Glued to Movies

Giant Rip-Off at Oscars

2013-02-24T19:26:00.002-08:00

The incredible film Lincoln has yet to win an Oscar, despite being the best movie in years and one of the best of all-time. Pretty shallow. Shallow water in the kiddie's pool, Hollywood--kiddie's literally. What a disgrace the "Academy Awards" has become...

The Help Was Ripped Off

2012-02-28T11:49:00.000-08:00

Not only was The Help the best picture of the year, but I thought the Academy always liked important movies like this one. Movies that bare their soul and show the nitty gritty of what really happened rather than the glossed-over stuff you hear on Fox News and other media.

Unless I missed some of the minor awards, I only counted one Oscar for The Help and that's beyond absurd. Maybe they don't understand what African-Americans had to go through to realize some semblance of freedom in America. Or maybe they think that now that we have an African-American president that everything's fine now. It isn't and it wasn't. Poignant movies like The Help show the reality of the situation for blacks in the South--the blatant, ignorant racism that existed, not only back then but still to this day. Slavery has been officially over for a century and a half but that mindset still pervades and perverts some people even today.

The beauty of The Help is that it shows that, long after slavery, there is still the prejudice and an "attitude" that some people still have in America, no doubt because of the perpetual falsehoods and myths that have been passed down from generations. The Help is not just a great movie; it's an incredible movie, a distinction that makes it the "Best Picture" rather than The Artist. The Artist is a good movie but not an incredible one.

Years from now, it will be The Help and not The Artist that are available in special collections at the Library of Congress and in people's minds. The Academy blew it yet again.

Meryl Streep

2012-02-28T11:37:00.000-08:00

Meryl Streep of course has smashed the existing record for Academy Award nominations since she came along and that essentially is the topic of this post.

Streep finally was awarded an Oscar for her superb work in The Iron Lady. Now there is the inevitable talk that she is just one shy of the Best Actress record held by Katherine Hepburn. Now Kate Hepburn was a great actress to be sure, but she's nowhere near Streep, and it's pretty ridiculous that this is even discussed. But back in Hepburn's day, it wasn't all political like it is now--if you host a party or come to a popular party, you're going to win the award. Hepburn was awarded Oscars when she deserved them, unlike Streep.

I get the sense almost that the voters think "Well, Streep is nominated every year so I'm not going to give it to her--let someone else win it for a change." The problems with that are twofold: 1) Streep rarely wins because of that logic--she's only won 3 out of 19--that's less than 17% of the time she's nominated, a horrible batting average, and 2) You vote for someone because they deserve it; it should have nothing to do with how many times they are nominated.

The Academy already was shamed for not giving Streep the Oscar for Doubt

Streep's performance in Doubt was not only the best that year but one of the best acting performances of all-time and her achievement in The Devil Wears Prada was stellar as well. She got ripped off both times. Streep probably deserved it in Julie and Julia as well. So being behind Katherine Hepburn shouldn't even be an issue--Streep should probably have six or seven so far.

It's time that Streep is properly recognized as being quite simply the greatest female actress who ever lived. And it's not even close.

Complete List of 2012 Academy Award Winners

2012-02-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

Here are the awards presented at the 2012 Academy Awards:

Best Picture: The Artist
Best Actress: Meryle Streep for The Iron Lady
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer for The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer for Beginners
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Best Cinematography: Hugo
Art Direction: Hugo
Costume Design: The Artist
Makeup: The Iron Lady
Foreign Language Film: A Separation, Iran
Film Editing: Hugo
Sound Mixing: Hugo
Documentary Feature Film: Rango
Visual Effects: Hugo
Original Score: The Artist
Original Song: "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets
Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash for The Descendants
Original Screenplay: Woddy Allen for Midnight in Paris
Documentary (short subject): Saving Face
Animated Short Film: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Featured Sleeper Movie

2012-01-31T18:53:00.000-08:00

Life or Something Like It is a fun movie, but it has a great point, too. All the materialism that was built up in the 1980's championed by Ronald Reagan and Madonna did considerable damage--to individuals, to families, to society in general. This movie makes the point that materialism isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Angelina Jolie stars in this great film (don't get too freaked out that she has platinum blond hair in the movie) along with Edward Burns. Jolie is a reporter (Lanie Kerrigan) who dreams of climbing the ladder of success all the way to the top (in this case a prestigious network job). Burns (Pete Scanlon) plays a cameraman who places time with his son above work--I know, a little hard for some people to accept. While on a job to do a story on a self-proclaimed prophet, Jack (Tony Shalhoub), Jack predicts a football score but, towards the end of the interview also says that Lanie has one week to live.

As events unfold, Lanie begins to see things from an entirely different perspective, with the help of Pete. That is, until she gets a call to go to New York to interview the famous Deborah Connors, played by Stockard Channing. Pete, who allowed himself to get close to Lanie when he thought she had changed, now sees her reverting to her old self.

The movie is not only funny and entertaining (Prophet Jack adds a lot to the movie) but delivers an important and valuable lesson.

Great Movie! The Help

2011-12-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

My daughter had read the book The Help and suggested we watch the movie. I was very glad because it was very good--solid acting throughout and a very important movie.

The New Excuse for the Academy Awards

2011-12-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

It seems as if the Academy Award people have come up with yet another excuse to not give the most-deserving person the Oscar--they're too good. Every year, they nominate Meryl Streep, which is good, but then they say, well, we can't give it to her every year. The truth is that they have only "given it to her" one time. Once in her entire career!

