Chattin with…. Chad and Justin discuss the Oscars; end friendship.

1:55 PM chad:

what do you mean

1:57 PM me:

the oscars

i mean have you seen the Blind Side?

chad:

god no

me:

would any good movie watching citizen nominate that garbage

chad:

and why are we moving to 10 films

seriously

fucking stupid

me: $

1:58 PM chad:

I knooooow

me:

i wouldnt mind if they nominated smaller movies

like District 9 was a nice choice

chad:

I wouldn’t mind at all

I liked that as well

me:

but then they added Blind Side

ARRRGH

chad:

did you see hurt locker yet?

me:

i was hoping maybe just maybe Big Fan would see something

1:59 PM chad:

didn’t see it

me:

no but im thinking about just straight renting it

cause its on a forever wait on netflix

my fav subplot in the Oscars is gonna be Bigelow beating Cameron for best director

2:00 PM chad:

TOTALLY

me:

has there ever been a divorced couple against each other for an award b4

chad:

nope

2:02 PM me:

DRAAAAA MAAAAAA

2:03 PM me:

and im gonna hate the fact that i have to sit through 2 Randy Newman songs AGAIN this year

chad:

for which films?

me:

princess and the frog

chad:

which film do you want to win best picture?

2:04 PM me:

having not seen Up in the Air or the Hurt Locker

A Serious Man

but i know that has no shot

chad:

yeah

what about inglorius basterds

me:

havent we gone over this

chad:

no

me:

I think that movie is way overrated

chad:

you are a retard

2:07 PM me:

its a poorly paced movie

with little to no plot structure

its basically several wonderful filmed vingettes

but not a whole movie

and they could hav cut the french girl entirely

and no one would have noticed

2:11 PM chad:

I am not going to have this conversation with you sir

me:

O yes you are

defend any of those points

you cant tell me that was even MILDLY a cohesive film

chad:

I will with 6 words

watch it again and pay attention

I thought it was completely cohesive

I had zero problem with it

me:

you didnt think i could have easily been 30 minutes shorter

2:12 PM chad:

I wouldn’t have changed it, no.

2:13 PM me:

hell cut the french girl (classic whiney wet blanket)

and just added in more Basterds

i mean they really had 2 scenes

(actually more Mike Myers would hav been nice too)

chad:

the french girl was needed

me:

for what

emotional heft?

she served no purpose

the only reason she should have been on screen would b to hav that conversation with Christoph Waltz

I wish QT had just made him the main character

chad:

I can’t believe you

2:16 PM me:

believe it amigo

chad:

we’re done as friends

me:

im not saying I hate the movie

not at all

I loved Waltz in every scene

and I liked the Basterds too

but the rest was so frivolous and just distracting more then anything

If it was 30 minutes shorter it would hav been the best Movie hands down

2:18 PM chad:

I just don’t know how to put into words how much I disagree with you

me:

but no one says no to Tarantino anymore

this movie is like the Life Aquatic was to Wes Anderson

he needs someone to say no to him every once in a while

so he can pull back and see what the fuck hes doing

well?

…

…

…

Aldo scalps a friendship. I hope you're happy.

Whale Vs. Shark #2

500 WORDS: Avatar

I’m insufferable when I know I’m right, especially when I know you’re wrong, and I will spend considerable effort burying you in a barge-sized wet pile of trash talk. And that’s just over trivial stuff like whether Eli Manning will throw 30 touchdowns (he didn’t), or if Adam Corolla or Norm MacDonald play death on the Family Guy (trick question) and it definitely doesn’t have 3 billion dollars hinged in the balance (at most 50 bucks). So imagine what it’s like to be James Cameron right now.  The self proclaimed “King of the World” just won the biggest bet in film history. And he was soooooo right. Don’t think so? Just try being a movie studio and telling him no. What carrot are you gonna dangle? Money? Creative control? Final cut? Cameron has the money to buy
most of Sub-Saharan Africa.  The only thing keeping him from making a 4 hour billion dollar movie using 3-D motion capture brain synapse connecting virtual reality panoramic
cameras where he plays every part in a drama populated with purple oxen super humanoids that live on the middle of the Earth right now is some long lost relative of Hans Gruber
hijacking the set and seeking revenge on John McClane (inhale).
I have this fantasy that he has the all the box office receipts tucked up under his shirt so he can lift it up for the movie heads and say, “Now this is the situation.”  Avatar is good old-fashioned event cinema.  Movie-going-popcorn-consuming-bootleg-proof event cinema.  I haven’t gone back to see a movie since I was about 10 and I’m seriously thinking that I might be missing out if I don’t see Avatar again.  Oh you don’t like derogatory blue Thundercats, a predictable story and think Unobtainium is a terrible word for a hard to get to mythical super ore? Two
words for you: Mark Hamill. You won’t care. It’s still awesome. What Star Wars did for miniatures or Jurassic Park did for CGI, Avatar has done for motion capture and 3-D.
And from every summer for at least the next decade you won’t be able to shoot another Transformers or Risk: The Movie! without it.  It will be done well, it will be
done terribly, but it will be done all the time.

