Sunday, April 24, 2005
Who You Know Do It Better: The Wit and Wisdom of P Diddy and the Fam
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Sunday, April 03, 2005
Fred the Online Journal Recommends
*Making crappy self-indulgent lists and putting them in your online journal rather than actually writing a real entry about something people will care about even though it’s already been like forever since you last wrote anything:
The only thing worse than someone with an online journal is someone who doesn’t update their online journal for three weeks and then when they finally do update it its with some lame half-assed stop-gap measure written only so that people will stop asking them “when are you going to update your online journal”. Well, actually there is one thing worse than that: people who read other people’s online journals. Those people are losers. And they have no lives. Or friends. Despite what facebook might say.
*Your Mom:
She keeps getting better and better all the time. In fact, it’s getting to the point now that when she requests that I “give it to her” I’m starting to think she might not always be referring to my money.
*Jordan Schildcrout:
Per Katie Woodruff’s request I feel I should say a few words here about Marymount’s best-kept secret. If you haven’t had the privilege yet of taking a Modern Drama course from Jordan your life is incomplete. Sure he seems constantly nervous and uncomfortable, his age could be anywhere between 15 and 40, his speech patterns and mannerisms are almost unbearably awkward, and he might be the least fashionable gay man in history. But like a fine wine he just gets better with time until eventually you fully drink from his bottle of knowledge and become drunk on the rich taste of sweet education.
Or some shit like that.
Plus part of me thinks he could totally kick Mark Ringer’s ass in a bar fight. And even if he couldn’t, Id pay a large sum of money to see him try.
(Speaking of Katie Woodruff, is it too early to recommend her Christopher Durang monologue she’ll be doing in Senior Showcase? It is? Okay, well when it comes time to get your tickets for Showcase make sure you’re the first in line because you don’t want to miss it. It’ll be the best $0 you’ll ever spend.)
*Not being so negative and critical:
Seriously, I am so sick of people being critical and negative about things. People who are like that really suck. They are losers and I hate them. But yet they are everywhere. Seriously, what is this hellish God-forsaken world coming to?
*Having a picture of your real self on facebook:
Yes your drawing of Jesus is both humorous and ironic. Yes I like Mr. T as much as the next person. And yes your choice of picture is exceedingly clever and reflects well on your character and your worth as human being. But it makes it impossible to figure out if I know you or not. And if I don’t know if I know you or not how can I know whether or not to request to be your friend? Now I know that doesn’t stop most people from requesting to be someone’s friend, but I guess I’m just old fashioned like that. But really though, facebook is like the yearbook for the 21st century and you wouldn’t put a picture of a monkey having sex with George Bush as your yearbook picture would you? So why would you put it as your facebook picture? Seriously get with the program people…
*The ending to Being There
Granted you’ve probably never heard of Being There but then again you probably didn’t even know they made movies before 1980. Well they did. Being There for example came out in 1979. I hear there are movies even older than that too! Like Star Wars, Annie Hall and The Godfather(s). Other than that though, Being There might be the oldest movie ever made. Which makes the fact it has the best ending in movie history even more impressive. And if you don’t believe me (and frankly that’s probably wise on your part) then you can take USA Today’s word for it as they said the same thing a few weeks after I had come to a similar conclusion myself. Now of course part of what made the ending so good was that I had no idea the movie had anything unique about its ending, and by telling you that it does I am ruining it partially for you. But no matter, you’ll enjoy it nevertheless. With apologies to Say Anything..., The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Before Sunset and of course the former champ, The Graduate, Being There has what is without a doubt the best ending in movie history. And on top of that, it's an amazing, unique, one of a kind film that best exemplifies the phrase “they don’t make ‘em like the used to” (although lord knows Wes Anderson tries) and also contains a BRILLANT performance by Peter Sellers. So, long story short, go rent this movie.
*Mcsweeneys.net:
Other than porn and some killer tuna casserole recipes Mcsweeneys.net is the greatest thing to ever happen to the internet and if you are not reading it daily and basking in its brilliance then your life is decidedly not complete my friend. I hesitate to recommend it to you if you are not already aware of its existence as everything I write I pretty much a blatant rip off of the stuff they do (well that is the stuff I write that isn’t a blatant rip off of Chuck Klosterman or Bill Simmons) and as soon as you read their stuff mine will seem painfully bad by comparison. For example this whole entry is based on a feature they do called “McSweeneys Recommends” where every few weeks they recommend random things like “blowing gently on a baby’s face” “The University of Illinois basketball team” or “binder clips” and then write commentary about them. But I am willing to give up whatever shred of respect you might have for me by recommending that you check out mcsweeneys.net and thus enhancing your life greatly. I can’t explain to you their brilliance in words. The best I can do I give you a random sample of the type of writing you might find on their site. For example here is a letter written to them by one of their readers (mind you, at the time this letter was written, nowhere on the site had anyone ever mentioned The Clash):
From: Patrick Cassels
Subject: Go. Clearly
Dear McS,
Why did The Clash feel the need to write such a perplexed and long-winded song for such a simple question?
“If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double”
Clearly, to go is the better option, as it will cause half the trouble as staying. It's pure logic.
I'm as embarrassed for them as you are,
Patrick Cassels
Marlboro, NY
Now that is FAR from the best example of something you might read on their site; it was just the first thing I saw short enough to paste here. But it is a fairly good example of the random, exceedingly clever and very humorous stuff on their site (even though it was contributed by a reader and not by one of their writers). But you can pretty clearly see how it influences Fred. Sure it can be a little too clever at times and not everything works like it should, but when its good, there’s no writing anywhere that’s better. And I can’t stress that strongly enough. Plus its run by Dave Eggers and employs many of the same people and principles that the old Might Magazine did and Might Magazine is the greatest magazine in the history of human kind so that counts for something. So anyway if you at all even remotely enjoy my shitty ramblings then you should check mcsweeneys.net out. Because I think in my next life it would be my goal to write for them.
That is if we’re not both cats.
*Pringles:
Unlike you, I’ve never tried crack. But if it’s anything like Pringles I’d be doomed.
*Winona Rider in Reality Bites
I never got the whole Winona Rider thing from back in the day when people liked her and she was some kind of indie/underground sex symbol or something. Granted it was a little before my time, but I still remember it and it never really made sense to me. I mean she looks like a boyish elf and clearly is a little mentally unbalanced. But then I recently saw Reality Bites for the first time and I got it. So if you happen to be Winona Rider circa Reality Bites give me a call so we can get married and stuff. Now believe me, this development is as shocking to me as to anyone. I mean it violates two of my major rules about girls I won’t date:
1.) girls with really short boyish haircuts
2.) Winona Rider
But I guess there are exceptions to every rule. Even #2 apparently…
*The Pope:
Oh. Nevermind...
(Too soon for Pope jokes? Well as I pretend to cater to all audiences maybe so, but I will say its better than the Jesus joke I was planning to use here. Just trust me on that one.)
*Rice:
Since I go to Marymount I feel I should come out of the closet about something at some point. So here goes: I love rice. Yes I know, it’s shocking but I just can’t keep it a secret anymore. I like rice, and I like it dirty. In fact I like it almost as much as I like plain Cheerios. Now, I know what you’re thinking “Rice and Cheerios? What is cardboard too flavorful for you?” And yes, as a matter of fact it is. Plus it has sort of a grainy aftertaste. Just like your mom.
*Making up your own advertising campaigns for things:
For example:
-The board game “Life” should really adopt as their slogan, “There are no winners in the game of Life”. Of course it would hurt their sales, but oh the irony would be delicious. Almost as delicious as rice.
-Indiana University, home of the Hoosiers, should make bumper stickers for parents of students that read “Hoosier Daddy”. In fact if those bumper stickers don’t already exist then there is something seriously wrong with the fine folks on the Indiana University bumper sticker making committee.
-Emerald Nuts should make brilliant commercials involving random things that start with the letters E and N. Oh wait, those already exist…
-You know the hand sign you make for “West Side”? Well the actors on The West Wing should totally make one of those with each hand, hold them both up and yell out “West WING!” randomly.
-And so on…
Now you see why when my Mom always tried to tell me growing up that I should go into advertising that I decided to into a low paying, highly unstable, soul crushing career of playing dress up and doing funny voices instead.
*Guess Who:
I was watching Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner a few months ago and I thought to myself “if they remade this movie you know who would be good to star in it? Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher and some random girl.” And wouldn’t you know it, Hollywood stole my idea right out from under me. I feel liked I was punked.
*“Hey Ma” by Cam’ron:
Now surely you know the song and enjoy the fact that it is quite tuneful and pleasing to the ear. But if you study the narrative closely you will realize something that will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the song as well as your enjoyment of life. About halfway through his sordid tale he is “speedin’ up the West Side, hand creepin’ up her left side, ready to bone” when he, our narrator Cam’ron, suddenly realizes “55th exit, damn already we’re home”. At first glance that bit of information might seem inconsequential, but when you think it about it further it means that Cam’ron lives, or lived at one point, on 55th Street. Now granted it might have been on the West Side but you never know. He might have taken the 55th Street exit all the way over from the West Side to the East Side. Possibly even to between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Possibly even over to The Capri. Regardless though, the point is that I have at one point in my life lived on the same street as Cam’ron. We have been neighbors. And I’ve also now found a rap song that I can literally relate to in a very personal way. Well, except the part about picking up a hot girl in bar and taking her home for sex. But the stuff about living on 55th Street and being in a car at one point in my life, I’m all about that shit homie.
*The New York Times:
I’ve always hated the Times. In fact I used to pass judgment on people who read it. And not judgment in a good way. It was always so stuffy and old school and pretentious and full of itself that I couldn’t stand it. I mean it’s a paper that’s too good to give stars or numerical ratings in their reviews of things. And speaking of reviews, they found fault with both Citizen Kane and The Godfather in their original reviews of them. And don’t even get me started on Frank Rich. But now that I have to read it every week for class I find myself actually enjoying it. Sure it’s still not my favorite paper but now in my old age I “get it” and I am glad that it exists. In fact a lot of the articles are really great. Nevertheless, I’ll always be a Post guy. Even though the Post is not a valid paper, and even though its pretty clearly got a conservative bias, and even though its still published in that ridiculous tabloid format rather than like a regular newspaper, I still get more enjoyment out of reading it than I do from any of the other New York papers. Plus with the Post I can still hold out hope that one day a house that Usher lives in will collapse and that therefore a paper will exist with the headline that reads “The Fall of the House of Usher!” And when/if that day comes all the Post’s faults will be forgiven. But until that time comes the Times is worth a look as well. And I can’t believe I just said that…
Do you have anything you’d like to recommend? If so, you should comment below…
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Jane’s Addiction- “Ritual de lo Habitual” (album)
2.) Monty Python’s Flying Circus on DVD
3.) The Smiths
3 & 1/2.) NCAA Basketball
Editors Note:
Fred the Online Journal will be on hiatus for the next few weeks due to Marymount’s production of “There are Crimes and Crimes”. But don’t forget about ol’ Fred here while he’s away. He’ll be back in a few short weeks with all new material like “Facebook.com and The Nature of the Universe” “Who You Know Do It Better: The Wit and Wisdom of P.Diddy and the Fam” as well as, if you’re lucky, a graduation edition of “Marymount Musings”. So ya’ll come on back now ya’ hear!
The only thing worse than someone with an online journal is someone who doesn’t update their online journal for three weeks and then when they finally do update it its with some lame half-assed stop-gap measure written only so that people will stop asking them “when are you going to update your online journal”. Well, actually there is one thing worse than that: people who read other people’s online journals. Those people are losers. And they have no lives. Or friends. Despite what facebook might say.
*Your Mom:
She keeps getting better and better all the time. In fact, it’s getting to the point now that when she requests that I “give it to her” I’m starting to think she might not always be referring to my money.
*Jordan Schildcrout:
Per Katie Woodruff’s request I feel I should say a few words here about Marymount’s best-kept secret. If you haven’t had the privilege yet of taking a Modern Drama course from Jordan your life is incomplete. Sure he seems constantly nervous and uncomfortable, his age could be anywhere between 15 and 40, his speech patterns and mannerisms are almost unbearably awkward, and he might be the least fashionable gay man in history. But like a fine wine he just gets better with time until eventually you fully drink from his bottle of knowledge and become drunk on the rich taste of sweet education.
Or some shit like that.
Plus part of me thinks he could totally kick Mark Ringer’s ass in a bar fight. And even if he couldn’t, Id pay a large sum of money to see him try.
(Speaking of Katie Woodruff, is it too early to recommend her Christopher Durang monologue she’ll be doing in Senior Showcase? It is? Okay, well when it comes time to get your tickets for Showcase make sure you’re the first in line because you don’t want to miss it. It’ll be the best $0 you’ll ever spend.)
*Not being so negative and critical:
Seriously, I am so sick of people being critical and negative about things. People who are like that really suck. They are losers and I hate them. But yet they are everywhere. Seriously, what is this hellish God-forsaken world coming to?
*Having a picture of your real self on facebook:
Yes your drawing of Jesus is both humorous and ironic. Yes I like Mr. T as much as the next person. And yes your choice of picture is exceedingly clever and reflects well on your character and your worth as human being. But it makes it impossible to figure out if I know you or not. And if I don’t know if I know you or not how can I know whether or not to request to be your friend? Now I know that doesn’t stop most people from requesting to be someone’s friend, but I guess I’m just old fashioned like that. But really though, facebook is like the yearbook for the 21st century and you wouldn’t put a picture of a monkey having sex with George Bush as your yearbook picture would you? So why would you put it as your facebook picture? Seriously get with the program people…
*The ending to Being There
Granted you’ve probably never heard of Being There but then again you probably didn’t even know they made movies before 1980. Well they did. Being There for example came out in 1979. I hear there are movies even older than that too! Like Star Wars, Annie Hall and The Godfather(s). Other than that though, Being There might be the oldest movie ever made. Which makes the fact it has the best ending in movie history even more impressive. And if you don’t believe me (and frankly that’s probably wise on your part) then you can take USA Today’s word for it as they said the same thing a few weeks after I had come to a similar conclusion myself. Now of course part of what made the ending so good was that I had no idea the movie had anything unique about its ending, and by telling you that it does I am ruining it partially for you. But no matter, you’ll enjoy it nevertheless. With apologies to Say Anything..., The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Before Sunset and of course the former champ, The Graduate, Being There has what is without a doubt the best ending in movie history. And on top of that, it's an amazing, unique, one of a kind film that best exemplifies the phrase “they don’t make ‘em like the used to” (although lord knows Wes Anderson tries) and also contains a BRILLANT performance by Peter Sellers. So, long story short, go rent this movie.
*Mcsweeneys.net:
Other than porn and some killer tuna casserole recipes Mcsweeneys.net is the greatest thing to ever happen to the internet and if you are not reading it daily and basking in its brilliance then your life is decidedly not complete my friend. I hesitate to recommend it to you if you are not already aware of its existence as everything I write I pretty much a blatant rip off of the stuff they do (well that is the stuff I write that isn’t a blatant rip off of Chuck Klosterman or Bill Simmons) and as soon as you read their stuff mine will seem painfully bad by comparison. For example this whole entry is based on a feature they do called “McSweeneys Recommends” where every few weeks they recommend random things like “blowing gently on a baby’s face” “The University of Illinois basketball team” or “binder clips” and then write commentary about them. But I am willing to give up whatever shred of respect you might have for me by recommending that you check out mcsweeneys.net and thus enhancing your life greatly. I can’t explain to you their brilliance in words. The best I can do I give you a random sample of the type of writing you might find on their site. For example here is a letter written to them by one of their readers (mind you, at the time this letter was written, nowhere on the site had anyone ever mentioned The Clash):
From: Patrick Cassels
Subject: Go. Clearly
Dear McS,
Why did The Clash feel the need to write such a perplexed and long-winded song for such a simple question?
“If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double”
Clearly, to go is the better option, as it will cause half the trouble as staying. It's pure logic.
I'm as embarrassed for them as you are,
Patrick Cassels
Marlboro, NY
Now that is FAR from the best example of something you might read on their site; it was just the first thing I saw short enough to paste here. But it is a fairly good example of the random, exceedingly clever and very humorous stuff on their site (even though it was contributed by a reader and not by one of their writers). But you can pretty clearly see how it influences Fred. Sure it can be a little too clever at times and not everything works like it should, but when its good, there’s no writing anywhere that’s better. And I can’t stress that strongly enough. Plus its run by Dave Eggers and employs many of the same people and principles that the old Might Magazine did and Might Magazine is the greatest magazine in the history of human kind so that counts for something. So anyway if you at all even remotely enjoy my shitty ramblings then you should check mcsweeneys.net out. Because I think in my next life it would be my goal to write for them.
That is if we’re not both cats.
*Pringles:
Unlike you, I’ve never tried crack. But if it’s anything like Pringles I’d be doomed.
