The Oscar Project!

In the midst of my insomnia, I was listening to some Tom Waits at 4:30 A.M. while browsing the internet. There's nothing better for clearing the mind. I decided on the next project for my blog. This decision comes from three problems that I'm having.

The first is that blog-a-day month and movie-a-day month were fun, but they burned me out from blogging. I don't seem to want to write anything during the rest of the year. Partially, I seem to want to save ideas. So I don't know if I will participate in either this year. If I do, it certainly won't be to the extent I did last year. Any entries will be a couple paragraphs or so. But still, I enjoy blogging and I enjoy writing about movies.

The second is that I don't have any money to spend this summer. I had been hoping to take a road trip, but I need to spend some time moving into my home and renting out my condo. I always try to get to San Diego every summer, and I hope this summer is no exception. If I do have any money left by that point, I'll expand that trip based on how much I think I can spend and how much time it will take. It would be nice to add a week or so before San Diego, but we'll see. So my summer will be spent doing things that cost very little money. I have Netflix. I'll be enjoying that.

The third is that I've seen a lot of movies so far in 2010 (22 as of right now, and I haven't ruled out going to see something later today or tomorrow morning). The problem is that I haven't loved any of those movies. I can't picture any of them making a top 10 list from any previous years. I have a hard time believing that I've picked 22 decent movies, especially when many came highly recommended. In fact, I can recommend many of them as "entertaining," and many as "worth watching because it was different." In the first category, The Book of Eli, Green Zone, Alice in Wonderland, Hot Tub Time Machine, How to Train Your Dragon, The Losers, and Iron Man 2 were all entertaining. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Mother, Greenberg, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, A Prophet, and Exit Through the Gift Shop were all in the "different" categoty. So I can recommend any of those for those reasons. But I didn't love any of them, and I blame my current lack of passion for movie watching. I think it's similar to the "reader's block" I wrote about during Blog-a-Day month (which is cured, by the way. I might write up some book reports over the summer).

So I need to fix all three of these problems. I looked at how I developed my interest in movies to the next level. I've mentioned my AFI project before. I want to do something similar. So I picked Oscar Best Pictures. I'm going to start at the beginning with Wings from 1929. I'll watch about one a week in order and give a write up. I haven't seen 31 out of 82, and most of those were early winners. So clearly the second half of the project will be a shift from first viewings to rewatching with fresh eyes. If I stick to one a week, I'll work on this for the next year and a half. There are several movies I'm looking forward to watching for the first time, some I'm looking forward to watching again and writing about, and a few that I'm dreading watching again (I'm looking at you, Shakespeare in Love!) But it should be a cool ride, and I hope it gets me excited about movies again.

Want to join in? Course you do! (Boos pours you a glass of rye (name THAT reference for bonus points!)) It would be cool to make this project a community sort of thing. It starts this coming week. If you try really hard, you can probably find a list of the movies somewhere. Sometime this coming weekend (June 4-6), either write on your own blog and link to it in the comments here or just write up your own entry in my comments. Or just comment on what I say. Want to watch any of these with me? Let me know and I'll let you know when the viewing will happen. Party at my new house!

I do realize that there's a major barrier to the project from the beginning. Wings is not available on DVD. I found a bootleg copy on the internet. If you don't know how to do such a thing, I can get a copy to you if you ask or give you steps to find it. You'll run into the same problem in a couple weeks with Cavalcade. Everything else is out there.

A Memorial Day update.

I haven't blogged in awhile, so this is a general update of a bunch of different things.

The end of the school year is quickly approaching. We have 10 days remaining. Of those 10, I will spend one at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, one at the eighth grade pool party, and one is the last day, which is on a Monday. (Yes, for those of you who aren't involved with the school district, our last day is on a MONDAY. Does that tell you all you need to know about the level of stupidity of those running the district?) So yeah, there are really seven days left. But I have to wake up 10 more times, and that's what counts the most.



As I wrote about many months back, I set trying to lose some weight. My original goal was to lose 20 by 2010. I barely missed that, but I've made up for it. I've now lost over 30 pounds. I feel much better and probably look better too. I still have a year and a few months of gym membership, so I'm not done yet. I'm moving on to new goals and I hope to have a fairly active summer (physically, at least, as I won't really have money to do much else - more on that soon).

Here's a note about human psychology. I think one big reason that I've done so well is my limited gym membership. I picked up the Costco deal, which is two years for $299. The alternate would be to join a gym on a month-to-month contract. But in this deal, I'm limited to 24 months. After that, I have to pay up again if I want to continue. So I never had the "I'll get going next month" mindset. I knew going in that I had two years. Period. It's a similar mindset to this idea. What kinds of New Years Resolutions do successful people make? None. Successful people don't need an arbitrary date to be successful. They do it now. So, I did it "now."