So see it. In the theater. In 3-D.  Not because it’s the next “Remains of the Day,” (imagine
Anthony Hopkins in 3-D), but because you are the Lewis Lapham reading elitist who didn’t see the Matrix in theaters because you think Keanu Reeves is a tool.  Do it for your children.  Don’t feel bad for the people who bet against James Cameron, it’s already too late for them.

New Cartoon: Whale Vs. Shark

True tales inspired by talking to my boss.

Failed new webseries proposals…

Just thought someone should see it.  2 doomed minutes.

Team Leno!!!

WTF: Kevin Costner drunk?

I’m not sure if I was just blinded by Costner’s 80’s dominance of baseball nostalgia. But who the fuck stands like that? He looks like one of those drunks in cartoons who are about to lean against the bar but it turns out the bar is like 12 feet away.

Am I the first person to notice this?

WED Night Movie: The Fantastic Mr. Fox and how to make me hate you before I even sit down.

I’ve had this theory about The Fantastic Mr. Fox ever since it popped on to IMDB.  If stop motion animation didn’t work for Wes Anderson nothing would.

Since the Royal Tenenbaums, or even before,  Anderson has surrounded himself with actors, crew, and writers that love him like the benevolent micro managing dictator of a South American island. And because no one is saying No to him anymore, Anderson’s quirks and flaws have magnified to the point of eclipsing the movie itself. Wes Anderson had become a style rather than a filmmaker. I told anyone who would listen 3 years ago, that I didn’t know why Wes hadn’t just made all of the Life Aquatic animated. It would have been his best movie to date.  So after waiting for The Dajeeling Limited to come in a lil red envelope, I thought Mr. Fox might be worth the $12.50.

Now right off, an aside in movie etiquette. The wife and I entered the freshly swept and now popcorn free theater, behind maybe eight people waiting at the door before us. We like the stadium seating first row  with the clear view and the railing to put our feet up and easy access to the exit for when my invitable bathroom break. So naturally when we turn to our right and start to go down the row we were not expecting to be met with a demure little peasent clothed gatekeeper who promptly told us.

Bitch: Um actually I was trying to save those seats.
Me: The whole row?
Bitch: Actually Im trying to save both these rows for my friends.

Both. Rows. 12 seats. 12.

I’m willing and prone myself to saving a seat or two, but it takes some nutsack hairier then her petulie stankin legs, to just claim up and claim the primest 2 rows in the theater like it was a Risk board and her armies were a scarf and her hippy communal sense of World Peace.  The only thing that kept me from lowering a dumptruck worth of attitude, plopping down, and setting the rest of the row on fire was the fact that the row across from us was still mostly available and I don’t like to hit girls unless they hit me first.

The rest of her water and vinegar compadres wouldn’t begin arriving for another 20 minutes in a stressfully packed room and I did take an elevated level of satisfaction watching her fend off every third movie goer from taking the seats she reserved for her ascot and designer baseball hat wearing amigos.

By the way, this also goes for all you cocksocks that love getting in line for big movies (the Harry Potters and Twilights of the world) and letting all your giggly sorority sisters trickle in ahead of me so that the line, that had 5 people when I got here 45 minutes early, suddenly bubbles up like a stepped on garden hose to about 17-18 tards. If I see this at Avatar, I will pee on you.

That being said, when I came out of the theater I couldn’t have been happier. I was right; the genre worked like a charm for him. His quirks and nostalgia, instead of seeming over done, read like attention to craft. The normally wooden deadpan performances became whimsical and charming behind the smiles and wide eyes of animals in clothes.

