OSCAR FEVER!!!!!!

4.6.11

3:18 pm

Remember in Ghostbusters 2, when the Titanic arrives and Cheech says, "Better late than never"?

Well, I do.

And it's in this spirit that I catch, and reflect upon, Oscar Fever.

Hm.

Not really.

Oscar Fever feels like March Madness or something else that people who aren't involved with get excited about.

"We" didn't win last night's basketball game, "the basketball team closest to the place you were born" won last night's basketball game.

Just like "we" didn't win Best Original Score, "Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross" won last night's basketball game.

You get the idea.

So, as a fan of films/movies who is just barely involved in the industry that produces them...I offer some Oscar thoughts...over a month after the fact.

At this point, I've seen maybe eight out of the ten Best Picture nominees.

See if you can tell from my reflections which ones I haven't seen yet... 

Black Swan

Unlike a lot of poseurs, I didn't claim to like Darren Aronofsky until after I saw Requiem For A Dream and not after I saw Pi.

Not that Pi isn't a good movie, but it was always one of those that "the film kids" had seen that no one else had. I did see it before RFAD, but I didn't love it.

Requiem For A Dream, I loved.

It's an amazing movie and the best anti-drug ad I have EVER seen.

THE CHICK FROM LABYRINTH GOES ASS TO ASS FOR HEROIN.

THAT IS THE MOTHERFUCKING DEFINITION OF 'HITTING BOTTOM'.

Pun intended...to educate...

Oh and by the way, the fact that Julia "I Have A Baboon's Vagina For Lips" Roberts didn't hand her Best Actress Oscar to Ellen Burstyn within seconds of receiving it accompanied by a mumbled "they must have made a mistake, Ellen" is a bigger atrocity than Julia Roberts existing at all...barely.

So, after Aronofsky unleashed this beast (and yes I know it was based on a book, but shhhh...), I was his. Anything he put out from that point on, I would see, no question. Between the "HERE is what drugs REALLY (could possibly under the WORST POSSIBLE circumstances) do to you" story, the laser-sharp slam editing (something I'd never seen before) and the incredible score by Clint Mansell that spoke directly to peoples' souls...I was utterly his.

After Requiem, there was talk of him directing the new Batman.

When that news came out, I shit in three pairs of pants. Guys like this, talented, amazing, cutting edge directors, didn't do comic book movies. Sure, Burton had done the first two Batman's back in the late 80's, early 90's, but that was almost a decade ago! THIS WAS GOING TO BE...and then it was canceled and the world wept a bitter tear.

Or at least geeks did.

Then, Aronofsky did The Fountain which involved time travel and Aztecs and a tree and was made for Blu Ray; every shot was a portrait. But some people thought it was "too cerebral". But they were mungos and mungos don't like anything that isn't diapers, so fuck them.

It didn't resound as much with me as Requiem, but I couldn't deny it was amazing.

Then came The Wrestler...which I found a little odd after Requiem and Fountain.

I watched it a while after it came out and enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like what, I felt, an Aronofsky movie should feel like, but, like I said, it was solid.

The next bit of news I heard about him was that he was working on a horror movie called Black Swan that had something to do with Natalie Portman and ballet.and that, once again, Clint Mansell would be scoring.

Skipping ahead a bit, I kept hearing how amazing this movie was, that it was epic and terrifying and perfect and etc. etc. etc. I wish I'd listened less because, while I thought it was a good movie, the hype had just made it too big, and I was let down, but I blame Hollywood and the Internet and the fact that I have never and most likely will never give a shit about ballet, not Aronofsky.

Plus Natalie Portman dykes out with Mila Kunis.

Which is hott.

Inception

Since Chris Nolan started doing the Batman movies, I have hated everything not Batman with a burning passion; understand that this has NOTHING to do with these movies, it all stems from the fact that they are stopping him from making more Batman movies.

I saw Memento in college and, like most people who aren't pathological liars, it blew my fucking mind.

Insomnia...well...it was well directed.

Then, he did Batman Begins, which blew my mind and wet my pants.

The Prestige had David Bowie as Nicolai Tesla and he walked on screen through a small lightening storm, so that was awesome.

Then he did Dark Knight which made me swallow my head.

Then he did Inception.

Okay...here's the thing...I'm waiting for him to make a bad movie.

Not to mock him, but more to ascertain that he is, in fact, a human and not some sort of film god from another dimension.

Not every one of his films is good, but they're all amazing. Does that make sense?

As in, yes, his movies have plot holes and some bad dialogue here and there (like every line that came out of the mouth of the guy riding with Gordon in that armored car), but you will leave each one astounded.

At least you should, unless your soul is made from granite and you are a dickbag.

