Oscar Picks 2012

What a glorious time of the year! It is Sunday, February 26th and tonight is the movie lover's Super Bowl. It is the soccer fan's UEFA Cup and it is the porn addicts AVN Awards. Tonight is the Oscars. If I must be terribly honest, I've only seen a handful of the movies that are nominated in the various categories (and yes, that includes sound mixing and art direction). But I can say that I have seen the trailers for ALL of the films nominated and read a substantial number of reviews so I can pass a mildly accurate judgement of who should and who should not win. And as I type this, that guy with the girly voice on E is talking about shoes.

Best Picture: As much as I would like to see Warhorse take home honors for this category, the buzz has been all around The Artist. Warhorse redefined the animal-human friendship genre of film, but The Artist revived the era of silent film. Plus, the French deserve to win something.

Best Actor in a Leading Role: George Clooney. It's tough to make this call when I have only seen one actor in the category (Brad Pitt for Moneyball), but Mr. Clooney has been filling movie-goers' eyes with tears since the release of The Descendants and his last win was for Syriana awhile back. Once again, Jean Dujardin from The Artist has a fighting chance because of his film's notoriety, but I hope George brings home gold for America.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Rooney Mara. Don't fuck with this girl, just saying. I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and sat for 3 hours with my mouth wide open. There wasn't a single moment of Mara's performance that left me bored. She did everything! She banged girls, she banged guys, she killed guys, she branded guys, she raped guys. Hey, Meryl Streep. Talk to me when you get bum raped on camera for four whole minutes and then, maybe, I will give you my pick for Best Actress.

Best Supporting Actor: It's sad that the Academy takes age and experience into consideration more then actual performance. It's a toss up between Christopher Plummer and Max Von Sydow because they only have about 5 more years before they kick the bucket. Jonah Hill is the most awkward, uncomfortable person to watch play serious and I loved his performance in Moneyball because of it. But he won't win cause he still has his life ahead of him.

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa McCarthy was hilarious in Bridesmaids. My reasoning for picking a comedic role to win is because of the memorable Sacha Baron Cohen win at the 2006 Golden Globes. If he can win a Globe, McCarthy can win an Oscar. Let's diversify people!

Animated Film: Quite frankly, Rango. Since Pixar couldn't come out with anything too substantial we must settle for Johnny Depp as a chameleon.

Director: Michel Hazanavicius. It takes a lot to get your point across in front of the camera. It takes even more work when you have to do it without words. Hazanavicius, at the helm, did that and he will be rewarded.

Cinematography: Hands down Warhorse. As I sat in the theater sobbing, I couldn't believe that the location being shot were actual places. Every transition was a swooping landscape of war and chaos or sunshine and rolling hills. If it doesn't win, there is no God.

Art Direction: Let's give it to Harry Potter as a parting gift of sorts. I think it's time to give up on this ailing child already.

Documentary Feature: Hell and Back Again. It's a war film and coupled with the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, should hold a special place in the hearts of the Academy.

Documentary Short: The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom. I know nothing about this. Literally nothing. It sounded like a cool name.

Film Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm not really sure what constitutes good editing. Is it the fact that a movie's flow is smooth or that there is no awkward skips in the middle of dialogue. Either way, the opening to Dragon seemed pretty intense and I think that had something to do with editing so....yeah.

Foreign Film: A Separation. This Iranian drama has taken flak by proponents of the regime which makes it that much more interesting. With relations in Iran turning sour, there has been a lot of focus on how Iran can place itself in the spotlight as a good guy. This film might be that swaying point.

Makeup: Albert Nobbs. If you can turn Glenn Close into a dude, you have my vote.

Music (Score): Warhorse. John Williams leads the film score mafia and he will be pissed if he don't get his damn Oscar!

Music (Song): The Muppets. They're back!

Costume Design: Jane Eyre. The Academy loves that Victorian Era crap. Anything with big dresses and even bigger hats gets their panties wet.

