I like parties. Especially Hollywood awards parties.

Awards season is FINALLY here. Hooray! Here are my initial reactions to this year's GG noms.

1) TOM CRUISE FOR BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, MUSICAL/COMEDY.

2) The Batman thing.

In my humble opinion (which I will back up with data and boundless knowledge if necessary), the lack of Batman nominations for anything besides Heath Ledger is just evidence of the fact that even with Heath's awesome performance (which IS award-worthy), those in positions of award-voting authority are still biased against summer popcorn movies, even if those summer popcorn movies are completely badass and the best movie you've seen all year.

This kind of bias will probably be a barrier to Heath here and at the Oscars, but let's hope not.

3) Geez, how about those best actress categories? This will be one of the toughest years ever for the five Oscar noms.

4) I'm intrigued by the building buzz for Frost/Nixon. That'll be a damn good movie.

As for TV:

- Tina Fey is pretty much the biggest thing in comedy TV right now. I would not be surprised if 30 Rock wins best show, and Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin also bag their respective awards. 30 Rock was awesome when it began, and has only gotten better. I wish I could say the same about the Office (which I still love, but it's not the same deal).

- Mad Men is all over the place, and with good reason. If you have not started watching this show, do so immediately. I watched all but 2 episodes of season one in one sitting during a long, sleepless night in Phoenix. After about three episodes, I kept watching because I couldn't stop. Not because I couldn't sleep (though I still couldn't).

In conclusion:

This is a heck of a year for awards. There are no weak categories! Awesome.

Getting the Party Started

I'm going to call today the official start of the movie awards season (and jump start of this blog) with the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations this morning. You can find the complete list of nominees at IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/features/rto/2009/globes

The most notable omissions were in the Best Motion Picture, Drama category, which lacked The Dark Knight, and, perhaps more surprising, Milk.

I like to think this is simply because these are very "American" movies that the Hollywood Foreign Press didn't fully appreciate. But that is probably just wishful thinking. It seems unlikely now that The Dark Knight will be able to go the way of Lord of the Rings by breaking out of the shackles of its own genre. My research is a bit rusty, but the only Oscar best picture nominee that comes to mind that did not also receive a GG nom is The Shawshank Redemption 14 years ago. If that trend is bucked again this year, it will more likely be Milk that sneaks in (IMO).

I'll still keep rooting for The Dark Knight and, to be fair, I have yet to see any of the GG drama nominations, though I seriously doubt two (let alone all 5) of them will impress me more than TDK. In the meantime I'm forced to rest all my TDK hopes on Mr. Ledger bringing home the posthumous Oscar gold.

On the comedy/musical side, I have seen 3 of the 5 nominees - In Bruges, Burn After Reading, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. I have to say VCB is my favorite of these, but I still can't get over its obscenely gratuitous voice over. I sincerely hope (while equally sincerely doubting) there will be an option on the DVD to watch it sans the VO.

Not much else to say for the moment. I'm just really excited to be able to see some great movies, which, unfortunately are far too rare.

Damn it, I will get back into this; also, I watched Se7en and it was awesome.

Thoughts on movies:

1) I watched Se7en. My first copy died a terrible death about 1/3 of the way through the movie. It was at that time when I realized that Se7en is possibly the worst movie to stop in the middle of, ever. When I finally finished the movie a couple of days later, I figured out the ending about the same time Morgan Freeman did. Freaking amazing.

2) Things I need to see:
WALL-E - let's face it, anything touched by the hand of Steve Jobs, even if it's from a board room, is gold. Scratch that, it's platinum.

Wanted - well, maybe.

Batman - This movie will be ridiculously amazing. Buddies have insinuated that Heath Ledger's death/drugs were because he was so messed up from getting into character to be the Joker. The director said he is "terrifying." It's going to be fantastic.

Quantum of Solace - maybe. If it doesn't fall down the same hole as every single other James Bond movie except Casino Royale.

I'm sure there are things missing from this list.

For the love of all that is holy, get off 'Speed Racer''s back. Please and thank you.

I have been wanting to start writing again for oh, about the amount of time that it's been since my last blog post. And the unfounded criticisms that have made 'Speed Racer' a "eh, maybe when it comes out on DVD" movie to the general public have gotten me riled up so much that I had to post about it.

(Richie, this is not in response to the conversation that we had. Promise. I just should not read rotten tomatoes).

I saw the movie twice and was completely absorbed both times. The movie is funny, sweet and exciting. The visual effects are as good as in any movie, ever. Just different (and INNOVATIVE). And it's the best cinematography and film editing I've ever seen.

