Oscar season is over for another year! We can finally return Academy Award fascination to its rightful place: as an area of interest to no-one but dandies, former Miramax executives, and overeager video store clerks with a script they'd love you to look at.
But the rest of us back here in the Real World still face one final hurdle: talking intelligently about the Oscars. You will only have to feign Academy Award expertise for a week, tops (or until there's a new Iron Man trailer to talk about instead), but that is a pretty tough week if you have a life! So when people ask you what you thought of any given aspect of the 2010 Academy Awards, here's what to say.
On the whole thing being fresh and new: The Oscars were a whole new ballgame this year! Waning in popularity, the Academy elected to reboot the franchise to return to the roots of what made people love watch Hollywood awards shows in the first place. So there were many things about the Oscars that you would never have seen before, and much of the dead weight would apparently be stripped away. The results were hit and miss...
On Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin's hosting: These dapper fellows brought multiple layers of quiet sadness to the proceedings. At first it was sad because here was Alec Baldwin showing once again his deft comic timing and merciless knack for self-parody, but Alec Baldwin has never historically been a guy you take all that seriously, so you get the feeling that the only person that really gets Alec Baldwin's horrible jokes at the expense of Alec Baldwin is Alec Baldwin. Meanwhile, Steve Martin has had classic roles, and you know this, because he brought them up in clumsy sequitirs between lame jokes. This leads to the deeper layer of quiet sadness, which was that the duo had terrible material to work with and delivered it terribly. At least we still have 30 Rock and... Martin's bluegrass records?
On the Horror Tribute: Every ceremony likes to spice things up with a tribute to some or other particularly deserving, overlooked, or overdue item of Hollywood fare. This year the stars of Twilight presented an extremely generous interpretation of the concept of "horror movies," applauding the genre for its unsung achievements in artistry, bankability, or a notably undefined point between the two. Though it's hard to reconcile claims that "horror hasn't been recognized since The Exorcist" with clips of Best Picture winner and debatable horror movie The Silence of the Lambs, the Academy managed to score by (a) giving shout-outs to Nightmare on Elm Street, and (b) minimal Saw content.
On Cristoph Waltz winning Best Supporting Actor: Once upon a time (in the 1990s), this sole sign of recognition for Inglourious Basterds would have been unthinkable. Loudmouthed indie mogul Harvey Weinstein, patron saint of Quentin Tarantino movies, was known for mounting the most aggressive campaigns in Hollywood on behalf of the talent in his stable. With the Weinstein fortunes fading - their studio, Miramax, closed its doors last year - the same no-holds-barred awards push was no longer possible, so it fell to Waltz to reap the paltry benefits of the Basterds awards push. It probably didn't hurt that he was phenomenal in the movie.
Randy Newman had nothing to do this year.
On the Musical Number: One of the biggest shake-ups in the all-new, all-improved Oscars 2.0 was the cutting of musical-style Best Original Song numbers. This is well and good (though if the Academy wanted to appeal to the Broadway crowd, they should have just pretended Crash never happened); but replacing them with a lengthy interpretative dance piece for Best Score? Next year just chain Randy Newman to a piano and have him perform the Original Song nominees - he's the only person who ever gets nominated anyway.
On the Speeches To Nominees: The two biggest problems everyone has with the Oscars are that they are overlong and self-congratulatory. So of course a section was added in which every single nominee was sycophantically saluted by a colleague, Because Hollywood Knows What You Want.
On Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges' Best Actor/Actress wins: Both actors benefitted from what's commonly recognized as the surest way to win an Oscar in Hollywood: by not winning an Oscar for many years. While Bridges' performance in Crazy Heart was universally acclaimed and Bullock's The Blind Side beloved by all seven of its viewers, the real work to justify their wins was in convincing the Academy that they'd been knocking about for long enough that they had it coming. This is also the logic by which Martin Scorsese won a couple of years back for the boilerplate The Departed, and pretty much the entire reason for Clint Eastwood's existence.