*Winona Rider in Reality Bites
I never got the whole Winona Rider thing from back in the day when people liked her and she was some kind of indie/underground sex symbol or something. Granted it was a little before my time, but I still remember it and it never really made sense to me. I mean she looks like a boyish elf and clearly is a little mentally unbalanced. But then I recently saw Reality Bites for the first time and I got it. So if you happen to be Winona Rider circa Reality Bites give me a call so we can get married and stuff. Now believe me, this development is as shocking to me as to anyone. I mean it violates two of my major rules about girls I won’t date:
1.) girls with really short boyish haircuts
2.) Winona Rider
But I guess there are exceptions to every rule. Even #2 apparently…
*The Pope:
Oh. Nevermind...
(Too soon for Pope jokes? Well as I pretend to cater to all audiences maybe so, but I will say its better than the Jesus joke I was planning to use here. Just trust me on that one.)
*Rice:
Since I go to Marymount I feel I should come out of the closet about something at some point. So here goes: I love rice. Yes I know, it’s shocking but I just can’t keep it a secret anymore. I like rice, and I like it dirty. In fact I like it almost as much as I like plain Cheerios. Now, I know what you’re thinking “Rice and Cheerios? What is cardboard too flavorful for you?” And yes, as a matter of fact it is. Plus it has sort of a grainy aftertaste. Just like your mom.
*Making up your own advertising campaigns for things:
For example:
-The board game “Life” should really adopt as their slogan, “There are no winners in the game of Life”. Of course it would hurt their sales, but oh the irony would be delicious. Almost as delicious as rice.
-Indiana University, home of the Hoosiers, should make bumper stickers for parents of students that read “Hoosier Daddy”. In fact if those bumper stickers don’t already exist then there is something seriously wrong with the fine folks on the Indiana University bumper sticker making committee.
-Emerald Nuts should make brilliant commercials involving random things that start with the letters E and N. Oh wait, those already exist…
-You know the hand sign you make for “West Side”? Well the actors on The West Wing should totally make one of those with each hand, hold them both up and yell out “West WING!” randomly.
-And so on…
Now you see why when my Mom always tried to tell me growing up that I should go into advertising that I decided to into a low paying, highly unstable, soul crushing career of playing dress up and doing funny voices instead.
*Guess Who:
I was watching Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner a few months ago and I thought to myself “if they remade this movie you know who would be good to star in it? Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher and some random girl.” And wouldn’t you know it, Hollywood stole my idea right out from under me. I feel liked I was punked.
*“Hey Ma” by Cam’ron:
Now surely you know the song and enjoy the fact that it is quite tuneful and pleasing to the ear. But if you study the narrative closely you will realize something that will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the song as well as your enjoyment of life. About halfway through his sordid tale he is “speedin’ up the West Side, hand creepin’ up her left side, ready to bone” when he, our narrator Cam’ron, suddenly realizes “55th exit, damn already we’re home”. At first glance that bit of information might seem inconsequential, but when you think it about it further it means that Cam’ron lives, or lived at one point, on 55th Street. Now granted it might have been on the West Side but you never know. He might have taken the 55th Street exit all the way over from the West Side to the East Side. Possibly even to between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Possibly even over to The Capri. Regardless though, the point is that I have at one point in my life lived on the same street as Cam’ron. We have been neighbors. And I’ve also now found a rap song that I can literally relate to in a very personal way. Well, except the part about picking up a hot girl in bar and taking her home for sex. But the stuff about living on 55th Street and being in a car at one point in my life, I’m all about that shit homie.
*The New York Times:
I’ve always hated the Times. In fact I used to pass judgment on people who read it. And not judgment in a good way. It was always so stuffy and old school and pretentious and full of itself that I couldn’t stand it. I mean it’s a paper that’s too good to give stars or numerical ratings in their reviews of things. And speaking of reviews, they found fault with both Citizen Kane and The Godfather in their original reviews of them. And don’t even get me started on Frank Rich. But now that I have to read it every week for class I find myself actually enjoying it. Sure it’s still not my favorite paper but now in my old age I “get it” and I am glad that it exists. In fact a lot of the articles are really great. Nevertheless, I’ll always be a Post guy. Even though the Post is not a valid paper, and even though its pretty clearly got a conservative bias, and even though its still published in that ridiculous tabloid format rather than like a regular newspaper, I still get more enjoyment out of reading it than I do from any of the other New York papers. Plus with the Post I can still hold out hope that one day a house that Usher lives in will collapse and that therefore a paper will exist with the headline that reads “The Fall of the House of Usher!” And when/if that day comes all the Post’s faults will be forgiven. But until that time comes the Times is worth a look as well. And I can’t believe I just said that…
Do you have anything you’d like to recommend? If so, you should comment below…
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Jane’s Addiction- “Ritual de lo Habitual” (album)
2.) Monty Python’s Flying Circus on DVD
3.) The Smiths
3 & 1/2.) NCAA Basketball
Editors Note:
Fred the Online Journal will be on hiatus for the next few weeks due to Marymount’s production of “There are Crimes and Crimes”. But don’t forget about ol’ Fred here while he’s away. He’ll be back in a few short weeks with all new material like “Facebook.com and The Nature of the Universe” “Who You Know Do It Better: The Wit and Wisdom of P.Diddy and the Fam” as well as, if you’re lucky, a graduation edition of “Marymount Musings”. So ya’ll come on back now ya’ hear!
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Love Actually?
You know how you have that friend who is really great and you like a lot but who every now and then does something really embarrassing or displays some of their worst qualities at the most importune times and then you just get embarrassed for them and frustrated with them, yet you forgive them because their glaring defects, although definite defects, are part of their charm? (If you are reading this then I assume you are friends with me, in which case the answer for you would be “yes!”) Well I too have a friend like that. One that I not only like, but actually love: “Love Actually”
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Used to be that when I heard people say that protesting was patriotic I disagreed. Not that I had anything against protesting but I failed to see how doing so showed that you loved your country. It seemed to me to indicate just the opposite. But now in my old age I realize that that statement is indeed somewhat true. People protest often because they love their country enough to passionately care when it does things they feel are wrong. Like a parent disciplining a child. If they didn’t have love in their hearts for their country then they wouldn’t care enough to care. But they do love their country and so that’s why they don’t want to see it do dumb and unnecessary things. Like bomb other countries. Or elect stupid people to represent it. Or expect us to believe that a child with no musical training or experience can become a proficient drummer in less than two weeks. By all this I mean to say that the criticism that is to follow comes from a place of true love. See, I really, really love “Love Actually”. This is of course because I am a human being. And as such, I posses a heart. And everyone who meets this criteria also loves “Love Actually”. In fact if you suspect that someone you know might not a be human being and might instead be a life-like cyborg I think a good way to determine if they are or not is to ask them if they like “Love Actually”. If the answer is “no”, then shoot them, because, they are clearly evil and heartless and, well, cyborgs are usually up to no good anyway. Even the cyborgs WITH hearts. All that being said, much like I do with my country, I have some problems with “Love Actually”. And much like Thomas Paine did with “Common Sense” and NWA did with “Fuck tha Police” I will discuss these complaints with you now.
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(Now that you’ve read the second section of this entry it’s pretty clear that the first part was completely unnecessary isn’t it? Bet you wish you had the two minutes of your life you spent reading it back now don’t you? Well all I can say is “haha, joke’s on you.” And what a funny joke it was too!)
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If, as my last analogy implied, “Love Actually” were a country, in a world, say, called Romantic Comedy Land, it would be a superpower much like the United States (okay now I’m really forcing the analogies. I might want to stop before someone gets hurt…) It has so much going for it. It is romantic and comedic without ever sacrificing one for the other (a major flaw of almost all romantic comedies). It makes GREAT use of music. Really obvious music, but nevertheless music that is used VERY well. (Is it any surprise that a movie all about love is almost wall-to-wall pop music? But that’s a discussion for another time…) It somehow manages to pull off the Pulp Fiction “the storylines all intersect and overlap each other” thing. And most of all, it is ruled over by Richard Curtis. Richard Curtis never gets the respect he deserves, but he’s written basically every charming witty British comedy staring Hugh Grant, since, well, ever. He’s a master at what he does and yet he never gets much respect. If Billy Wilder is George Washington and Nora Ephron is JFK then Richard Curtis is definitely the Woodrow Wilson of romantic comedy screenwriters. Profoundly great, yet unjustly ignored and forgotten. Wilson had a genius level IQ and was in fact like the anti-George Bush as he refused to take the country into World War I even though there were daily protests by people who WANTED the country to go to war. In a sense he tried to save people from their own stupidity. Richard Curtis does the same thing by making witty Hugh Grant movies when what the world is clamoring for is stuff like “Hitch”, “The Wedding Planner” and “Kate Hudson Throws Her Career Away”. But unfortunately Richard Curtis is not actually president of the United States. Which is a shame in more ways than one. Because if he was, he would have been subject to our lovely system of checks and balances that seemed so important in high school government class and yet gets discussed in daily life about as often as trigonometry. But it would have been important to Richard Curtis, because he could have used a little less checking and a little more balancing while making “Love Actually”. By that I mean a little less sitting there with his list of possible human relationships in which love could be involved and checking them off as he inserted them into his movie. By that I also mean a little more balancing of the storylines so that keeping things from getting “lost in the shuffle” wouldn’t have felt so forced. In fact, while watching the movie it can be somewhat difficult to keep the storylines straight and even to figure out exactly how many there are. Well, that’s where I come in as I have broken the storylines down into nine main ones and then ranked those nine in order from best to worst. Let the discussion/debate begin.
1.) Kiera Knightly/her new husband/his best friend
I’d really like to hear someone try and argue against this being the best storyline. I’d like to hear their arguments because I don’t think it could be done. If the scene when the guy holds up the poster boards for Kiera Knightly to read doesn’t touch the deepest reaches of your heart then you don’t have one. If you could combine it and the scene when she discovers what is on the wedding tape into one scene it would be arguably the best scene in a movie in the past 10 years. Maybe more. Speaking of hyperbole, in a statement that almost completely contradicts what I say a few paragraphs down about female body types, Kiera Knightly in this movie makes a strong claim to the prestigious “most attractive appearance by a British actress in a movie in my lifetime” award. Not exactly the same as winning an Oscar but it’s close…
2.) Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman/his secretary
This storyline finishes a very close second to the Kiera Knightly one, so close in fact I almost declared it a tie because it was too hard to compare them. One touches your heart and the other one breaks it. I guess I’m just more into “touching” than “breaking” because, as my Mom always said, “if you break it, you are in deep shit young man. Hey don’t you try and run from me you little fucker! I have a belt made of solid steel and I damn sure now how to use it on your little ass! Now get back here and take it like a man!” But I digress…point is, is there anyone who does strong British female resolve better than Emma Thompson? The Christmas present scene when she manages to cry and at the same time keep her composure is acting at its finest. If it had come in any movie other than “Love Actually” she would have gotten an Oscar nod for it. In fact, for my money, it was an even better controlled crying scene than the one she WON her Oscar for in “Howard’s End”. And the most heartbreaking part about the whole thing is that the audience sees it coming so far ahead. The lesson to be learned, boys and girls, is, as always, never get involved with any character played by Alan Rickman. He’s up to no good. And just in case you didn’t catch that, his secretary conveniently wears devil horns to the costume party in perhaps the most obvious case of symbolism since every Tennessee Williams play every written. I guess at the costume shop they were all out of evil seductive home wrecker costumes.
3.) Hugh Grant/the “chubby girl”
As anyone who has ever mentioned “Love Actually” in my presence surely knows, my number one issue with the movie is the “size”, or lack thereof, of Hugh Grant’s secretary. The characters in the movie go on and on about how she’s fat and yet SHE IS NOT AT ALL FAT! She is a normal size. If a major part of the dialogue revolves around the fact that a character is supposed to be fat then why not cast someone who is actually fat? Did the casting director think the audience wouldn’t be able to handle watching someone who was actually fat? Did they think we wouldn’t buy that Hugh Grant could be attracted so someone who is actually overweight? The worst thought though is that the people involved with the movie really thought the woman they cast WAS overweight. And that’s the really scary part. Is Hollywood so out of touch with reality that they think the woman in the movie is actually overweight? And not just a little overweight but overweight to the point where people would constantly tease her about it? I mean I think the woman in the movie has a very nice body and I think we would be very lucky if ALL women had bodies like hers. I know this is digressing slightly from topic but I don’t know a guy alive who thinks Laura Flynn Boyle has a nice body and yet I’m sure I could find tons of them who would say that the woman who plays Hugh Grant’s secretary does. This issue bothers me so much it really hurts my enjoyment of all the scenes in this storyline. Which is saying a lot since this is the storyline that involves Hugh Grant. And Hugh Grant is Hugh Grant. And there’s really nothing else to say about that.
(On a somewhat related note: have you ever watched a movie or a TV show where there was someone who was hideous and really overweight and was the butt of a joke because of it. You know, a situation where it was imperative that the actor playing the role be very fat and ugly? Do you ever wonder what the casting notices for those parts say? I mean does it say “male, 5’10”, dark hair, very overweight, hideously ugly”? And as an actor, are you glad if you agent submits you for that part? And also, how would you feel if you didn’t get it because you weren’t fat and ugly enough? Or more importantly how would you feel if you DID get it? It makes me think of those “Shoot the Freak” games they have on Coney Island where people pay money to shoot paintballs at a real person known as “The Freak”. Do the people who apply to be “The Freak” feel bad if they don’t get the job? “Oh man, I guess I’m not freakish enough looking, damn!” And do they feel good when they DO get the job knowing that they were the freakiest looking person who applied? “Yes! I’m freakish enough looking to have paintballs shot at me!” It’s all just something to think about…)
(I also thought I should comment on the striking similarity between Hugh Grant’s dancing scene and the Fatboy Slim “Weapon of Choice” video featuring Christopher Walken. So there. I commented on it.)
4.) Liam Neeson/his son
Okay, so there’s no way he could learn the drums that quick. And there’s no way that any school production could be that elaborate and well done. And the relationship Liam Neeson and his son have is one that could only ever exist in a movie. And there’s ESPECIALLY no way anyone could make it through airport security like that. And okay so basically everything about this entire storyline is utterly implausible. But then again the whole movie is implausible. And then again life is implausible. So I guess I cant fault it too much. Plus it’s just so darn cute and charming. And you gotta give it major bonus points for making the girl he loves black and yet the movie never making mention of that fact. You have to deduct points though for the fact Liam Neeson seems very out of place in the movie. But then it gets one million kagillion bonus points because the kid is such a freaking phenomenally good child actor. And as you all know, it’s hard to counter one million kagillion bonus points.
5.) Bill Nighy/his manager
The first time I saw the movie I thought that when “Billy Mack” tells his manager that he loves him that he meant he loved him in a homosexual way. And clearly that indicates that I have been at Marymount for too long. But now that I realize that it’s simply the requisite friendship love story in the movie it’s not quite the same. Nevertheless the scene in which he reveals his feelings is so well played and with a surprising level of complexity that it is one of the stand out scenes in a movie full of standout scenes. And his character serves a strong purpose in the rest of the movie providing great comedy and serving as a common thread that glues all the other stories together however loose that gluing might be. It’s just an all around great comic turn for Bill Nighy and a pleasurable if slight addition to the movie as a whole.
6.) Colin going to America
The main problem I have with the movie other than its utter implausibility (and the “fat” thing…) is the fact that it feels like it takes on a little too much. As I mentioned earlier, it feels like when writing the screenplay Richard Curtis had a list of like every possible human relationship involving “love” that he could think of and then tried to fit them all in a movie. But in the end some of them are unnecessary as there’s no reason a romantic comedy should run two and a half hours. Not that I am one who should be criticizing others for an inability to edit themselves when something is clearly going on too long and becoming unnecessary and filled with stuff that it doesn’t need but that the person just wants to put in there because they don’t know any better and cant realize that some things should just be cut because otherwise things go on too long and become redundant and annoying, but nevertheless I will level that charge at Mr. Richard Curtis the writer and director of “Love Actually”. This storyline is one of those cases. It is charming and cute and all, but it’s basically a one joke premise and not a very good one at that. In fact the first time I saw the movie, I absolutely HATED this storyline because it was so ridiculous and unnecessary. It’s grown on me, but still it takes up too much time for basically one joke that’s not even all that funny. It also completely violates the spirit and world of the movie, which is otherwise realistic (however implausible that reality might be). But with this storyline it veers into pretty overt comedic fantasy and as such, it seems like it exists in a different realty than the rest of the movie. And that always bugs the crap out of me. And as always, I need to get a life…
7.) Porn actors/Body Doubles
This storyline is suffers from pretty much the same problem as the one just above except its not even really a one-JOKE premise so much as one-CLEVER IDEA premise. “Hey they’re porn stars and yet when it comes to love they are just as awkward and tongue tied as we all are!” Are you laughing yet? Are you cracking a smile? Are you maybe internally commenting to yourself what a clever idea that is? Anything? Bueller?