Short Film Live and Animated: No concern to me. But I'll take a wild guess and say for Live Action Wild Life and Animated: Time Freak.

Sound Editing, Mixing, and Visual Effects: I'll group these together because I'm giving all three to Transformers. Fuck yeah!

Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants will get this because of its touching texture and composure. Sorkin won't get it for Moneyball because of The Social Network. You can't hit a homerun every time Aaron!

Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris. Woody Allen will get this because he is a god among men when it comes to putting ideas on paper. And boy, does Woody have ideas.

Billy Crystal should be an interesting host. He's been around the block once or twice and I'm looking forward to hearing his Jewish swag. Mazel Tov and have a merry Oscar night!

Slap Shot

I went to a highschool renowned for its football and basketball teams. For a pretty lengthy period of time, these two teams produced some of the finest athletes and sent talented individuals onto successful careers in college sports. If you walked around campus, you'd know the football and basketball players. They were giants; they ate up the attention. Naturally, the teams acquired a bunch of attention from various media outlets and the student athletes always were respectful in front of the camera and on the printed page. We also had a hockey team. You'd know a hockey player was coming towards you because you could hear the scuff of his Timberlands against the ground a mile away. With broad shoulders and surprisingly short legs these hockey players strutted around campus with the feeling they were as popular as the football and basketball jocks, but never produced the same results. I watched Slap Shot tonight and thought to myself, "Wow, I used to know goons like that back in high school". So whether they're packing a lip of Captains or speaking in an indecipherable South Boston accent, hockey players will always be the bane of my existence. But Slap Shot was a fuckin hilarious movie.

Reggie (Paul Newman) is the aging player/coach of the fictional minor league hockey team, the Charlestown Chiefs. The Chiefs suck and everyone in town is losing hope and interest. There is news that they will be disbanded after the season, so Reggie goes to desperate measures to ensure the team's security, mainly by revving the fans up with vicious fights.

You know a movie makes it to the big time when the Celtics use a clip from the film during the introduction of the team. Every game, Paul Newman is up on the jumbotron telling Celts fans to "get that fuckin stick in their sides!" And who knew Butch Cassidy could skate so well? What really makes Slap Shot a cult film, however, is the introduction of the Hanson Brothers. Three ugly sons of bitches, the Hanson brothers (not to be mistaken with the Hanson brothers of HmmBop fame) are goons that love nothing more then to knock over their opponents and drip blood from their scalps. They remind me of Sloth from The Goonies, ugly as hell with a heart of gold. They listen to Reggie coach and even repent for their thuggish style of play by promising to play like Eddie Shore. Their stupidity befuddles everyone and makes the audience laugh uncontrollably. At the heart of this movie is the the theme of defiance. Nobody on this team has a damn clue about anything. Nobody knows who the owner is, nobody knows who writes the checks, nobody even knows how to converse with their French goalie. And they apparently have no clue how to change the radio station because they listen to Maxine Nightingale on every bus ride. But when Reggie finally figures out that the mysterious owner is planning on breaking up the team, he roars into a frenzy and stands up for his dimwitted players. To Reggie, his players are the special children that he is forced to have unconditional love for.

I don't mean to rag on hockey players, especially those with no other aspirations in their lives, because I know a few that really are bright guys. Hell, I even know one going to Harvard. And I'm glad I can poke fun at them from behind a computer keypad because if I ever ran into one of them in person talking shit like this, well, I would probably get a stick to the face, groin, and kneecap. Thanks folks, night.

Wet Hot American Summer

Something tells me this review will only speak to a very small, very stingy contingent.

