I dream a dream of how Oscar should be...

The Oscar Post

I've always had a love/hate relationship with the Academy Awards. It is a lot of build up and then with a sigh of relief from the old men who live for the tradition of Oscar night, a bunch of beautiful people watch the favorites win. Sure there are occasional times where an underdog pulls it off but most of the time we watch the Oscars for the outfits and can easily call out the winner. So I've decided to give some naked bald men with swords to some of the deserving people this year. Maybe not the ones who will actually win but some who actually deserve to. Call this my "I wish I chose the Oscars." You may notice that some of the pictures and actors on my list are not nominated. I don't necessarily go by the man's Oscar nominations. This is simply the list of my favorites from last year.  Let's Begin with the Best Picture of Last Year.

Best Picture

Argo

This one will probably win the actual Oscar and it deserves it. The Academy could decide to honor Lincoln because it has all the glamour Steven Spielbergy goodness that people are comfortable with. Here's the problem. Argo was a great movie. A combination of thriller, comedy and spy epic. Not to mention that it was a true story. I will give you a moment to pause at the horrible hair and awful leisure suits but hey, it was the 70's. Everyone thought that looked good. Yet another reason why kids of my generation can safely not pay too much attention to what our parents think of our clothes. Argo recreates a time and traumatic event in our history and makes it a truly fun adventure. It truly was the best picture of last year. Life of Pi can suck it. 

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook

It is one of those years that the Best Actor category was decided the moment Daniel Day Lewis decided to be in a movie. He is a great actor and I loved him in There Will Be Blood but seriously this guy could read the phone book and people would call it the greatest performance from A-Z. I just wish that Bradley Cooper had a chance here. His portrayal of a mentally disturbed man trying to reclaim his life and wife was perhaps the bravest performance of last year that was not Helen Hunt hanging her naked body out there. Whether he is in gold like Silver Linings Playbook or The Hangover, Cooper brings the goods. He has crapped the bed a few times (did anyone see that one where he banged Uhura and stole some guys book?) and his good looks probably play against him a bit. Regardless of what My Left Foot says, a performance this good deserves to be recognized.

Best Actress

Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook

I love this girl. From her feisty performances to her stunning looks, Jennifer Lawrence is a talent that will not be going away soon. From playing Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games to this performance as an equally broken woman looking to break through to Bradley Cooper, she broke my heart. I could see the pain, happiness, and sadness throughout this picture. Her energy lifted Cooper, DeNiro, and even Chris Tucker to Oscar worthy performances. She is such a refreshing person too, not being overly careful or trying to be the role model for the world. She had a performance worthy of gold this Sunday and I know the sexy pick is Jessica Chastain but her role in Zero Dark Thirty consisted of staring moodily and writing on windows. Lawrence's Tiffany is multi-layered and someone you want to root for. Romantic comedies are rarely recognized by the Academy and I believe they might of missed this one too had it not been for the cast and director. Lawrence steps up to the greats in the business and shows why she is one.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Samantha Barks - Les Miserables

I know what you are saying. Wait who the hell is that? You must have meant Anne Hathaway, right? Nope. I loved Anne Hathaway's performance as Fantine in Les Miserables and her performance of I Dreamed a Dream pretty much won her the Oscar from the moment she recorded it. I just wanted to point out what I believe to be the better performance. Samantha Barks is a relatively young actress and this was her first major role. She played Eponine, the daughter of the innkeeper and the heartbroken girl in love with Marius. Her performance of On My Own still brings me to tears. She had played the role before but that doesn't matter. I've always thought that the best supporting actor/actress plays the role and services the movie. Her story in Les Miserables is the definition of misery. In love with a boy who doesn't see her, she helps the boy find the girl he does love and then sacrifices herself to save him, dying in his arms completely at peace with her life. Barks was so powerful in her portrayal that I kind of resented Amanda Seyfried's Cosette. I'm not saying Anne Hathaway doesn't deserve it but, for me, Samantha Barks stole the show.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Samuel L. Jackson - Django Unchained

I just don't get it. Christoph Waltz is great in Django but he is basically playing the same role as he played in Inglorious Basterds except he was a good guy. Alan Arkin is great as the same character he played in Slums of Beverly Hills. Tommy Lee Jones plays a grouchy man with weird hair in a tour de force performance. Of the group of them, I would choose Robert DeNiro but I am writing Samuel L. Jackson's character in. From the moment he comes onscreen in Django as the house slave of Candieland, he commands the movie. His lines are so perfectly delivered and his role is the crux upon which the entire back half of the movie is set. He is the puppet master of the movie without which the movie would not have been as good. Sure, he uses colorful language and taboo words in a movie when saying the N word was not only acceptable but the norm. I wish Samuel L. Jackson could've been nominated. Not because the other performances were bland or lifeless but because in the movies this year, I cannot find a better supporting performance.