Now I realize they do mention standing in for Brad Pitt and so maybe they arent working in porn all the time but if you look at some of the scenes they are filming I ask you what mainstream movie would they be filming? Most body doubles come from porn because its an easy place to find people who dont have a problem with nudity so it would make sense they could do both porn and Brad Pitt movies as body doubles. Anyway, wether they are porn actors/body doubles or not, the point is that they are people whose job it is to be naked and simulate having sex with each other so the essence of the joke of their storyline is the same wether they are actual porn actors or not. If they ARE shooting a porn though, which it would seem that they very well could be, then I have to ask: is it the worst porn movie in history? I mean, is that what porn is like in England and if so, remind me never to do my adult video shopping in Britain. I know the British have a reputation as being repressed and dignified but if that movie they are filming is hardcore triple-X action to them then they need some serious help. In America we may not have produced Shakespeare or The Beatles or “Pride and Prejudice” but we have given the world some of the best hardcore X-rated fucking they’ve ever seen. And to that I can proudly say “My country ‘tis of thee!” whatever the hell that means.
8.) Colin Firth/“Aurelia”
I know this storyline is like every girl’s favorite, but all I have to say to that is “you’re wrong”. It’s even weaker than the two one-joke pointless storylines. Now before you start sending me hate mail let me explain. I have nothing against Colin Firth. He seems like charming enough fellow and I know he gets your knickers all in a tither. And that’s all well and good. But what is he thinking marring someone who doesn’t even speak his language? You can’t do that! Tom Cruise already tried that with Penelope Cruz and you see how that worked out. It’s not sweet or charming or romantic that he marries her. It’s stupid and utterly implausible. It doesn’t show that love knows no boundaries. It shows that he’s an idiot. I mean, how would they communicate? What would Dr. Phil have to say about that? They didn’t even have that strong of a connection or great chemistry or anything. Plus she’s clearly a rebound girl for him and doesn’t everyone know that you don’t marry a rebound girl? That’s just bad news man. And speaking of things everyone knows, perhaps he missed the memo that you don’t write outside inches away from a lake on a windy day with hundreds of pages that you don’t have backup copies of. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: “Idiot!”
9.) Laura Linney/”Karl”
This story line is just so bad on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, actually I do: Laura Linney. Why the hell was she cast in this movie?!? I mean what were they thinking? “You know what this movie really needs? A dose of that special not quite good but not quite completely terrible quality of acting that only Laura Linney can bring”? On top of her general “averageness” as an actor, she is also so completely and totally wrong for her part that I hope the casting director who chose her gets trampled to death by a large mule. I mean do you buy for a second that Laura Linney would be a neurotic nervous wreck who can’t bring herself to even speak to a guy she has worked side by side with and had a crush on for like two years? If you are an actress who could ever be cast as someone who would throw Sean Penn down on a bed, straddle him and grab his crotch then you are not someone who should be cast as the “40-year-old, awkward, painfully shy girl with a crush on her coworker”. Plus who in their 40s would act like that anyway? It’s not a believable role to begin with but someone out there could have maybe pulled it off. But that person’s name is not Laura Linney. Even if Laura Linney COULD pull it off, she’s American. And everyone else in the cast is British. And this makes sense due to the fact its set in Britain. What doesn’t make sense is why one, and only one, of the members of the cast is American and why that one person is Laura Linney. Did they think that they should include an American in the cast so Americans would go see it, and if so why Laura Freaking Linney? I mean did the producers expect a reaction like this to Laura Linney:
American 1: Do want to go see “Love Actually”?
American 2: No that movie looks stupid. And British.
American 1: But Laura Linney is in it.
American 2: Laura Linney! Well why didn’t you say so before?!? I am SO there!
I really don’t understand. Every time I watch the movie the casting of Laura Linney upsets and baffles me more and more. And yeah, yeah she cares for her mentally handicapped brother and yeah that’s sweet and all, but at the expense of having sex with the guy she’s been pining after for over 2 years? Gimme a break. Besides if the producers really wanted to attract Americans they should have had Laura Linney and “Karl” have sex. Graphic hardcore sex. Because we as Americans really don’t give shit about some lady and her brother, all we really want is hardcore fucking.
And in America isn’t that what Love is Actually all about?
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Ranch flavored Wheat Thins
2.) If only Saturday Night Live had thought of it first: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/3/4gavaler.html
3.) Bill Simmons on U2: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050303
3 & 1/2.) money
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Used to be that when I heard people say that protesting was patriotic I disagreed. Not that I had anything against protesting but I failed to see how doing so showed that you loved your country. It seemed to me to indicate just the opposite. But now in my old age I realize that that statement is indeed somewhat true. People protest often because they love their country enough to passionately care when it does things they feel are wrong. Like a parent disciplining a child. If they didn’t have love in their hearts for their country then they wouldn’t care enough to care. But they do love their country and so that’s why they don’t want to see it do dumb and unnecessary things. Like bomb other countries. Or elect stupid people to represent it. Or expect us to believe that a child with no musical training or experience can become a proficient drummer in less than two weeks. By all this I mean to say that the criticism that is to follow comes from a place of true love. See, I really, really love “Love Actually”. This is of course because I am a human being. And as such, I posses a heart. And everyone who meets this criteria also loves “Love Actually”. In fact if you suspect that someone you know might not a be human being and might instead be a life-like cyborg I think a good way to determine if they are or not is to ask them if they like “Love Actually”. If the answer is “no”, then shoot them, because, they are clearly evil and heartless and, well, cyborgs are usually up to no good anyway. Even the cyborgs WITH hearts. All that being said, much like I do with my country, I have some problems with “Love Actually”. And much like Thomas Paine did with “Common Sense” and NWA did with “Fuck tha Police” I will discuss these complaints with you now.
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(Now that you’ve read the second section of this entry it’s pretty clear that the first part was completely unnecessary isn’t it? Bet you wish you had the two minutes of your life you spent reading it back now don’t you? Well all I can say is “haha, joke’s on you.” And what a funny joke it was too!)
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If, as my last analogy implied, “Love Actually” were a country, in a world, say, called Romantic Comedy Land, it would be a superpower much like the United States (okay now I’m really forcing the analogies. I might want to stop before someone gets hurt…) It has so much going for it. It is romantic and comedic without ever sacrificing one for the other (a major flaw of almost all romantic comedies). It makes GREAT use of music. Really obvious music, but nevertheless music that is used VERY well. (Is it any surprise that a movie all about love is almost wall-to-wall pop music? But that’s a discussion for another time…) It somehow manages to pull off the Pulp Fiction “the storylines all intersect and overlap each other” thing. And most of all, it is ruled over by Richard Curtis. Richard Curtis never gets the respect he deserves, but he’s written basically every charming witty British comedy staring Hugh Grant, since, well, ever. He’s a master at what he does and yet he never gets much respect. If Billy Wilder is George Washington and Nora Ephron is JFK then Richard Curtis is definitely the Woodrow Wilson of romantic comedy screenwriters. Profoundly great, yet unjustly ignored and forgotten. Wilson had a genius level IQ and was in fact like the anti-George Bush as he refused to take the country into World War I even though there were daily protests by people who WANTED the country to go to war. In a sense he tried to save people from their own stupidity. Richard Curtis does the same thing by making witty Hugh Grant movies when what the world is clamoring for is stuff like “Hitch”, “The Wedding Planner” and “Kate Hudson Throws Her Career Away”. But unfortunately Richard Curtis is not actually president of the United States. Which is a shame in more ways than one. Because if he was, he would have been subject to our lovely system of checks and balances that seemed so important in high school government class and yet gets discussed in daily life about as often as trigonometry. But it would have been important to Richard Curtis, because he could have used a little less checking and a little more balancing while making “Love Actually”. By that I mean a little less sitting there with his list of possible human relationships in which love could be involved and checking them off as he inserted them into his movie. By that I also mean a little more balancing of the storylines so that keeping things from getting “lost in the shuffle” wouldn’t have felt so forced. In fact, while watching the movie it can be somewhat difficult to keep the storylines straight and even to figure out exactly how many there are. Well, that’s where I come in as I have broken the storylines down into nine main ones and then ranked those nine in order from best to worst. Let the discussion/debate begin.
1.) Kiera Knightly/her new husband/his best friend
I’d really like to hear someone try and argue against this being the best storyline. I’d like to hear their arguments because I don’t think it could be done. If the scene when the guy holds up the poster boards for Kiera Knightly to read doesn’t touch the deepest reaches of your heart then you don’t have one. If you could combine it and the scene when she discovers what is on the wedding tape into one scene it would be arguably the best scene in a movie in the past 10 years. Maybe more. Speaking of hyperbole, in a statement that almost completely contradicts what I say a few paragraphs down about female body types, Kiera Knightly in this movie makes a strong claim to the prestigious “most attractive appearance by a British actress in a movie in my lifetime” award. Not exactly the same as winning an Oscar but it’s close…
2.) Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman/his secretary
This storyline finishes a very close second to the Kiera Knightly one, so close in fact I almost declared it a tie because it was too hard to compare them. One touches your heart and the other one breaks it. I guess I’m just more into “touching” than “breaking” because, as my Mom always said, “if you break it, you are in deep shit young man. Hey don’t you try and run from me you little fucker! I have a belt made of solid steel and I damn sure now how to use it on your little ass! Now get back here and take it like a man!” But I digress…point is, is there anyone who does strong British female resolve better than Emma Thompson? The Christmas present scene when she manages to cry and at the same time keep her composure is acting at its finest. If it had come in any movie other than “Love Actually” she would have gotten an Oscar nod for it. In fact, for my money, it was an even better controlled crying scene than the one she WON her Oscar for in “Howard’s End”. And the most heartbreaking part about the whole thing is that the audience sees it coming so far ahead. The lesson to be learned, boys and girls, is, as always, never get involved with any character played by Alan Rickman. He’s up to no good. And just in case you didn’t catch that, his secretary conveniently wears devil horns to the costume party in perhaps the most obvious case of symbolism since every Tennessee Williams play every written. I guess at the costume shop they were all out of evil seductive home wrecker costumes.
3.) Hugh Grant/the “chubby girl”
As anyone who has ever mentioned “Love Actually” in my presence surely knows, my number one issue with the movie is the “size”, or lack thereof, of Hugh Grant’s secretary. The characters in the movie go on and on about how she’s fat and yet SHE IS NOT AT ALL FAT! She is a normal size. If a major part of the dialogue revolves around the fact that a character is supposed to be fat then why not cast someone who is actually fat? Did the casting director think the audience wouldn’t be able to handle watching someone who was actually fat? Did they think we wouldn’t buy that Hugh Grant could be attracted so someone who is actually overweight? The worst thought though is that the people involved with the movie really thought the woman they cast WAS overweight. And that’s the really scary part. Is Hollywood so out of touch with reality that they think the woman in the movie is actually overweight? And not just a little overweight but overweight to the point where people would constantly tease her about it? I mean I think the woman in the movie has a very nice body and I think we would be very lucky if ALL women had bodies like hers. I know this is digressing slightly from topic but I don’t know a guy alive who thinks Laura Flynn Boyle has a nice body and yet I’m sure I could find tons of them who would say that the woman who plays Hugh Grant’s secretary does. This issue bothers me so much it really hurts my enjoyment of all the scenes in this storyline. Which is saying a lot since this is the storyline that involves Hugh Grant. And Hugh Grant is Hugh Grant. And there’s really nothing else to say about that.
(On a somewhat related note: have you ever watched a movie or a TV show where there was someone who was hideous and really overweight and was the butt of a joke because of it. You know, a situation where it was imperative that the actor playing the role be very fat and ugly? Do you ever wonder what the casting notices for those parts say? I mean does it say “male, 5’10”, dark hair, very overweight, hideously ugly”? And as an actor, are you glad if you agent submits you for that part? And also, how would you feel if you didn’t get it because you weren’t fat and ugly enough? Or more importantly how would you feel if you DID get it? It makes me think of those “Shoot the Freak” games they have on Coney Island where people pay money to shoot paintballs at a real person known as “The Freak”. Do the people who apply to be “The Freak” feel bad if they don’t get the job? “Oh man, I guess I’m not freakish enough looking, damn!” And do they feel good when they DO get the job knowing that they were the freakiest looking person who applied? “Yes! I’m freakish enough looking to have paintballs shot at me!” It’s all just something to think about…)
(I also thought I should comment on the striking similarity between Hugh Grant’s dancing scene and the Fatboy Slim “Weapon of Choice” video featuring Christopher Walken. So there. I commented on it.)
4.) Liam Neeson/his son
Okay, so there’s no way he could learn the drums that quick. And there’s no way that any school production could be that elaborate and well done. And the relationship Liam Neeson and his son have is one that could only ever exist in a movie. And there’s ESPECIALLY no way anyone could make it through airport security like that. And okay so basically everything about this entire storyline is utterly implausible. But then again the whole movie is implausible. And then again life is implausible. So I guess I cant fault it too much. Plus it’s just so darn cute and charming. And you gotta give it major bonus points for making the girl he loves black and yet the movie never making mention of that fact. You have to deduct points though for the fact Liam Neeson seems very out of place in the movie. But then it gets one million kagillion bonus points because the kid is such a freaking phenomenally good child actor. And as you all know, it’s hard to counter one million kagillion bonus points.
5.) Bill Nighy/his manager
The first time I saw the movie I thought that when “Billy Mack” tells his manager that he loves him that he meant he loved him in a homosexual way. And clearly that indicates that I have been at Marymount for too long. But now that I realize that it’s simply the requisite friendship love story in the movie it’s not quite the same. Nevertheless the scene in which he reveals his feelings is so well played and with a surprising level of complexity that it is one of the stand out scenes in a movie full of standout scenes. And his character serves a strong purpose in the rest of the movie providing great comedy and serving as a common thread that glues all the other stories together however loose that gluing might be. It’s just an all around great comic turn for Bill Nighy and a pleasurable if slight addition to the movie as a whole.
6.) Colin going to America
The main problem I have with the movie other than its utter implausibility (and the “fat” thing…) is the fact that it feels like it takes on a little too much. As I mentioned earlier, it feels like when writing the screenplay Richard Curtis had a list of like every possible human relationship involving “love” that he could think of and then tried to fit them all in a movie. But in the end some of them are unnecessary as there’s no reason a romantic comedy should run two and a half hours. Not that I am one who should be criticizing others for an inability to edit themselves when something is clearly going on too long and becoming unnecessary and filled with stuff that it doesn’t need but that the person just wants to put in there because they don’t know any better and cant realize that some things should just be cut because otherwise things go on too long and become redundant and annoying, but nevertheless I will level that charge at Mr. Richard Curtis the writer and director of “Love Actually”. This storyline is one of those cases. It is charming and cute and all, but it’s basically a one joke premise and not a very good one at that. In fact the first time I saw the movie, I absolutely HATED this storyline because it was so ridiculous and unnecessary. It’s grown on me, but still it takes up too much time for basically one joke that’s not even all that funny. It also completely violates the spirit and world of the movie, which is otherwise realistic (however implausible that reality might be). But with this storyline it veers into pretty overt comedic fantasy and as such, it seems like it exists in a different realty than the rest of the movie. And that always bugs the crap out of me. And as always, I need to get a life…
7.) Porn actors/Body Doubles
This storyline is suffers from pretty much the same problem as the one just above except its not even really a one-JOKE premise so much as one-CLEVER IDEA premise. “Hey they’re porn stars and yet when it comes to love they are just as awkward and tongue tied as we all are!” Are you laughing yet? Are you cracking a smile? Are you maybe internally commenting to yourself what a clever idea that is? Anything? Bueller?
Now I realize they do mention standing in for Brad Pitt and so maybe they arent working in porn all the time but if you look at some of the scenes they are filming I ask you what mainstream movie would they be filming? Most body doubles come from porn because its an easy place to find people who dont have a problem with nudity so it would make sense they could do both porn and Brad Pitt movies as body doubles. Anyway, wether they are porn actors/body doubles or not, the point is that they are people whose job it is to be naked and simulate having sex with each other so the essence of the joke of their storyline is the same wether they are actual porn actors or not. If they ARE shooting a porn though, which it would seem that they very well could be, then I have to ask: is it the worst porn movie in history? I mean, is that what porn is like in England and if so, remind me never to do my adult video shopping in Britain. I know the British have a reputation as being repressed and dignified but if that movie they are filming is hardcore triple-X action to them then they need some serious help. In America we may not have produced Shakespeare or The Beatles or “Pride and Prejudice” but we have given the world some of the best hardcore X-rated fucking they’ve ever seen. And to that I can proudly say “My country ‘tis of thee!” whatever the hell that means.
