Oscars 2012

In continuing with our Oscar tradition, J and I will be watching and competing over the winners of each category this year.  We went out to get our usual paper with the nominees and a pick your winner slot just a little while ago and, after driving to various locations in order to actually find 2 papers, got home ready to make our picks.  I eagerly opened the paper and turned to the entertainment section only to discover that for the first time in about 10 years they did not include and Oscar picks section.  Apparently the Calgary Sun has decided that the Oscars are going to be "boring" this year and the winners are a foregone conclusion so they didn't do a special.  Boo.

We are still going to do our tradition, just $2.50 poorer for wasting it on two papers.  I must say that although I am not super excited about the nominees in most categories and find this a little bit of a weak year in films, I am very much looking forward to the return of Billy Crystal.  I hope he does a fantastic job.  I also look forward to the fashions.  I'm sitting here watching the red carpet and I've noticed a few trends already.  Holy sequins!  Tons and tons of sparkly sequined and fitted gowns with heavy beading so far.  It's still quite early in the arrivals so I have yet to see anything to wacky and out there.  I've decided to blog along with the awards show and give you my thoughts/opinions as well as any gems of wisdom that may drop out of J's mouth.

I gotta tell you, most of the time the men's fashions really don't show much on my radar as the tux look, while each have their own unique style, is usually pretty boring.  With that being said, I just saw Christopher Plumber arrive in a blue crushed velvet tux and I love it!

Jessica Chastain in a stunning black and gold McQueen looks fabulous as well.  I know there may be some people that don't like this, but I find it stunning and unique.  Cudos.

Michelle Williams - I don't understand why people are raving about this one at all.  I really dislike everything about this except the color.  That weird addition of fabric around her waist/hips is awful.

Rooney Mara - fashion forward?  Please, let's take a step back.  The extra fabric on her bust is a little to futuristic sci-fi to be attractive and the deep neckline really shows off how much she needs to eat a few cheeseburgers.  I do like the fabric and the overall silhouette but the top is a big miss for me.

I'm loving all the bow ties I'm seeing on the guys.  Shout out to the power of Doctor Who because we all know that "bow ties are cool".

And our Oscar predictions are done.  J ended up printing off the wikipedia page for us to make our pics on since the newspaper sucks this year.

Ok, take a close look at this next photo...

No, not George or Stacey...the poor woman in blue is who I'm referring to.  She has the unfortunate distinction of being in the background of almost all of the Clooney/Kiebler photos and that dress is just NOT flattering.  It's clinging in all the wrong areas.  There are plenty of bigger women at the Oscars this year that know how to dress their bodies but this woman is not one of them.  In a dress like that, your undergarments are key.  The lack of them results in, well, this.

Dang, Twitter is all lit up about the stunt that Sasha Baron Cohen just pulled and I missed it.  I guess he showed up dressed as his "Dictator" character and dumped Kim Jong Il's "ashes" all over Ryan Seacrest.  I'm not really a Sasha fan, but that's pretty funny actually.  Man Youtube is all over this one fast!  They are taking down the video faster than people can upload it.  If you really want to see it, you can head over to Perez Hilton's blog.  He has it there.

Ok, I'm getting tired of this pre-show fashion stuff.  Can we just bring on the awards now?  Please?  I want to get back to The Walking Dead's new episode sometime tonight.

Ok I like this:

Best Oscar arrival of the night in my opinion.  I hope they have the Muppets do something on the show tonight.

Showtime.  I love the opening montage.  Great to see the classic Billy-inserts-himself-into-nominated-films opening.  And and opening song!  Slightly out of tune a number of times, but overall good.  Much better than a few of the past hosts for sure.

Cinematography
My Pick: Hugo
J: The Artist
Winner:  Hugo - score one for me!

Art Direction
My Pick: The Artist
J: The Artist
Winner: Hugo
   J "This is not going well for me.  I quit!"

Costume Design
My Pick: The Artist
J: The Artist
Winner: The Artist
   J "I really hope The Artist comes through for me.  I picked it for almost everything"

Makeup
My Pick: Harry Potter
J: The Iron Lady
Winner:  The Iron Lady
   Dang, now we're tied.

Foreign Language Film
My Pick: Bullhead
J: A Separation
Winner: A Separation
   This one's always a crap shoot because neither of us has a clue what film is what.  J said he picked this one because he thought he heard the guy who made it was dead...

