2010 Oscar Picks

Best Actor

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

While I didn't see "Crazy Heart" "A Single Man" or "Invictus" it isn't hard to see the writing on the wall with this one. Everyone is raving about Jeff Bridges performance in Crazy Heart, and from what I've seen they should be. Though personally I loved Clooney in "Up In the Air."

Best Supporting Actor

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

I'm in a strange position here. I haven't seen any of the competition but I cannot in a million years imagine any of the other performances matching the greatness that Christoph Waltz achieved. I would gladly throw any and all awards at him I could at this point. My deepest regret is that he isn't up for "Best Actor"

Best Actress

Carey Mulligan, An Education

I decided to be a little different here. I kind of think that the Academy is going to really like Sandra Bullock, but honesty she has done much better in the past. And I have no read on the performances from "Precious" since I missed it. Carey Mulligan on the other hand impressed me quite a bit. ..Plus as a Doctor Who fan it would be nice to see Sally Sparrow get some gold.

Best Supporting Actress

Mo’Nique, Precious

Another category where I've only seen one movie, and though I loved "Up in the Air" to pieces, it is hard to deny the attention that is being heaped on Mo'Nique right now. Were I choosing from "Up in the Air" though I would have picked Anna Kendrick.

Best Picture

A Serious Man

The big one. 10 choices, only 8 or 9 of them deserving. My fear is that "Avatar" is going to steal this one and piss all over what little credibility that gold statue has left. Barring that though there is a good race here. "The Hurt Locker" was my choice up until the e-mail debacle, but that shook me. My personal choice would be "Inglourious Basterds" followed closely by "Up In the Air" but I am having a tough time envisioning them going over "A Serious Man" (which I also very much enjoyed).

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

This was another tough one. I gave the nod to Bigelow because she did a fantastic job with "The Hurt Locker." I would love to say that Quentin was going to take this, but again I just can't see that happening. And again I fear that James Cameron is going to steal this one, which would be an absolute travesty, and a farce.

Best Animated Film

Up

Ok, full disclosure. "Up" is the only one I saw. But I was so surprised at how excellent it was I can't help but feel it is a real contender. I don't think I've talked to anyone who has seen it who didn't like it. ...SQUIRREL!

Art Direction

Avatar

Cinematography

Inglourious Basterds

This isn't really an area where I am an excellent judge (as opposed to my other wild guesses?) and again "Avatar" seems like a natural win here, but I really liked the look and feel of "Inglourious" so I'm kind of. At least I didn't have to wear special glasses to get sucked into the world of the "Basterds"

Film Editing

Inglourious Basterds

I was close to going with "District 9" because it was the 'unique' one out with the handheld look, but again my gut just pushes me to "Inglourious Basterds."

Makeup

Star Trek

I just wanted to say "Star Trek" I have no honest idea on this one.

Best Original Score

Up

I've seen "Avatar," "The Hurt Locker," and "Up." This isn't a visual category so "Avatar" flies right out the window, and while "The Hurt Locker" may have an excellent score I don't remember it so much. "Up" to me really seemed to use the score in a memorable way.

Best Animated Short

French Roast

This one for me was very very close between "The Lady and the Reaper" and "French Roast" ultimately I went with "Roast" because "Reaper" felt like it was a minute or two too long for what it was. As a side note, I really loved "A Matter of Loaf and Death," but it wasn't anything new, it was just more awesome Wallace and Gromit action.

Sound Editing

The Hurt Locker

Sound Mixing

Star Trek

Best Visual Effects

Avatar

Just a quick note on this one. Even I wouldn't deny "Avatar" this award.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Up In The Air

Best Original Screenplay

Inglourious Basterds

10 Isn't Enough, So I Bring you 15 Movie From the Aughts!

Here it is, my list of the 00's. Just remember, it is mostly arbitrary and dependent on both my mood at any given time, and my piss poor memory. So if something was omitted that is why. These don't necessarily represent the "Best made" of the aughts, they represent the ones that I got the most enjoyment/value out of personally. I did try to mix up the genres a bit and make sure things like animated and documentaries got some attention.

01. Shaun of the Dead

02. Inglourious Basterds

03. LOTR Trilogy

04. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

05. [rec]

06. Once

07. War Dance

08. Black Snake Moan

09. No Country for Old Men

10. Punch-Drunk Love

11. Brick

12. 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days

13. The Incredibles

14. The Wrestler

15. Garden State



So now of course it is time for the list of honorable mentions, because bloating my list from 10 to 15 just wasn't indecisive enough of me! (in no particular order) American Psycho, Mulholland Drive, Iron Man (the last movie removed from the main list, at great pain), The Devil's Backbone, Star Trek, Ang Lee's HULK, and of course, the best movie EVER created Shark Attack 3: Megalodon!

