What were Oscar voters thinking?
The Oscars have come and gone, and the big winner at this year’s Oscars was the Iraq war movie, The Hurt Locker. It won Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Directing. The big loser in this year’s Oscars was Avatar. Even though it now holds the record for the highest grossing movie of all time, it won very few Oscars. It took home Oscars for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects.
In my opinion, Avatar only deserved one of those Oscars if it deserved any Oscars at all.
The fact that it could even be nominated for Cinematography and Visual Effects, let alone win those categories, is a complete farce. How can a movie that is mostly computer generated win in cinematography? It wasn’t so much shot through a lens as it was programed on a computer. The same applies to visual effects. The visual effects were animated with a computer. The visual effects in Avatar did not take place in the real world. They instead only existed inside a computer.
Instead of nominating Avatar for Cinematography and Visual Effects, it should have been nominated as best Animated Feature Film with all the other animated movies.
Kate Hoit wants you to know she really does not like ‘The Hurt Locker’
Kate Hoit of VoteVets.org and gikate.com has authored a poorly written blog post on The Huffington Post to share with the world (at least the liberal world) just what she thinks of the movie The Hurt Locker.
Spoiler alert, she doesn’t like it:
Military personnel everywhere should be celebrating: the war flick The Hurt Locker has been nominated for nine Oscar’s [sic]. American’s [sic] were so curious about the war and the soldiers who fight in it they bought 10 dollar movie tickets. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thinks it’s worthy; finally soldiers of the Iraq war have been embraced. Problem is, it’s Hollywood’s version of the Iraq war and of the soldiers who fight it. And their version is inaccurate.
Speaking of things that are inaccurate, contrary to what Hoit says, The Hurt Locker isn’t a product of Hollywood. It’s an independent movie made outside the traditional Hollywood system for only $11 million. To say that The Hurt Locker is Hollywood’s version of Iraq is silly.
Hollywood had nothing to do with making this movie.
The movie was written by a man named Mark Boal. He was in Iraq working as a freelance reporter and was embedded with a real life Army bomb squad, the people tasked with the very important job of neutralizing IEDs, the improvised explosive devices, that Iraqi insurgents have used to kill so many of our service members in Iraq. He took things that he had experienced in Iraq and crafted them into the fictional stories seen in the movie. Though the movie is not a documentary about Army soldiers in Iraq or a training film for Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) Army technicians, it is based on real-life experiences. It shouldn’t be dismissed because as Kate Hoit complains, the soldiers in the movie roll their sleeves up or don’t wear the proper type of camouflaged battle fatigues. Nit-picks such as these are just silly.
Perhaps Boal and Hoit just remember Iraq a little differently.
If you haven’t seen the movie, you really ought to. Of all the movies I watched from last year, it was one of the best.
Credit when credit is due
I just finished watching the movie Flash of Genius, the movie staring Greg Kinnear about Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper, and I’m left with the feeling that Robert Kearns was a raging asshole. I mean, sure, the Ford Motor Company blatantly stole his invention, but the man put getting credit for his invention above everything else.
He put it in front of his job as a professor of electrical engineering. He put it in front of his wife and kids.
I just don’t get that. He had a loving wife and six healthy, happy children, but that wasn’t good enough for him. No, he wanted credit. Because he was consumed with wanting the world to know that he was the one that was smart enough to think of putting a capacitor, a transistor, and a variable resister in a circuit that allowed a driver to alter the speed of the windshield wipers, he destroyed his marriage and alienated his children.
A truly smart guy would have realized his wife and family were more important than recognition for an invention. The honest truth is that the world doesn’t care who invented the intermittent windshield wiper.
The movie ends with Kearns taking Ford Motor company to court for stealing his invention. He represented himself and was assisted by his children who slowly came around to realize that the only way they would ever be in their father’s life was if they helped him with his stupid lawsuit. The jury decided in favor of Kearns and awarded him over $10 million dollars in damages.
He finally had the credit he so desperately coveted, yet he couldn’t celebrate his victory with his wife because they were by then divorced. The movie made it fairly clear that she had moved on with her life. He had over $10 million and the recognition of inventing the intermittent windshield wiper, but he lost the love of a good woman because of it.
In my opinion, that made him the loser and more than a little stupid.
Paranormal Activity is the dumbest movie I’ve seen all year
I finally got around to seeing the movie Paranormal Activity and I’ve got to say that I wasn’t impressed. I heard so much hype about this movie and I was left feeling extremely underwhelmed and disappointed after watching it.
How can anyone get scared watching this movie? I don’t get it.
