"Shame" (2011) dir Steve McQueen

Dude, seriously, you need to wash those sheets. Gross.

I had been wanting to see "Shame" for a while now because the trailer was very intriguing, Michael Fassbender is a cool dude actor and the thrill of seeing a NC-17 flick in theaters was definitely a factor. It takes a lot of hype and balls, I guess, to market and distribute an NC-17 film these days. It hardly ever happens anymore because of how the rating effects box office returns. But, I get the feeling the makers of "Shame" weren't really concerned about making big bucks off this super weird and dark flick about a really angry sex addict living out his sad life in New York.

Normally, I'd want nothing to do with a movie like this. Super arty director, white people doing shitty things to other white people, lots of woe is me bullshit, etc. There are definitely a few scenes in "Shame" that choke on their own artiness, but overall I thought it kept things moving pretty well and I appreciate how little it spelled things out for the audience. There's a fine line between obtuse just to be arty and weird and making a subtle, challenging and attention-holding movie. This one mostly veers on that latter, good side of that line. Nothing much is revealed as to why Fassbender is such an angry sex addict and very little is said up front as to why things are strained and weird between him and his sister, played by British cutie Carey Mulligan. You just kinda have to go with it and watch Fassbender go through a variety of daily gross sex stuff.

The downside to there not being a whole lot of answers in this movie is that it gives you few reasons to care much about the characters. I didn't quite feel like I was being punished for being a viewer like I tend to feel during a shitty Von Trier flick or something, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. The title certainly fits the movie. I'd say Fassbender deserves a nomination for best actor, but he was also in like 50 other movies this year so I guess it's a toss-up for which one he ends up getting props for.

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.

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"

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.

Greg Halman, 1987-2011

I recently joined Twitter for some stupid reason and thus far have been kind of excited/pleased by the speed and volume of information I can get from my feed, especially on sports and movie news. I may have to reform my opinion on the whole thing because the news I got so quickly while eating some breakfast at 7 AM kinda ruined my day.

Mariners outfielder Greg Halman, one of the few Dutch-born players in MLB, was stabbed to death. He was 24 years old. This news comes just over year after losing Dave Niehaus. The hits just keep on coming.

Halman was one of those Mariners players who had spent most of their time with the organization in the minor league system and one that Mariners nerd fans like myself wanted to be promoted to the big leagues whenever someone on the M's roster was failing and needed to be benched/replaced. He had potential to hit for power if given the chance to adjust to MLB pitching. He was a quality outfielder capable of making tough catches. He got his debut in late 2010 when rosters expanded, but he got a good chunk of playing time in 2011 before getting sent back down to Tacoma. He hit his first major league home run at Safeco with his Dad in the stands. It doesn't get much better than that for a lot of players. That's a moment you can hang your hat on.

Sad. Senseless. Tragic. As small as his contributions were to the team in the whole scheme of things, I appreciated them and for whatever reason, I really liked him as a player. He was intriguing and unique. A black European guy, covered in tattoos, rockin' a chinstrap beard, playing baseball for the Seattle Mariners. From a purely spectator viewpoint, he was fun to watch.

And per usual, Jeff Sullivan at Lookout Landing put it better than I can.

A year ago, Dave Niehaus died. A former coworker and fellow baseball fan texted me the news. Denial. Turned the radio on. The news was true, heart attack. Outpourings of grief. Disbelief. I didn't really know what to do with myself as the news slowly sunk in. I drove down to Safeco Field to pay respects, maybe find some fellow fans as lost as I was. When I arrived, there were more reporters there than fans. After standing awkwardly for a few minutes in front of the home plate entrance where the makeshift memorial was taking shape, I left feeling unsettled.

I still feel unsettled.

RIP Dave.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) dir Edgar Wright

Well, RIP October 2011. We hardly knew ye. November Coming Fire now. I turn 28 next week. That's fucked up. Get off my lawn, you little shits. Here's one last review I wrote the other day:

Wacky Brits and their backwards date formats!

 This flick is a delightful blast of comedy/horror/drama. I figured I'd throw up another softball to help the lady get down with the horror films. Fun fact: the first time we tried to watch it shorty after we started dating, she only made it about 15 minutes into it! She's come so far! I'm so proud!

Now, I've seen this flick many, many times, but it had been a couple years. It's remarkable how the trio of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost hit the ground running so hard with their first proper feature (which is more or less a continuation of the tone from their hilarious TV show Spaced, but within the context of a zombie disaster) and they haven't stopped running since. Just nothing but quality from this crew of Brits.

Anyways, one thing I love about Shaun Of The Dead is amidst all the humor and zombie carnage are a handful of emotional moments that hit unbelievably hard. They're so pitch-perfect that they just kind of blindside you and put a lump in your throat. I have no idea how they were able to pull this off....maybe it's just because I identify so easily with Pegg and Frost's characters. But, it's remarkable that they were able to switch from being funny to "Oh shit, my step-dad is dying right in front of me and he's trying to tell me he's sorry that he wasn't nicer to me when I was younger and that he loves me." That's some heavy shit, man. And Pegg plays these scenes with zero irony and just pure heart. These sorts of scenes don't usally work so well in horror comedies, but helps make Shaun Of The Dead a true one of a kind flick and one that I think will hold up very well in the decades to come.