on WMD and then revealed Valerie Plame's identity to the world as thuggish, incompetent and treasonous, which of course, they were.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-23659982004707678942010-11-08T15:14:00.001-05:002010-11-08T15:14:29.983-05:00Transpose Pup<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/15085561" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/15085561">Uberzone "Bunk Pitch" Promo Video</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user4758766">Uberzone</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-69562330244123771192010-10-31T13:03:00.007-05:002010-10-31T13:09:50.882-05:00Hunting SeasonPowerful yearning, for escape from one’s roots, the love of a good woman, and an abandonment of violence as a way of life are all boiling to the rim of Ben Affleck’s comeback in <i>The Town</i>. Here we have, as with the superior <i>Gone Baby Gone</i>, a return to the working-class Bostonian roots of Affleck’s breakout role, as co-star and co-author (with Matt Damon, and most certainly Kevin Smith, respectively) in <i>Good Will Hunting</i>. Affleck takes the starring role this time, and the box-office receipts have proven that to be a decent gambit. Here is a star well past his phony tabloid meltdown and a string of bad pictures, clearly having spent the last five years figuring out where to go from there. His two most recent films suggest he’s back in the game, and would very much like you to consider an end to the backlash against him.<br /><br /> It is, first of all, a good and absorbing film. It’s a heist-movie, co-starring an apparently <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100915/REVIEWS/100919991">fat</a>(?) Jeremy Renner and a reliably one-step-behind FBI agent Jon Hamm. It is in many ways a standard one-last-job/shoot-out-with-the-cops flick (To call it a cat-and-mouse game would be to give the cat too much credit). It’s a film of lean, physical toughness and swagger. With any good heist or streets picture, you go for the window dressing, not the frame.<br /><br /> Jeremy Renner plays Affleck’s lifelong friend recently released from prison on a stint that kept Affleck from going there himself. Renner is the wild-card, like his character in <i>The Hurt Locker</i>, only with a self-preservation instinct that won’t outpace the death one. He’s predictable only in the sense that you can easily expect violence from him. At what point it will emerge is anyone’s guess.<br /><br /> The more crucial force in the picture is Jon Hamm’s FBI agent, who, though smart enough to know he has his guys, can’t quite keep up with Affleck. He throws around the word <i>omerta</i> in a strong-arming interrogation session, knows what it means, and knows the guys he’s tailing are bound by it (but doesn’t understand quickly enough how deeply another character becomes bound by it).<br /><br /> The film, while not as great as Gone Baby Gone, speaks to how deeply we may have ourselves underestimated Affleck. In salvaging his career, he has now made two of his best pictures. He’s currently filming his next project for Terrence Malick. People can surprise you from out of the holes they pull themselves.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-65455566819473829332010-10-05T18:14:00.003-05:002010-10-05T19:24:50.064-05:00The Soci(opath)al Network“That’s got to be the land-speed record for talking”<br /><br /> David Fincher’s Facebook "exposé” opens to a roller-coaster of words, no faster in terms of pacing and screw-ball velocity than ones spoken during the set-matches of the rest of the film, but they feel faster. Your ears sit up. The first exchange is between Mark Zuckerberg and his Boston University girlfriend, and it’s more densely packed than an episode of House (if not The West Wing). It reels you in, makes you adjust to the pitch and timbre of the film, and may well be the interaction you’ll need to review the most to get the entire movie. It’s all right there at the start.<br /><br /> Recorded from the perpetual-motion-machine of Aaron Sorkin’s brain, it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether or not what occurs from thereon is even remotely true. We’re witnessing history re-written from the heights. A few facts are certainly inescapable, being that Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, settled out of court with two different parties (or many, many more), and went on to become Charles Foster Kane (in a hoodie).<br /><br /> For those who both snickered at the notion of a Facebook movie being made and at the prospect of Jesse Eisenberg starring in it, you are offered Eisenberg's scrutinizing, contemptuous face, for two whole hours. And, while he’s flaunting your small-mindedness with his pitch-perfect performance, he’d like to thank you now in advance for never again comparing him to Michael Cera. There are fine performances here, particularly from Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield (our incipient Spider Man). What’s more of a surprise is how surely Justin Timberlake takes over the movie halfway through. He fares more than well enough with the speaking of Sorkinese.