The premise of the movie is that a couple “engaged to be engaged” is being harassed at night while they sleep by a demon. She’s a professional student. He’s a day-trader. In other words, just the type of people you would want a demon to inflict havoc upon.
The demon has been harassing the woman her entire life. She can remember as a young girl seeing it standing at the foot of her bed in the middle of the night. If you would think that she developed a tolerance to the sound of doors closing or footsteps in the middle of the night, you would be wrong. She freaks out like it’s the first time she’s been exposed to it each and every time it happens.
The movie steals a lot from The Blair Witch Project, except that movie was good and original. This one, not so much. Paranormal Activity uses the same choppy, low-tech camera work that was in The Blair Witch Project.
The Blair Witch Project took place in the Maryland woods. Paranormal Activity takes place in a San Diego stucco subdivision home. While the woods at night can scare almost anyone, especially if someone is not used to them, I fail to see what’s so scary about a modern home in the San Diego burbs.
If it wasn’t for the hype surrounding this movie, I doubt it would have generated the money that it was able to. In the end, that is the only thing that is scary about this movie: that a movie that cost only eleven grand to make could earn $107 million at the box office.
Terminator Salvation has one of the worst movie endings I’ve ever seen
I finally got around to watching Terminator Salvation this past weekend and I’ve got to say that this movie had one of the worst endings I’ve ever seen.
Other than that, the movie wasn’t half bad.
Anyone seeing the trailers for the movie knows that it was bursting with CGI special effects. The special effects are so good that it almost makes up for the fact that the movie ends with one of the most ridiculous movie endings of the century, which technically, is really only the past nine years.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet and you don’t want to have the ending spoiled for you, than maybe you should stop reading this. Read the full article »
‘Zombieland’
Zombieland, directed by Ruben Fleischer and starting Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg, is a fantastic movie. I love zombies. I love comedies. Oddly enough, the two genres go together like chocolate and peanut butter. First there was Shaun of the Dead and now Zombieland.
Who knew the undead apocalypse could be so funny?
Woody Harrelson is fantastic. He hasn’t been this funny since Cheers. Then again, I don’t know if he’s played a comedic role lately. Most of the movies he’s appeared in lately have been dramas.
Zombieland isn’t a drama.
There’s a major cameo in the movie that I don’t want to spoil for anyone. He didn’t appear in any of the commercials or the trailers, so I don’t want to mention who it is.
Speaking of commercials, the Johnny Cash song, Country Boy, appeared in the commercials for Zombieland, but didn’t appear in the movie. I hate when this happens. After seeing the commercial for Zombieland numerous times, I identify the the song with the movie. It’s annoying when the song doesn’t appear in the film.
Because ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ ain’t a kids movie
Newsweek sat down with Where The Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak to talk about the live action adaptation of his book. Joining in on the interview was the film director Spike Jonze and novelist-screenwriter Dave Eggers.
This was my favorite part of the interview:
What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.
Because kids can handle it?
Sendak: If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.
Jonze: Dave, you want to field that one?
Eggers: The part about kids wetting their pants? Should kids wear diapers when they go to the movies? I think adults should wear diapers going to it, too. I think everyone should be prepared for any eventuality.
I must say, I like the cut of Sendak’s jib. Truer words have never been spoken, “If they can’t handle it, go home.” Not only does this bit of advice apply to this movie, but to just about everything else in life.
If you take your children to a movie and they become frightened to the extent that they are clearly disturbed and causing a scene, then by all means leave the theater. Why would someone even have to be told this?
I’m looking forward to seeing this movie. I never read Where The Wild Things Are when I was a kid and I don’t know why. It’s a story that features monsters. As a kid, I loved all things monster related even more than I loved macaroni & cheese or ice cream sandwiches. I can remember seeing this book in the library, I just never read it.
Who doesn’t like a Nazi zombie movie?
Dead Snow, a Norwegian movie about Nazi zombies, makes it’s American premiere at next month’s Sundance Film Festival. I didn’t know family movies got much attention at Sundance.
I’ve got to admit that this seems like a winner of a concept. Nazis are creepy. Zombies are creepy. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
Looks like I’ll have to come up with a different personal motto. The phrase, “The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi” just doesn’t seem to quite cut it anymore.
[io9]
Mamma Mia
I don’t get this movie. It’s supposedly based on the music of ABBA. Being that the story does not revolve around a queen that dances, I don’t really understand how ABBA music is involved.
I only know one ABBA song.
From what I have been told, the movie centers around a 20-year old girl who is about to be married. She wants to be walked down the aisle by her father. The only problem — if you forget for a moment that a 20-year old child so too young to get married — is that she doesn’t know who her father is.
She was raised by a single mother. She didn’t grow up with a father.
