Category: Movies
February 22 2009
Oscars 2009
A day I never thought I’d see has dawned. Not the return of another Oscars celebration, but an Oscars celebration in which I don’t care who wins. An Oscars celebration in which I have so little interest I have to make an effort just to finish this entry.
I admit I had similar reservations back in 2005, but that changed once I got a chance to see the five Best Picture nominees. I realized then they were all excellent movies which truly deserved to be singled out for recognition. The same is not true this year. I’ve seen four of the five nominees and was underwhelmed by all of them. The front runner, Slumdog Millionaire, is a movie filled with torture, hardship, and gruesome violence redeemed only in its closing moments by a dance scene under the credits—a move which I strongly suspect is why it has engendered so much lasting goodwill. Benjamin Button might be filled with memorable imagery and have attractive leads, but I just can’t get past the creepy padophilia inherent in its love story. The Reader had a very good story, but was so boring ˇV despite all the nude scenes ˇV I couldn’t help thinking it must have made for a better book.
With such lackluster offerings I can already guarantee the Academy will be whining tomorrow on how their ratings have reached their lowest. And in response, I already have three words for them: The, Dark, and Knight.
I admit I was late to The Dark Knight bandwagon, not seeing it in theaters, not seeing it till it came out on Blu-Ray. But it was such an obviously well-crafted, well-received, and well-reviewed entertainment that I assumed it would not only get a nomination but would surely win as Best Picture.
But not only did it get snubbed as Best Picture, it didn’t even get a Best Director nod. And I’m probably in the minority but I’m not even pleased with its one high-profile nomination. Sure, Heath Ledger will win as the sentimental favorite, but his performance struck me as one long Paul Giamatti impersonation. The other sure thing at the Oscars, WALLˇEE, is also flawed, in my humble opinion, with a second half that comes as anti-climax to such a wondrous first half.
Which brings me to my main point. This is going to be one very disappointing Oscars, and that’s coming from someone to who usually loves to watch this show.
Posted by Mickey at 04:21 PM in Movies | Comments (0) | Email this entry
July 16 2008
Horrible Goodness
Why no updates? What’s the point. How I can compete with the Internet awesomeness of this?
Posted by Mickey at 08:39 PM in Blogging, Movies, TV, Video | Comments (0) | Email this entry
April 13 2008
Maestro Williams in Town
I am very upset to find out today that famed film composer John Williams was in Detroit on Friday to conduct the DSO. I can’t believe such an icon was in town and I knew nothing about it. I’ve been belatedly reading up on the visit at JW Fan.net message boards. I was very tempted to steal the photos and video clips and post them here. But instead, I’ll just point the way to the best posting so far.
Posted by Mickey at 05:58 PM in Movies, Music | Comments (0) | Email this entry
February 03 2008
Arrested Development Development?!
Holy crap! It’s even being confirmed! It looks like there’s a possibility of a Bluth family reunion.
First Serenity and now this. It’s as if the movie studios are joining together to clean up the messes made by Fox’s stupid decisions.
Posted by Mickey at 04:36 AM in Movies, TV | Comments (0) | Email this entry
Lord of the Wrongs
Yay! Lord of the Rings bloopers! I hope there’s more where these came from.
Posted by Mickey at 04:27 AM in Movies, LOTR | Comments (0) | Email this entry
December 06 2006
Calling Sky Captain
Hey Sky Captain fans! No word on a sequel, but director Kerry Conran has a new project out. It’s a TV commercial, but it still has the beautiful nostalgic look of The World of Tomorrow. The video is available on YouTube, but it looks much better (and is in the proper aspect ratio) here:
http://www.lgfilms.com/conran/
And read more about the commercial here.
 |
Update: upon closer inspection, I found a properly formatted file on You Tube after all…
Posted by Mickey at 03:04 AM in Movies, TV | Comments (0) | Email this entry
June 09 2006
By the Sound of Their Teeth
Did you ever notice whenever someone eats in a movie you can hear the fork scrape against their teeth? I know this is a fairly specific rant in the grand scheme of movie watching, but it really annoys me. The sound of it annoys me and the mere idea of scraping a fork between my teeth annoys me. In all my years of eating, and believe me we’re talking a lot of meals here, I think maybe once (oh let’s give it the benefit of a doubt and say “twice”) I’ve actually bitten down on my fork. But what is it with today’s foley artists? By the standards of today’s movie soundtracks, you’d think fork-chewing is a standard practice.
Posted by Mickey at 01:11 AM in Food, Movies | Comments (0) | Email this entry
April 22 2006
Happy Earth Day 2006
I don’t mean to use the day to pimp a movie, but this trailer pretty much says everything that needs to be said…
Nicer looking QuickTime available here.
Posted by Mickey at 07:24 PM in Movies, News, Video | Comments (1) | Email this entry
Page 1 of 21 pages 1 2 3 > Last »