Best Screenplay - Adapted

The Hunger Games  

Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray

To make a movie from a beloved book is hard. See the Twilight movies. They did a good job and still the movies pale to compare to the books. I'm not saying Twilight is literary gold but the movies are so just the essence of what the books told. So I could have gone with Argo or Silver Linings Playbook but I wanted to go off book here and give credit to what I tweeted (follow me at @MrUnhappy1331) was the best movie adapted from a book since The Godfather. Not small praise but I truly believe it. When I went to the theater, I expected the Twilight version of the book and instead was treated to a great version of the book that made me smile and laugh and cry. The Hunger Games would never be nominated in this category because it is considered a young adult movie and it has more than one writer. I think the latter makes the movie even more impressive. A collaboration of three writers brought the best adaptation of a novel I've seen in a long time. 

Best Screenplay - Original

Looper 

Rian Johnson

I can't believe this didn't even get a token nomination. It was, by far, the most original idea in theaters this year and mainstream enough to get noticed. I don't get it. Is it the sci-fi thing? I'll be honest that I was tempted to say Safety Not Guaranteed in this category. Between them, time travel movies have a lot more credibility. Looper just stands out because people saw this movie and then failed miserably in choosing movies. Django is great but still probably not the best screenplay of last year. Flight was a great dissection of alcoholism and riveting but was it the script or that impressive crash sequence? Moonrise Kingdom is Wes Anderson doing Wes Anderson again. Zero Dark Thirty...isn't that adapted from the real life hunt for Osama Bin Laden? Looper takes an idea, the mob using time travel to kill people in the past, and asks questions about real life. Science Fiction is always looked at as though they are the dirty little side show freaks of the movie world. The hobo living at the freak show is a horror movie which will never be nominated. I think it is high time that people take off the blinders and look at science fiction for the entertainment and storytelling it has and not the fancy gadgets or futuristic stories. Looper is one of the best movies made last year and it should have been nominated if not the winner. I know it isn't about an old couple who love each other but come on Amour? Really?

Best Director

Ben Affleck - Argo

I know I am going out on a limb here by saying that the best director of the year was the director of the best picture. I swear the Academy is so damn fickle about who they nominate. Sure Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg are great filmmakers but that doesn't mean Ben Affleck isn't. What Ben has done since starting to direct his own pictures is raise the bar for all directors. Gone Baby Gone was a masterpiece, The Town was a crime movie on par with The Godfather, and Argo is one of the best political thrillers I've seen. How does that not get him an invitation to the big boy table? It's ludicrous. Why is Amour's director even up for this when we all know that movie will win Best Foreign Film? He will be celebrated. Ben Affleck raised the bar of directors this year. It is a shame that he won't be honored for that. Even the Oscar lovers are crying foul on this one. Come on Academy. I know that Steven and Ang and David O. Russell made great films but to have a movie poised to win all the major film awards and fail to even be nominated for Best Director at arguably the most prestigious American film awards, it saddens me. Ben Affleck got screwed. He was and is the Best Director this year. Live with it.

****

This year's Oscars seem like they will be a bit ho-hum. I just wish they would step out of the box a bit. Even Seth McFarlane as the host seems tacked on to create young audience buzz. I will watch them, something I didn't do last year and I will probably not be surprised by the results. Just for shits and giggles, here are my picks from movies that were actually nominated or who I think will actually win:

Best Picture- Argo

Best Director- Stephen Speilberg

Best Actor- Daniel Day Lewis 

Best Actress- Jessica Chastain

Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Anne Hathaway

Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Christoph Waltz

Best Animated Film- Wreck It Ralph

Best Foreign Picture - Amour

Adapted Screenplay - Life of Pi

Original Screenplay - Zero Dark Thirty

Let's see how I do.

And I swear to God if that little girl from Beast of the Southern Wild wins Best Actress, I may slap someone. Not that she doesn't deserve it but because it will be the Academy trying to be cool. Stop it. You are not cool. Sit in the front of the classroom and always raise your hand. Enjoy the show!

Diamonds in the Netflix Queue

When I was first unemployed ( a problem I have since remedied and is the reason why my blog posts come in fits and starts)  one of my favorite things to do was to go through my Netflix Instant Watch and find a movie that I have never heard of and watch it. Sometimes it was good and sometimes I was so bored that it helped my insomniac head sleep. Then I met a girl who could keep me up nights talking and doing other less blog friendly things and that past time went away a bit. Oh sure when she broke my heart (a problem I have not remedied and don't see being remedied unless she has a change of heart), I went back to my old mistress the strange...movies. I loved watching independent and smart thrillers, cheesy comedies, splattery horror and even a documentary or two. Nothing like A Inconvenient Truth or something worthwhile like Super Size Me. No I went for the Paul McCartney Really is Dead and The Iceman Interviews. Through it all I found a certain joy in looking at a movie I had not heard about and seeing if it was worth it. 99 percent of Independent movies fall into the horrible/pretentious category. Yet there are always a few diamonds in the rough that just got lost in the hustle and flow of the movie business. I'd like to review the latest batch of movies that I watched. Not all of them are good but maybe by giving a good review to some, you will go see them and perhaps by telling you which belong as a way to help the insomniac find slumber. So here are a few movies you should see...and one I just couldn't get into.