True Grit

I can't really nail down the first time I realized I liked the Coen Brothers. I think it was one of those cases where I realized that I like these three movies and that they were all directed and/or directed by the Coen Brothers.

It may have all started with Fargo.

Whenever it did start, it has continued.

For every movie they don't hit out of the park (Blood Simple, The Man That Wasn't There, A Serious Man) they have two that blow up the stadium (Miller's Crossing, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country For Old Men, Barton Fink, True Grit.

These guys...make so many fucking movies...

None of this waiting-three-years-for-more-market-impact, these motherfuckers want to make a film and they fucking do it.

I'd never seen the original True Grit, and I really don't care.

I saw the new True Grit and thought it was amazing. Something about the Coens and the desert just works.

Lebowski, No Country, Fargo (snow desert) and Grit all feature deserts.

There's a conspiracy there, but I have no idea what kind.

The cast and acting were utterly stand out and that has nothing to do with the original, right?

It's a true epic and, at heart, a kind of road picture AND a kind of buddy picture...just done by the Coens.

The Social Network

I'm going to try to not talk about the score.

When I heard Fincher, a director I've been a fan of since Se7en, was doing "the Facebook movie" I was puzzled. If you look at Se7en, Fight Club and Aliens 3, a Fincher Style begins to emerge. But then you watch Panic Room, Zodiac and The Social Network and your Fincher Style sort of falls apart. To me, it isn't the direction or the score that defines this movie and makes it Oscar Worthy (whatever that means) it's the Sorkin screenplay. If you're really looking, you can see some of that FIncher Style in Panic Room and Zodiac, but as for The Social Network...I didn't get a whiff.

Maybe that's a directorial choice or maybe I'm not as attuned to such things "subtle directorial styles" as I'd like to think, I have no idea.

For me, the dialogue made this movie.

It's also the first on this list that is "based on true events", something that really seems to help when one is going for an Oscar.

That or Holocaust survivors or the mentally handicapped.

Or Julia Roberts baboon's vagina face.

Winter's Bone

Here's where I get a little less informed.

I don't know who wrote or directed this movie, so all I can speak on is the movie itself.

I wrote about it a few days ago. It's powerful in the way that any story about a child growing up too fast is powerful. You sit there and watch horrible things happen to her and you grit your teeth and say "she's just a kid, how can you be fucking doing this?"

As I said earlier, it felt a bit like True Grit in that respect, but without Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon to watch over her and without that sense of Coen Quirkiness pervading the whole thing.

It was a very effective movie.

The desolation is palpable, everything is gray.

Beautiful but too sad and pathetic to be called beautiful.

If "beautiful" had a cousin with late stage cancer, that would be how to describe this film.

The whole thing was like a nightmare, especially to the people in New York and L.A. who saw it, I'm sure.

No iPhones, no flat screens.

There's one point where a guy not driving in a battered old pick up truck draws attention to himself by not driving in a battered old pick up truck.

It's powerful and horrible and something you should see.

The King's Speech

As with Winter's Bone, I don't know who wrote or directed this, but unlike Winter's Bone, it was also "based on a true story".

If I'm not mistaken, Colin Furth got Best Actor for this.

I do not agree.

Yes, he did a great job portraying someone reluctantly in power with a speech impediment, but...really?

I kept thinking back to Robert Downey Jr.'s words from Tropic Thunder: "you never go full retard...".

Well, Furth didn't and it got him an Oscar.

Geoffrey Rush was also excellent and it was refreshing to see Helena Bonhem Carter playing something not from the 2000's.

I think The King's Speech has cemented my opinion that Carter should only appear in period pieces so she doesn't get too...Helena Bonham Carter.

Okay, let me put that another way...women in movies like The King's Speech weren't typically as shrill as HBC is in modern movies.

And that is good, because HBC can get real annoying, real quick.

But she was great in King's Speech, so, we're all okay again, right?

Anyway, this movie was great, but I don't know why is won so much stuff.

Again, I'm not 100%, but I think it won Best Picture.

Maybe second or third best, but not best.

Whatever the case: great movie, great cast, great acting.

The Fighter

I watched this last night.

I'm not a "sports guy".

I'm not a "sports movie" guy.

The Wrestler is the closest thing to a "sports movie" I have ever purposely watched.

That said: I was fucking riveted by this movie.

During the fight scenes later in the movie when Wahlberg is getting beat on and everyone in his corner is asking each other "what the fuck's he doin'" and "why the fuck he ain't fightin'" I was right there with him.

I was talking to my television.

Before his last fight with that braggy Irish cunt Neary (amazing casting since I wanted to throw stones at his head from the moment he opened his smug, punk ass mouth to the moment his ass got knocked the fuggout), I was worried sick about its outcome.

When Marky Mark won that fight?