8.) Colin Firth/“Aurelia”
I know this storyline is like every girl’s favorite, but all I have to say to that is “you’re wrong”. It’s even weaker than the two one-joke pointless storylines. Now before you start sending me hate mail let me explain. I have nothing against Colin Firth. He seems like charming enough fellow and I know he gets your knickers all in a tither. And that’s all well and good. But what is he thinking marring someone who doesn’t even speak his language? You can’t do that! Tom Cruise already tried that with Penelope Cruz and you see how that worked out. It’s not sweet or charming or romantic that he marries her. It’s stupid and utterly implausible. It doesn’t show that love knows no boundaries. It shows that he’s an idiot. I mean, how would they communicate? What would Dr. Phil have to say about that? They didn’t even have that strong of a connection or great chemistry or anything. Plus she’s clearly a rebound girl for him and doesn’t everyone know that you don’t marry a rebound girl? That’s just bad news man. And speaking of things everyone knows, perhaps he missed the memo that you don’t write outside inches away from a lake on a windy day with hundreds of pages that you don’t have backup copies of. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: “Idiot!”
9.) Laura Linney/”Karl”
This story line is just so bad on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, actually I do: Laura Linney. Why the hell was she cast in this movie?!? I mean what were they thinking? “You know what this movie really needs? A dose of that special not quite good but not quite completely terrible quality of acting that only Laura Linney can bring”? On top of her general “averageness” as an actor, she is also so completely and totally wrong for her part that I hope the casting director who chose her gets trampled to death by a large mule. I mean do you buy for a second that Laura Linney would be a neurotic nervous wreck who can’t bring herself to even speak to a guy she has worked side by side with and had a crush on for like two years? If you are an actress who could ever be cast as someone who would throw Sean Penn down on a bed, straddle him and grab his crotch then you are not someone who should be cast as the “40-year-old, awkward, painfully shy girl with a crush on her coworker”. Plus who in their 40s would act like that anyway? It’s not a believable role to begin with but someone out there could have maybe pulled it off. But that person’s name is not Laura Linney. Even if Laura Linney COULD pull it off, she’s American. And everyone else in the cast is British. And this makes sense due to the fact its set in Britain. What doesn’t make sense is why one, and only one, of the members of the cast is American and why that one person is Laura Linney. Did they think that they should include an American in the cast so Americans would go see it, and if so why Laura Freaking Linney? I mean did the producers expect a reaction like this to Laura Linney:
American 1: Do want to go see “Love Actually”?
American 2: No that movie looks stupid. And British.
American 1: But Laura Linney is in it.
American 2: Laura Linney! Well why didn’t you say so before?!? I am SO there!
I really don’t understand. Every time I watch the movie the casting of Laura Linney upsets and baffles me more and more. And yeah, yeah she cares for her mentally handicapped brother and yeah that’s sweet and all, but at the expense of having sex with the guy she’s been pining after for over 2 years? Gimme a break. Besides if the producers really wanted to attract Americans they should have had Laura Linney and “Karl” have sex. Graphic hardcore sex. Because we as Americans really don’t give shit about some lady and her brother, all we really want is hardcore fucking.
And in America isn’t that what Love is Actually all about?
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Ranch flavored Wheat Thins
2.) If only Saturday Night Live had thought of it first: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/3/4gavaler.html
3.) Bill Simmons on U2: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050303
3 & 1/2.) money
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
They Didnt Rock
“Overall, the only thing I'm disappointed about is that there were no disappointments.”- Carlyn Kautz
I really enjoyed the VMAs last night. Chris Rock’s monologue was great. It was good to see Jay-Z and P. Diddy and Prince. There were even some movie stars there too. Like Adam Sandler and Mike Myers. Santana’s performance was good. And Beyonce’s performances were, well, they were Beyonce performances. It was cool how the floor lit up and how the set was really busy with lots of TV screens and things moving around and shiny distractions. There was even a hilarous and highly original pre-taped bit where Chris Rock talked to regular people at a movie theater. All in all I went to bed afterwards thinking it was one of the best VMAs in years. And then I woke up this morning and started reading the news and it turns out that that wasn’t the VMAs at all! That was the Oscars. Who knew! Well I guess I have to amend the quote from Carlyn I used to open then. I do have one more disappointment: The whole show.
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The thing with the Oscars is that they are an awards show. They exist solely for the purpose of handing out awards. This is their only reason for being. Not to provide entertainment to the masses, but to present awards to deserving members of the film community. This is also why we watch them, because we enjoy seeing all of these people win their awards. We enjoy the whole thing: the reading of the names, the celebration when the winner is announced, the walk to the podium and the speech. Its not just about who wins, its about the whole process of winning. (I think you know where this is headed…) This year though, (stay calm Andy…) the producer of the telecast wanted it to move quicker, so he eliminated that pesky step of people having to walk very far to receive their awards. Now, as I just got done saying, the Academy Awards, as their name indicates, are an awards show. And if the show exists solely to hand out awards THEN WHY ARE THEY SHAVING TIME OFF THE PRESENTING OF THE AWARDS?!? That’s the whole reason we’re watching is because we want to see people win awards!!! Who cares if we don’t know any of the sound editors or costume designers who were nominated; they still deserve awards as much as the actors and writers and I would still like to watch them receive said awards with all the same fanfare as the people I AM familiar with! If I didn’t want to watch them win their awards then I WOULDN’T BE WATCHING AN AWARDS SHOW! I would be watching Desperate Fucking Housewives. This new change just completely baffles me. I mean they used to have the Oscars in a ballroom and Im sure the Academy was just fine with that. But then they realized other people might be interested in their awards so to be nice they allowed us to watch at home as audience members. And what do we do in return? (and by “we” I mean Gil Cates, the guy in charge of the telecast) We start choosing to treat over half the nominees like second class citizens and try to suggest to them that their awards don’t matter and we’d rather that they just be over quickly. As an true Oscar fan knows, its actually good there’s all the smaller awards in the show because if it was four straight hours of Best Actor-level awards it would be a little too overwhelming. The smaller awards create balance and allow the show to build to a climax. Which also brings up the point this year of: what was up with the awards order this year? Full Length Documentary was given out like an hour before Documentary Short Subject. Adapted Screenplay was presented in the first hour and then they didn’t do Original Screenplay until the very end. Plus most importantly, what was with Supporting Actress? I think since the beginning of recorded time it has always been the first award given out. But they did Art Direction before it this time. What was the point of making such a minor change for no apparent reason? (And yes the fact that this bothers me is a very strong sign I need to get a life…) Maybe they wanted to show off their new form of degradation for the technical nominees as soon as possible. I swear if they hand out awards in the audience again next year Gilbert Cates will be a dead man. I understand he wants the show to move faster and end sooner but this was too much. Besides, I don’t know of anyone who really likes the Oscars who wishes they were over sooner. Me personally, I wish they went on all day. Of course TV critics and casual fans bitch every year about how long and boring the show is, but what can anyone do about that? If you don’t like seeing people get awards THEN DON’T WATCH! I know the show wants to attract new viewers, but they can't be something they're not. No matter how they try to spice it up they are an awards show and Cleatus The Truck Driver is never going to watch a Hollywood awards show where people are dressed in gowns and tuxes. Plus, did they really think their changes would help? You think Cleatus was passing by a TV and thought, “Hey I used to hate these awards but now I see that they’ve cut out the part where the technical winners have to walk all the way to the stage! Now they get to accept their awards at a microphone right next to their seat in the middle of the audience! Wow, I wasn’t going to watch these awards but now that they’ve shaved 10 seconds off each of the technical winners receiving their awards I’ll watch and I’ll love it!” No matter what you try and do Cleatus will just never give a shit about Sideways and Million Dollar Baby. So why try? Focus on what you do well and don’t try to be everything to everyone. You would have thought the Academy Awards would have learned this in high school, but some entities just never learn I guess. That’s why the whole Chris Rock thing was so misguided. While I thought he was hilarious, could he have been any more out of place? They were trying to put Chris Rock in a situation he didn’t belong in. You don’t bring a profane edgy comic to run the oldest, most tradition bound awards show around. It would be like getting George Carlin to MC a debutant ball. George Carlin is maybe the greatest comic alive but he doesn’t belong around fancy hairdos and tuxedos. And neither does Chris Rock. If it wasn’t clear from his opening monologue that mentioned none of the nominees (and sounded just like he was doing his standup act only with situation appropriate names inserted into it) that Rock was a bad choice to host, then it became crystal clear during the Johnny Carson tribute. Watching it I kept thinking: is there any way that that no matter how many more times Chris Rock might host the show that I could see them giving him his own separate tribute the year he dies? And the answer is a resounding no. He’s just not an Oscar host. Extremely smart and funny? Yes. Oscar host? No. To be fair, I enjoyed the show on a pure entertainment level more this year than I have the past two years and some if it was a direct result of Rock’s involvement. But at what cost is that entertainment? Not a cost anyone should be willing to pay. You can make changes to the Oscars, like when they took out the dance numbers a few years back, but you can’t make it something its not. The Oscars are not, and never will be, the VMAs, nor should they be. But unfortunately it seems that Hollywood’s obsession with youth has now extended to their awards shows. But as Clint Eastwood showed, younger and hipper isn’t always better. Sometimes old, crotchety and wrinkled is better.
Or at least that what I tell your Mom…
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Since I’ve already shared plenty of my views on who should win in my last entry, and since everyone I predicted would win DID win, I don’t really have anything to say about the awards themselves without being repetitive. But I do still have a few other things to share:
RANDOM THOUGHTS
-For two years in a row now there have been no upsets in any of the major categories. Some people have complained about this but I fail to see how those complaints are valid. Usually the person who is picked to win is picked as such because that is whom the greatest number of people have said they are going to vote for and because that nominee has the most “buzz” around them. So if they are the person the greatest number of people seem to prefer as the winner, then how is them losing a good thing? It makes for good TV for the two minutes it is actually happening, but then for all eternity we’re stuck with something like Adrien Brody beating Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor. And I don’t see how something like that is worth two minutes of good TV.
-You know you’re in Hollywood when Peter Ustinov gets more applause than Ronald Reagan.
-Am I the only one who thinks it would be funny if you made a documentary about midgets and then submitted it as a nominee for Documentary Short Subject?
-Its been a fun ride Hilary Swank, we’ll see you again in 2020 when a screenwriter gets around to writing another butch, trashy, unattractive role for a lead actress.
-The less that is said about the Star Jones Preshow/Parade of Black People the better. I only wish Marlon Wayans had been there just so Star could have shoved Clint Eastwood aside to interview him. And also so that then Clint would have become so angry that he would kill Damon Wayans. And Star Jones. Now if he did THAT I would support giving him major awards…In short, who would have ever thought someone would make you long for the days of Joan Rivers? Or that a feeling of longing and Joan Rivers would ever be mentioned together in the same sentence?
-So Johnny Carson get his own tribute but not Marlon Brando? Makes sense I guess since Johnny was a TV host and Marlon Brando was merely the greatest actor of all time and revolutionized movie acting while winning two Academy Awards in the process...
-As someone (I can’t remember who) commented on, affirmative action is now officially out of hand. When you’re inviting people to the Oscars who have nothing to do with movies simply because they are black that’s when its out of hand. It’s almost patronizing to get Usher and P. Diddy to come just because they needed some black people in the audience and because they wanted to seem hip. The black people were coming out of the woodwork though. Even Prince and Oprah were there who I think both still technically qualify as black.
-Speaking of psuedo-black people remember when we all had to pretend like Halle Berry was a legitimate actress? I’m glad that’s over.
-Morgan Freeman waited 20 years to give THAT speech?
-I think all awards shows should be required to have an appearance by Robin Williams. Really all things in life should be. Think how much more fun a colonoscopy would be with Robin Williams there.
RANDOM QUOTES
- Carlyn: “Is Beyonce hiding refugees in her thighs?”
-Al Pacino about Sidney Lument: “Sidney told me where to go and what to do.”
Me: “Wow sounds like he must have been an amazing director”
-Carlyn after Hilary won Best Actress: “This is why people go to terrorist training camps”
-Me regarding Pierce Brosnan being sick while presenting: “Well if he dies on the spot at least Clive Owen is already in the building”
-Will during the Star Jones preshow: “Are we watching B.E.T.?”
-Will during the actual Oscar telecast: “Are we watching B.E.T.?”
BEYONCE
Sometimes there is just too much to say…
As if it weren’t bad enough that three of songs were all sung by the same person, that person had to be Beyonce! Seriously out of every single person in the entire world I cant think of anyone I would less like to have sing ONE song, let alone THREE. This is the same person who once sang the immortal lyric to end all immortal lyrics: “Charlie how your angels get down like that”. And it took like 8 people to write that song! Is there a more worthless person who is yet taken seriously? Today someone asked me “why did Beyonce sing three songs?” to which my reply, as you might imagine, was “why does she even exist?” And I think that about sums it up. Beyonce’s existence as a human being is suspect, so WHY IS SHE SINGING THREE SONGS AT THE OSCARS?!? Is she the only singer in the greater Los Angeles area?!? Before even asking why Beyonce sang three songs I think a bigger issue is why any one person sang three of the songs themselves. Especially if they were involved with NONE of them?!? I remember back in the day (meaning like two years ago) when the people who sang the song in the movie performed the song at the Oscars. Call me crazy, but this seems like this makes the most sense. I mean why not let the nominees do it themselves? If you liked them well enough to nominate them, shouldn’t you like them well enough to let them sing in public. I really don’t understand. It would be like nominating Green Day for a Grammy and then having Elton John perform for them on the Grammys. It makes no sense! And as for Beyonce, it’s not even like any of the songs were hip-hop related or even close to it. The Josh Grobon duet is the only one that makes even a modicum of sense for her to be within 100 yards of. I mean, her first song was in French! Yes that’s right, it was written for and performed in the movie by a French boys choir! Is Beyonce a young boy? No. More importantly, does Beyonce speak French? No. Of course not. She had to sing it phonetically. WHAT?!? Are there no French people in the entire world who can sing?!? Isn’t there any singer who at least knows French and therefore knows what the words mean that they are singing? Isn’t Johnny Depp dating a famous and hugely successful French language pop singer who happened to be sitting on like the third row? Someone please fucking explain this to me! WHY BEYONCE?!? Even worse, was having her sing the song from Phantom of the Opera. What could be worse than her singing a song written in another language for a young boy you ask? Well for starters, her singing a song that had to be rewritten specifically to fit her vocal range. Why are we rewriting songs specially for her? Is she fucking Pavarotti? Did I miss the memo? If we are going to hire someone to sing the song and we have EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE ENTIRE PLANET TO CHOSE FROM why are we choosing someone whose RANGE IT DOES NOT FIT?!? And even more important than that, the song was sung in the movie by Minnie Driver. Last time I checked, Minnie Driver was movie star. Minnie Driver in fact is a past Oscar nominee. And last time I checked this was also the Oscars, a show designed specifically to honor and celebrate movie stars. It seems like it would make perfect sense for Minnie Driver, a well known movie star, to sign her own song at the “movie star awards”. I mean wouldn’t that make PERFECT sense?!? Of course it would!!! So then explain to me why an UNTALENTED PUTRID MASS OF HUMAN EXCRIMENT SANG IT FOR HER?!?!? Please someone just kill Beyonce for me. I don’t even care if the government and/or Jay-Z can read this right now, someone just please kill her for me and put us all out of our misery. Thank you.
That is all for now.