Its been too long, but I have an excuse! (yeah thats the ticket) AKA my epic FGFC Fail

So right now you should be reading my thoughts on this months FGFC pick "L'Anticristo" aka "The Antichrist" aka "The Tempter." Well you should be reading that except Netflix had other ideas and didn't seem to have enough supply to meet demand so I couldn't get it from them, then I lucked out and was able to rent it locally, or I would have lucked out if the DVD had been playable. So a full review was just out of reach.

That meant plan B, make glib remarks and/or smartass comments about the trailer. Well you aren't seeing that right now because last week my trusty laptop decided it was time to part ways with its hard drive. That was bad, but not quite as bad as yesterday morning when I woke up to find my desktop giving me the stinkeye and refusing to do a thing. Can you believe it, cataclysmic failure on both of my computers in short order. I'm only able to type this up thank to a Linux Live CD on my hard drive free laptop... I can only blame a failure this complete on one thing....This must be the work of the fucking "Phantom Menace"...Curses!

Also lost (and I'm praying I can recover this) is the first leg of my project, a list. One favorite movie for every year I have been alive. It is a huge pain to go through IMDB by year choosing a list of movies to narrow down trust me. Damn you "Phantom Menace" damn you to hell!

So even though I can't watch youtube videos myself at the moment that doesn't mean I can't link them, so here you watch and you comment. Me, I'll be out searching for a new laptop....



Oh also XBox 360 users, I had a chance to get the NXE a day early. So I can tell you that it is a new experience, it is pretty. The UI isn't my cup of tea honestly, and the avatar thing is a little too Wii-like for my taste. But the menu on the XBox button lets you skip the new UI if you want so that is good, but where the update really shines for me is the Netflix streaming. It was completely simple to set up, the interface there works like a dream, and I actually ended up getting higher quality video on my XBox than I did on my computer. Fun could be had with the feature to sync up a Netflix streaming movie and watch with friends.

Now get off my lawn!

TTFATF on Mario Paint??

This totally made my Friend Feed account worth it. This popped up as something a friend of a friend posted and it totally blew me away. Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and the Flames" on Mario Paint!



A few other things the FF has pointed me towards:

The ridiculousness of SF MOMA

A discussion on Bad Words

and The Monkees!

Once more into the breach!

So I've been elusive again. Where was I? Simple answer, I've been busier than I thought I would be. Slightly longer answer? Well..

As you may or may not know I do some light site maintenance* and post the podcast version of the shows for Talk It Over Radio. They recently have been picked up and will now be airing not only on the Internets, but also over California airwaves on KERI 1180 AM. Which obviously is quite awesome, but also means I've been trying to tweak the site a bit here and there and make it as pretty as I can. So there is part of it.

Also you may or (more probably) may not know that originally I signed on for some light site maintenance* of the predecessor to Talk It Over Weezy and The Swish. Well the big news is that Weezy and The Swish is back! Really freaking sweet! But then that meant that I had to rebuild the WaTS website which was taken over by TIO. That took a bit of time, but I think it came out functional. Utilizing my TARDIS to get the posts in the correct time frame and getting the images etc.. put back in was the bear of the work. But really worth it to get the show back. Incidentally Weezy and The Swish is actually back Tonight, 7PM eastern, so about what 25 minutes from now (I'd better hurry!).

What else have I been up to? Well I watched 3 different “Jaws” movies on the 4th, I still have some complaining things to say about “The Incredible Hulk”.

I've been spending quite a bit of time over on Friend Feed, Twitter, and Plurk. Microblogging insanity is easy for me to handle...Especially when I'm running on a day where I never went to bed the night before like today. Tonight I probably crash early....maybe.

Oh yes, and this...

Abridged in a maximized way?

Oh my dear neglected space which I call my home(page) I have been away too long. I'm a beast, a monster, a ball of rage ripping your heart to shreds with my absence....Well some of that may be true!

Also I've been in a bit of a rut. I go through them sometimes. I just want to consume and consume and consume and the drive to create is there but blocked horribly. Thank Zod for OpenOffice.org, otherwise I'd of killed at least one or two large trees with the amount of paper I would have wasted with all of the writing and tossing I've been doing.