<br /><br /> David Fincher’s film presents what most people would be convinced are mundane affairs, through his usual shadowy, sepia-lensed viewfinder. In this, he gets the tone of Zuckerberg’s resentment-filled coming-of-age just right. He also takes us deep into the world of the elite Harvard establishment and power-drunk tweener-preneurs. It’s a very interesting film for our resentful times.<br /><br />It’s also a classic tale of an almost Nixonian triangulator. Spurned from his lack of social and practical acceptance in the highest echelons and clubs, not to mention his puny ineligibility for the rowing team, Zuckerberg is forced to outdo them all. <br /><br /> That starts a war. We see the testimony of the three major parties, the Winklevoss twins, Eduardo Saverin (Garfield) and Zuckerberg, the first two suing the latter for theft of intellectual property, and quite literal disenfranchisement, respectively. The official line of the filmmakers is that they’re presenting a “Rashomon” scenario for the viewers. They claim they don’t know which version of events is correct.<br /><br /> The movie seems to know, however. The entire film flashbacks from its deposition frame-story to a narrative in motion that leads inexorably down Zuckerberg’s byzantine maneuvering and cut-throat deal-making. The endgame is your typical lonely man in a tower, loveless, friendless, and rich.<br /><br /> We’ve seen that movie before, a few times. What we don’t usually see is a protagonist who might not realize what he’s lost; the price of being the world’s youngest billionaire. One is led to believe he didn’t even know he was so Machiavellian, but it’s all right there in the first scene.<br /><br />It’s a break-up movie, set to Trent Reznor, filmed in <i>Se7en</i>-vision. And it’s the best film made from a Sorkin screenplay yet. Go see it.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-61251423994410770562010-09-29T13:04:00.002-05:002010-09-29T14:34:16.909-05:00HEART YOU, CASSIUS<object width="450" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dyjf-Bic_b4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dyjf-Bic_b4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="450" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />Holy shit, I'm not really blogging this year, eh? <br /><br />Changes comin'.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-72708697443598432452010-09-10T23:29:00.005-05:002010-09-10T23:36:00.077-05:00Jahweh Wept<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihFw09PtN4EnfVumW95kVrEEge4et0VC3g0sBkwIniHoAW1xFYva_oSGnquaIOvEY3QqZXwyzYdsPXgSRU5a8x1a8A6uUVt04iW6m0u-gkUMOhRkQTEYMSySns7Lo67r7R5yo06QvGLxQ/s1600/Picture+4.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 247px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihFw09PtN4EnfVumW95kVrEEge4et0VC3g0sBkwIniHoAW1xFYva_oSGnquaIOvEY3QqZXwyzYdsPXgSRU5a8x1a8A6uUVt04iW6m0u-gkUMOhRkQTEYMSySns7Lo67r7R5yo06QvGLxQ/s400/Picture+4.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515508761129009730" /></a><br /><br />The <a href="http://www.snarkastic.com/archives/003352.html">posts</a> in <a href="http://adhocadventure.blogspot.com/2010/07/you-dont-fuck-that.html">question</a>.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-6445497684624929322010-08-17T01:16:00.001-05:002010-08-17T01:17:40.434-05:00I Stayed Up and Watched This Movie on Showtime in 1988<object width="450" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TYKhHRTrQhU?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TYKhHRTrQhU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="450" height="385"></embed></object>Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-330485058541490342010-07-31T20:03:00.000-05:002010-07-31T20:04:10.566-05:00Head Scratchy Feet Thumpy<object width="450" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-MkGx725tAE&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-MkGx725tAE&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="450" height="385"></embed></object>Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-14441052069937408022010-07-25T00:49:00.002-05:002010-07-25T00:51:21.993-05:00No Words<i>Questions had been asked as to whether Duisburg, a city of 500,000, was capable of holding such a large event, which suited Berlin, where crowds spilled across its wide avenues and into parks, preventing overcrowding.</i><br /><br />What. The. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/24/love-parade-festival-tunnel-stampede">Fuck</a>.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-37040692859808945592010-07-22T11:09:00.005-05:002010-07-22T11:26:50.213-05:00A CanardI won't be writing any sort of stabilized review of <i>Inception</i> until I take my boo to see it next week, and am able to sort it more clearly a second time. <br /><br />Briefly, I will say, however, something I've said before about different material in the past. The complaint has been surfacing (spoiler?) that the lucid dreaming of these characters is <i>impossible</i>, that is, dreams <i>just don't work like that</i>.<br /><br />I will not speak to the real world implications of this. Either the conceit of this movie is impossible or it isn't. But.....ahem:<br /><br />You can't hear explosions in space. You can't bend a spoon with your mind. There are no such thing as replicants. It's almost 2015 and <a href="http://www.11points.com/Movies/11_Predictions_That_Back_to_the_Future_Part_II_Got_Wrong">we don't have hoverboards yet</a>.