Supporting Actress
My Pick: Octavia Spencer
J: Berenice Bejo
Winner: Octavia Spencer
  Yes, I'm back in this one!

Film Editing
My Pick: The Artist
J: The Artist
Winner: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Sound Editing
My Pick: Hugo
J: Transformers
Winner: Hugo

Sound Mixing
My Pick: Hugo
J: Transformers
Winner: Hugo
   J "I guess I just don't now enough about movie making because I wonder why these are two seperate categories.  I mean isn't sound mixing and editing a hand in hand thing?  Why isn't it just a best sound category?"  I think he's just mad that that put me ahead by two more.

I Love the Cirque number!  That was amazing and worthy of a standing ovation.  I could have done without the close up on Clooney during it though.  Show me the amazing stuff going on onstage not what's going on in the crowd.

Documentary Feature
My Pick: Paradise Lost 3 (because I've actually seen it)
J: Undefeated
Winner: Undefeated
   I think the award for best presenters should go with this category.  Robert Downey Jr and Gwenyth Paltrow were awesome.  Loved that Downey Tebowed.

Animated Feature
My Pick: Rango
J: Puss in Boots
Winner: Rango
   Yay me, but come on, what a weak category this was this year.  Nothing in this category was really that great.  Chris Rock's intro, on the other hand, was great.

Visual Effects
My Pick: Hugo
J: Transformers
Winner: Hugo
  J now officially hates Hugo and has declared it a stupid movie that he will never see and claims Martin Scorsese an asshole.

Supporting Actor
My Pick: Christopher Plummer
J: Kenneth Branagh
Winner: Christopher Plummer

Original Score
My Pick: The Artist
J: Hugo
Winner: The Artist
  J now believes the Oscars are rigged.

Original Song
My Pick: Man or Muppet
J: Man or Muppet
Winner: Man or Muppet
  Ok while I did enjoy the intro to this I'm very disappointed that the songs weren't actually performed.  I was really looking forward to the performances even if there were only two songs.

Adapted Screenplay
My Pick: Hugo
J: Moneyball
Winner: The Descendants
   Ok what the hell happened to Angelina Jolie?  While the dress might be stunning she looks like a bag of bones.  Her arms are disgustingly thin.  I hope it's for some upcoming film role about an anorexic and not that she's trying to make an adopted African baby feel at home with her tribute to malnutrition.

Original Screenplay
My Pick: The Artist
J: The Artist
Winner: Midnight in Paris
   Why is Woody Allen not at the awards?  Anybody?

Live Action Short
My Pick: Time Freak
J: Raju
Winner: The Shore
  Throw a dart and both get it wrong.

Documentary Short
My Pick: The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
J: Incident in New Baghdad
Winner: Saving Face

Animated Short
My Pick: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
J: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Winner: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
   What can we say, it sounded like an Oscar winning title.

Director
My Pick: The Artist
J: The Artist
Winner: The Artist
  Why was Micheal Douglas interrupted in the middle of his joke by a vitamin commercial?  Did anyone else see that?  Or have you all begun to lose interest in the Oscars like the rest of us have?  Ugh.

And now...In Memoriam,  Thank you for not cutting to the singer during the actual presentation, for not making one person top billed over any other, and for making that a respectful presentation.  Well done.

Actor
My Pick: Jean Dujardin
J: Jean Dujardin
Winner: Jean Dujardin
  Cute that he did his little dance.  I'm really getting bored now.

Actress
My pick: Viola Davis
J: Meryl Streep
Winner: Meryl Streep
  Meryl is always so classy.  I'm happy to see her win.  I also think her dress was quite a good choice for her.

Best Picture
My Pick: The Artist
J: The Artist
Winner: The Artist

And with that we are finally through this.  Final Score:  Me: 14, J:10

Closing Thoughts:  Fashions- pretty great this year overall.  Host- not bad.  Hoped for better, but better than last year.  Show overall- meh.  It may be time for the Oscars to overhaul their thinking on keeping things entertaining...

Turning Back Time With Winnie The Pooh

I had the pleasure of taking my 2-year-old niece, Ms. A, to her first movie today.  Since she is a big Winnie the Pooh fan and so am I it seemed like a natural choice for her first trip to the movie theatre.  We both loved the movie!  Her first movie was a huge success.

I have to say that the choice to do this film in classic 2D animation was brilliant.  I got very nostalgic watching the pages of the book turn and the words being visible on the corners of the screen at various points in the movie.  I loved the way they blended A.A. Milne's original stories together the way the first Pooh film did.