Adding a new first and third act onto the story seemed surprisingly natural to the Dahl story.  The heist film resetting felt especially comfortable in the voice of Danny Ocean himself, George Clooney. (BTW saw Men Who Stare At Goats last week.  Wow what a waste of time.  Nothing happens.  And not in a good existential way. It’s a waste of actors, waste of decent subject matter and worst of all: a waste of Jeff Bridges.)

What at surface seems like, and is heavily promoted as, children’s faire, Mr. Fox harkens back to the Bluth and Watership Down 70’s that weren’t scrubbed to bubbly Disney perfection.

I know Wes Anderson will probably go immediately back to making live action movies that I have no interest of watching until they stream on Netflix, but I hope that he’s at enjoyed the process enough to continue to push the Wes Anderson style into new paradigms.

Cause who doesn’t love paradigms.

Best of Over-ray-ted: Where is My Sexy Parade?

(In honor, of Johnny Depp winning Sexiest Man Alive, I’ve decided to repost my responce from SMA version 2006 from my old site. Enjoy.)

It’s been over a week now and I’ve buried my discontent long enough. I would go as far as to say I am damn near cantankerous. It just sits there, everywhere, mocking me. In newsstands, book stores, websites, on Entertainment Tonight AND the Insider (that’s a straight hour). I could no longer hold back the flood gates of frustration. I had to know. How is it possible that, for the eleventh straight year of eligibility (although I was confirmed as a man by the Catholic Church at 15), have I been overlooked again for Sexiest Man Alive. Sure George Clooney won, I get it, I would be his man whore, but he’s already won before. Did you know for some God forsaken reason Richard Gere’s won twice (or in his case Buddha forsaken)? There is obviously very little thinking outside of the box going on in the editorial offices. Where’s the creativity? Are they just thumbing through Esquire and pointing when they see a splash page? Why tell people what they already perceive when they can be a voice of true authority?

I mean I could understand for the first few years of my youth. I was young and needed to be batted around a bit. In college, I was frequently covered in very un sexy paint stained clothing and rarely showered as much as I should, but I always cleaned up very sexily. So I needed to spend some time learning the ropes of sexy and paying my sexy dues. I was fine with that then, but now, even after all of my toil and preparation, it’s like they’re not even considering me. I have the hair, the eyes and my body isn’t gonna get any less fat. My time is now, I may never be sexier.

I need a real answer. After searching around a bit, using my sexy charm and calling in some favors, I finally got a number to an editor at People. Her assistant’s name was Barbara. Barbara had the cute and cordial accent of a girl from coal mining town, but I wasn’t disarmed. I was on a fact finding mission and immediately asked to speak to her boss. She said that my request, “was impossible,” and I knew it was crap. I should have held out but I just started in on her.

“Why haven’t I been considered for Sexiest Man Alive?” She then asked who I was and I told her. She said she’d never heard of me. I said why does that matter? She explained that you had to be famous to be Sexiest Man Alive. So I asked since when does being Alive have anything to do with being famous. Was she saying that my life was in balance with my Q rating? Or is anonymity like a malignant cancer? Would I live longer if I had starred in a movie with Susan Sarandon or Shaquille O’Neal? That’s when it became obvious that I was taking dead aim at Nick Nolte Mr. 1992, who is neither sexy nor alive. There’s been a distinct Weekend at Bernie’s vibe with him since Streisand denutted him in Prince of Tides. Did you also notice George Carlin started to suck right about that time? Also in POT. Then I listed past winners I was definitely more sexy then: the other being Ben Affleck.

I was too worked up to make sense. After taking a few breathes in the nearest black bodega bag, I laid back and thought of all the things I do have: like a very comfortable couch to lay back on. Then I apologized to Barbara. It wasn’t her fault, it was the editors, but next year I would prefer a phone call and left my number. I snapped my phone back into its folded rested position and took up my Play Station 2 controller. I felt, although no one could see me that I was very sexy at that very moment. Definitely sexier then Affleck and the world was just a phone call from finding out.

Wallpapering: Joaquim Marques Nielsen

I don’t think these are techniquelly available as wallpaper but Nielsen has just put together some gorgeous shapes. That’s it.  Nothing else very funny here.