So it looks like I finally have a house. I'm planning to write a good full entry on the entire almost two year saga, so I'll cut that short here. But I'm in contract and heading towards closing on this 3 bedroom, 1 bath in Concord close to Mt. Diablo High. You might be able to see pictures at this link while it lasts. The original contract was a 45 day close plus an option for the buyer to rent for up to 30 original days. Now it trying to close her own deal for the place she's moving to, so that might make everything happen sooner. It looks like all of the potential barriers have been agreed to at this point. So that means I'll be moving anytime from the middle of June to the end of July. I hope we get something nailed down in the next week. That means around that time I'm paying just about every dollar I have saved in the world, so I have nothing to spend at all. But at least I've locked in a 4.5% rate. Suck on that.



My next update ended up being long enough that I made it into its own entry. I should be posting that in minutes.

And hey - anyone want to rent a one bedroom condo on the Concord/Clayton border or know someone who does? Seriously for REAL this time.

Oscar Roundup - 2010

Every year I try to see all five movies nominated for Best Picture. This year the format changed to include ten movies. I set the goal to see seven. Yet when the list was announced, I had seen nine. So I caught the tenth, thus exceeding my goal and once again achieving perfection. I've written about 9/10ths of these previously, so the titles will include links to that.

Avatar

I still don't get it. Yes, it's a beautiful movie. There's some decent action. But there isn't a lot beyond that. There might be one thing that will hurt its chances. Voters are sent screeners - a DVD copy of the movie. So perhaps many people would have seen it on their smaller TVs. In my opinion, as I wrote about originally, that's going to knock a lot of the magic out of it. However this thing made so much money that I doubt a lot of people were waiting to watch it on their screener. I'll be disappointed if it wins.

The Blind Side

This movie isn't bad. It's even somewhat entertaining. But it isn't... good. While it might be unfair to compare it with Precious, you have to when they are in the same catagory. They share enough themes that you have to see which movie presented those themes better than the other. Precious beats The Blind Side all the way. I have a feeling that this movie was nominated so that dumb people will have their movie to cheer for.

District 9

I was very surprised to see this nominated, though it stands zero chance to win. I'm glad it's getting some recognition because of its nomination, but if they wanted to appease the geeks, I would have picked Star Trek.

An Education

I doubt it will win, but it's a VERY good movie. My real hope is that Cary Mulligan will steal the Best Actress award away from Sandra Bullock.

The Hurt Locker

I'm hoping this will win, even though it wasn't my favorite of the group. The simple reason is that every source I've read states that it's down to Avatar and The Hurt Locker. And really, it's the superior film. I still wonder if I will watch this again someday and wish that I had moved it up on my list. I still want to blame the shaky-cam for me not connecting with it. But I will be content if it wins.

Inglourious Basterds

The same sources state that if any movie sneaks in to win it's going to be Inglourious Basterds. I'm totally fine with that. However, its guaranteed Oscar will go to Christoph Waltz. If he doesn't win, it will be a tragedy at the level of Shakespeare in Love defeating Saving Private Ryan.

Precious

Very good movie deserving of all the praise it receives. And like Waltz, Mo'Nique has the award locked up. Though if she loses, the sky won't turn blood red in the same dark shade.

A Serious Man

This was favorite movie of last year, so I'm totally stoked that it was nominated. I hope a lot more people saw it. It stands no chance whatsoever of winning.

Up

Will win, but not in this category. It's cool that the expanded category will allow for the occasional animated movie to be nominated, though none will ever win.

Up in the Air

I actually like this movie more as I think about it more. I'm looking forward to watching it again on DVD. Right now I feel like it has gotten lost in the shuffle. This is one movie that is really getting hurt by the expanded category.


Couple more thoughts: Jeff Bridges should, and deserves to, win for Best Actor. None of the other performances really stand out, and he'll win to finally reward him for his past performances and nomination. I hope Avatar wins lots of technical awards. It deserves them all. But some characters and an engaging story should matter when a movie is nominated for Best Picture. The only documentary I saw was Food, Inc. Watch it if you haven't. I hope the other four nominees give me some movies to Netflix this year.

Moja

#1 - A Serious Man

My #2 movie, 500 Days of Summer, was a great movie but was incomplete in a few ways. A Serious Man is complete. It's perfect. Everything works.

I've enjoyed some Coen Brothers movies in the past. My favorite is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? But I've also been bored by some. I couldn't make it through The Man Who Wasn't There. While they certainly hit more than they miss, I don't know if I've ever been more than a casual fan.

