Moot Point

Grossest moments at “most international Oscars ever”:

William Monahan wins best Adapted Screenplay for The Departed. Voiceover: “He adapted it from the Japanese film Infernal Affairs.”*

Will Smith introduces Michael Mann’s montage of great American film moments, that show the greatness and diversity of America. One of the first clips is from The Immigrant, directed by Charlie Chaplin. (Who, hilariously enough, was exiled from America. For decades.)

…I am so over the Oscars. The only best-picture nominee I really liked was Little Miss Sunshine. The other losers were fine, but The Queen? Such a prestige-y Oscar movie. And you know, The Departed was a great time and all, but seriously? The best picture of the year was a pretty long remake? (Again, it was a good remake, a great genre film, I totally liked it better than The Aviator, but of course it came out good, there was such a stacked deck.) In 2006, Children of Men came out. Tristram Shandy came out. Shortbus came out. The Science of Sleep came out. I haven’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth yet, but you can tell from 30 seconds of the trailer that Del Toro is doing something new. Same with The Fountain, which was flawed, but it was gorgeously flawed, flawed with commitment. These were some exceptional movies. (There were also some great “big” Hollywood movies this year too: The Prestige? Stranger Than Fiction? Anyone? Let’s not even talk about Borat.)

I realize that I just wrote a “the Oscars are out of touch” cliche post. This makes me a curmudgeon, but you know in 20 years they’re going to look back and be like: why didn’t Children of Men win anything? And they will be right.

*Confidential to random commenter who didn’t leave a name or real email address and called me an ignorant American: I know it’s a Hong Kong film. Which is why I pointed out that they called it a Japanese film. Keep up!

Okay, I love troubled, troubled Logan on the TV show, but I am growing convinced that Jason Dohring, besides being a Scientologist, (and married, despite the fact that he’s like, Alex’s age almost exactly) is also kind of a dumbass. To wit:

What’s my favorite movie? Oh my gosh. I would say, I like, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest very much. I like, ah, Jerry Maguire very much. I like Crash very much. I think probably Crash though is like my favorite movie. It changed my life that movie. You see that movie and it starts out with all this racism and goes through to the end and that final shot man when, it’s like you come through all this and then these two people get in a car accident and he pulls back the camera to reveal and then they start doing the same thing all over again after all that stuff happened, I learned from that man. I didn’t even know that I had something to learn.

(Emphasis mine.)

Seriously, Jason Dohring? Seriously? Crash is not only one of your favourite movies, but it changed your life? Paul Haggis’s Crash. Changed his life. Paul Haggis. Creator of Walker, Texas Ranger.

For a brief, frantic moment, I was hoping he was talking about the Cronenberg one.

Also: Previous evidence. Again, he is a good actor and whatever, but his pop culture tastes are the epitome of everything I hate. (You can like Crash even and find it interesting, but don’t tell me it “changed your life,” cause, seriously? That makes you the kind of idiot spectator that I spend a bunch of time convincing myself doesn’t exist.)

In real life, this doesn’t matter, but it always makes me a little sad when I realize that if I met celebrities I like in real life, we would have absolutely nothing in common at all and I would most likely think they are horrible and pretentious. Continue Reading »

• I was looking up zombies on Wikipedia (for school, actually), when I saw this:

  This article is about the undead. For other meanings, see Zombie (disambiguation)

  I love the internet.
• Saw The Last King of Scotland this weekend. I mostly liked it, especially for a “white guy in Africa” movie. For one, it made great pains about how culpable the James McAvoy character in a) his own problems and b) the horrible things the Amin regime did to Uganda. Which I get is an attempt to make the Story of How Scary Idi Amin Was more relateable and sellable to a Western audience. The unfortunate part of that is that the actual locals in the movie are all seen through the eyes of this callow young doctor that basically sees this whole country full of actual, breathing people, as a source of (often sexualised) life experience. I guess the fact that Forrest Whitaker is so charismatic and powerful as Amin kind of also works against the “white guy as star” complaint. I mean, Idi Amin’s still portrayed as a really scary guy, but an interesting scary guy. You (the viewer) get drawn in just like Nicholas does.
• I kind of love this video of Tyra Banks responding to people criticizing her gaining weight. I don’t really love her (or her talk show, though the Naomi episode that was covered in the last Bitch), but it’s totally commendable and really powerful to confront her own weight issues and the idea that there’s something seriously wrong with it being okay to talk about women’s bodies that way. I mean, Tyra’s a really complex figure, media-wise: her public statements are always pro-diversity and embrace women of all sizes, but then on her other TV show, she subjects girls with low self-esteem to intense scrutiny and crazy standards. I mean, most of the time she seems kind of crazy, but I honestly think she means well.
• Oh man, Veronica Mars has been so good lately: I mean, you could complain that bringing Madison back to break up Veronica and Logan is weird, and Logan’s having slept with her isn’t particularly believable. To this I say a) Logan is the guy that organized bum fights, I don’t know why having sex with Madison is crossing some kind of line for him, and b) there’s something really inevitable about it, when you think of both characters. Veronica can say that it’s Madison, but in reality it’s just that it’s anyone. Well, anyone specific. Veronica can handle the idea that Logan slept with some gross girl when they were broken up, but she can’t handle the girl actually existing outside the abstract. And Logan? Logan will always do the thing that makes Logan as miserable as possible.
• So, am I the only person left watching Studio 60? Cause seriously. The “we’re locked on a roof, and this will help our burgeoning romance develop” plot? Seriously? Also the “your stalking me only proves to me how much you love me” plot? Which is not so much a cliche as downright offensive. It’s a shame, because there was some good stuff in this episode — namely, any scene involving Tom and Lucy (possibly TV’s cutest couple?…last time I said that it was Beaver and Mac, and you know how that worked out). Also: the long-awaited scene where Harriet finally gives Matt what-for! The part where she said that so many of his actions were “acts of cruelty disguised as cuteness” made me ridiculously happy. And “All those times I said I love you, do you think I was lying?” “Yeah.” I like that she finally showed some balls. Of course, this was followed by Jordan’s valdiating of Danny’s creepy stalking. And Darius validating Simon’s messiah complex, instead of Simon letting Darius, like make his own decisions about how he racially represents himself, and also have, you know, basic human dignity.
• I think I’ve currently sampled all the major fast-food breakfast sandwiches. It was hard, but it was For Science! Post to follow soon.