Jim Cummings played Pooh and Tigger and was stupendous as ever.  Mind you, he's been playing these characters for years and has a voice acting history that spans countless years and amazing films.  Bud Lucky was new to the Eeyore voice and did a respectable job.  He captured the gloominess of Eeyore, but I could tell it was a new Eeyore voice right away.  John Cleese was a fantastic narrator and I particularly enjoyed the scene at the beginning where he tries to get Pooh out of bed.

However, there were a few things that I really didn't like in the film.  Craig Ferguson as Owl was very disappointing.  I understand movie companies wanting to included big name voices in films to sell more tickets, but in this case I felt it wasn't needed.  It's Winnie the Pooh!  People will see it for that reason alone.  I felt this version of Owl was missing his smug, yet very innocent superiority.  He came across as, well, kind of a dick.  He was the cause of most of the confusion in the film and it almost came across as though he was aware that he had messed up instead of being genuinely ignorant of his faults.  I don't blame Ferguson for this.  I think it was a poor casting choice and a bit of bad writing.  They really didn't need to hammer the "Back Soon/Backson" joke down the kids throats.  I think the point of Pooh for the young ones is figuring things out with the characters and seeing how their imaginations can take them on crazy and silly adventures.  I also wasn't the biggest fan of newcomer Jack Boulter as Christopher Robin.  Maybe I'm too much of a nostalgic fool, but I really think they didn't need to mess with the perfection of the original film.

Overall, this was a great movie.  I will watch it again and probably again.  It was a great first film for my "Auntie" date and a nice return to my childhood for an hour and ten minutes.  Stay for the credits, the pictures are worth it.

8 honeypots out of 10

Top 10 Zombie Flicks

In keeping with the Comicon theme, I decided to to my favorite Zombie films.  In just a few short days I will have the privilege of watching a private screening of the original Night of the Living Dead with the godfather of Zombie's himself, George A. Romero.  I can hardly wait, but until then, here's my top 10:

10. Zombie Strippers

In the not too distant future a secret government re-animation chemo-virus gets released into conservative Sartre, Nebraska and lands in an underground strip club. As the virus begins to spread, turning the strippers into "Super Zombie Strippers" the girls struggle with whether or not to conform to the new "fad" even if it means there's no turning back. - IMDB

I was pleasantly surprised by this film.  It was much better than I thought it was going to be and I quite enjoyed the story.  Plus how can you go wrong with crazy gore, chick fights and body parts falling off during a stripping routine.

9. Undead or Alive

Elmer Winslow is a soldier on the run from the Union Army, and Luke Budd is a cowboy with a broken heart. When the two misfits rob the corrupt sheriff of an old west town, they have no idea that a plague of zombies is sweeping the country, or that Geronimo's sexy niece may be their only hope of survival. - IMDB

Another surprise hit.  I bought this one in a discount bin for $2 so I wasn't expecting much, plus it was starring Chris Kattan.  To my surprise, I loved it!  Funny as hell and featuring a catchy theme song, I think this one is worth much more than the $2 I paid for it.

8. Diary of the Dead

A group of young film students run into real-life zombies while filming a horror movie of their own. - IMDB

Romero choose to go back to the beginning with this one.  Shot in the hand held camera style of Blair Witch (although much less shaky), it was an interesting take on the original outbreak.  I loved the cameo that turned into a feature role in Survival of the Dead.  Probably my favorite thing about this film is that you don't see the face of the main character until the very end.  I enjoyed watching the outbreak through his eyes - literally.

7. Land of the Dead

The living dead have taken over the world, and the last humans live in a walled city to protect themselves as they come to grips with the situation. - IMDB

What happens after the initial outbreak had really set in?  This movie explores that fully.  I know a lot of people didn't like seeing the Zombie's evolve and start using tools and problem solving, but I liked that.  It made them scarier.  It also made the idea of a Zombie Apocalypse more frightening.  What happens if you can't just sit back and wait it out?  Where do you go if your fortifications become irrelevant?  Plus John Leguizamo rocks!

6. Zombieland

A shy student trying to reach his family in Ohio, and a gun-toting tough guy trying to find the Last Twinkie and a pair of sisters trying to get to an amusement park join forces to travel across a zombie-filled America. - IMDB

This film is a laugh out loud riot!  Woody Harrelson is phenomenal and Bill Murray's cameo is one of the best in history.  It has also given us some of the best rules to live by in a Zombie Apocalypse, the need for cutting loose and having a little fun.  It also showed us the importance of that lovely little spongy delicacy - the twinkie.