So the question then begs, what have I been consuming? TONS, Television, Games, Books, and of course Movies. Highlights include;


TV

Seasons 1-4 of "Babylon 5"
I went on a rampage through this, almost no movies except for small breaks in between seasons. So basically every night was B5 night for quite a while, and it Never got old. That is saying something. The closest thing I can kind of equate the show with is "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" but that isn't really doing a service to B5 which is a far superior product. B5 even tackles many of same themes that DS9 dealt with (racism, religion, interstellar war) and does it much much better. In a lot of ways Babylon 5 was Years ahead of it's time. The show started airing in '94 and was filmed in wide screen and was totally serialized not only episode to episode but also each season was it's own large arc that shaped the universe. Very cool. To put it in perspective Firefly which aired in 2002 fought (and lost) with Fox to be aired in wide screen and to be more serialized.

Of course I still have to watch season 5, which I'm dragging on doing because even though I'm told I need to check it out. As much as I loved the first four seasons some of the aftermath from the end of S4 I wasn't particularly thrilled with so I worry if I'll like S5, I'm keeping my fingers crossed though. By the way seasons 1-2 are available on Hulu right here! That is where I watched season 1. I was way impressed with the service, even with my crappy net connection.

Bottom line, B5 S1-4 get 5 snaps in a B formation up!


Games

"Mass Effect"
Ok the game was really fun and I definitely spent a ton of time playing it. But you know what, I'm not as in love with it as I thought I would be based off of others. The story was really fun, not quite so unique though. In fact a lot of the basic themes seemed to be pretty heavily borrowed from "Knights of the Old Republic," which I'll talk about in a second but back to "Mass Effect." The story may have been good but if one thing bugged the crap out of me about the game it is the controls. At first the combat mechanic was torturous to me. I did get used to it but still it was a curve and it wasn't particularly well done. More than a few of the fights seemed more luck based than skill because of the near twitchy scheme. That isn't even mentioning the driving parts where the controls of the MAKO seem to have been developed in a very special section of Hell. Probably the one the Shepherd Book talked about, the one reserved for lawyers and people who talk in the theater.

"Knights of the Old Republic"
The entire time I was playing "Mass Effect" really the main thing going through my mind was "Man do I wish I was playing KOTOR again." So when I was done with "ME" That is exactly what I did. KOTOR is THE game that I bought my original Xbox for, thus it was the first Xbox game I bought. The thing still holds up. I just with that the backward compatibility with the 360 had been a littler smoother, still it was playable. Although I was disappointed with myself when I just couldn't bring myself to go dark side this time, whats wrong with me??

GTA IV
Ok so I can't say much about this since I got it only 4 days ago now and then promptly fell to The Plague food poisoning. But man is it a good thing that years of abuse have completely removed any delicate senses I may have had because Damn!

Bottom line? If you haven't yet check out "Knights of the Old Republic" for a unique action RPG experience set in the Star Wars universe. If you like KOTOR check out "Mass Effect" once you get past the controls you'll enjoy the game play. And finally if you love doing a lot of killing you should pick up GTA IV. Hell I think I've actually gotten my $60 worth out of GTA just sitting watching the TV in the game, especially Bas Rutten's show "The Men's Room."


Books

Bram Stoker's Dracula
I'm constantly in the middle of at least one book, sometimes I'm in the middle of two or three. Yes I have attention problems at time, I would have thought that was clear by now? Anyway I don't often talk about what I read. Other than on the occasional discussion on the Sword and Laser sci-fi fantasy book club. But you know what "Dracula" was really amazing! I've never really tried horror books before other than the occasional Steven King book, and I've never been able to get into any of those. A fact which no doubt both shames and appalls my dad who is a huge fan. So I'd avoided the classics in the genre. No longer! Not after this experience. I'm not sure if it is considered a "classic" or not but one of the next on my hit list is "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson.

Bottom line, just read it! Hell if you want to make an awesome few days read the book then watch "Nosferatu" (Max Schrek version natch), then watch the film version of "Bram Stoker's Dracula." The excitement will leave you drained*!

*Yes that was a horrendous pun, no I'm not sorry, yes I laughed just a little too hard at it, no I'm still not sorry, and yes, yes you can still view my alternate ending to "Nosferatu" thank you for remembering!


Movies

This one is complicated. Believe it or not I sat down here only to write about a single movie, a movie that I'm not going to write about tonight because, well, I've written a lot, it's late, and my abuse of the comma is telling me that it wouldn't be a very well written piece. So instead of waxing on about how much I did or didn't like "The Incredible Hulk" (Guess which way I leaned) I'll give you a tidbit on something else.

