Posts from — February 2007

Congrats to Marty! It was finally his time to get one of those statuettes. I thoroughly enjoyed The Departed so it’s pretty cool that an Oscar finally went to a movie I actually liked. I don’t think it was the best movie of 2006, but it was the most fun I’ve had at the movie theater in a long time. And that’s because Scorsese is the Man.

Babel was a good, but seriously flawed movie. At the end, I felt like we were left with nothing. The nanny got deported, the mom lived, that Morrocan family was totally f-ed, and that deaf-mute girl finally cried. I think it was ultimately too depressing and that’s why it lost. Hey, at least it got a Golden Globe, right? It definitely had something to say.

I wish instead of cutting to that goddamn, awful hack Chris Connelly, they had a real person with just a mini dv camera do the segues to commercial. That would be truly groundbreaking and I totally bet Ellen would had gone for it. They could do a brand tie-in by using a jvc camcorder or something. It’s a win-win situation.

That shadow puppet thing kind of freaked me out at first, but when they did the snakes…comedy genius! And what was with all the comedians showing up this year like Seinfeld and even Larry David? I guess it’s the place to be. I had fun watching the ceremony with a few friends. My crew couldn’t believe Pan’s Labyrinth lost to The Lives of Others. Robbed, but maybe that german movie was better. I guess I’ll have to finally see the movie to tell. It just got released this month in the US. Then, I can decide whether Del Toro was truly snubbed.

One of my favorite tv shows is “Reno 911″. Dangle and his short shorts are just too much. I laugh consistently at every episode. They don’t even use the top camcorders available to make the show. It’s all about the improvised jokes. Everything they do is way out in left field. It’s so creative and unexpected. They can just videotape the characters just sitting in the office acting stupid and get something funny.

That’s why I’m so jazzed that the feature length film is finally in theaters today.

Making the movie probably wasn’t too expensive either. They shoot with camcorders to mimic the documentary style of “Cops”. Same thing with Borat, it’s about the characters not the effects budget.

I don’t know how exciting this year’s ceremony will be since most of the awards seem very predictable. I will be utterly shocked if Jennifer Hudson doesn’t win. That would make me believe that those geezers still have some surprises left. The telecast better zoom in on the losers with a HD camcorder because I wanna see their disappointment in high definition. That’s when those home theater systems come in handy. And I love it when they try to play music to get them to wrap it up. It never works and I’m sure they’ll be tearful speeches as usual.

But seriously, here are my Oscar predictions vs my actual choice.

Best Film - Babel or Letters from Iwo Jima will win instead of The Departed
Best Actor - Forest Whitaker, which is okay by me. But Leo was pretty damn good in Blood Diamond
Best Actress - Helen Mirren, no question. That lady’s a fox.
Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Hudson, can’t say about the other nominees really
Best Supporting Actor - Eddie Murphy will win, but I prefer Djimon or Marky Mark
Best Director - It’s Scorsese baby all the way!
Best Original Script - The Queen is my guess
Best Adapted Script - The Departed
Best Cinematography - Pan’s Labyrinth, I personally prefer The Prestige
Best Editing - United 93, but I think The Departed was better edited and paced
Best in Art Direction - This one is tough. I prefer The Prestige once again, but I think they’ll give to Dreamgirls
Best Costume Design - I actually can never guess this one right. I think Devil Wears Prada is a front-runner though.
Best Score - Anybody’s guess. I think The Fountain was grossly mislooked for this category. Clint Mansell is so talented.
Best Song - It’s either Randy Newman or Dreamgirls (freakin’ 3 out of the 5 nominations!)
Best Make-up - Pan’s Labyrinth
Best Sound - This is a weird category. I’m gonna go out on a limb and gamble on Flags of Our Fathers. War sound effects are really hard to pull off
Best Sound Editing - Pirates II or Blood Diamond
Best Visual Effects - Pirates again
Best Animation Film - Happy Feet
Best Foreign Language - Pan’s Labyrinth, a safe bet by the sheer force of its other nominations
Best Documentary - Inconvenient Truth
And I have no idea about the short film categories…

Judging by the amount of labor it took for me to write my guesses, this is gonna be a hellishly long ceremony. I’m sure there are gonna be a lot of Oscar parties that might run out of steam. My advice is to use a sony handycam to videotape your guesses before the ceremony. And then tape your reactions to the actual winners. That would be a funny tape if you were at a party full of film students. Trust me, things can get heated.

In my mind, I compare camcorders to the family camera. You can capture so many moments in real time with a digital camcorder. You can take it to Six Flags to tape your dad getting off that new roller coaster. Or use it to film your daughter’s ballet recital. Then, you can send the tape to the grandparents who live far away. And you don’t need much training to use a dvd camcorder. Then, when you mail a disc, it doesn’t even cost that much.

I wonder if in the future, people will have digital movies in their wallets. Like how moms have that worn photo of their kids in their purses. With the advances of technology, in a few years, you could have digital movies in your watch or something. I wonder how many people put family movies on their iPods. Then, you could a keep a moving image of your memories with you at all times. I hope the iPhone will come with uploading capabilities.

I stupidly went to see Ghost Rider last night. It was god awful. My friend and me went in a bit intoxicated and thought it would be so bad that it would be funny. We were wrong. Dead wrong.

The character set-up and exposition were too long. It took like 30 minutes for Nicholas Cage to transform into the Rider. And it had this cheesy western music underscoring the whole movie with the voice over from Sam Shepherd. So many people should have known better than to be in this terrible film. But my biggest question is: How the hell did they convince Peter Fonda to be in this piece of crap?! Did the director make his own little deal with the devil? And he wasn’t just in a cameo part. He played the freaking Devil who stole Johnny Blaze’s soul.

Ooh, so scary in his long, capelike coat. And what’s with the cane? The wardrobe was laughable. Did they even try with Cage’s motorcycle suits and that awful black wig. And then, he transforms into a CGI skeleton covered in flames!!! And how does he have the nerve to claim this movie is a work of art? I think not.

I feel like genuine enthusiasts of the comic would have made a better and more faithful story. They could take a sony mini camcorder and get shots of a guy doing stunts on an expensive bike. Because that’s all the movie was, a freaking tribute to fire and motorcycles. The effects were almost cool, but the below par script made it an utter waste of time. And it still defied nature and was number one at the box office this week!

I couldn’t tell whether we were supposed to take the dialogue seriously or not. LAist recommends the movie best viewed under the influence. The tone was at times campy and goofy with Cage eating jellybeans out of a martini glass. Then, the bad guys, led by Blackheart (Wes Bentley), had supposedly scary and threatening dialogue. It just came off flat and stupid. The people in the theater were dead quiet through the entire movie. And I saw at least 5 people walk out. I still can’t believe Wes Bentley (American Beauty) made his return to cinema with this movie. I think he needs a better agent.