I really enjoyed the VMAs last night. Chris Rock’s monologue was great. It was good to see Jay-Z and P. Diddy and Prince. There were even some movie stars there too. Like Adam Sandler and Mike Myers. Santana’s performance was good. And Beyonce’s performances were, well, they were Beyonce performances. It was cool how the floor lit up and how the set was really busy with lots of TV screens and things moving around and shiny distractions. There was even a hilarous and highly original pre-taped bit where Chris Rock talked to regular people at a movie theater. All in all I went to bed afterwards thinking it was one of the best VMAs in years. And then I woke up this morning and started reading the news and it turns out that that wasn’t the VMAs at all! That was the Oscars. Who knew! Well I guess I have to amend the quote from Carlyn I used to open then. I do have one more disappointment: The whole show.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The thing with the Oscars is that they are an awards show. They exist solely for the purpose of handing out awards. This is their only reason for being. Not to provide entertainment to the masses, but to present awards to deserving members of the film community. This is also why we watch them, because we enjoy seeing all of these people win their awards. We enjoy the whole thing: the reading of the names, the celebration when the winner is announced, the walk to the podium and the speech. Its not just about who wins, its about the whole process of winning. (I think you know where this is headed…) This year though, (stay calm Andy…) the producer of the telecast wanted it to move quicker, so he eliminated that pesky step of people having to walk very far to receive their awards. Now, as I just got done saying, the Academy Awards, as their name indicates, are an awards show. And if the show exists solely to hand out awards THEN WHY ARE THEY SHAVING TIME OFF THE PRESENTING OF THE AWARDS?!? That’s the whole reason we’re watching is because we want to see people win awards!!! Who cares if we don’t know any of the sound editors or costume designers who were nominated; they still deserve awards as much as the actors and writers and I would still like to watch them receive said awards with all the same fanfare as the people I AM familiar with! If I didn’t want to watch them win their awards then I WOULDN’T BE WATCHING AN AWARDS SHOW! I would be watching Desperate Fucking Housewives. This new change just completely baffles me. I mean they used to have the Oscars in a ballroom and Im sure the Academy was just fine with that. But then they realized other people might be interested in their awards so to be nice they allowed us to watch at home as audience members. And what do we do in return? (and by “we” I mean Gil Cates, the guy in charge of the telecast) We start choosing to treat over half the nominees like second class citizens and try to suggest to them that their awards don’t matter and we’d rather that they just be over quickly. As an true Oscar fan knows, its actually good there’s all the smaller awards in the show because if it was four straight hours of Best Actor-level awards it would be a little too overwhelming. The smaller awards create balance and allow the show to build to a climax. Which also brings up the point this year of: what was up with the awards order this year? Full Length Documentary was given out like an hour before Documentary Short Subject. Adapted Screenplay was presented in the first hour and then they didn’t do Original Screenplay until the very end. Plus most importantly, what was with Supporting Actress? I think since the beginning of recorded time it has always been the first award given out. But they did Art Direction before it this time. What was the point of making such a minor change for no apparent reason? (And yes the fact that this bothers me is a very strong sign I need to get a life…) Maybe they wanted to show off their new form of degradation for the technical nominees as soon as possible. I swear if they hand out awards in the audience again next year Gilbert Cates will be a dead man. I understand he wants the show to move faster and end sooner but this was too much. Besides, I don’t know of anyone who really likes the Oscars who wishes they were over sooner. Me personally, I wish they went on all day. Of course TV critics and casual fans bitch every year about how long and boring the show is, but what can anyone do about that? If you don’t like seeing people get awards THEN DON’T WATCH! I know the show wants to attract new viewers, but they can't be something they're not. No matter how they try to spice it up they are an awards show and Cleatus The Truck Driver is never going to watch a Hollywood awards show where people are dressed in gowns and tuxes. Plus, did they really think their changes would help? You think Cleatus was passing by a TV and thought, “Hey I used to hate these awards but now I see that they’ve cut out the part where the technical winners have to walk all the way to the stage! Now they get to accept their awards at a microphone right next to their seat in the middle of the audience! Wow, I wasn’t going to watch these awards but now that they’ve shaved 10 seconds off each of the technical winners receiving their awards I’ll watch and I’ll love it!” No matter what you try and do Cleatus will just never give a shit about Sideways and Million Dollar Baby. So why try? Focus on what you do well and don’t try to be everything to everyone. You would have thought the Academy Awards would have learned this in high school, but some entities just never learn I guess. That’s why the whole Chris Rock thing was so misguided. While I thought he was hilarious, could he have been any more out of place? They were trying to put Chris Rock in a situation he didn’t belong in. You don’t bring a profane edgy comic to run the oldest, most tradition bound awards show around. It would be like getting George Carlin to MC a debutant ball. George Carlin is maybe the greatest comic alive but he doesn’t belong around fancy hairdos and tuxedos. And neither does Chris Rock. If it wasn’t clear from his opening monologue that mentioned none of the nominees (and sounded just like he was doing his standup act only with situation appropriate names inserted into it) that Rock was a bad choice to host, then it became crystal clear during the Johnny Carson tribute. Watching it I kept thinking: is there any way that that no matter how many more times Chris Rock might host the show that I could see them giving him his own separate tribute the year he dies? And the answer is a resounding no. He’s just not an Oscar host. Extremely smart and funny? Yes. Oscar host? No. To be fair, I enjoyed the show on a pure entertainment level more this year than I have the past two years and some if it was a direct result of Rock’s involvement. But at what cost is that entertainment? Not a cost anyone should be willing to pay. You can make changes to the Oscars, like when they took out the dance numbers a few years back, but you can’t make it something its not. The Oscars are not, and never will be, the VMAs, nor should they be. But unfortunately it seems that Hollywood’s obsession with youth has now extended to their awards shows. But as Clint Eastwood showed, younger and hipper isn’t always better. Sometimes old, crotchety and wrinkled is better.
Or at least that what I tell your Mom…
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since I’ve already shared plenty of my views on who should win in my last entry, and since everyone I predicted would win DID win, I don’t really have anything to say about the awards themselves without being repetitive. But I do still have a few other things to share:
RANDOM THOUGHTS
-For two years in a row now there have been no upsets in any of the major categories. Some people have complained about this but I fail to see how those complaints are valid. Usually the person who is picked to win is picked as such because that is whom the greatest number of people have said they are going to vote for and because that nominee has the most “buzz” around them. So if they are the person the greatest number of people seem to prefer as the winner, then how is them losing a good thing? It makes for good TV for the two minutes it is actually happening, but then for all eternity we’re stuck with something like Adrien Brody beating Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor. And I don’t see how something like that is worth two minutes of good TV.
-You know you’re in Hollywood when Peter Ustinov gets more applause than Ronald Reagan.
-Am I the only one who thinks it would be funny if you made a documentary about midgets and then submitted it as a nominee for Documentary Short Subject?
-Its been a fun ride Hilary Swank, we’ll see you again in 2020 when a screenwriter gets around to writing another butch, trashy, unattractive role for a lead actress.
-The less that is said about the Star Jones Preshow/Parade of Black People the better. I only wish Marlon Wayans had been there just so Star could have shoved Clint Eastwood aside to interview him. And also so that then Clint would have become so angry that he would kill Damon Wayans. And Star Jones. Now if he did THAT I would support giving him major awards…In short, who would have ever thought someone would make you long for the days of Joan Rivers? Or that a feeling of longing and Joan Rivers would ever be mentioned together in the same sentence?
-So Johnny Carson get his own tribute but not Marlon Brando? Makes sense I guess since Johnny was a TV host and Marlon Brando was merely the greatest actor of all time and revolutionized movie acting while winning two Academy Awards in the process...
-As someone (I can’t remember who) commented on, affirmative action is now officially out of hand. When you’re inviting people to the Oscars who have nothing to do with movies simply because they are black that’s when its out of hand. It’s almost patronizing to get Usher and P. Diddy to come just because they needed some black people in the audience and because they wanted to seem hip. The black people were coming out of the woodwork though. Even Prince and Oprah were there who I think both still technically qualify as black.
-Speaking of psuedo-black people remember when we all had to pretend like Halle Berry was a legitimate actress? I’m glad that’s over.
-Morgan Freeman waited 20 years to give THAT speech?
-I think all awards shows should be required to have an appearance by Robin Williams. Really all things in life should be. Think how much more fun a colonoscopy would be with Robin Williams there.
RANDOM QUOTES
- Carlyn: “Is Beyonce hiding refugees in her thighs?”
-Al Pacino about Sidney Lument: “Sidney told me where to go and what to do.”
Me: “Wow sounds like he must have been an amazing director”
-Carlyn after Hilary won Best Actress: “This is why people go to terrorist training camps”
-Me regarding Pierce Brosnan being sick while presenting: “Well if he dies on the spot at least Clive Owen is already in the building”
-Will during the Star Jones preshow: “Are we watching B.E.T.?”
-Will during the actual Oscar telecast: “Are we watching B.E.T.?”
BEYONCE
Sometimes there is just too much to say…
As if it weren’t bad enough that three of songs were all sung by the same person, that person had to be Beyonce! Seriously out of every single person in the entire world I cant think of anyone I would less like to have sing ONE song, let alone THREE. This is the same person who once sang the immortal lyric to end all immortal lyrics: “Charlie how your angels get down like that”. And it took like 8 people to write that song! Is there a more worthless person who is yet taken seriously? Today someone asked me “why did Beyonce sing three songs?” to which my reply, as you might imagine, was “why does she even exist?” And I think that about sums it up. Beyonce’s existence as a human being is suspect, so WHY IS SHE SINGING THREE SONGS AT THE OSCARS?!? Is she the only singer in the greater Los Angeles area?!? Before even asking why Beyonce sang three songs I think a bigger issue is why any one person sang three of the songs themselves. Especially if they were involved with NONE of them?!? I remember back in the day (meaning like two years ago) when the people who sang the song in the movie performed the song at the Oscars. Call me crazy, but this seems like this makes the most sense. I mean why not let the nominees do it themselves? If you liked them well enough to nominate them, shouldn’t you like them well enough to let them sing in public. I really don’t understand. It would be like nominating Green Day for a Grammy and then having Elton John perform for them on the Grammys. It makes no sense! And as for Beyonce, it’s not even like any of the songs were hip-hop related or even close to it. The Josh Grobon duet is the only one that makes even a modicum of sense for her to be within 100 yards of. I mean, her first song was in French! Yes that’s right, it was written for and performed in the movie by a French boys choir! Is Beyonce a young boy? No. More importantly, does Beyonce speak French? No. Of course not. She had to sing it phonetically. WHAT?!? Are there no French people in the entire world who can sing?!? Isn’t there any singer who at least knows French and therefore knows what the words mean that they are singing? Isn’t Johnny Depp dating a famous and hugely successful French language pop singer who happened to be sitting on like the third row? Someone please fucking explain this to me! WHY BEYONCE?!? Even worse, was having her sing the song from Phantom of the Opera. What could be worse than her singing a song written in another language for a young boy you ask? Well for starters, her singing a song that had to be rewritten specifically to fit her vocal range. Why are we rewriting songs specially for her? Is she fucking Pavarotti? Did I miss the memo? If we are going to hire someone to sing the song and we have EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE ENTIRE PLANET TO CHOSE FROM why are we choosing someone whose RANGE IT DOES NOT FIT?!? And even more important than that, the song was sung in the movie by Minnie Driver. Last time I checked, Minnie Driver was movie star. Minnie Driver in fact is a past Oscar nominee. And last time I checked this was also the Oscars, a show designed specifically to honor and celebrate movie stars. It seems like it would make perfect sense for Minnie Driver, a well known movie star, to sign her own song at the “movie star awards”. I mean wouldn’t that make PERFECT sense?!? Of course it would!!! So then explain to me why an UNTALENTED PUTRID MASS OF HUMAN EXCRIMENT SANG IT FOR HER?!?!? Please someone just kill Beyonce for me. I don’t even care if the government and/or Jay-Z can read this right now, someone just please kill her for me and put us all out of our misery. Thank you.
That is all for now.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
It may have been a God awful year for movies, but SOMEBODY has to win...
I warned you that I was going to have a lot to say about stuff you only remotely cared about and you didn’t believe me, so here is your proof. Scroll down and see it all. Keep scrolling. Keep scrolling. You to the bottom of the entry yet?
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Okay I gotta go do some stuff so just let me know when you reach the bottom. And then scroll back up.
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You’re back?
Okay great, welcome back. Well, as I was saying I have prepared a little Oscar preview/prediction entry here for your amusement/lack of amusement. I covered the Big 8 categories, which I know is usually the Big 6, but the writing awards are pretty major these days too, so the Big 8 it is. As you’ll notice my predicted winners match up most of the time with whom I would like to see win. That is a good thing. This entry is like 1,000 hours long. That is a bad thing. You can take breaks as you like, if, you know, you have a life and stuff.
Read at your own risk.
BEST PICTURE
As I have mentioned elsewhere previously there is a difference your favorite movie of the year and the best movie. And there is a difference still between the best movie of the year and the “Best Picture” of the year. The Academy Awards are a very specific thing and that is what many people don’t get when they complain about why certain things out of the mainstream don’t win or get nominated. It’s because they shouldn’t. The Academy Awards aren’t really about what is the best movie of the year. They are about what movie is most deserving of the Academy Award for Best Picture. For example I would say Almost Famous was my favorite/best movie of 2000 but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon should have been Best Picture. In 2002 I thought Gangs of New York was the best movie but I was rooting like crazy for Chicago to win Best Picture. It’s sometimes a subtle difference but there are criteria to help you make the distinction.
1.) For starters, it’s always a good idea to try and picture 20 years from now how that movie will look on a list of Best Picture winners. Will people rent it and watch and think “what the hell were they thinking that year?” or “that must have been a weak year for movies” or will it hold up fine and represent that particular year well in the annals of history? So it should be something that has a timeless quality about it.
2.) Does it feel like something that the average person might potentially like if they were forced to watch it? And remember: the average person is stupid. This isn’t to say the Best Picture should pander to the lowest common denominator, but instead that there is a difference between the Indie Spirit Awards and the Academy Awards. The Academy Awards are the universal film award of record so its Best Picture should be something accessible.
3.) Is it important? This isn’t to slight comedy or genre films, but whatever it is, it must feel like it has weight and importance and it cries out to be recognized as great.
4.) And most importantly, it must FEEL Oscar worthy. This is the hardest thing to define but in reality it’s the most important. Does it feel like a movie that when it is released on video seems like its cover should say “Best Picture Winner” across the top? Does the thought of hearing its name announced at the end of the night seem awkward or does it seem fitting? Does it feel like when they were making the movie they knew they were making something great? More than anything else though, it’s just a gut feeling.
Million Dollar Baby feels like a Best Picture winner whereas The Aviator just doesn’t. I enjoyed The Aviator more. If I had to watch one of them again I would pick The Aviator no contest. The Aviator is bigger in scope and much more epic. But it doesn’t really have an ending. It doesn’t seem to be that important. And I cant shake that feeling that if it won people would look back 10 years from now and think “how the hell did THAT win”. It’s a movie that is easy to like but hard to really love. And although I didn’t love it, Million Dollar Baby has inspired a lot of passion in a lot of people. Mostly older people, but technically old people are still people too. Plus it feels important and seems like a movie that should have the words “Best Picture Winner” on its box. I can’t imagine ever thinking naming Million Dollar Baby Best Picture would be viewed as a mistake. So while Sideways might have been by far my favorite of the nominees and The Aviator is the grandest, Million Dollar Baby is the most Oscar-worthy and so I’ll be pulling for it come Oscar night. Which is fortunate because it will be winning whether I’m pulling for it or not.
Will Win: Million Dollar Baby
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Million Dollar Baby
BEST ACTOR
Jamie Foxx is such a lock here they should just start engraving the trophy while we speak. In fact you could make a case that the other 4 nominees shouldn’t even be nominated. If I was in charge, the other non-Jamie Foxx nominees would have been Paul Giamatti, Jim Carrey, Javier Bardem and maybe Liam Neeson, although Leo isn’t a bad pick for the last slot either. But nevertheless, 3 of the other 4 nominees shouldn’t be anywhere near nominations so there’s no way they are winning. Plus none of the non-Jamie Foxx performances really stand out. Which is ironic considering a few months ago all the talk was about what a good year this was for male actors. But once you take Paul, Jim and Javier out of the picture, it really doesn’t look that way. In fact people in the future will probably look at the list of nominees, see their performances on video and think “that must have been a pretty weak year for Best Actor candidates”. That is if anyone other than myself actually did such things. But at least we will have a worthy winner to redeem the rest of the sorry nominees. And I’m sure the Oscar people are glad Jamie is winning because then we will get to find out whether his speech will kick massive amounts of ass or gargantuan J. Lo sized amounts of ass. And really, it’s all about the speeches. For people like Michael Moore, Adrien Brody and Cuba Gooding Jr. their speech was arguably more beneficial to their career than the actual winning of the award was. Denzel gave a great speech a few years back too. In fact I think every few years they need to give an Oscar to an excitable black man just to keep these shows interesting.
As a side note, I find it interesting that almost all of the memorable Oscar speeches have been given by men. I mean if you take away Julia Roberts and Cher, than the two most memorable Oscar speeches given by females in the past 25 years are Hallie Berry sobbing uncontrollably and Sally Field making a fool of herself. And I don’t mean to imply anything by that observation; I just thought it was worth noting.
