Oscar Review

Man there was a lot of singing in that one.

Seth MacFarlane was terrible. Awful delivery of lazy dumb jokes. Actresses have boobs! Jews run Hollywood! We can't understand what Salma Hayek says, but we don't care cause she's so good looking? Plus he's so shifty and insincere in his delivery, like he doesn't believe what he's saying or someone else is making him do this.

I honestly believe that Ann Hathaway should have won for Catwoman in Dark Knight Rises and not for Le Mis.

Good on Argo, both for best picture and for best adapted screenplay, for truly the screenplay was the best part of the movie. Thanking Canda was a nice touch.

Daniel Day Lewis winning for being Lincoln was the most predictable of wins. I shall maintain that Jessica Chastain was robbed until I actually see Silver Linings Playbook.

Reality Can Sometimes Suck Less

Remember Viktor Bout, the real life "Lord of War?" The highly evil arms dealer and inspiration for the movie. Well in the movie (spoiler alert) the arms dealer is arrested but released, due to his powerful friends in the United States government.

Well, as it turns out, sometime you can be too cynical. Not only are the Feds not springing Bout, they are extraditing him from Thailand and are going to try him on a whole host of charges.

So hey, the world doesn't suck as much as you though. We get the Hollywood ending in real life.

High Profile

Call it a new phenomenon: the rise of the celebrity spy. The busted Russian are famous. Angelina Jolie has invited busted Russian spy Anna Chapman to the Moscow premier of her new spy thriller. It was bound to happen sooner or later, fictional spy fill our media wall to wall. And the busted Russians are perfect. Clean-up, sexy, and they didn't hurt anybody. They were here to spy on our cocktail circuit and did a bad job of it. Nice,friendly spies we can put on magazine covers and invite down the red carpet.

Cutting

The 100 best insults in movie history. Not even close to safe for work

A Tribute to Reality Bites

All kinds of good stuff.

"I don't have a lawyer. I don't have a dentist."

Machete

A movie for our time.

Redo

Unlike modern classics like Psycho, or Dukes of Hazzard, there are movies out there that could stand to be remade with the fancy new newness. I can't think of one more worthy of upgrade than TRON. Have you watched TRON lately? Looking very dated. Which is ok with some films. The fact that the plane taking off for Lisbon in Casablanca looks fake to modern eyes doesn't hurt the movie a bit. But TRON is all about the flashy and if your flashy fades...

So here's a look at the new look:

Justice!

As recommended right here at Craigorian Chant, Hurt Locker won big. So all is right in the world, movie award-wise.

My Memo to the Academy

Was ready this little "think piece" from Pajiba on the importance of Oscar. I'm convinced. This is important stuff. Movies are our culture, and its important that our culture not suck, least we be judged harshly by cultural historians of the future.

So in the unlikely event that a voting member of the Academy wanders across this post, let me urge you to vote for The Hurt Locker over Avatar for best picture. This is important. Sure Avatar looks great, but The Hurt Locker easily the best picture I saw all year. I don't care what the box office says. The Hurt Locker is a deep, powerfully, well-acted, and brilliantly written movie that stays with you long after the cotton candy of Avatar has faded from your mind.

Just think about, would you voters?

Scenes I Love: The Judge's Game

The movie Rounders came out winter of 1998. I saw it when I was home from college. When I got back to school, everyone else had seen it, and the first thing we did was start up our own home game. It really is amazing what this movie does. It makes you want to play.

King of the Iron Fist

Oooo a Tekken movie. I killed many a quarter on the Tekken arcade game at the student union back in the day. Last stand-up arcade game I ever cared about. And like all good video games, eventually it gets its own bad movie:

Off Broaway

And now an off Broadway production of the Science Fiction, um, "classic" Independence Day:

ID4: Off Broadway from Samuel Eidson on Vimeo.

Via

The Science of Avatar

A professor of astrophysics gives his take. Except for the floating mountains, pretty good marks.

Lego Matrix

Something to start your week off right:


EMBED-The Matrix Done with Legos - Watch more free videos

Scenes I Love: The Ronin Car Chase

There are a lot of things to love about Ronin. Great cast, smooth script, one of the purest uses of McGuffin I have ever seen. But at the heart of this movie is the single best car chase I've ever seen.



No slow motion, no computer tricks, just brilliant stunt and camera work done at top speed. My favorite little touch - Stellan Skarsgård's icy cool ex-KGB agent, 2/3's of the way through the chase, when his car in now going the wrong way down a Paris highway tunnel, decides that it's time to put on his seat belt.

If you liked this taste, the full movie can be seen here.

Too Much Good Stuff

Ok, forget the safe-for-work, safe-for-network television, film institute of whatever top 100 movie quotes list. Check out the Pajiba other 100 best. But don't just read them. Watch them all and let the greatness wash over you:



Not to be played with your boss and/or mother in earshot.

Batman Appears

Today on scenes I love, an occasional and ongoing series here at the Craigorian Chant School of Film Study, we look at Batman Begins. Specifically, the first time we actually see Batman:



Where are you!

Here.

I could watch that all day. But we are not just about entertainment here at CCSFS, we seek a deeper understanding of art. So I give you a complete, shot-by-shot breakdown of the scene:

Batman as A Monster in a Classic Horror Movie

We take you deeper

A Movie for Your Day

Blues Brothers 2000.

Nowhere near the original, but it does have:

1. Heartbreaking opening, where Elwood waits for Jake.
2. The largest car pile-up ever filmed.
3. Killer all-star line-up, including the world's most epic all-star band at the end.

"Nobody ever wins a fight"

Patrick Swayze RIP.

You can keep the dance and the ghost movie. For me Swayze shall always be remembered for the immortal classic Road House, where he played James Dalton, king of all bouncers. Featuring such immortal lines as the one above, as well as "Pain don't hurt" and "I used to fuck guys like you in prison."

RIP John Hughes