The summer camp genre of film is a very delicate genre. Unless you attended a summer camp, preferably one of the overnight and Maine persuasion, then you may not grasp the full context of these motion pictures. So I will try my best to give you a crash course in camp before we begin. Take 400 youths ranging from 5-15 and literally bash them together like an atomizer onto a piece of land not much bigger then the Stalag 17. Cut them off from the outside world for two months without any connection to the outside world (phones, internet, newspapers, carrier pigeons). A nuclear bomb could go off over Dallas and these kids would not hear about it unless the camp director deems a full camp meeting necessary. As the days go one, the boys and the girls can't be kept away. Well, the younger ones can be kept away from each other, but once they hit double digits, the older ones become intelligent and crafty. What some would call the predecessor to marriage, camp love blossoms and an explosion of adolescent lust showers over the population. If you aren't tubing with the Australian counselors at the waterfront, then you are behind someone's bunk making out. If you aren't making pinch pots for the 14th time at pottery, something else is getting pinched in the tech booth of the Rec Center. And anyone can get it, and I mean ANYONE. One of the most overused lines to describe camp love is "You could be a total loser at home, but at camp you are the world's greatest romancer". And then as soon as it all ends, so does your life. The one that got away, the Little Heartbreakers Club, and excruciating pain are all idioms for the destruction of camp romance..................................ok, here's the review for Wet Hot American Summer.

Set in 1981 at Camp Firewood in Waterville, ME (the ways camp should be made), Wet Hot American Summer tells the story of the last day of camp and the calamities that ensue as everyone rushes to find love in all the wrong and right places. Coop (Michael Showalter) is a lanky, pasty, pretty Jewish counselor hoping to woo the Jewish princess that is Katie (Marguerite Moreau). With half a dozen stories cutting in and out of each other at different moments in the movie, WHAS gives its audience the real belief that life at camp is never a dull moment.

I have a special place in my heart for this movie because it's director and co-writer David Wain is in fact an alumni of the very same camp I went to. And while it had been denied, I believe that I have seen similarities between Camp Firewood and my very own Camp Modin. WHAS does a great job of exploring the camp mentality, to a certain extent. While counselors do not take days off for the sole purpose of mugging old women and OD'ing on heroine, they do interact with each other in very casual ways and some very intimate ways. As a counselor, I have noticed the camaraderie and companionship that was displayed in the movie with my own co-counselors. And the campers, well don't get me started about them. Nobody can ever make an accurate depiction of Jewish youth at camp, but WHAS did a damn good job. Each camper is unique; each camper has as much to contribute to the humor and excitement of every day. One scene stands out especially, one where a portly camper named Moose lights his farts with a lighter. Everyone is cheering for him and yelling out his name. That sense of community, as stupid of an example it is, is the essence of camp. Yes you can have the copious amounts of makeout sessions and amateur handjobs (at best mediocre), but the friendships you make are the real kick in the nads.

My camp friends are some of the best friends I've got. They've seen me naked and I've seen them naked. We've taken part in things that would embarrass even the most loosely moraled of people. And why? Because we are young and impressionable and defining our sense of strong brotherhood. The memories you make today are the ones that stick. And not to creep anyone out, but after spending two months in my bunk a lot of things begin sticking to you.

Movies I would force Hitler to sit through IV

Deception pisses me off. When I walk into McDonald's, I expect a juicy, fully loaded hamburger that looks just like the ones in the commercials. Instead, I get something that resembles the droppings of Jabba the Hutt. I especially hate it when people say "tell the truth, it will make things a lot easier". Well, they fail to specify that it only makes things easier for them and really screws yourself over. So you can obviously understand my resentment towards movies that lie about their plots with their titles. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a terrible movie and in no way, shape, or form tells of any rise of any planet or any apes. Wow, I hate that movie.

James Franco has to be the strangest actor in Hollywood these days. He has been typecast as the hot guy (Whatever It Takes, Tristan and Isolde), the Rebel (James Dean, Flyboys), the Hero (The Great Raid), and more recently...the heavily drug induced (Pineapple Express, Howl, Tar). But ROTPOTA (excuse the abbreviation) doesn't seem to fit in any of those categories. Actually, Franco seemed very stoned in a few scenes.

