Post Academy Reaction

I made a point to sit down and watch the Oscars last night, mainly because I had not done so in a couple years. Me and my mom always used to sit down together and watch the Academy Awards, and this year I had to give her the play by play through text messages because the bus she was on returning from her skiing trip broke down. They are fine, they got home, I am sure you were concerned.

The show itself was decent. Anne Hathaway did a pretty good job as the co-host, along side a stale and boring James Franco. He looked worn out, tired, never looked at the camera, and was fairly monotone the whole night. Too bad they decided against Hugh doing it again. At least he has the energy to keep you entertained.

Other than one flub we will call it, it was a rather run of the mill, just above boring presentation. I have not seen a good portion of the best picture nominees, and did not really have any actors that really caught my eye with their performances, aside from the two that I figured were in the bad anyway. So let's get to the awards.

Best Director:Tom Hooper won for The King's Speech. It was great watching him throughout the rest of the evening, because I do not think he ever gave up his two handed stranglehold on his award. His story about his mother telling him she found his next film by watching an unrehearsed play screening was pretty cool as well. As he stated, "Always listen to your mother". Still this category irks me that Christopher Nolan was not nominated, but I guess I may just have to see the film to make a better gauge of the direction.

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter. I did praise her performance in my oscar picks post, and it is still well deserved. Again seeing her up there on stage you have to do double and triple takes to see that she indeed played the mom in the movie. She also gave us the most exciting part of the evening, by dropping the big F-bomb on live television. Of course they were able to bleep it out, but it was the only part of her speech that was not in complete disarray and disbelief on her part.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter. I told you this one was easy. It also rounded out The Fighter in winning both supporting actor roles. Lead actor roles were not even nominated in this movie, which shows you that the headline actor is not always the main reason to watch the movie. Bale was a little long winded in his acceptance, but it was cool that he did give credit to Dickey Ecklund and his brother Mickey Ward, who were both in attendance. Now go put on some weight and get moving on that next Batman film.

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan. A lot of people were rooting for Portman to win this award. It was well deserved and if you know some of the work she put into the, and how long they have been talking about making it, it is astounding. Hopefully she will continue making films for a long time, because I do enjoy watching her passion filled roles.

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech. Told you Bridges was just my hope in the category. He was also nominated in this same category last year for A Single Man, which Bridges won for Crazy Heart. So I guess it is fair that Colin gets this round. From the clips shown throughout the program he definitely portrayed someone with a speech impediment pretty well, while keeping some humor with his screen partner Geoffrey Rush.

Best Picture: The King's Speech. I was clearly fishing with Toy Story 3 as my choice, but again it was not a prediction, just what I wanted to see win. This is a clear sign that I need to see this film. Winning 3 of the biggest awards at the Oscars means something, and when its available off the big screen, I will definitely be giving it a gander. A pretty funny remix with clips from all sorts of shows and movies about stuttering can be seen here. Parodies means it must be good right?

Eclectic Method - The King's Remix from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

That is about all I have on the Oscars. I was a little disappointed that Tron was not even nominated for special effects, but whatevs. Gonna watch Rebecca soon, and the review will follow.

I'm just sayin...

Academy awards

I am going to make an effort to watch the Academy Awards tonight. I have not seen a lot of the movies but, there are still people and movies that I would like to see win awards. Here are some of my choices for the major categories:
Best Picture: Toy Story 3. It is a stretch, but for those of us who have grown up watching the Toy Story movies, this was probably the best, and if you did not cry, you are a liar.

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges. More of a hopeful than anything else, but I do enjoy watching him perform. There was some talk about the odd omission of Mark Wahlberg, but it was not that much different of a performance than what we have come to expect of him

Best Actress Natalie Portman. For me the infatuation began with Star Wars, because it was Star Wars. In reality she was a good actress before and after playing Padmé, see The Professional and V for Vendetta, and hopefully now she will win an award for her performance.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale. This one is easy. Watching The Fighter you knew that it was a good performance. Than you see footage of Dicky Ecklund at the end, and it blows you away how perfectly he portrayed that man. If anyone else wins, there is a conspiracy.