"[•REC]"
Credit where it's due this movie wouldn't have even been on my radar if it hadn't have been for Stacie. So yeah, she still rocks.

So back to "[•REC]." If you don't know what it is I'll try to do a simple summarization. Remember the cool idea behind the shitfest that was "Cloverfield." First person scares? Well take that but replace giant monster with zombie like creatures, replace the entire city with a quarantined apartment building, replace the non cleverly named "Hud" with an actual cameraman, and replace the rest of the main characters with Manuela Velasco. Then you make the entire thing really awesome and really fucking scary and uncomfortable. After all that then you have "[•REC]."

Bottom line, the American remake that will be named "Quarantine" doesn't have a prayer of holding a candle to the original. Since as far as I can tell it doesn't look like there will likely be a US DVD release for the movie I'll be importing it as soon as it is available with English subtitles. Even if by some miracle a US release was given this wouldn't even be a rent this would be a run out and buy immediately.


Well this post has certainly turned into a giant monster on it's own hasn't it? Remember the motto here as Askewed Views, what we (me) lack in quality we (me again) more than make up for in quantity...ya know, when we (yep still just me, what?) actually get off our (you know the drill) butt and post.

Number 1 fan!

I've done the rounds, movie wise anyway. I've seen quite a few of them. Recently I've discovered how much I really enjoy horror flicks of most kinds. It still feels very strange to me when I look at all of the horror movies and slashers and thrillers that I had so heavily avoided for so long. I blame it on the timing of my birth. When I was just but little, during the formative years of the awakening of my brain my brothers were in their prime scary movie watching years. They also were coincidentally just starting out into their jerk years. What does this mean? Torture the young one! Oh and they did, they had me freaked out about everything from Jaws (one of my now favorite movies) to Freddy (I'm ambivalent about the first two but love the 3rd movie in his series so far) to Jason (awesome!) to Michael Myers (Also quite awesome himself) and so on. There was even a time that they had me so freaked out that I couldn't stay in the room when they played that really shitty "Jaws" NES game.

Don't get me wrong there was nothing really wrong with my brothers, just the normal sibling torture. I knew that if anything happened they had my back. Unless of course a vampire showed up, then it was every man for themselves, and they reminded me constantly that they were quicker than me...

So though I've always loved movies I really never looked into the scary ones for the longest time. Well past the point of being afraid, at a certain point it wasn't the fear anymore that kept me away, just habit and conditioning. The first real horror type movie that I actually made an effort to see was "Scream" in '96. Late '96 as a matter of fact since was a VHS affair. As I understand it that was a pretty good jumping on point for the genre, which I agree with.

I really enjoyed "Scream" even without getting the inside jokes and references that I now find easier and easier to spot. In fact back in the day the only one I remember really catching was Wes Craven's cameo as Fred the janitor (clad in Freddy's sweater and hat). I won't lie, the slight campyness of if all helped me stay into it (my love of the B flicks was alive and well back then as well) the humor was really well done as well. Not forced or unbearably hokey as can be the case easily. Back on track though "Scream" contains a few really memorable gruesome scenes (at least for me). The first one that comes to mind is the entire sequence with Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) being chased,stabbed, gutted, and strung up. Now it could be because that was my initiation scene, I'm not sure but I do know that the scene really sticks with me. Especially the last bit where her parents discover her...just creepy. The other standout scene and this one I'm fairly sure is just one of my quirks is Principal Himbry (Henry Winkler) hanging from the goal post. Though that scene is more memorable because, well lets face it seeing Henry Winkler murdered like that is just about the most heartbreaking thing ever. How could anyone even think of harming him??

So yeah I dug Scream, I even caught the next two sequels in the theater, I didn't love them as much as the first. But I hold a soft spot for them since they are in the family of that what brung me. Sadly during those times I still didn't discover my "love" for the genre simply because I was staying with the new movies. That means I was stuck with the "I Know What You Did Last Summer"s of the world and the like. In other words cash in crap. Luckily thanks to the net and some awesome blogs some of which I've even mentioned I've corrected my past bad movie habits.

So where was I? Oh yeah, gristly terrible images that I've exposed myself to in the name of entertainment. I won't go into why I (or any of us) are drawn to this stuff, if I tried I'd probably depress myself and worry myself into therapy and I don't want that. But yeah honestly I have seen some horrible things, sometimes I do get to wondering if I've totally desensitized myself and distorted what I would find horrible in reality. Have you seen "Lovers Lane? Talk about ouch! That isn't even mentioning the hell that the classics (Jason, Jason's mom and Myers, etc...) have unleashed on poor unsuspecting (usually) teens.