5. Planet Terror

After an experimental bio-weapon is released, turning thousands into zombie-like creatures, it's up to a rag-tag group of survivors to stop the infected and those behind its release. - IMDB

This is such a great Grindhouse style film.  Great story, amazing gore and gratuitous violence makes this one a classic.  I love the missing reels leaving us wondering what the hell just happened.  A stripper with useless talents and a gun leg, corny one liners and questions with no answers abound making this one a can't miss.  The scene with Quentin Tarantino's dick falling off is pretty funny too.

4. Dawn of the Dead (Remake)

A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall. - IMDB

This has got to be one of the best re-makes ever.  While hard core Romero fans may hate it for he changes made (particularly the fast style zombie)  I think the updates worked well.  It was dark and frightening with just enough laughs in it to break up the tension.  Sarah Polly was awesome in this film showing a wide range of emotions instead of being the stereotypical warrior chick or helpless victim.  The idea of the mall still plays well in this film.  Plus it answers the age old question of what happens to a pregnant zombie.

3. 28 Days Later

Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary. - IMDB

The king of fast zombie flicks.  This one put the fear of the Zombie Apocalypse in me.  I love the idea of the main character missing the outbreak and being totally clueless as to what's going on and being forced to survive the horrors and find himself while doing so.  The idea of one drop of infected fluid being enough to turn you is pretty frightening as well.  It also raises some pretty interesting points on politics and what humans can become when left with no social boundaries to keep them in check.

2. Shaun of the Dead

A man decides to turn his moribund life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living. - IMDB

This has got to be the funniest Zombie film ever.  I love the clueless characters.  The scene where Shaun is stumbling down the street doing his usual morning routine, completely oblivious to the horrors around him is priceless.  I also liked that it took a more serious turn near the end and didn't stay campy throughout.  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost knocked it out of the park with this one.

1. Night of the Living Dead

A group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse. - IMDB

For obvious reasons, this has got to be number one.  It's the film that really started it all.  Yes it's not the first zombie film out there, but it really did take things to the next level.  It spawned countless sequels and spin offs and it allowed Romero to rise to level he is at today.  It was scary.  It made statements about the human condition.  It was even a little political.  But mostly, it is just down right awesome!

Buster Keaton Marathon

I had the privilege of going to a Buster Keaton silent film festival recently in a historic movie theatre.  I was very excited to go and was not disappointed.  The films were accompanied by a local pianist who composed the music himself and it was truly a joy to behold.  I was very happy to see the turn out for the film as it was much higher than the Godzilla double feature that they had at the same theatre before.  I was also happy to see how many people brought their kids for this once in a lifetime experience.

We got to the theatre a little late due to the hour drive and me getting away from work late, but we still got pretty decent seats, even if they are very very old and uncomfortable seats.  It's a really neat old theatre that still boasts a balchony.  The pianist got up and introduced the films and told us of his love of silent films and why he choose to spend the time to compose new music to them and then the films got underway.

We started with one of Buster Keaton's last short films called The Ballonatic which is a fun romp about a young man's misadventures with women, the wild and a hot air balloon.  I found myself quickly forgetting that there was a man on the corner of the stage with a piano and getting drawn into the film.  It was really neat to have so many kids there because they really got into it and were giggling away.  I particularly enjoyed the scene with the bear stalking him in the woods  Next was a feature film that is on the list of the top films you must see before you die: Sherlock Jr.

If you haven't seen this film you really must.  It is amazing!  It was directed by Buster Keaton in 1924 and is filled with brilliant moments and special effect that are mind blowing when you think of the time period they were made in.  There is a particularly brilliant moment in the film where Buster's character (a film projectionist with dreams of being a detective) falls asleep and dreams of walking into the movie screen and interacting with the characters.  It is so well done that my jaw dropped when I saw it.  I found a clip that featured some great moments from the film.

Interesting fact:  Buster Keaton broke his neck in the first scene of this video when the water him his body and drove him hard into the railroad tracks, but he didn't realize it for years.  In the scene where he enters the movie screen, his camera man used surveyors equipment to position him properly between the cuts.  It's pretty amazing.  I'm very glad I got to have this once in a lifetime experience and I wish that the pianist could have played all night so we could have watched more films.