Regardless of his state of consciousness during the filming, this was a bad movie. Dr. Will Rodman (Franco) is trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's by heavily testing on apes and chimps. After creating a special dosage of medicine and finding worthy results on one chimp, Caesar, Will takes Caesar home and raises him over the years until the chimp has become smart, physically fit, and perceptive. After a violent encounter with a neighbor, Caesar must go and live with other malcontent primates where he plots his revolution. This is where the supposed "rising" begins.

Jesus, Caesar! If you're going to have a revolution, follow through with it! Don't get to the damn Redwood forest and do nothing. Conquer some territory, exert your dominance. You're a fucking Ape that can talk! Go show it. That is why animals will never conquer humans; we don't get distracted that easily. But seriously, there was no rise of any planet. Caesar and his poop eating friends, if anything at all, made it easier for authorities to track him into the woods and unleash a volley hell. The aftermath would be very similar to that escape of tigers and bears and lions in Ohio, expect there would be more dead apes and less dead tigers. I wanted to see Apes knocking down buildings and flying airplanes, not merely throwing away guns of terrified CHIP officers. Eric Estrada wouldn't have backed down.

I hate holes in the plot, and I'm assuming every other audience member in the world hates them as well. That's why I would force Hitler to watch this movie. All 105 minutes of James Franco's squinting, Draco Malfoy's animal cruelty schpeel, and the numerous unfulfilled expectations. Ummm, can you smell sequel?

Michael Collins

March 17th rolls around and everyone is thinking the same thing. Regardless of skin color, religion, total annual income, and most importantly hair color, everybody wants to be Irish. There aren't many other holidays during the year where one would wish to be another ethnicity. I definitely don't see too many people rushing to the Synagogue every time Purim rolls around. Hamantaschen just don't bring in the goy like they used to. To feel Irish on Saint Paddy's day, however, is a unifying feeling, a glorious feeling, a where-the-hell-is-the-john feeling. Well, if it isn't St. Patrick's Day and you're looking for that feeling of pure Irish company, pop in Michael Collins and let Liam Neeson do the rest. (And yes, you could very well have that where-the-hell-is-the-john feeling because it is a long ass movie)

Ireland, in my ignorant mind, is known for two things: the IRA and witty remarks that can't be deciphered under the heavy brogue of drunken Irishmen. Luckily, Michael Collins has a heavy dose of both those topics. Set during Ireland's fight for Independence from Great Britain, the movie follows the trials and tribulations of.....wait for it.....wait.....wait.....Michael Collins! What a surprise! Collins (played by the Dad we all wanted, but are totally fine with the ones we have: Liam Neeson) was a rowdy, strategic Irish revolutionary whose actions ousted the English from Ireland, but unfortunately created the division between Northern Ireland and the Free State of Ireland. To this day, I still don't understand its history.

Neeson is fantastic. I would even be so bold to say he matches wits with my boys Morgan and Tim from Shawshank. As Collins, Neeson exudes a sense of passion for his country. He bellows and pumps his fists in the air. He wants to yell and persuade; he wants to tear up at every sentence. Hell, he's a regular John Boehner. But Liam doesn't tackle this movie all by himself. Mr. Aidan Quinn plays Harry Boland, another prominent member of the Irish resistance movement. His performance is just as riveting and just as emotional as his superior. The Neeson-Quinn dynamic is strangely romantic. There is an unconditional love for each other, no matter the distance they are apart from each other or the obstacles they face. And in their ever shifting alliances and unions with characters like Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts) or Eamon de Valera (Alan Rickman), they still remain eternally indebted to one another. Reminds me of my boys Tim and Morgan from Shawshank.

Michael Collins is a historical movie. Anybody who watches it can learn and be entertained at the same time. I've probably seen it six or seven times and it never gets old. It's a story of liberation and freedom, but it's also a story of friendship. And there is my connection between Michael Collins and St. Patrick's Day. Everybody needs friends, especially when they are passed out with their pants down and lying in their own puddle of sick outside the Ned Devine's Irish Pub in Faneuil Hall.

I'M BACK!