I went to Rotten Tomatoes to find out exactly what 'the experts' had complained about. Here are my responses to the first ones I found:

Diabetics need to be wary of Andy and Larry Wachowski's adaptation of the cult anime series Speed Racer. The big-screen version contains so much eye candy, you're liable to slip into a coma.
I'm sorry, is the complaint here that the visual effects were too colorful? They were very much so, but ... what did he expect?


This is not family time, it's boredom time. Whizz, whizz, whizz, yet another car zooms past and it's less exciting than building one from Meccano. Speed Racer is a snore.
Um... no. Did we not pick up on the race-fixing plotline? Speed's fight to keep racing a sport and not a business? His journey of self-discovery?

The ultimate problem is that this is a film based on a lousy cartoon from the '60s that can only be properly called a "classic" through the muddied lens of Boomer nostalgia.
Wow. Someone has a heart of stone.

At 134 minutes, Speed Racer throws so much color on the screen for so long, younger viewers (and even some not-so-young ones) will get worn out and want this ride to stop.
Wow, better make sure your kids don't see Willy Wonka, either. They might not like all the fun!

Provides all the hallucinogenic benefits of an LSD trip without any of the nasty side-effects
Still confused as to why sweet-ass special effects have to be in earth tones to be appreciated. This just isn't a valid complaint.


There's no thrill of victory and no agony of defeat here -- just more cars flying through the air...and cartwheeling before bursting into flames.
Again. Did we miss the plot?

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Seriously. What kind of complaints are these? "The special effects are too much?" What the hell did you expect from a futuristic movie about racing cars in exotic locations on impossible tracks? 'Speed Racer' made no secret about that.

The movie more than captured the spirit of the hilarious '60s cartoon. It took it to a whole new level. I think if the creators could have made it this way the first time around, they wouldn't have thought twice about it.

So, go see the movie. And remember, it's supposed to be fun.

A beef with Rotten Tomatoes

Today, huge nerd that I am, I wandered on to rottentomatoes.com and browsed their list of best reviewed sci-fi films ever. Their countdowns are unfortunately structured so that the user must go through the entire list backwards, one movie at a time. The quickest way to browse the list is to go by tens towards the front. Opposite of user-friendly.

Finally I got to the top ten. Wondering why Star Wars: A New Hope was so far down on the list (#9, behind Minority Report and Children of Men), I went to read the reviews. You have to be a pretty big cynic to give Star Wars a bad review, especially when in 1977 it was the coolest thing that had ever happened in a movie theater.

What I found was terribly disappointing. The reviews cited on Rotten Tomatoes do not include any from the original release! Instead, they are all prolific comments like "Classic!" There are bad reviews that claim triteness and shallowness... all from 1997.

I find a "Top Reviewed ________" list extremely less credible when it omits any period reviews from older movies and relies solely on jaded analysis of the DVD re-releases. Thoughts?

Save the cheerleader...

Despite the infamous tagline, Heroes is worth your time if you haven't already checked it out. It's hard to say anything without spoiling, so let me say this: some characters are lovable, others are scary, others can't decide which they are. I still don't know whose side some people are on.

I think I set a new record of general ridiculousness yesterday when I watched the (intense!) finale of Season One about 50 minutes before watching the premiere of Season Two live. It's going to be a complicated season, but that's part of what makes this show fun.

All I'm saying is, wtf happened to Peter?

I am officially the lamest blogger ever.

HOWEVER, I'm getting back on the horse, first of all by posting an arbitrary Office picture. John Krasinski with an iPod... it doesn't get any sexier than this.

It's been a long summer, and a long first month or so of school. I'm tired of movies not being a part of my life. So, a few short points of interest:

1) This is a convenient website: http://videoeta.com/ Damn you, Simpsons Movie, for not being released sooner.

2) Important forthcoming dates: Office Season 4 starts Thursday. Heroes Season 2 starts Monday. Those actually weren't so much dates but days. Oops.

3) I recently gained one tiny, tiny, tiny granule of respect for Grey's Anatomy, and that is because they name all of the episodes after songs. The two part episode called "The End of the World" and "As We Know It" is my favorite. So, think about a grain of sugar, and you now know the exact size of my respect for that show, which is bigger than it used to be, but very small indeed.

4) Today I rented "The Tiger and the Snow", one of Roberto Benigni's latest projects, naturally starring him and his wife and directed by him, also with an appearance by Jean Reno, whom we all know is a badass. It has a 6.9 on imdb, and since it's not a cult film I tend to be a little more trusting of their rating system. So although I am excited, I'm also a shade worried.

5) I'm writing this last one to keep myself honest. I need to post about Hairspray, which was hilarious, Heroes, which kicks ass, and Arrested Development, which might be the greatest thing to ever happen to Planet Earth, and I don't mean Prince's new album.