Will Win: Jamie Foxx
Would Win If I Was In Charge: Jamie Foxx
BEST ACTRESS
Speaking of a weak year for acting candidates, check out the Best Actress category. It’s lucky that they only have to pick five nominees and not six because then they’d be screwed. I know some people have said Catalina Sandino Moreno doesn’t deserve a nomination (I disagree) but really whom else would you pick instead? Name someone. Anyone. Bueller? The only name that you could even remotely attempt to get by me would be Uma Thurman for Kill Bill: Vol. 2 but there are several problems with that. 1.) She already got a nomination for Pulp Fiction and one Oscar nomination is already one too many for Uma Thurman. 2.) More importantly, it’s not an Oscar worthy part or performance. Some times no mater how good things are they just aren’t Oscar material. For example see Denzel Washington in Training Day. Better yet, don’t…
This isn’t to say people like Sigourney Weaver can’t get nominated for something like Aliens, it’s just to say someone like Uma Thurman cant get nominated for something like Kill Bill. And I say that as a HUGE Kill Bill fan. But Uma just doesn’t display a great level of acting ability in a movie that already just doesn’t feel like it should be within 100 yards of the Academy Awards. I mean everyone points to the buried alive scene as great acting but I guarantee you if bury 100 halfway decent actresses alive, 80 of them could give performances equal or better than what she did in that scene. (Go ahead, try it.) There’s nothing particularly unique or exciting about her performance and I hate to break it to ya’ but anger and physical pain just aint two of your harder things to portray. So anyway, 50 words later, the point is that since you have to have five nominees, Catalina Sandino Moreno should be there either based on talent or by default depending on your viewpoint, but definitely based on one of the two. But as for who should win, well there shouldn’t be any debate over that. Catalina is just lucky to be here so she’s out. Kate Winslet is great but isn’t even the best actor in her own movie (that would be Jim Carrey). Imelda Staunton is fantastic, but if five minutes of crying is powerful, 40 minutes of nonstop crying is decidedly less so. Plus no one even knows who she is. That brings us (and Oscar) down to two: Hilary Swank and Annette Bening. Now of course Hillary Swank will win because everyone saw and loved her movie and Being Julia feels too slight and too unknown to have the Best Actress winner come from it. But if I said earlier that actors from artsy action films or mainstream popcorn flicks don’t deserve Oscars, I don’t include in that category period dramadies based on W. Somerset Maugham novels. So I don’t think the quality or audience size of the movies should be a factor in this race, but yet it will be. So be it. But here are what SHOULD, in an ideal world, be the deciding factors in the race:
1.) If Hilary Swank were to win it would be her second Oscar and thus put her in the same company as Katherine Hepburn, Tom Hanks, Marlon Brando, and Ingrid Bergman. On the other hand it would also put in the same company as Sally Field, Shelly Winters, and Walter Brennan, so maybe the two Oscar thing isn’t such a big deal after all…
2.) But then again she would have two Oscars and have only ever appeared in 2 & ½ movies (I only count Insomnia as half a movie because I doubt anyone even remembers she was in it. And I don’t count any of her other movies because they don’t count.). And rewarding someone so young with such a barren resume the highest prize possible twice in five years just doesn’t seem right.
3.) In contrast, Annette Bening has been around for years has already been nominated twice before and even already lost to Hilary in 1999. She is a big star who is overdue for some recognition.
4.) And, oh yeah, one last minor thing: ANNETTE WAS FREAKING AMAZING. Outside of the Jennifer Connelly/Naomi Watts duo from last year she gives the best performance by a lead actress of the millennium. Remember how they gave Hallie Berry an Oscar three years ago for switching from laughing hysterically to crying in the matter of half a second (and having explicit sex with Billy Bob Thornton. And being “black”)? Well, Annette does that probably no less than 10 times in Being Julia (the switching from laughing to crying thing. Not the explicit sex with Bill Bob Thornton thing. Or the black thing.) In addition to switching instantly between laughing and crying many, many times, Annette goes through the entire rest of the emotional range too. She is powerful and yet vulnerable. Funny yet deadly serious. It is a performance so rich, unique, and varied that I can’t possibly imagine anyone else doing it. It also makes me feel like I was learning too much about Annette Bening as a person, as I left the theater thinking she was undoubtedly emotionally unstable in real life because there’s no other way she could have given her performance. But I think that’s what’s called being given a glimpse into someone soul. And that seems like a pretty good goal for any actor to strive for. Especially Hilary Swank.
Will Win: Hilary Swank
Would Win If I Was in Charge: Annette Benning
(PS- Remember that time Nicole Kidman won. Yeah, neither do I.)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
I really don’t have much to say here. Natalie Portman shouldn’t be nominated, Sophie Okonedo is in Hotel Rwanda so she is disqualified, and Laura Linney is Laura Linney. So that means it’s a battle between “the scene outside the door” and “the scene with the speech about the wine”. Because when it comes to the supporting races its all about who has the best big scene. Which was helpful to people like Beatrice Straight in 1976 for example, as she was only in one scene. But this year is the exception to the rule. Clearly the scene where Virginia Madsen gives the speech on the porch about wine is the better scene. In fact if they gave an Oscar for Best Scene that would be your runaway winner. But. Cate Blanchett’s scene outside the screening room door is almost as good. Plus she’s a bigger star than Virginia and is overdue for an Oscar. Plus her performance is better overall and the way she becomes someone so well known and distinct without ever descending into mere imitation (well except for the first sequence at the golf range) is nothing short of amazing. It would be like 30 years from now someone who is well known in their own right playing Jack Nicholson in a movie and making it heartfelt and utterly believable without ever seeming like a caricature or an imitation. And when that movie is made that person will win an Oscar as well.
Will Win: Cate Blanchett
Would Win If I Was In Charge: Cate Blanchett (barely)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Since I cant make up my own nominees I’ll be fine with it when Morgan Freeman wins, but since this is my personal Oscar rantings and since this category is boring and already locked up anyway, allow me to rant some more about Freddie Highmore. I don’t think the world has seen anyone this obsessed with a young boy since the mid 90’s at the Neverland Ranch. But I don’t care; the kid was AMAZING! Here I am spending valuable years of my life getting all this training on how to act and then I go see some little kid blow every grown up this year out of the water and I wonder what the hell I am doing with my life. All I know is he must have had some amazing objectives and tactics. His beat breakdown must have been intense. I bet he was really feeling it in his ass-kicking chakra. Him, Dakota Fanning, Haley Joel Osment, and that kid from Love Actually need to start an acting troupe. And their first order of business can be kicking Jonathan Lipnicki’s ass. They should rough up that kid from About A Boy while they’re at it. Perhaps steal his lunch money or something. And they should also find some way to travel back in time and kill Anna Paquin circa The Piano too. The world would be a much better place if they did.
Will Win: Morgan Freeman
Would Win If I Was In Charge: Freddie Highmore (except for the fact he isn’t nominated)
(PS- I’m thinking about testing out a theory I have. I’m going get Morgan Freeman to do voiceover narration for my home movies and see if they can get a Best Picture nomination as a result. Maybe if I kill Ashley Judd he’ll be so desperate for work that he just might do it.
But then I’d have to kill Ashley Judd…
Decisions, decisions….)
BEST DIRECTOR:
They shouldn’t give it Martin Scorsese just because he hasn’t won it before. If he didn’t win for Raging Bull then it doesn’t seem like he should be winning for The Aviator. And since they’ve already waited this long they might as well wait until he really deserves it. On the other hand Clint Eastwood really DOESN’T deserve it. He may have made the Best Picture but as far as I could tell the direction consisted of him setting up a stationary camera and telling people “now stand in front of it and do stuff”. Plus he already has an Oscar for directing. Plus what’s the big deal with Clint Eastwood anyway? He’s an old boring guy who used to be Dirty Harry. But people for some unknown reason act like he’s Jesus Fucking Christ. I mean, outside of Unforgiven what has he ever been involved in that was so great? That movie with the monkey? Space Cowboys? Dirty Harry Part 8? This really just baffles me completely.
Will Win: Too close to call, but while logic says Clint, my gut says Marty
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Martin Scorsese
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Now that Sideways has fulfilled the promise of Election it really makes you wonder what the hell happened with About Schmidt - or as the lovely Chris Maddox dubbed it About Schit (a nickname I don’t 100% agree with but that the 93% of me that does agree with it finds highly appropriate on multiple levels). Hopefully it was just an aberration because looking back, it now seems like it’s the other side of very thin line than Alexander Payne likes to toe. Stay on the good side Alex; stay on the good side. More humor, warmth, and accessibility, and less needlessly slow pacing, postmodern detachment, and Kathy Bates naked in a hot tub. If you ever forget that again we get to take away your Oscar. Just like we only wish we could do with Roberto Begnini…
Will Win: Sideways
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Sideways
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Most things are matters of taste and opinion. I might think one thing, but I always respect the opinions of others and can usually see where they might be coming from. For example, in every category listed here you could think that any one of the nominees deserved to win and although I might disagree I would respect your opinion as a valid one. All the categories except one. This one. Liking Eternal Sunshine is not a matter of taste. It is a fact. If you do not think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a good movie then you are wrong. You don’t have to think it is the most brilliant thing ever but you DO have to think it is good. And there aren’t too many movies I can say that about. In fact, of movies that have come out in the past few years, this is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that that statement applies to. There is no valid compliant you can have with Eternal Sunshine that would be big enough to prevent you from liking it. So therefore it should go without saying that it should win this category. Everyone is up in arms this year about the fact that Martin Scorsese has never won an Oscar, but I think it’s a bigger travesty that Charlie Kaufman doesn’t have one. And that’s saying a lot seeing as how Martin Scorsese has made over 20 feature films, is an American icon and a big enough celebrity to star in his own commercials, whereas Charlie Kaufman has only four produced original screenplays, is unknown to the average movie-goer, and even I wouldn’t recognize him if I fell on him on the street. But Charlie Kaufman’s screenplays are to screenplays what “Baby Got Back” is to Sir Mix-A-Lot songs - so much better than everything else that it seems unfair that it’s even in the same category as them. But Charlie’s not only in a different league; he’s playing a different game. And Eternal Sunshine is his greatest work yet. If the writings of Charlie Kaufman aren’t the very definition of “Original Screenplay” then I don’t know what is. So explain to me how he doesn’t have an Oscar yet because I’m a little confused.
Will Win: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Sleep or lack thereof
2.) Jonathan Marc Sherman
3.) Primary Colors
3 & 1/2.) Ethan Hawke movies
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Okay I gotta go do some stuff so just let me know when you reach the bottom. And then scroll back up.
….
You’re back?
Okay great, welcome back. Well, as I was saying I have prepared a little Oscar preview/prediction entry here for your amusement/lack of amusement. I covered the Big 8 categories, which I know is usually the Big 6, but the writing awards are pretty major these days too, so the Big 8 it is. As you’ll notice my predicted winners match up most of the time with whom I would like to see win. That is a good thing. This entry is like 1,000 hours long. That is a bad thing. You can take breaks as you like, if, you know, you have a life and stuff.
Read at your own risk.
BEST PICTURE
As I have mentioned elsewhere previously there is a difference your favorite movie of the year and the best movie. And there is a difference still between the best movie of the year and the “Best Picture” of the year. The Academy Awards are a very specific thing and that is what many people don’t get when they complain about why certain things out of the mainstream don’t win or get nominated. It’s because they shouldn’t. The Academy Awards aren’t really about what is the best movie of the year. They are about what movie is most deserving of the Academy Award for Best Picture. For example I would say Almost Famous was my favorite/best movie of 2000 but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon should have been Best Picture. In 2002 I thought Gangs of New York was the best movie but I was rooting like crazy for Chicago to win Best Picture. It’s sometimes a subtle difference but there are criteria to help you make the distinction.
1.) For starters, it’s always a good idea to try and picture 20 years from now how that movie will look on a list of Best Picture winners. Will people rent it and watch and think “what the hell were they thinking that year?” or “that must have been a weak year for movies” or will it hold up fine and represent that particular year well in the annals of history? So it should be something that has a timeless quality about it.
2.) Does it feel like something that the average person might potentially like if they were forced to watch it? And remember: the average person is stupid. This isn’t to say the Best Picture should pander to the lowest common denominator, but instead that there is a difference between the Indie Spirit Awards and the Academy Awards. The Academy Awards are the universal film award of record so its Best Picture should be something accessible.
3.) Is it important? This isn’t to slight comedy or genre films, but whatever it is, it must feel like it has weight and importance and it cries out to be recognized as great.
4.) And most importantly, it must FEEL Oscar worthy. This is the hardest thing to define but in reality it’s the most important. Does it feel like a movie that when it is released on video seems like its cover should say “Best Picture Winner” across the top? Does the thought of hearing its name announced at the end of the night seem awkward or does it seem fitting? Does it feel like when they were making the movie they knew they were making something great? More than anything else though, it’s just a gut feeling.
Million Dollar Baby feels like a Best Picture winner whereas The Aviator just doesn’t. I enjoyed The Aviator more. If I had to watch one of them again I would pick The Aviator no contest. The Aviator is bigger in scope and much more epic. But it doesn’t really have an ending. It doesn’t seem to be that important. And I cant shake that feeling that if it won people would look back 10 years from now and think “how the hell did THAT win”. It’s a movie that is easy to like but hard to really love. And although I didn’t love it, Million Dollar Baby has inspired a lot of passion in a lot of people. Mostly older people, but technically old people are still people too. Plus it feels important and seems like a movie that should have the words “Best Picture Winner” on its box. I can’t imagine ever thinking naming Million Dollar Baby Best Picture would be viewed as a mistake. So while Sideways might have been by far my favorite of the nominees and The Aviator is the grandest, Million Dollar Baby is the most Oscar-worthy and so I’ll be pulling for it come Oscar night. Which is fortunate because it will be winning whether I’m pulling for it or not.
Will Win: Million Dollar Baby
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Million Dollar Baby
BEST ACTOR
Jamie Foxx is such a lock here they should just start engraving the trophy while we speak. In fact you could make a case that the other 4 nominees shouldn’t even be nominated. If I was in charge, the other non-Jamie Foxx nominees would have been Paul Giamatti, Jim Carrey, Javier Bardem and maybe Liam Neeson, although Leo isn’t a bad pick for the last slot either. But nevertheless, 3 of the other 4 nominees shouldn’t be anywhere near nominations so there’s no way they are winning. Plus none of the non-Jamie Foxx performances really stand out. Which is ironic considering a few months ago all the talk was about what a good year this was for male actors. But once you take Paul, Jim and Javier out of the picture, it really doesn’t look that way. In fact people in the future will probably look at the list of nominees, see their performances on video and think “that must have been a pretty weak year for Best Actor candidates”. That is if anyone other than myself actually did such things. But at least we will have a worthy winner to redeem the rest of the sorry nominees. And I’m sure the Oscar people are glad Jamie is winning because then we will get to find out whether his speech will kick massive amounts of ass or gargantuan J. Lo sized amounts of ass. And really, it’s all about the speeches. For people like Michael Moore, Adrien Brody and Cuba Gooding Jr. their speech was arguably more beneficial to their career than the actual winning of the award was. Denzel gave a great speech a few years back too. In fact I think every few years they need to give an Oscar to an excitable black man just to keep these shows interesting.
As a side note, I find it interesting that almost all of the memorable Oscar speeches have been given by men. I mean if you take away Julia Roberts and Cher, than the two most memorable Oscar speeches given by females in the past 25 years are Hallie Berry sobbing uncontrollably and Sally Field making a fool of herself. And I don’t mean to imply anything by that observation; I just thought it was worth noting.
Will Win: Jamie Foxx
Would Win If I Was In Charge: Jamie Foxx
BEST ACTRESS
Speaking of a weak year for acting candidates, check out the Best Actress category. It’s lucky that they only have to pick five nominees and not six because then they’d be screwed. I know some people have said Catalina Sandino Moreno doesn’t deserve a nomination (I disagree) but really whom else would you pick instead? Name someone. Anyone. Bueller? The only name that you could even remotely attempt to get by me would be Uma Thurman for Kill Bill: Vol. 2 but there are several problems with that. 1.) She already got a nomination for Pulp Fiction and one Oscar nomination is already one too many for Uma Thurman. 2.) More importantly, it’s not an Oscar worthy part or performance. Some times no mater how good things are they just aren’t Oscar material. For example see Denzel Washington in Training Day. Better yet, don’t…
This isn’t to say people like Sigourney Weaver can’t get nominated for something like Aliens, it’s just to say someone like Uma Thurman cant get nominated for something like Kill Bill. And I say that as a HUGE Kill Bill fan. But Uma just doesn’t display a great level of acting ability in a movie that already just doesn’t feel like it should be within 100 yards of the Academy Awards. I mean everyone points to the buried alive scene as great acting but I guarantee you if bury 100 halfway decent actresses alive, 80 of them could give performances equal or better than what she did in that scene. (Go ahead, try it.) There’s nothing particularly unique or exciting about her performance and I hate to break it to ya’ but anger and physical pain just aint two of your harder things to portray. So anyway, 50 words later, the point is that since you have to have five nominees, Catalina Sandino Moreno should be there either based on talent or by default depending on your viewpoint, but definitely based on one of the two. But as for who should win, well there shouldn’t be any debate over that. Catalina is just lucky to be here so she’s out. Kate Winslet is great but isn’t even the best actor in her own movie (that would be Jim Carrey). Imelda Staunton is fantastic, but if five minutes of crying is powerful, 40 minutes of nonstop crying is decidedly less so. Plus no one even knows who she is. That brings us (and Oscar) down to two: Hilary Swank and Annette Bening. Now of course Hillary Swank will win because everyone saw and loved her movie and Being Julia feels too slight and too unknown to have the Best Actress winner come from it. But if I said earlier that actors from artsy action films or mainstream popcorn flicks don’t deserve Oscars, I don’t include in that category period dramadies based on W. Somerset Maugham novels. So I don’t think the quality or audience size of the movies should be a factor in this race, but yet it will be. So be it. But here are what SHOULD, in an ideal world, be the deciding factors in the race:
1.) If Hilary Swank were to win it would be her second Oscar and thus put her in the same company as Katherine Hepburn, Tom Hanks, Marlon Brando, and Ingrid Bergman. On the other hand it would also put in the same company as Sally Field, Shelly Winters, and Walter Brennan, so maybe the two Oscar thing isn’t such a big deal after all…
2.) But then again she would have two Oscars and have only ever appeared in 2 & ½ movies (I only count Insomnia as half a movie because I doubt anyone even remembers she was in it. And I don’t count any of her other movies because they don’t count.). And rewarding someone so young with such a barren resume the highest prize possible twice in five years just doesn’t seem right.