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo. Playing the mom in The Fighter, she did an amazing job. She has already won an award or two for the performance, and it is either her or Amy Adams for the top spot.

Best Director: This is the one place where I have a big bone to pick. Christopher Nolan should by all means be nominated, and likely win this category. I guess it is because Hollywood people are starting to view him like Michael Bay, with all the flashy effects and over the top stories. The difference is that Inception is nothing without the direction it was given. Just being able to convey every aspect the way it was without completely losing the audience is a feat. I personally still do not think that it is a top 10 movie all time, like it's current place on IMDB top 250, but it does at least deserve some credit for the execution of a concept.

I do not plan on being very accurate with my choices, it was more of a dream sheet. I will weigh in after the awards on what I saw, and maybe I will complain about some ones ridiculous outfit, although I could give two pennies about fashion. Also if you missed it from news sources earlier this week, here is a top ten WTF they got nominated for an oscar list.
Rebecca is the next movie on the list and it is on its way to me. Be patient, I am getting there.

I'm just sayin...

Movie 107 Return of the Jedi

So after watching Indiana Jones, you think we would get a little bit of a lull in the grand adventure Harrison Ford department. Ya, that was not going to happen. Not to mention it is another romp around George Lucas' imagination

If you are alive breathing right now, or have been some time in the last 30 years, you know what Star Wars is. Now some of you, somehow, still have not seen the original trilogy. I will let that slide, for now, because I am feeling nice. But, for those who have not seen it, and those who portend to show the movies to your children, please start with episode 4, "A New Hope", also known as the first one. Really you do not really need to watch the most recent movies, episodes 1,2, and 3, because they do not hold the same feel as the originals, and in some eyes overdo the special effects and make it feel less emersive.

It is hard for me to review the Star Wars movies. For me, and many others, there is something about these movies that never get old. The sarcastic main cast of good guys, Luke Han and Leia. You have the Droids who have emotions and are true characters in their own right, even though R2D2 talks in beeps. You have the Jim Henson, of Muppet fame, creation in Yoda that even in its crude form, transforms into a full character. Not to mention the most iconic bad guy to ever be put on film, Darth Vader.

Its not just the Characters either. In the film hour of the film, you see a swamp planet(Degobah), desert planet(Tatooine), manufactured planet(Death Star), and a forest moon(Endor). Each one looks and feels like you are in a completely different universe. Also unlike a lot of Sci-Fi franchises, there are countless other species shown in Star Wars. Not handfuls, hundreds. Big, small, quadrupeds, giants slug, you name it, its probably in one of the movies. Even the sets when they are on ships are convincing enough to not look fake.

The version I watched was the original theatrical release of the film. That is without the added "Special Edition" content that you will hear many Star Wars purists express their displeasure over. The biggest change that most people hear of is "Han shot first". It refers to a seen in the first movie where he shots a bounty hunter that has come to kill him. In the remake they had Han react to being shot at, not preemptively killing the bounty hunter. It was surprising to me that watching this movie today, with all the advances in computer graphics and special effects, that something like this could have been made without it, and 30 years ago at that. It truly makes you understand why it started such a following, and why it still draws people in today.

The Star Wars theme is again one known to many many people, and none other than John Williams composed the score for these films. Sound effects, special effects, cinematography, all of them were revolutionized by Lucas and his work with Star Wars. My only real qualm? His use of spin fades and gradient fades between scenes. They were cheesy then, still are now, but he is George fricken Lucas, and I dare you to tell him he is wrong.

Overall I will admit it is not my favorite of the three original films, but I still enjoy it every time through. This film draws the biggest movie franchise of all time to a close, we can only wish that the newest trilogy was 20% of what these movies were.

Score: 8.6 You must see the original trilogy. Probably the must see movies of the list, bar none.