She doesn’t know who her father is because her mother doesn’t know who exactly impregnated her 20 years ago. Evidently in 1988 she had unprotected sex with three different men on or around the moment her daughter was conceived. Classy!
I remember 1988. People were more then a little freaked out over something called AIDS. This was when most people finally stopped calling it the Gay Cancer and realized that AIDS or HIV, the virus that caused AIDS, was something everyone needed to worry about. It was something everyone, gay or straight, needed to protect themselves against.
This meant people were starting to be more responsible when it came to having sex. They were refraining from having unprotected sex with multiple partners.
Maybe the world that Mamma Mia takes place is some sort of alternate world that is free of HIV or other life threatening sexually transmitted diseases.
Then again, maybe Mamma was just a skanky crack whore.
Stop supporting bad movies
The superhero movie Hancock staring Will Smith, Jason Bateman, and Charlize Theron made over $107 million this holiday weekend. The movie had been panned by critics.
The movie website Rotten Tomatoes have it a 37% on their “tomatometer”. That’s where they take published movie reviews and separate the positive reviews from the negative reviews. Out of the 167 reviews for Hancock, 106 of them were negative.
So why did so many people go see Hancock?
The movie studios wont stop making sucky movies if so many of the viewing public continue to go to the theater to watch them. Going to the theater to see Hancock is rewarding bad behavior. It tells the movie studios that they can make bad movies and people will go and watch. Even if the critics let them know before hand, they will still go and watch.
Knock it off. Do not go watch bad movies.
Rose McGowan is the new Brigitte Nielsen
Proving once again the Hollywood ran out of original ideas a long time ago, USA Today is reporting that Robert Rodriguez will be producing a new Red Sonja movie. Playing the title role will be none other then 34-year old Rose McGowan, star of Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. She’s also the woman Rodriguez left his wife and five children for.
Very classy.
Directing the movie will be longtime Rodriguez associate Douglas Aarniokoski. I wonder if Rodriguez has any worries that Rose McGowan might leave him for Aarniokoski. She seems to have a thing for directors. Maybe she only screws the married directors.
USA Today reports that the movie will be taking it’s cues from both the comic books and the original works of novelist Robert E. Howard, the creator of the original Sonja. Both McGowan and Rodriguez claim to have not seen the 1985 version of Red Sonja staring Brigitte Nielsen.
Now I know what it feels like to be offended
The new Get Smart movie offends me. It really, truly offends me. It bothers me that anyone would take a true masterpiece of comedy goodness from the 60’s and rehash it into a movie for theater goers in 2008. If there was ever an old TV show that should have been exempt from a do over it’s Get Smart.
I understand that Hollywood is filed to the brim with uncreative hacks that must constantly tap into the creations of yesteryear to make a living. When they remade The Beverly Hillbillies, Dukes of Hazzard, Bewitched, or even McHale’s Navy, I of course didn’t watch these movies, but it didn’t bother me that they had been made.
Get Smart should have been off-limits.
I Am Legend (2007)
Director: Francis Lawrence
Writers: Mark Protosevich, Akiva Goldsman
Staring: Will Smith, Kona the dog, Alice Braga, Salli Richardson, Emma Thompson
This movie was based on the novel by Richard Matheson. Scientists have cured cancer. Or so they think. They have taken the measles virus and reprogrammed it to destroy cancer. Unfortunately, the re-engineered virus has mutated into something that turns 10% of the human population into vampire zombies. It kills the remaining 90%.
It doesn’t kill everyone. A few people are actually immune to the virus. Most of them have been hunted down and eaten by the vampire zombies. Robert Neville — the Army research scientist superbly played by Will Smith — is immune to the virus. He is the last man alive in New York City. He also believes he is the last human on the face of the earth.
When he is not trying to shoot wild deer with his AR-15 on the streets of New York City, he is conducting experiments in his state of the art basement laboratory. He is trying to find the cure to this vampire zombie virus. Being that he was the last human left (or so he believes) I didn’t really understand his motivation.
There were a few things that never made much sense. Before Neville enters his brownstone apartment each evening, he can be seen pouring some kind of liquid from a plastic gallon dispenser. What was this liquid? Holy water? We never found out what it was. Also, flashback scenes show Neville wearing the Army insignia of a major, but other people refer to him has lieutenant-colonel.
I enjoyed the movie. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to watch it again the next day with the audio commentary track. The problem was there was no audio commentary track. I’m getting tired of DVD’s that don’t offer at least one audio commentary track. DVD’s that don’t include an audio commentary track might as well be VHS tapes.
Movies on DVD should always be in letterbox format and they should also include audio commentary tracks.
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