Thursday, December 29, 2011

Oscar Buzz Bin

"It stinks!"


One of the first posts I wrote for this stupid blog was a super long post with "hilarious" one sentence reviews of all the films nominated for Best Picture for the 2011 Oscars, whether or not I'd seen them or not. Well, it's getting to be that time again and the Oscar buzz is a' buzzin' and yet again, I have no interest in seeing many of these shameless Oscar bait movies. Yet again, the ol' sappy bio-pic is reigning supreme this time of year. Now, I actually went and saw "The King's Speech" in theaters for some unknown reason and it certainly wasn't awful. Great "Acting with a capital A" performances by Geoffrey Rush and that one charmingly shy British bloke, whatever his name is. Overall, though, kinda boring and rather unremarkable as a whole, but as you know, it won best picture AND best director. So, of course all the studios got their bio-pics locked and loaded for Oscar season, rounded up some big name actors and actresses willing to go big or go home and churned out the "For Your Consideration" promo material.

Tragedy and deaths in the family stories also seem to be popular this year, which you know, is just lovely. I have less of an issue with these types of movies than the bio-pics, though. I mean, at this point it's beyond a cliche. It's just shameless, desperate and above all, unoriginal and wholly uninteresting to me. 9 times out of 10 I'd rather watch a fictional story I'm unfamiliar with unfold in front of me than watch someone retell something that already actually happened.

Anyways, here's a bunch of this year's Oscar Buzz Bin movies that I'll probably never watch:

My Week With Marilyn - Michelle Williams might be a babe and all, but I don't need to sit through a 2 hour melodrama about Monroe's fling with some lucky young British turd.

The Iron Lady - Meryl Streep playing the tough old bird former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher? How this wasn't a fake trailer on "The Critic" is beyond me. Apparently you really can't make this stuff up.

J. Edgar - I am a fan of both Clint Eastwood's directorial style AND Leonardo Dicaprio as an actor, but you couldn't pay me to sit through 2+ hours of slogging through J. Edgar Hoover's rise to power. Who gives a shit?

We Bought A Zoo - Nope. Not even Scar-Jo could get me in the door for this one.

The Descendants - I love me some George Clooney, but this one hits far too close to home right now. Will probably never watch. Plus, it's made by the same guy who directed Sideways and I am NOT. DRINKING. MERLOT.

The Artist - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA fuck no.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Guard It Closely

"So you call home for Christmas. It's for certain that they'll cross you off the list. And you can't go home and you won't stay here. Refusing to believe a single word they hear"

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Mom

In my 28 years on this planet, I've led a life mostly free of real tragedy and sorrow in comparison to many people in the world. I consider myself very fortunate. Raised in a safe suburb in a upper-middle class family, I had lost very few family members or friends throughout the years. When my aunt Joy died in July from lung cancer, I remembered thinking that this was the beginning of a long series of losses and funerals that I would be attending for basically the rest of my life. Both my immediate and extended family were getting older and that's just the way it goes. I figured I'd better just get used to it. Well, there was no way to ever prepare myself for my mom dying last week.