If I had any problem with this movie it's that I'm not Jewish so I probably didn't catch some things here and there. But even if that's the case, it was presented for everybody. So if you're a gentile worried that you won't get it, worry no longer.

I knew the basic idea of the story going in. The Coen Brothers were retelling the story of Job. In case you don't know his story, God gets a long term case of diarrhea and uses Job instead of a toilet.

But even though I knew that this guy was going to get crapped on, it was still filled with plenty of surprises. There's a great scene involving a couple cars driving along. You know what's going to happen, but not really.

Every scene is essential and perfect, filled with a lot of fantastic, snappy dialogue, particularly from the rabbis (rabbanim? rabbii?) that Larry goes to visit.

For the lead, they couldn't have cast Larry Gopnik any more perfectly that Michael Stuhlbarg. He's basically an unknown. I see from his IMDB page that he was in Cold Souls and a couple episodes of Studio 60, but I didn't recognize him. And that's the way it needed to be. He needed to be an everyman. Jake Gyllenhaal, Shia LaBeouf or Corey Feldman couldn't have been Larry Gopnik. That's right. I chose the Tochnit Av Triumvirate of Jake, Shia, and Corey as my token Jewish actors.

Mbili

#2 - 500 Days of Summer

The narrator warns at the very beginning that, "This is not a love story." And it isn't. But still is.

The makers of 500 Days of Summer took a lot of chances. They tried a bunch of little tricks throughout the movie. I can totally understand if someone were to watch this movie and say that they didn't work. But for me, they were excellent.

Some examples include the little movie montages, as if you're watching an old documentary. They throw in a little bit of a Ingmar Bergman parody (combined with its IKEA scenes - makes we wonder if I liked it only because I had just returned from Sweden). There's a great split screen scene showing Expectations vs. Reality.

One of the best parts of the movie is that isn't out of chronological order. Now this isn't unique, but they do it for all the right reasons. They lay out a series of expectations that they slowly shatter as the context is revealed. The order of the scenes is very carefully and beautifully choreographed.

My absolute favorite scene of 2009 (just ending out the opening of Inglourious Basterds) brings out the full cheesiness of Hall and Oates You Make My Dreams. For those of you who have seen it, I'm embedding the video of this scene below for you to relive its glory. If you haven't seen it, go watch the movie instead. Save the scene for the context of the movie.



To be honest, not every bit of this movie works, which is probably why it hit #2 instead of #1 on my list. I'm not a huge fan of the supporting cast. And there are a few bits of dialogue that are too sit-com for me. But the leads, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, are perfect. The story is perfect. And the 95% of the movie that does work is excellent.

Tatu

#3 - Inglourious Basterds

Much like Up, Inglourious Basterds is on my list because of the opening scene. Christoph Waltz is brilliant as "The Jew Hunter," Hans Landa. If we don't see Waltz holding up the Best Supporting Oscar trophy this year, it will be the Academy's most egregious error since Saving Private Ryan didn't win Best Picture.

The only question might be whether he's only a supporting actor. Is Brad Pitt the lead? I think that Waltz is probably in this movie more than Pitt is. I'm still blaming Pitt for the really crappy Benjamin Button, but he's pretty good in this as well. He might get that Curious Case of stink off of him sometime soon.

He's actually great in every scene he appears in, but the opening is his showcase. It sets the mood right up front that moves through the rest of the movie. I could easily see this scene showing up as a one act play. I dread watching that high school production, but at least Waltz's performance will be ready to wash it away.

To understand and appreciate music, especially classical music, one must be able to appreciate tension and release. Great music builds you up to a point where you almost can't handle it anymore, but gives you the critical release. That's also the key to some other things in life, but kids read this, so use your imagination.

Quentin Tarantino gives a clinic on tension and release in movies. Each scene, not just the first one, is its own short film. Each scene gives the characters reason to squirm. But more importantly, so does the audience. While you might not like the way he releases the tension, but he does.

Honestly, I haven't read or heard anything really negative about Inglourious Basterds from anybody who I consider to be intelligent. I guess, in that case, if you've been around me and had bad things to say, that tells you what I think. If anything? It's too long. However, since you can view it like a bunch of individual films, it will be easy to watch on DVD. You can easily break it into parts and still be satisfied.

Nne

#4 - An Education

An Education was a real surprise for me. I threw in this movie near the end of the year on a whim. I wanted to get some delicious Cheeseboard, so I figured I might as well go see a movie while I was in Berkeley. This was the only movie I hadn't seen that I had even the mildest interest in watching.