On the Avatar/Hurt Locker Showdown: It's hard to imagine James Cameron hurting too hard at losing both Best Picture and Best Director: besides winning a host of Nerd Oscars (editing and suchlike), the ceremony included effusive moments of praise for Avatar's grosses, as well as a strange moment where Barbra Streisand (??) proclaimed the picture "the most successful movie ever made". At face value, this would seem to indicate that not only was Avatar the greatest example of filmmaking by any metric, but it would continue to be so for as long as there were movies. So, bully for Cameron? Meanwhile Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman ever to win Best Director for The Hurt Locker, proving that the best way to break the chick-flick stereotype is to ignore it completely; and The Hurt Locker was warmly welcomed to the Academy's auric bosom by virtue of being the first Iraq movie not to totally tank.
They happen when you least expect it; in grocery stores, shopping malls and city streets. Crowds of people performing an unusual action and then quickly dispersing before you can even see what happened. You, my friend, have just experienced the phenomena known as "flashmobs". To refresh your memory of just how great they are, I've thrown together some interesting and unique flashmobs from around the world.
Japan
Although it initially debuted on a Japanese comedy show, this video is still considered a flash mob in my book. It seems as if the Japanese beat us to everything cool! While we're still doing 'freeze' flash mobs here in the US, Japan is already coming up with new and interesting ideas. Check out that guy at the end who gets his pants ripped! Poor guy didn't even know what hit him--they definitely don't mess around in Japan.
New York
For viewers interested in the more risque, take a look at the annual "No Pants Subway Ride" arranged by Improv Everywhere. Some of the looks on these peoples faces are priceless! The guy at 1:32 can't even keep his mouth shut. Probably the first time he ever saw so many women in underwear. It's a wonder they didn't all get ticketed for indecent exposure.
San Francisco
Bay area locals will be accustomed to this annual V-Day pillow fight that takes place in front of the Ferry Building. Tons of people gather to take out their valentine's day angst. While all you couples are sitting in nice restaurants flirting, the singles take out their frustrations on one another with pillows. Pretty soon people are gonna start filling their pillows with bricks.
Los Angeles
No one can rock gold pants better than this crowd, except for MC Hammer himself! Their dance moves were almost perfectly coordinated. It would be great to experience this, but I'd also be pretty pissed if those people standing on the merchandise table trashed my store.
Warsaw
I'm sure many of you see the parallels between this flash mob and the banned xbox commercial (see below), which makes it all the better. Even though this flash mob looks kinda corny in the beginning, it really redeems itself once everyone shoots and falls all over the place. The security guard must be totally confused. The banned xbox commercial can be seen here.
All of these flashmobs were organized by total strangers, who wanted nothing more than to have a bit of fun. These events make it possible to participate in unusual events without looking like a huge weirdo!
For those of you interested specifically in Zombie Flashmobs check out Iriemars' story about Zombie Crawls. Remember, if you ever feel like having a huge pillow fight, running around like a zombie (or maybe even roaming the streets with no pants for a while) be sure to check out the following flashmob sites below:
With the new Alice in Wonderland movie now hitting theaters, it's strangely peculiar that the remake of this classic children's novel is distributed by Disney, mainly because so much of what makes Alice so iconic is due to the original Disney animation which came out nearly 60 years ago.
There's such rich history to this fantasy world that so many people don't know about. So let me tell you a bedtime story, as I tuck you in. Thanks to the wonderful world of the web, I got some wondrous tales to tell.
1. The original book was actually called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The book is now 145 years old. By any standards, that's freakin' old.
2. There is actually a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, called Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Alice goes back to a fantasy world, but the book makes no reference to the original story. Many people assume that several characters from the second book actually are in the first one, like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, as well as the Jabberwocky, but they aren't. Tim Burton's latest film also madly mixes the storylines from both books.
3. There are now over 23 cinematic retellings of the book. The first Alice movie came out in 1903 and was a silent movie.
4. The original Disney film was heavily criticized by literary critics back in the day, which accused Disney of "Americanizing" a classic English novel. I wonder what Chinese people think of Mulan then... Anyways, the Disney film did not perform well at the box office when it first premiered, and it wasn't until much later that it started to earn the title of being a "classic."
5. You may have noticed that two actors in Alice in Wonderland always seem to show up in Tim Burton movies. Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the Red Queen, is married to Tim Burton. Johnny Depp, who plays the Mad Hatter in the movie, has now been in 8 Tim Burton movies. This includes Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, and Ed Wood.