3.) In contrast, Annette Bening has been around for years has already been nominated twice before and even already lost to Hilary in 1999. She is a big star who is overdue for some recognition.
4.) And, oh yeah, one last minor thing: ANNETTE WAS FREAKING AMAZING. Outside of the Jennifer Connelly/Naomi Watts duo from last year she gives the best performance by a lead actress of the millennium. Remember how they gave Hallie Berry an Oscar three years ago for switching from laughing hysterically to crying in the matter of half a second (and having explicit sex with Billy Bob Thornton. And being “black”)? Well, Annette does that probably no less than 10 times in Being Julia (the switching from laughing to crying thing. Not the explicit sex with Bill Bob Thornton thing. Or the black thing.) In addition to switching instantly between laughing and crying many, many times, Annette goes through the entire rest of the emotional range too. She is powerful and yet vulnerable. Funny yet deadly serious. It is a performance so rich, unique, and varied that I can’t possibly imagine anyone else doing it. It also makes me feel like I was learning too much about Annette Bening as a person, as I left the theater thinking she was undoubtedly emotionally unstable in real life because there’s no other way she could have given her performance. But I think that’s what’s called being given a glimpse into someone soul. And that seems like a pretty good goal for any actor to strive for. Especially Hilary Swank.
Will Win: Hilary Swank
Would Win If I Was in Charge: Annette Benning
(PS- Remember that time Nicole Kidman won. Yeah, neither do I.)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
I really don’t have much to say here. Natalie Portman shouldn’t be nominated, Sophie Okonedo is in Hotel Rwanda so she is disqualified, and Laura Linney is Laura Linney. So that means it’s a battle between “the scene outside the door” and “the scene with the speech about the wine”. Because when it comes to the supporting races its all about who has the best big scene. Which was helpful to people like Beatrice Straight in 1976 for example, as she was only in one scene. But this year is the exception to the rule. Clearly the scene where Virginia Madsen gives the speech on the porch about wine is the better scene. In fact if they gave an Oscar for Best Scene that would be your runaway winner. But. Cate Blanchett’s scene outside the screening room door is almost as good. Plus she’s a bigger star than Virginia and is overdue for an Oscar. Plus her performance is better overall and the way she becomes someone so well known and distinct without ever descending into mere imitation (well except for the first sequence at the golf range) is nothing short of amazing. It would be like 30 years from now someone who is well known in their own right playing Jack Nicholson in a movie and making it heartfelt and utterly believable without ever seeming like a caricature or an imitation. And when that movie is made that person will win an Oscar as well.
Will Win: Cate Blanchett
Would Win If I Was In Charge: Cate Blanchett (barely)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Since I cant make up my own nominees I’ll be fine with it when Morgan Freeman wins, but since this is my personal Oscar rantings and since this category is boring and already locked up anyway, allow me to rant some more about Freddie Highmore. I don’t think the world has seen anyone this obsessed with a young boy since the mid 90’s at the Neverland Ranch. But I don’t care; the kid was AMAZING! Here I am spending valuable years of my life getting all this training on how to act and then I go see some little kid blow every grown up this year out of the water and I wonder what the hell I am doing with my life. All I know is he must have had some amazing objectives and tactics. His beat breakdown must have been intense. I bet he was really feeling it in his ass-kicking chakra. Him, Dakota Fanning, Haley Joel Osment, and that kid from Love Actually need to start an acting troupe. And their first order of business can be kicking Jonathan Lipnicki’s ass. They should rough up that kid from About A Boy while they’re at it. Perhaps steal his lunch money or something. And they should also find some way to travel back in time and kill Anna Paquin circa The Piano too. The world would be a much better place if they did.
Will Win: Morgan Freeman
Would Win If I Was In Charge: Freddie Highmore (except for the fact he isn’t nominated)
(PS- I’m thinking about testing out a theory I have. I’m going get Morgan Freeman to do voiceover narration for my home movies and see if they can get a Best Picture nomination as a result. Maybe if I kill Ashley Judd he’ll be so desperate for work that he just might do it.
But then I’d have to kill Ashley Judd…
Decisions, decisions….)
BEST DIRECTOR:
They shouldn’t give it Martin Scorsese just because he hasn’t won it before. If he didn’t win for Raging Bull then it doesn’t seem like he should be winning for The Aviator. And since they’ve already waited this long they might as well wait until he really deserves it. On the other hand Clint Eastwood really DOESN’T deserve it. He may have made the Best Picture but as far as I could tell the direction consisted of him setting up a stationary camera and telling people “now stand in front of it and do stuff”. Plus he already has an Oscar for directing. Plus what’s the big deal with Clint Eastwood anyway? He’s an old boring guy who used to be Dirty Harry. But people for some unknown reason act like he’s Jesus Fucking Christ. I mean, outside of Unforgiven what has he ever been involved in that was so great? That movie with the monkey? Space Cowboys? Dirty Harry Part 8? This really just baffles me completely.
Will Win: Too close to call, but while logic says Clint, my gut says Marty
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Martin Scorsese
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Now that Sideways has fulfilled the promise of Election it really makes you wonder what the hell happened with About Schmidt - or as the lovely Chris Maddox dubbed it About Schit (a nickname I don’t 100% agree with but that the 93% of me that does agree with it finds highly appropriate on multiple levels). Hopefully it was just an aberration because looking back, it now seems like it’s the other side of very thin line than Alexander Payne likes to toe. Stay on the good side Alex; stay on the good side. More humor, warmth, and accessibility, and less needlessly slow pacing, postmodern detachment, and Kathy Bates naked in a hot tub. If you ever forget that again we get to take away your Oscar. Just like we only wish we could do with Roberto Begnini…
Will Win: Sideways
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Sideways
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Most things are matters of taste and opinion. I might think one thing, but I always respect the opinions of others and can usually see where they might be coming from. For example, in every category listed here you could think that any one of the nominees deserved to win and although I might disagree I would respect your opinion as a valid one. All the categories except one. This one. Liking Eternal Sunshine is not a matter of taste. It is a fact. If you do not think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a good movie then you are wrong. You don’t have to think it is the most brilliant thing ever but you DO have to think it is good. And there aren’t too many movies I can say that about. In fact, of movies that have come out in the past few years, this is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that that statement applies to. There is no valid compliant you can have with Eternal Sunshine that would be big enough to prevent you from liking it. So therefore it should go without saying that it should win this category. Everyone is up in arms this year about the fact that Martin Scorsese has never won an Oscar, but I think it’s a bigger travesty that Charlie Kaufman doesn’t have one. And that’s saying a lot seeing as how Martin Scorsese has made over 20 feature films, is an American icon and a big enough celebrity to star in his own commercials, whereas Charlie Kaufman has only four produced original screenplays, is unknown to the average movie-goer, and even I wouldn’t recognize him if I fell on him on the street. But Charlie Kaufman’s screenplays are to screenplays what “Baby Got Back” is to Sir Mix-A-Lot songs - so much better than everything else that it seems unfair that it’s even in the same category as them. But Charlie’s not only in a different league; he’s playing a different game. And Eternal Sunshine is his greatest work yet. If the writings of Charlie Kaufman aren’t the very definition of “Original Screenplay” then I don’t know what is. So explain to me how he doesn’t have an Oscar yet because I’m a little confused.
Will Win: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Would Win If I Were In Charge: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Sleep or lack thereof
2.) Jonathan Marc Sherman
3.) Primary Colors
3 & 1/2.) Ethan Hawke movies
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Any organization that has awarded Milli Vanilli, Toto, Creed, and Jethro Tull can't be all bad...
Ah the Grammys. What is there to say about the Grammys. Well if you scroll down, you’ll see there's a lot. But how much of it youll “get” is likely not very much. Because it seems like no one watches the Grammys anymore. And with good reason. For every Eminem/Elton John “Stan” or Mary J. Blidge “No More Drama” performance there is a random awkward pairing of some old person with some young flash in the pan. And also P. Diddy. Plus there are the awards themselves. Since 1990 we have seen such prestigious nominees for Album of the Year as “Falling Into You” by Celine Dion, “Millennium” by The Backstreet Boys, “The Three Tenors in Concert”, and “Tony Bennett MTV Unplugged”, which of course raises the question: when was Tony Bennett ever plugged in? And for every “Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” or “Speakerboxx/The Love Below” that wins, there is an “O Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack” or “Two Against Nature” victory that makes the Grammys once again lose all credibility. So while I cant say I blame you for not caring about them, I will say you missed some truly great performances by Kanye West, Alicia Keys/Jamie Foxx, and others that I will mention below. You also will not have any idea what I am talking about for the rest of this entry, and that seems to me like much more serious problem.
-Has there every been a year when the nominees for Album of the Year should have been more clear? I mean how could they have possibly chosen anything else other than the following five: SMiLE, Van Leer Rose, The College Dropout, American Idiot and The Diary of Alicia Keys? It should have been like taking candy from a baby. Even the Grammys couldn’t screw that one up. Its almost like the music Gods planned it so that there would be exactly five universally critically praised albums in 2004 and that all of them would fulfill a slot in the Best Album category: Music legend without a Grammy/releasing a comeback album slot, Music legend/country music slot, rap slot, rock slot, R & B/attractive young female slot. It was perfect. TOO perfect apparently. Ironic that in their quest to appear young and hip the Grammys are now actually snubbing deserving old people in favor of undeserving young artists. Perhaps this explains why John Mayer won Record of the Year for “Daughters”.
No wait, NOTHING could explain that…
-I know its two years after the fact for my “Norah Jones, meet Christopher Cross” joke but I enjoyed it so much at the time I’m gonna throw it out there again just for the hell of it.
-After this Ray Charles thing, I’m seriously contemplating at this point releasing an album myself and then faking my own death just to see if I can get a Grammy out of it. If I enter it in some obscure category like Native American Album or Polka I think I might have a legitimate shot.
-Franz Ferdinand was not only allowed within 100 yards of the Grammys but was even allowed to perform? Live on CBS? Wow, Excuse me but I have to put the monkeys back in my ass. They flew out.
-Wow, so having five songs playing all at the same time sounds like crap? Who woulda thought?
-Is there anyone more overrated than Gwen Stefani? Seriously, name someone. I’ll give you a dollar. And who exactly started the myth of her attractiveness?
-Has anyone yet commented on the fact that Maroon 5 managed to sneak the phrase “keep her cumming every night” into a universally accepted hit song without anyone noticing? That, along with the fact that we play “Hey Ya!” every day at The Craft Studio for children’s birthday parties and no one bats an eyelash, just confirms that no one listens to lyrics anymore.
-That J. Lo she’s a crafty one. She knows that by singing in another language I wont understand what she is saying and therefore will have difficulty in mocking her. Nice try J. Lo, but I’m sure I can still come up with something…like…ummm…your singing is…not good. It’s quite poor in fact. So there! That’s right I said it. Whadda you gonna do about it?
-So I must be serious for a moment here. Tell me who else could have pulled off U2’s performance other than U2? A solid white background. No stunts or “special guest performers”. No special effects or pyrotechnics. A long monologue to open the song. A purposefully understated performance. Who else would be allowed to give that performance? Who else would even have the balls to try? And who else could make it the most captivating performance of the night? That is why they are “The World’s Biggest Rock & Roll Band”. End of story.
-I feel like Ellen and Portia De Rossi are the Citizen Kane of celebrity lesbian couples.
-Speaking of Citizen Kane here’s a little SAT flashback for you:
Citizen Kane : movies :: Sweet Home Alabama : things that kick ass
(And no I’m not joking)
Speaking of things that kick ass - Green Day, could you please put my socks back on my feet for me since you just rocked them off? Also, will you have my children?
-I think one of the joys of a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert would be that yelling out “Freebird” would not only not be ironic but might actually result in getting to hear “Freebird”. One of the non-joys of the Grammys is that you get to hear “Freebird”, but only the first part. That’s like getting to hear only the first six minutes of "Stairway to Heaven". Whats the point?
-After seeing A Ghost is Born win Alternative Album of the Year I’m reminded of a burning question I have. Has any person alive ever woke up in the morning and thought, “you know what song I really want to hear? ‘Less Than You Think’ by Wilco.”? And congratulations if you are one of the zero people who get that joke. Great now I’ve finally become too esoteric for my own good…And now I’m using the term “esoteric”…My parents would be so ashamed to see what’s become of the journal…
-I just wrote this line as an excuse to use another ellipsis…
-Getting all the “jokes” no one will get out of the way at once: I was thinking…if you’re an epileptic then the Grammys must be your personal hell.
(See, why do I even bother…)
-Is it wrong of me to comment that bald Melissa Etheridge looks like Billy Corgan? Is it also wrong of me to comment that she rocked hard core? Okay, just checking…
-Okay I gotta ask: who decided to let Stevie Wonder announce an award?
-I readily acknowledge that you pretty much have to have grown up with country music to really appreciate it and “get it”, but if some part of you isn’t affected by “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw then you have no heart. It’s what modern country music is all about. Deadly tragedy? Check. Inspirational message? Check. Cheesy guitar solo? Check. So you can make fun of me for liking it but then I get to make fun of you for being the tin man. “Go follow the yellow brick road you man made of tin” might be a possible insult I could use.
-Jack White, how the hell did Loretta Lynn let you leave the house dressed like that? You know, the Strokes wont let you hang out with them anymore if you go out in public looking like that again. And don’t try and tell me you’re being ironic. Even Conway Fucking Twitty would have laughed at that shirt. And yes I just referenced Conway Twitty. And yes I referred to him as Conway “Fucking” Twitty.
I’d really just stop reading now if I were you…
-I wonder where I can download the Academy President’s speech about downloading?
-You know how at the Oscars they have the biggest star available announce Best Picture? Well to announce Album of the Year, the Grammys have Bonnie Raitt and Gary Sinese.
-Mark this day on your calendar. I can’t think of anything bad to say about Usher.
-Since the performances were disappointingly not sucky I now have some extra space to share a non-Grammy related thought. I don’t know if you saw the story the other day, but the rapper Houston gouged his own eye out. Yes, you read that right: HE GOUGED OUT HIS OWN EYE. He tried to commit suicide but the police stopped him and so since he couldn’t kill himself he just decided to gouge his own eye out instead. While I would like to explore the thought process that leads one to decide to gouge out ones own eye, I have other thoughts I will expound on here instead. 1.) You can’t imagine my curiosity and shock as a native Houstonian upon seeing the headline that simply read, “Houston gouges out own eye”. 2.) Guess this makes 50 Cent’s bullet wounds look pretty wussy by comparison. 3.) Houston must now deal with the eternal question faced by those who gouge out their own eyes: eye patch or glass eye. For me personally it would be no contest but you never know; a glass eye might have its benefits. To each eye gouger-outer their own…
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week: Top 3 & 1/2 “Sets of 3 consecutive songs on a classic non-Beatles album” Edition.
(Note this list was made off the top of my head with very little thought or research meaning it likely contains several glaring omissions. Nevertheless, let the debate begin)
1.) Where The Streets Have No Name/I Still Havent Found What Im Looking For/With Or Without You- from “Joshua Tree” by U2
2.) Crazy Love/Caravan/Into The Mystic- from “Moondance” by Van Morrison
3.) Ex-Factor/To Zion/Doo Wop (That Thing)- from “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” by Lauryn Hill
3 & 1/2.) Smells Like Teen Spirit/In Bloom/Come As You Are- from “Nevermind” by Nirvana
-Has there every been a year when the nominees for Album of the Year should have been more clear? I mean how could they have possibly chosen anything else other than the following five: SMiLE, Van Leer Rose, The College Dropout, American Idiot and The Diary of Alicia Keys? It should have been like taking candy from a baby. Even the Grammys couldn’t screw that one up. Its almost like the music Gods planned it so that there would be exactly five universally critically praised albums in 2004 and that all of them would fulfill a slot in the Best Album category: Music legend without a Grammy/releasing a comeback album slot, Music legend/country music slot, rap slot, rock slot, R & B/attractive young female slot. It was perfect. TOO perfect apparently. Ironic that in their quest to appear young and hip the Grammys are now actually snubbing deserving old people in favor of undeserving young artists. Perhaps this explains why John Mayer won Record of the Year for “Daughters”.