<br /><br />Nobody talks like an Aaron Sorkin or Quentin Tarantino character in real life. <br /><br />You don't accept the premise of <i>Inception</i>? Then you weren't paying attention to how carefully they set up the notion that our protagonists have been <i>at this for awhile</i>, are the <i>special ops of the dream-world</i>.<br /><br />And you're just looking to complain, aren't you?Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-29707511725652772292010-07-20T12:39:00.003-05:002010-07-20T12:40:58.048-05:00Yay For Twitter and Us and Dance Music!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinoJM8uG-7Vj_RIzGUYtLpND46MfXiiLnu6ffAzfW43ROYlrH_SwUNBKNZeQE1QrmQRrFKRPah1NEGiOO4xdNOE098Dgvw_VVMKMf50yjTvfObpRoDvAngc5i04EMba7UFfVjGo6YkQuo/s1600/Picture+1.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinoJM8uG-7Vj_RIzGUYtLpND46MfXiiLnu6ffAzfW43ROYlrH_SwUNBKNZeQE1QrmQRrFKRPah1NEGiOO4xdNOE098Dgvw_VVMKMf50yjTvfObpRoDvAngc5i04EMba7UFfVjGo6YkQuo/s400/Picture+1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496044596982570962" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp0RwCEu-iggUf57Joxio-1U4FxqgCKt4Ovy4xzq0waJdEriDTWXL6-PT_diNDdMjtsxuleOQ_Y4Hg3QIX3m-ZGzs6vn-X197m1bCFL8qOAGh8DJ7vY6zv2cJBLWiKYgsB4W5AFqfhpGs/s1600/Picture+2.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 95px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp0RwCEu-iggUf57Joxio-1U4FxqgCKt4Ovy4xzq0waJdEriDTWXL6-PT_diNDdMjtsxuleOQ_Y4Hg3QIX3m-ZGzs6vn-X197m1bCFL8qOAGh8DJ7vY6zv2cJBLWiKYgsB4W5AFqfhpGs/s400/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496044671235270082" /></a>Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-73964565892696477172010-07-15T12:00:00.014-05:002010-07-16T00:20:41.578-05:00OH NO NO NO- Overheard during the Guillermo Del Toro produced recent flick, <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=splice.htm">Splice</a><br /><br />Sad, really, that this movie, in this summer of flop-sweat on executive car-seats, had to go down with the rest. It's one of maybe three or so films with any ideas in it to come out since April. <br /><br />And does it ever have ideas. So many, and so casually strewn in ornamental order, and in so short procession (the themes): <br /><br /><i>Man plays god, toys with nature</i><br /><br /><i>Man splices (titular!) genetic hybrid rabbit/fish/slug that harbors all kinds of disease curing possibilities</i><br /><br /><i>Man breaks rules (because man HADN'T broken rules yet!), combines own DNA with that of rabbit, bird, bat, fish (manticore?)</i><br /><br /><i>Man and woman have domestic woes. Raise subsequent she-beast together as though it were child</i><br /><br /><i>Man reads Frankenstein, realizes things will be JUST FINE</i><br /><br />Step back for a second, replace the word man with Sarah Polley, and you've got the real story. Adrien Brody's character is playing rear-guard here. He has to be pleaded with for a good sixty minutes of the movie to be remotely on board with raising the central creature of this film, a female straight out of <i>The Arrival</i> with a stinger on her tail and a longing in her heart. <br /><br />The film is compulsively watchable, interesting, and deeply creepy from start to finish. It has two or three very memorable scenes and a conclusion that will make or break your willingness to re-evaluate everything that has gone before.<br /><br />The creature itself is the best reason to see the film. It's called Dren, and is named suddenly and decisively by Sarah Polley's character, who does everything here suddenly and decisively. Dren can proudly stand beside our greatest movie monsters. She's an ably designed, but most of all very well acted character indeed. It's worth remembering the words of Terry Gilliam: <br /><br /><i>My problem with E.T., and I think it would be a better film, are those big Walter Keane moonstone eyes, because you immediately love that little creature. There’s a moment in the film when they’re dissecting the frogs and they do a close-up of the frogs with those alien slit eyes. Now if E.T. had those eyes, then he’s a really grotesque ugly thing and the kid has to learn to love a grotesque ugly thing. It’s easy to love E.T. It should have been difficult to love E.T.</i><br /><br />This movie keeps those moonstone eyes <i>and</i> makes it at times deeply troubling to find any sympathy for this creature, who is just NOT right at all. She shouldn't <i>be</i>. The story's inherent flaw, for me (though I sense the film is fumbling at a comment on our incredibly blasé times), is that our protagonists here take it as a given that they can essentially create life. There is nothing of the human awe we have in Croneberg's <i>The Fly</i>, in his protagonist's technological breakthrough. Stealing from the gods is so old hat. <br /><br />True, Brody's character (wisely) fears their creation, knows it's just plain wrong, leaving Polley motivated by wounds I'll leave for you to discover. The whole thing is a domesticated affair. Everything is neatly tied into a homemaking, child-raising