If she's the best, and she often is, why can't she win it? Why not make the other actesses come up to her level instead of giving it to them when their performance is only second-best? Better to show what you can achieve when you put so much effort and dedication into your work that you become the greatest actress in cinema history. Which is what Streep has definitely done.

How was she not given the Best Actress for Doubt, for example, or Julie/Julia?

This is what people have against awards shows--they never give it to the right people, and thus, people are tuning out in record numbers. If those award shows want to recapture viewers, start giving the awards to the right people and not the person who hosted the best party.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Usually when a movie's hyped or has a good trailer, it doesn't live up to expectations. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one that holds its own.

The movie is done very intelligently. The acting by the human characters is good but not great but then, the movie's really about Caesar and how he leads his kind to freedom. And the man who plays Caesar is terrific. His facial expressions are amazing--you can tell that here is a chimpanzee with intelligence! The movie is well put together with great special effects. And it is all tied in to the original Planet of the Apes which starred Charlton Heston.

Without giving too much away, the synopsis of the story is that a researcher, whose father (played by John Lithgow) has Alzheimer's, believes that he has developed a medicine that will cure the disease. When it is tested on chimpanzees, it not only halts the brain deterioration but the chimps are more intelligent than they were before. One in particular, Caesar, whom the researcher takes home as a "pet", shows remarkable progress from the drug.

Caesar, of course, leads his fellow monkeys in an escape from captivity. How that happens, and the adventure along the way, is part of the fun of the movie.

I would rate this four popcorn bags out of five.

Match 3

2011-07-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

In this game, there are three columns to match. The first is a famous actor, the second column is a famous actress and the third is the movie in which both starred in. Match the actor with the actress in the movie in which they both appeared in. The answers are after the break and can be found by clicking at the link at the bottom of the post.

Actor:                               Actress:                    Movie:
Tom Cruise                    Helen Hunt               "As Good As It Gets"
Jack Nicholson              Jane Fonda             "The Thomas Crown Affair"
Dustin Hoffman              Barbra Streisand    "Vanilla Sky"                                                          Steve McQueen             Cameron Diaz        "The Electric Horseman"
Robert Redford               Faye Dunaway       "Meet the Fockers"

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz were in "Vanilla Sky"
Jack Nicholson was with Helen Hunt in "As Good As It Gets"
Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand were both in "Meet the Fockers"
Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway both starred in the original "The Thomas Crown Affair"
Robert Redford and Jane Fonda were in "The Electric Horseman"

Five Best Movies: Richard Dreyfuss

2011-07-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

Note that this Tab features the five best movies in which the star is in, not their Five Best Performances.

Whether it be drama or comedy, Richard Dreyfuss proved his versatility early on to do both extremely well. Honorable Mentions to "Mr. Holland's Opus", "Always" and "American Graffiti". Here are the ones chosen for his Five Best:

1. "Jaws"
2. "American President"
3. "The Goodbye Girl"
4. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
5. "Stakeout"

Career Movies: Paul Newman

2011-07-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

Paul Newman was one of the bright stars of his generation, one of the all-time legends. He starred in some of the best movies ever made, including "The Sting", "The Verdict", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Absence of Malice", "The Hustler", "The Color of Money", "Sweet Bird of Youth", "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" and "Cool Hand Luke".

The Silver Chalice (1954)

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

The Rack (1956)

The Helen Morgan Story (1957)

Until They Sail (1957)

The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

The Left Handed Gun (1958)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958)

The Young Philadelphians (1959)

From the Terrace (1960)

Exodus (1960)

The Hustler (1961)

Paris Blues (1961)

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962)

Hud (1963)

A New Kind of Love (1963)

The Prize (1963)

What a Way to Go! (1964)

The Outrage (1964)

Lady L (1965)

Harper (1966)

Torn Curtain (1966)

Hombre (1967)

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968)

Winning (1969)

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

WUSA (1970)

Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)

Pocket Money (1972)

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

The MacKintosh Man (1973)

The Sting (1973)

The Towering Inferno (1974)

The Drowning Pool (1975)

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976)

Slap Shot (1977)

Quintet (1979)

When Time Ran Out (1980)

Fort Apache the Bronx (1981)

Absence of Malice (1981)

The Verdict (1982)

Harry & Son (1984)

The Color of Money (1986)

Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

Blaze (1989)

Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Nobody's Fool (1994)

Twilight (1998)

Message in a Bottle (1999)

Where the Money Is (2000)

Road to Perdition (2002)

Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005) (voice)

Cars (2006) (voice)

Mater and the Ghostlight (2006) (voice)

The Insider Starring Al Pacino & Russell Crowe

2011-06-28T17:47:00.000-07:00

Saw "The Insider" again last night. Every time I see it, it gets better. Just a great human interest drama with superb acting about an event that is one of the biggest and most important of our lifetimes. I don't know how much of the true story was change for the movie but what they put together was incredible. Christopher Plummer is another of the key stars (plays Mike Wallace).

African Cats

2011-05-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

Just saw "African Cats", the third Earth Day feature. Last year, "Oceans" was the project. It was a bit disjointed but offered spectacular underwater footage. This year, the scene was the savannas of Africa and this time, the movie followed several stories to a common conclusion. Again, wonderful photography observing animals in their natural state. Make no mistake--there was no "relaxing" for the animals of Africa for a predator was always near. It really makes you appreciate the beauty of God and His wonderful plan. I would think twice about bringing young children (I would think at least 10 or so) because of the attack scenes involving animals that the children will no doubt love.

Charlie Wilson's War

2011-05-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is a very important movie for Americans to see. Great acting from Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams. There's a very important message at the end.