No wait, NOTHING could explain that…
-I know its two years after the fact for my “Norah Jones, meet Christopher Cross” joke but I enjoyed it so much at the time I’m gonna throw it out there again just for the hell of it.
-After this Ray Charles thing, I’m seriously contemplating at this point releasing an album myself and then faking my own death just to see if I can get a Grammy out of it. If I enter it in some obscure category like Native American Album or Polka I think I might have a legitimate shot.
-Franz Ferdinand was not only allowed within 100 yards of the Grammys but was even allowed to perform? Live on CBS? Wow, Excuse me but I have to put the monkeys back in my ass. They flew out.
-Wow, so having five songs playing all at the same time sounds like crap? Who woulda thought?
-Is there anyone more overrated than Gwen Stefani? Seriously, name someone. I’ll give you a dollar. And who exactly started the myth of her attractiveness?
-Has anyone yet commented on the fact that Maroon 5 managed to sneak the phrase “keep her cumming every night” into a universally accepted hit song without anyone noticing? That, along with the fact that we play “Hey Ya!” every day at The Craft Studio for children’s birthday parties and no one bats an eyelash, just confirms that no one listens to lyrics anymore.
-That J. Lo she’s a crafty one. She knows that by singing in another language I wont understand what she is saying and therefore will have difficulty in mocking her. Nice try J. Lo, but I’m sure I can still come up with something…like…ummm…your singing is…not good. It’s quite poor in fact. So there! That’s right I said it. Whadda you gonna do about it?
-So I must be serious for a moment here. Tell me who else could have pulled off U2’s performance other than U2? A solid white background. No stunts or “special guest performers”. No special effects or pyrotechnics. A long monologue to open the song. A purposefully understated performance. Who else would be allowed to give that performance? Who else would even have the balls to try? And who else could make it the most captivating performance of the night? That is why they are “The World’s Biggest Rock & Roll Band”. End of story.
-I feel like Ellen and Portia De Rossi are the Citizen Kane of celebrity lesbian couples.
-Speaking of Citizen Kane here’s a little SAT flashback for you:
Citizen Kane : movies :: Sweet Home Alabama : things that kick ass
(And no I’m not joking)
Speaking of things that kick ass - Green Day, could you please put my socks back on my feet for me since you just rocked them off? Also, will you have my children?
-I think one of the joys of a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert would be that yelling out “Freebird” would not only not be ironic but might actually result in getting to hear “Freebird”. One of the non-joys of the Grammys is that you get to hear “Freebird”, but only the first part. That’s like getting to hear only the first six minutes of "Stairway to Heaven". Whats the point?
-After seeing A Ghost is Born win Alternative Album of the Year I’m reminded of a burning question I have. Has any person alive ever woke up in the morning and thought, “you know what song I really want to hear? ‘Less Than You Think’ by Wilco.”? And congratulations if you are one of the zero people who get that joke. Great now I’ve finally become too esoteric for my own good…And now I’m using the term “esoteric”…My parents would be so ashamed to see what’s become of the journal…
-I just wrote this line as an excuse to use another ellipsis…
-Getting all the “jokes” no one will get out of the way at once: I was thinking…if you’re an epileptic then the Grammys must be your personal hell.
(See, why do I even bother…)
-Is it wrong of me to comment that bald Melissa Etheridge looks like Billy Corgan? Is it also wrong of me to comment that she rocked hard core? Okay, just checking…
-Okay I gotta ask: who decided to let Stevie Wonder announce an award?
-I readily acknowledge that you pretty much have to have grown up with country music to really appreciate it and “get it”, but if some part of you isn’t affected by “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw then you have no heart. It’s what modern country music is all about. Deadly tragedy? Check. Inspirational message? Check. Cheesy guitar solo? Check. So you can make fun of me for liking it but then I get to make fun of you for being the tin man. “Go follow the yellow brick road you man made of tin” might be a possible insult I could use.
-Jack White, how the hell did Loretta Lynn let you leave the house dressed like that? You know, the Strokes wont let you hang out with them anymore if you go out in public looking like that again. And don’t try and tell me you’re being ironic. Even Conway Fucking Twitty would have laughed at that shirt. And yes I just referenced Conway Twitty. And yes I referred to him as Conway “Fucking” Twitty.
I’d really just stop reading now if I were you…
-I wonder where I can download the Academy President’s speech about downloading?
-You know how at the Oscars they have the biggest star available announce Best Picture? Well to announce Album of the Year, the Grammys have Bonnie Raitt and Gary Sinese.
-Mark this day on your calendar. I can’t think of anything bad to say about Usher.
-Since the performances were disappointingly not sucky I now have some extra space to share a non-Grammy related thought. I don’t know if you saw the story the other day, but the rapper Houston gouged his own eye out. Yes, you read that right: HE GOUGED OUT HIS OWN EYE. He tried to commit suicide but the police stopped him and so since he couldn’t kill himself he just decided to gouge his own eye out instead. While I would like to explore the thought process that leads one to decide to gouge out ones own eye, I have other thoughts I will expound on here instead. 1.) You can’t imagine my curiosity and shock as a native Houstonian upon seeing the headline that simply read, “Houston gouges out own eye”. 2.) Guess this makes 50 Cent’s bullet wounds look pretty wussy by comparison. 3.) Houston must now deal with the eternal question faced by those who gouge out their own eyes: eye patch or glass eye. For me personally it would be no contest but you never know; a glass eye might have its benefits. To each eye gouger-outer their own…
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week: Top 3 & 1/2 “Sets of 3 consecutive songs on a classic non-Beatles album” Edition.
(Note this list was made off the top of my head with very little thought or research meaning it likely contains several glaring omissions. Nevertheless, let the debate begin)
1.) Where The Streets Have No Name/I Still Havent Found What Im Looking For/With Or Without You- from “Joshua Tree” by U2
2.) Crazy Love/Caravan/Into The Mystic- from “Moondance” by Van Morrison
3.) Ex-Factor/To Zion/Doo Wop (That Thing)- from “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” by Lauryn Hill
3 & 1/2.) Smells Like Teen Spirit/In Bloom/Come As You Are- from “Nevermind” by Nirvana
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Paying Tribute to a Legend for Dummys
Its probably illegal or against some kind of copyright law to post whole articles from a website in your online journal instead of just giving the link to them but the law be damned thats what Im about to do.
As frequent readers know, The Late Show with David Letterman and Letterman himself are things I am very passionate about. I am equally passionate about my hatred for Leno. And although Carson was before my time, through seeing enough of his old shows on video and being taught by my parents how important he was, I have a great deal of respect and apprication for him and what he represented. Plus anyone that Letterman loves must be great. So anyway needless to say, I was interested to see how both Leno and Letterman would pay tribute to him on their shows. After seeing both of their "tribute" shows I defintely had things to say about them but Bill Simmons of ESPN.com beat me to the punch. And since he is the main inspiration for this journal it shouldnt be shocking that he would be able to articulate my thoughts on the shows better than I could myself. So I thought instead of writing something myself I should just post his article here instead. So Ill be back with new original thoughts of my own soon, but until then, enjoy original thoughts of my own as expressed by someone else.
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As you're reading this, I'm probably standing in a buffet line at Media Day, waiting for a 300-pound sportswriter to stop loading chicken fingers on his plate. But I wanted to post something about Letterman's tribute to Johnny Carson last night, just a talented guy paying tribute to another talented guy. Letterman ended up speaking extemporaneously for something like 15 straight minutes, focused and emotional, giving a heartfelt eulogy for the man who inspired his career. And since it was the highlight of my first night in Jacksonville, I thought I would write about it.
The Letterman-Carson dynamic always fascinated me. In the mid-80's, when Letterman would occasionally visit Johnny's show, then Johnny returned the favor during the transcendent "Letterman Goes to LA" Week, Carson was the one guy who always left Dave a little flustered. And Dave never got flustered, not even when Crispin Glover whistled a karate kick at his head. Letterman always had too much nervous energy when Johnny was in the room - it was obvious - so he would over-laugh at Johnny's jokes and rip through his own material with a little too much gusto. There was something endearing about it, like watching a son trying to please his father.
Two decades later, I was watching Letterman pay his respects to Johnny on his own show. Since both men meant a great deal to me as a kid, it was emotional to watch - especially since Letterman should have been the one who replaced Carson in the first place. And I'm not sure if he's ever really gotten over it; since he moved to CBS, it's like he's been playing a caricature of himself, except for those rare moments when he turns into a real person again (like after his heart surgery, or those painful days after 9/11). I don't think he's cared about his show for some time, but he probably can't imagine doing anything else. So he's stuck. Unlike with sports, your skills can't slip that noticeably in late night TV - it's more of a gradual decline, and there's no way to pinpoint when someone wasn't as good as they used to be. With Letterman, the show that used to be a parody of a TV show somehow became a parody of itself, and I'm not even sure when it happened. Then again, if he had taken over Johnny's spot, he would have defended that territory much more zealously, and he never would have allowed himself to trail a hack like Leno in the ratings.
Of course, no moment illustrated the difference between Leno and Letterman like the days after Johnny's death. Letterman may go overboard most of the time, but you never lose sight of the fact that he's a real person - flawed, deeply troubled, somewhat anguished, but a real person nonetheless. Leno? He's a blank slate. Seriously, do you know one thing about him? Would you want to have dinner with him? Hell, would you want to have coffee with him? Me neither. Even the magazine features about him invariably drift towards his overall elusiveness as a human being, like even his friends can't figure him out. He's like the Manchurian Talk Show Host.
Last Monday night, Leno came out with a predictably awkward tribute to Carson, devoting his entire show to the man he replaced, conveniently forgetting how his manager leaked the "NBC pushing out Johnny?" story in the N.Y. Post that hastened Johnny's retirement in the first place, or how Leno didn't even ACKNOWLEDGE Johnny on the night he took over The Tonight Show, or how Johnny famously avoided Leno and his old show after his retirement, compounding the insult by writing jokes for Letterman's monologue as recently as last month. His "tribute" to Carson remains a defining Leno moment, like watching a female Olympic gymnast giving another gymnast one of those fake hugs that they don't really mean. What a crock. May we never take this man seriously again. If we ever did.
Am I biased? Absolutely. I'm a Letterman guy. I wouldn't be doing this for a living if not for a handful of people that passed through my life, and he's one of those people. With that said, I thought the past eight days illustrated the difference between Leno and Letterman better than any show ever could. It's not that Leno is a bad person - obviously he isn't - but that it's physically impossible to feel any semblance of a connection to him. Maybe that's what some people need when they're falling asleep at midnight - someone safe and harmless, someone who doesn't challenge them in any way. But he shouldn't have been the guy to replace Johnny. That's the bottom line.
As for Carson, I loved two things about him over anything else: Nobody was better at saving a bad joke, and no celebrity walked away with more dignity. Carson headed to Malibu and never came back - not for an Oscars show, not for a Barbara Walters interview, not for a Curb Your Enthusiasm cameo, not even for an informercial - and only because he wouldn't allow us to remember him any other way than we already did. Even in his final few years with The Tonight Show, Leno and Letterman were breathing down his neck, a clown named Arsenio Hall was stealing some of his younger viewers, and SNL was running that vicious "Carsenio" sketch on his own network. The writing was on the wall. He was the face of a dying generation of comedy. So he left. And never looked back.
I just hope Letterman has the good sense to do the same one day.
As frequent readers know, The Late Show with David Letterman and Letterman himself are things I am very passionate about. I am equally passionate about my hatred for Leno. And although Carson was before my time, through seeing enough of his old shows on video and being taught by my parents how important he was, I have a great deal of respect and apprication for him and what he represented. Plus anyone that Letterman loves must be great. So anyway needless to say, I was interested to see how both Leno and Letterman would pay tribute to him on their shows. After seeing both of their "tribute" shows I defintely had things to say about them but Bill Simmons of ESPN.com beat me to the punch. And since he is the main inspiration for this journal it shouldnt be shocking that he would be able to articulate my thoughts on the shows better than I could myself. So I thought instead of writing something myself I should just post his article here instead. So Ill be back with new original thoughts of my own soon, but until then, enjoy original thoughts of my own as expressed by someone else.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you're reading this, I'm probably standing in a buffet line at Media Day, waiting for a 300-pound sportswriter to stop loading chicken fingers on his plate. But I wanted to post something about Letterman's tribute to Johnny Carson last night, just a talented guy paying tribute to another talented guy. Letterman ended up speaking extemporaneously for something like 15 straight minutes, focused and emotional, giving a heartfelt eulogy for the man who inspired his career. And since it was the highlight of my first night in Jacksonville, I thought I would write about it.
The Letterman-Carson dynamic always fascinated me. In the mid-80's, when Letterman would occasionally visit Johnny's show, then Johnny returned the favor during the transcendent "Letterman Goes to LA" Week, Carson was the one guy who always left Dave a little flustered. And Dave never got flustered, not even when Crispin Glover whistled a karate kick at his head. Letterman always had too much nervous energy when Johnny was in the room - it was obvious - so he would over-laugh at Johnny's jokes and rip through his own material with a little too much gusto. There was something endearing about it, like watching a son trying to please his father.
Two decades later, I was watching Letterman pay his respects to Johnny on his own show. Since both men meant a great deal to me as a kid, it was emotional to watch - especially since Letterman should have been the one who replaced Carson in the first place. And I'm not sure if he's ever really gotten over it; since he moved to CBS, it's like he's been playing a caricature of himself, except for those rare moments when he turns into a real person again (like after his heart surgery, or those painful days after 9/11). I don't think he's cared about his show for some time, but he probably can't imagine doing anything else. So he's stuck. Unlike with sports, your skills can't slip that noticeably in late night TV - it's more of a gradual decline, and there's no way to pinpoint when someone wasn't as good as they used to be. With Letterman, the show that used to be a parody of a TV show somehow became a parody of itself, and I'm not even sure when it happened. Then again, if he had taken over Johnny's spot, he would have defended that territory much more zealously, and he never would have allowed himself to trail a hack like Leno in the ratings.
Of course, no moment illustrated the difference between Leno and Letterman like the days after Johnny's death. Letterman may go overboard most of the time, but you never lose sight of the fact that he's a real person - flawed, deeply troubled, somewhat anguished, but a real person nonetheless. Leno? He's a blank slate. Seriously, do you know one thing about him? Would you want to have dinner with him? Hell, would you want to have coffee with him? Me neither. Even the magazine features about him invariably drift towards his overall elusiveness as a human being, like even his friends can't figure him out. He's like the Manchurian Talk Show Host.
Last Monday night, Leno came out with a predictably awkward tribute to Carson, devoting his entire show to the man he replaced, conveniently forgetting how his manager leaked the "NBC pushing out Johnny?" story in the N.Y. Post that hastened Johnny's retirement in the first place, or how Leno didn't even ACKNOWLEDGE Johnny on the night he took over The Tonight Show, or how Johnny famously avoided Leno and his old show after his retirement, compounding the insult by writing jokes for Letterman's monologue as recently as last month. His "tribute" to Carson remains a defining Leno moment, like watching a female Olympic gymnast giving another gymnast one of those fake hugs that they don't really mean. What a crock. May we never take this man seriously again. If we ever did.
Am I biased? Absolutely. I'm a Letterman guy. I wouldn't be doing this for a living if not for a handful of people that passed through my life, and he's one of those people. With that said, I thought the past eight days illustrated the difference between Leno and Letterman better than any show ever could. It's not that Leno is a bad person - obviously he isn't - but that it's physically impossible to feel any semblance of a connection to him. Maybe that's what some people need when they're falling asleep at midnight - someone safe and harmless, someone who doesn't challenge them in any way. But he shouldn't have been the guy to replace Johnny. That's the bottom line.
As for Carson, I loved two things about him over anything else: Nobody was better at saving a bad joke, and no celebrity walked away with more dignity. Carson headed to Malibu and never came back - not for an Oscars show, not for a Barbara Walters interview, not for a Curb Your Enthusiasm cameo, not even for an informercial - and only because he wouldn't allow us to remember him any other way than we already did. Even in his final few years with The Tonight Show, Leno and Letterman were breathing down his neck, a clown named Arsenio Hall was stealing some of his younger viewers, and SNL was running that vicious "Carsenio" sketch on his own network. The writing was on the wall. He was the face of a dying generation of comedy. So he left. And never looked back.
I just hope Letterman has the good sense to do the same one day.
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