bow in this movie. It's interesting, but strikingly implausible. Genetic cut-chemists in love or no, if your significant other clones a human lady-bat-scorpion-frog-princess, it's actually perfectly reasonable to protest. <br /><br /><i>Splice</i> is a series of bad decisions, played out on too everyman a stage. Stephen King is said to populate his stories with ordinary characters in an ordinary world, and confront them with extraordinary circumstances. <br /><br />The couple in this movie is anything but ordinary, but they act like they're in a late-nineties sitcom together. <br /><br />Still, it's fairly even-handed, in the sense that they both make about the same number of unfortunate choices. Brody's character takes the cake, by the end, making a profoundly terrible decision, and I must say, I haven't heard an audience talk back to a movie, in this way, in years.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-26596151219838734432010-07-14T00:44:00.002-05:002010-07-14T00:46:14.411-05:00CUUUUUTE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zCIZ4db2tWBS38wFHjQAIAS5NGyas_Xc2CHHYm2DSAkMJK66d9-RLIxU5bGGmEwEDgAdJTlZZGqtq569kern4gO_RxdJOpcztXED2YxRzIbSQZ3ZJNHa6smKHwPo8RUDGU90KQoo4j4/s1600/enhanced-buzz-17255-1278972726-10.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 350px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zCIZ4db2tWBS38wFHjQAIAS5NGyas_Xc2CHHYm2DSAkMJK66d9-RLIxU5bGGmEwEDgAdJTlZZGqtq569kern4gO_RxdJOpcztXED2YxRzIbSQZ3ZJNHa6smKHwPo8RUDGU90KQoo4j4/s400/enhanced-buzz-17255-1278972726-10.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493633785238674066" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-13-worst-mel-gibson-rant-quotes-presented-by">I just can't stay mad at you guys</a>Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-29946803316823222622010-07-03T01:15:00.006-05:002010-07-03T01:47:04.355-05:00Huh<object width="450" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/e5J7inpYSoE&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/e5J7inpYSoE&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="450" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />I count myself lucky that none of my current favorite properties were casually offered up to this fucked-up burnout.<br /><br />If you, after seeing <i>The Happening</i> and its box-office returns, still manage to throw a franchise away on the maker of that one, you should probably get fired. <br /><br />My guess is that M Night Shyamalan is amassing every executive's secrets and is locking them away in his compound. <br /><br />My favorite review of <i>The Happening</i> is <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/the-movie-review-%E2%80%98the-happening%E2%80%99">here</a>:<br /><br /><i> Equally odd is their insistence, even though they’ve known from the beginning that the deadly nerve agent is airborne, on spending as much time as possible outdoors. When fleeing by car, they leave the windows rolled down; anytime they want to look at a map or discuss what to do next they get out of the car to do so. It never seems to occur to any of the protagonists that they should get inside somewhere and tape the windows and doors --even though this is the only strategy we’ve seen work for anyone else. Eighty minutes into a 90-minute movie, Alma and Jess are still sitting in a small guest house with all the doors and windows open. When Elliot, who’s just watched someone fall victim to the toxin nearby screams, “Close the windows and the doors!” Alma innocently inquires “Why?”</i>Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3797704986960636076.post-68135933041826492012010-06-27T11:13:00.013-05:002010-06-27T11:46:08.864-05:00From The Producer of Craven Money Grab!The trailer for Despicable Me, a lackluster looking Steve Carell vehicle which appears to have all the trappings of Cynical Sarcastic Kid-Movie Syndrome, contains the linchpin "From [Hollywood Mogul], the producer of Ice Age!"<br /><br />Ponder that for a second. Never mind that the Ice Age series is second only to Shrek in low expectations for a kiddie flick, the little halflings don't know that or care. They see bright primary colors and hear orifices eructating, and if you're five, that's fine. Maybe you'll grow up one day to the personal discovery that the Pixar movies were so much better than that, in so many ways, and were, in fact, MOVIES, which trained your brains towards higher purposes. Some kids will happen upon that revelation, some won't.<br /><br />The fact remains, unless you're Walt Goddamn Disney, nobody GIVES A FUCK WHAT YOUR NAME IS, OR THAT YOU PRODUCED ICE AGE, and certainly, NOBODY UNDER THE AGE OF TEN GIVES A FLYING FUCK AT A BADLY COMPUTER ANIMATED ROLLING DONUT, EITHER.<br /><br />Isn't it enough that we watch a trailer and are either sold by it or not? <br /><br />Yes, Pixar ads tout "From the Makers of Wall-E, Finding Nemo, etc. <br /><br />That's because those movies inspire quiet awe and gentle concentration in young (and old) minds. And they speak for themselves, and Pete Doctor doesn't care if you remember his name or not, whatever your age.Plaid Avengerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12986995060356232803noreply@blogger.com0