Luckily for me there are occasional scenes that really do touch me and make me realize that yes I'm still human and not psychotic (hopefully). As I previously mentioned, two scenes in "Scream" bring me back to reality, a handful of others exist as well. And then there is this one, which I've seen quite a few times in many places but it wasn't until earlier tonight that I actually sat down and watched the entire movie.

Ladies and gentlemen I give to you a scene from "Misery" that no matter how many times I see it I still jump and cringe.



....Go ahead, call me a wimp if you like but dammit that is just messed up. Just when you are starting to recover she goes to the other foot!

3.14

Happy Pi Day!

Another little peek at my personal brand of neurosis

So its almost time again. Another private little movie marathon. If you haven’t noticed I tend to do those on holidays and the such. Really I blame the entire tradition on Thanksgiving, it started out in the old days with the MST3K marathon that they ran and then moved on to the Bondathons and somewhere in between I realized that I could put my own day of flicks together and not be bound by the constraints of a single series. These days it really does pretty much encompass most "party" or get together days, I really am not a partier in any sense of the word so putting these together gives me something to do on those occasions. If anyone else is around and wishes to attend a viewing I’m not opposed but if they want to do their thing I’m fine with that too. Just let me have my movies!

So this is the big one coming up. My B-Day-athon (I really should name it). In recent years it has run for not just the one day but two. That makes it not only an entertainment extravaganza but also a test of endurance! I try to one up myself from year to year, I don’t know if I’ll do it this year but I’m going to give it a shot.

The short list of what I watched last year was, "The Departed," "The Evil Dead," "The Proposition," "Borat," "Magnum Force," "Battle Royale," "The Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn," and "Baby Doll." In reality there were more plus some TV shows but those were the core that I stopped everything and watched.

Talk about rangy by the way, that is quite a motley group of flicks. I really wish that "Borat" hadn’t of been in there to drag the average down. But "The Departed," "Baby Doll" and "Battle Royale" really helped bring the average back up for sure! The "Evil Dead" flicks I’d seen already of course, "Magnum Force" was exactly what I expected which was good, it really helped wake me up after sitting through "Borat." As for "The Proposition, honestly I remember sitting through it, I have bits of memories but that was like the last movie I watched before bed on the second day and I think I was fried at that point. I may have to put it in rotation this year just so I can form an opinion!

So here is the problem. I don’t have a solid lineup yet. Thats really no good since the thing is supposed to start on Monday and run through Tuesday.

So far for sure I have; "Once" and "Scarecrows." Netflix pending I should possibly have "The Haunting," and "Music and Lyrics." So that means so far I have the horror, romance, and sap areas covered. I still need at least one foreign and one classic, a sci-fi wouldn’t hurt either. If the net is cooperative I’m also hoping to use Netflix’s stream now to catch "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

But that still leaves me fairly light, especially with all the ifs I’m smelling off of this plan (IF Netflix comes through, IF the net is speedy enough).

Some that I’m on the fence about for the ‘thon that I’ve been meaning to watch eventually that are available on Netflix’s stream now; "La Vie en Rose," "Descent" (not "The Descent" I’ve seen that), "Network," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "The Shining," "Dial M for Murder" (which I can’t believe I’ve never seen from beginning to end).

So, any suggestions? Am I missing something I MUST see, I should look for? Obviously I’m fairly flexible on what I watch, I’ll give almost anything a shot sometimes I even give them two shots (Except for "The Wizard of Oz" and "A Christmas Story". They’ve used up all of their shots! ...You too "Titanic.")

An Askewed Secret

I did not care for “A Christmas Story.” Did not care for it.

I know it almost sounds like blasphemy. I mean everyone just LOVES the movie right? I just could not get into it at all, and believe me I've had plenty of times to give it a shot as I'm the only member of my family who doesn't enjoy it. That may actually have helped push me across the limit of just feeling nothing towards it into really just disliking it. I've been forced to sit through “A Christmas Story” almost as many times as I've been forced to sit through “The Wizard of Oz” (Thats a rant for another day).

Ok I admit that there are a few scenes that I don't mind or chuckle at but luckily for me every single one of them is shown in the previews that air over and over and over again, at least they used to. For the record if I were Santa I'd put a boot to Ralphie's face too.

But above all you know why I just couldn't get into “A Christmas Story?” It insists upon itself, Lois.

So if you need me I'll be spending my Christmas searching for what I consider to be the best Christmas story of all time, “It's a Bundyful Life.”