I fucking teared up.

God damn.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of this movie, with worse actors might come off as cheesy, but each and every one of these people SOLD it.

Wahlberg as a scrappy, up-and-coming fighter and Christian Bale as his worshipped-as-a-god older brother.

What two parts of that sentence make this movie work do you think?

Yes, I think Bale's Batman voice is goofy, but he was outlandishly good in The Fighter.

He was so fucking human as Dick Ekilund, so real.

When he got out of jail and walked over to that crack house I KNEW he was simply going to drop that cake off, I KNEW he wasn't going to start doing crack again.

You know how I knew? Because if he did, I would have broken down, that's fucking how.

I was invested in that movie more so than ANY in recent memory.

Here's the rub...I don't know if I'm just a sucker for sports movies and have just never given them a chance, or if this just happened to be an exceptional movie.

I'm praying it's the latter.

The only issue have is not really with the movie itself, but more with the Oscar award associated with it.

I do NOT think Melissa Leo did a better job than that little girl from True Grit, and I never will.

Other than that? This movie nailed it.

Nailed. It.

Marky Mark...who'd have thought?

Oh and finding out that Aronofsky did the screenplay?

No surprise.

The Kids Are All Right

Lesbians in the 1980's were important.

Marilyn Manson did a cover of "Surrender" by Cheap Trick at MTV's 2001 New Year's show at their Times Square studio.

Julianne Moore was in Boogie Nights with Mark Wahlberg, who starred in The Fighter.

Toy Story 3

Haven't seen this one yet, but, over the past week, Chris and I have watched Toy Story 1 and 2 and the next thing to arrive from Netflix (after "10", thank you very much Future Wife. I'm not mad at you.) is Toy Story 3.

I've heard nothing but amazing and excellent words for it and, after refreshing myself on 1 and 2, which I'd seen once each, I'm expecting nothing less.

But, unlike Black Swan, I think this is going to deliver (and it probably isn't going to have Natalie Portman getting eaten out by Mila Kunis either...I don't think...).

I love when things live up to their hype.

Love it, love it, love it.

It just reminds me that it can happen and makes me feel like a kid again.

I'll let you know how it is, but, like all animated movies, I don't think it will end up being Best Picture material.

It's weird.

I KNOW that a Batman movie will never win Best Picture. Same with a Harry Potter movie or an animated movie.

I wonder why that is...

127 Hours

I'm a put this on Front Street: I don't even know if this movie was nominated for Best Picture.

But dude chews his own arm off or sumpthin.

And that's badass.

So.

Now comes the part that's even less interesting than the part before:

My Oscars.

I'll just do Best Picture/Actor/Supporting Actor/Actress/Supporting Actress

Best Supporting Actress: Chick from True Grit (True Grit)

Best Supporting Actor: Justin Timberlake (The Social Network)

Best Actress: Chick from Winter's Bone (Winter's Bone)

Best Actor: Mark Wahlberg or Christina Bale (The Fighter) (ties are allowed)

Best Picture: True Grit or The Fighter (How about one for Best Picture and one for Best Picture Based On A True Story? Cool.)

And if all this wasn't enough...I have more...

Moving away from Oscar Films, Chris and I watched Due Date, the buddy movie/road picture starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis.

First, funniest buddy movie since the sub-genre was invented, second, Robert Downey Jr. punching that kid in the stomach made me laugh out loud.

Honestly, they actually had a somewhat plausible reason for these two to be traveling together.

Past that, everything else was just madness, but fun as hell.

I like to picture the phone conversations between the casting agent and the people providing Galifianakis' French Bulldog.

CASTING AGENT: Hi, we need a French Bulldog.

DOG PEOPLE: Sure, you want a black one or a tan one?

CA: Tan.

DP: Okay, how old?

CA: Not a puppy, but not old, cute. Two years or thereabout.

DP: No problem, we can send over a few reels of-

CA: And it has to able to masturbate on cue.

DP: (pause)

CA: Got that?

DP: I'm sorry...who is this again?

I'm probably underestimating the weird calls the Dog People get from Hollywood Types on a daily basis, but a girl can dream...

Anyway, funny movie, check it out.

And finally, Pitchfork Media posted the track list, release date and first song from the new TMBG album, "Join Us" (whose cover art is a neon pink hearse on monster truck wheels).

The track is called "Can't Keep Johnny Down" and, upon first listen last night, I was worried about the album.

After a few more listens with the lyrics in front of me I still think it's a weak album opener and that Linnell's is less singing that moaning/yelling the words, but the subject matter (although a verse or two short) is spot on.

I just wish the music was better.

Again, I'm going to try to hold out judgment until the whole thing comes out...in fucking July...but, you know me.

I bitch, therefore I moan.