6. Lewis Carroll wrote a condensed version of Alice in Wonderland in 1890 called The Nursery "Alice". It was "to be read by Children aged from Nought to Five." You can read the whole thing here.
7. In 1998, an original copy of the book sold for $1.54 million in auction. It is only one of 6 remaining copies left. At the time, it was the most expensive auction for a children's book ever.
8. One of the most critically acclaimed retellings of Alice in Wonderland comes from American McGee, which created a video game version of the character. A film was signed into development dating as far back as December 2000 (Wes Craven was even signed on board), but so far no movie has ever been made. In 2009, EA announced that American McGee is now working on a sequel to the game.
9. For all you video game fanatics - does the voice of the Cheshire Cat sound familiar? It's the same narrator voice in LittleBigPlanet, as well as the narrator in the the Harry Potter video games. That voice belongs to Stephen Fry. Stephen also played the Reaver in Fable 2.
10. The book has a long history of being perceived as dark and controversial. In drug culture, "going down the rabbit hole" is a metaphor for taking hallucinogenic drug. In the 30s, China banned the book because "animals should not use human language" and it "puts animals and human beings on the same level." You're trippin' like crazy, and China is flippin' crazy.
10/6. The Mad Hatter's riddle "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" has no answer. It wasn't until much later when readers wanted an answer that one was made up by Lewis Carroll. And you'll have to go and find out yourself if you want to know the answer!
It's been a good couple of years for zombies. They been infesting our videogames, comics and movies and we love them for it. The zombie has been around since as far as I can remember and I seem to have a thing for them. Whether it is a new movie or a zombie haiku book, I'm turned on like a zombie that smells brains. Clearly I'm not the only one. Some of these diehard zombie fanatics get together with the help of fan sites like zombiewalk.com and others, dress up in raggety outfits (or typical college attire, if you ask me), then hit the streets shambling up and down sidewalks groaning and moaning for the flesh of their victims.
These gatherings are known as zombie walks, marches, shambles, crawls or whatever else zombies have been known to do. Often times the zombies will march through crowded shopping malls, city streets and even subway stations. The earliest recorded zombie march was back in 2001 and took place in Sacramento, California to help promote a local film festival and quickly became an annual tradition. For the most part these events are well organized and planned out ahead of time. Because of this, these marches are not considered flash mob events. The largest zombie march gathering stands at 8,000 and took place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That number though has not been verified by Guinness World Records.
Run! Or walk rapidly because zombies are slow.
Can you imagine what it would be like if you were on your way to work with a coffee in one hand, your briefcase in the other while talking into your headset, when all of a sudden you turn a corner and there they are, a swarm of undead cannibals. Would you run? Would you try to save the little boy standing across the street staring at the undead curiously?
The undead even returned to their old stomping grounds when one organizer decided to have his mob of zombies hit the Monroeville Mall near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you’re a fan of Romero you’ll know that the Monroeville Mall was the set for one of the most beloved movies ever, Dawn of the Dead. Some of these walks try to freak innocent bystanders out even more by planting one of their members into to the crowd with the non-participants. What happens next is the zombies will begin to attack their casual looking member and turn him into a zombie in front of confused crowd. I'm surprised no one has shot a zombie out of sheer WTF.
Well at least the city is prepared
Mid-November 2009 saw another march in Australia. The purpose for a zombie protest was the rating system and the outrage over a censored Left 4 Dead 2. Gamers took to the streets dressed as the undead and headed to their Town Hall. Hopefully they left with the brains of their city officials in their bellies. Enjoy the following pictures.
Well it makes sense that he's present during the apocalypse
What a loving family. Call child services.
No clue as to why this dude is naked. Buts she's clearly not impressed.
Hm...I better leave this one alone.
These zombie marches are not only a fun way to spend a weekend afternoon, but interestingly enough, they also help raise awareness for certain issues just as food drives, and other good causes. See; zombies are not so bad after all. In fact the only part about these events that is actually scary is scaring off business’ customers. Last thing I want is blood on the squeeze cheese pump at 7-11.