It turned out to be excellent. In the lead role, Carey Mulligan makes the entire movie work. She's a wide eyed young woman getting in a situation that's way over her head, but she's smart. It's not enough to just have the script put words in someone's mouth to show us that they're smart. There has to be something in their eyes.

Any teacher can tell you the same thing. There are some people who you can just tell whether anything is going on inside their heads by looking into their eyes.

I've been watching the TV show Veronica Mars. It stars Kristen Bell from the excellentForgetting Sarah Marshall. She's hot. But I've seen commercials for her over the last week or so for her upcoming movie When in Rome. She is still hot, but doesn't look as hot. I think it's because on Veronica Mars, she's smart. Her character in this new movie looks like your typical cliche romantic comedy role. The type that the extremely untalented Kate Hudson would usually play. That's why Bell is hotter as Mars.

This is the first time that I've seen Carey Mulligan, but we'll see more from her. She handles the character and everything it goes through like a pro. An Education is actually a similar story to Up in the Air. But it presents a totally different way of looking at it. Obviously, I recommend both movies.

Tano

#5 - Up in the Air

Up in the Air is the third movie from Jason Reitman. I just wrote about his first movie, Thank You for Smoking, in my best of the decade blog. I liked his second movie, Juno, quote a bit, though not as much. I've since discovered that it's mostly the pretentious soundtrack that turns me off.

I liked Up in the Air for a lot of the same reasons that I liked Thank You for Smoking. George Clooney's character, Ryan Bingham, is as real to me as Aaron Eckhart's Nick Naylor. He's a confident character in his profession. He knows exactly what he's doing every step of they way while he's working. But then when it comes to his personal life, that's a bit more of a disaster.

Ryan Bingham's has no real personal ties. He has family members who are more like acquaintances. Friends are mostly people he meets on the job, and therefore more like acquantances. They know who he is on the outside, but not much about who he really is. This is a theme that I found in common with those from Funny People. And perhaps I'm again drawn to it because it might be a bit personal.

The trailers for Up in the Air don't appeal to me. In reality, a lot of what they show is out of context. They present it as a light,quirky comedy. But it's more than that. It's more of a drama that's light on the outside but has a bit more of the darkness of real life. And by that I don't mean that it's a dark comedy. It has some real moments that I lot of people might find to be a bit uncomfortable, even though its best notes are quite subtle.

I've read a lot of what the critics have had to say, but I haven't heard from any "normal" folk who have seen it. I have a feeling that the average film goer might be a bit lukewarm after seeing it, mostly because it isn't just that light hearted comedy they're looking for. Near the end, Up in the Air takes a turn that is going to bother people. The movie isn't wrapped up in a neat package with a tight bow.

And in the end, can the average person really believe that some people actually like being alone? We do exist. And that's probably why I like this movie as much as I do. I'm actually looking forward to watching this again. i have a feeling that I'm going to like it even more the next time, and I might even like it as much or more than Thank You for Smoking.

Sita

#6 - World's Greatest Dad

I don't want to say too much about World's Greatest Dad because you need to go into it without knowing what's going to happen. So I'll be vague.

The first thing that immediately popped into my head when first learning about this movie is the movie Fathers' Day. Clearly, this is because they both start Robin Williams and have a father in the title. I didn't see that movie, but it doesn't look very good.

This is not that movie.

This is probably my favorite Robin Williams role. He is different from anything else he has done before here. I would even say that if you don't like Williams, you'll still like this.

World's Greatest Dad was written and Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Many of you might only know him from the Police Academy movies. You only know him by his "Grover voice," as Goldthwait calls it. In that case, you don't know him. He isn't like that all the time. One of his standup shows is even called Is He Like That All the Time?

This is a dark, messed up movie. The only reason to skip World's Greatest Dad is if you don't like black comedy. If you do, check it out. Get ready for some Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuce! (Hornsby, not Springsteen)

Saba

#7 - Funny People

I'm finding it difficult to explain why I liked Funny People as much as I did. It's kinda funny, but not necessarily hilarious. It has a good story, but not really great.

Perhaps it is the emotion that goes along with it. Adam Sandler plays a guy that is pretty much alone. He doesn't really have any close friends or family that he can really confide in. The more I hear comics (or people who know them) talking about comics, then more I understand how tortured they often are. It's this torture that drives their comedy.

While I doubt anyone will agree with me,, I feel the same about Funny People as I did about Lost in Translation. Both movies deal with comics in a more serious role as a sad, lonely comic. Both have this lonely person meeting someone who fulfills that loneliness for awhile.

I liked Funny People when I saw it in the theaters, and something about it keeps popping back into my head, increasing how much I liked it. I haven't seen it since the first time. I'm curious what a repeat viewing will reveal for me.