Mystery Team

Donald Glover stars as the leader of a Hardy Boys/Encyclopedia Brown group of junior detectives that run around and solve mysteries in their small idyllic town. When the kids were still children, the town hailed them as heroes. Now as they near graduation, their obsession with who stuck their finger in Mrs. McGillicuty's  pie seems childish and sad. This movie is a study in delayed adolescence. The Mystery Team consists of Jason, the Master of Disguise who is rarely disguised. Duncan, The Boy Genius, who memorized a book of random facts as a child. The Last member of the Mystery Team is Charlie, the strongest kid on the school yard. Jason believes that the Mystery Team really just needs one big case to break them out of funk they've been. That is when a double murder happens down the block and the 10 year old daughter of the murder victims pays the Mystery Team their 10 cent fee to find the ring the murderers stole. It leads the Mystery Team on an adventure unlike anything they've ever seen. This movie is funny, smart and takes itself seriously. There is a good mystery, a good adventure, and it awakens the old memories of running around as child trying to solve big crimes. Was I the only one who did that? Donald Glover is great as a man-child awakening to the world around him, Ellie Kemper is fabulous in a small role ( I keep waiting for her breakout performance to come) and Aubrey Plaza is great as the daughter of the murder victims just trying to keep her family from falling apart. The Mystery Team is one of those fun, joyful "R" rated comedies that makes the inner kid in you feel good, in a non catholic priest kind of way. 

Mr. Unhappy sez: The Hardy Boys meets American Pie... except with far more subtle comedy. It may not be for everyone but if you don't get it you need a funny transplant.

8213 Gacy House

I've been on a found footage bender and I don't see me getting off anytime soon. Gacy House is one of those movies that is so bad it is probably good. A group of paranormal investigators go to John Wayne Gacy's house to awaken the spirit of the clown dressed serial killer. In typical shaky cam fashion you are thrown for a loop as the investigators are. Cameras are knocked down, people get hit by an unnatural force and one screamy girl looses her shit and needs to go out to the van to get away.The ghost predictably does not allow her to escape his wrath in the back of a van all by her lonesome. It was as though I was watching a Friday The 13th movie where everyone pairs up and then proceeds to wander off alone to be picked off like the sad little cattle they are. There is literally a scene where two of the "investigators" take time off to have sex in one of the rooms where the cameras went down. Come on kids, watch a horror movie once and awhile. I like these kinds of movies because while you can be scared, you are mostly just frustrated by the teenagers inability to recognize danger. 8213 Gacy house takes the kind building atmospheric fear of the found footage movie and adds the yelling at the screen anger of a slasher movie. Don't go into this movie expecting the Citizen Kane of horror movies and just enjoy the ride. Gacy House has enough scares and enough fun to make it worth your while.

Mr. Unhappy sez: If I'm ever hanging out in a serial killers house, I'd try not to piss off the serial killers ghost....but that's just me.

Paranormal Incident

The great thing about Netflix is that when you watch a horrible horror movie, when the credits start, you get directed to "Other films you may enjoy". This is what happened here. Gacy House ended and up pops the above poster of a buxom beauty pressing her chest to a window and it says Paranormal Incident. This is not to be confused with Paranormal Activity or Paranormal Entity or ParaNorman or Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Nights. Those movies are completely similar...with the exception of ParaNorman. This movie is about a group of paranormal investigator college students who go to the haunted Odenbrook Sanitarium to poke at the ghosts of mental patients. Seems like a good idea. The movie is told in flashback through found footage. There is just one survivor after the weekend at the sanitarium and he is pleading his case that he did not kill his friends. He locked them in the sanitarium and he went back in and tried to scare them but it was the ghosts that killed his friends. The fun in this movie comes quite unexpectedly by the explanation that the movie was filmed over the home movies of one of the characters. So brief moments of what was previously recorded (a sex romp with one of the other students) keeps popping up throughout. It would be the most frustrating porn to watch as it is intermixed with moments of the students doing the school project. I wonder what their professor would have thought if he had been able to watch their final project film. The ending to the movie takes a bit of a u-turn and then you wonder exactly what is going on but you don't really care. I can't say this is a gem but it is entertaining. It only received a 2.5 out of 10 stars on IMDB but that seems a bit harsh for me. To quote Method Man from Garden State "Who here just saw some titties?!" So calm down and stop being so damned critical.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Can we just say that none of us is going to go to a sanitarium and poke at ghosts with sticks? Can we?

Primer

I was listening to Smodcast the other week and Kevin Smith was interviewing Rian Johnson. He is the director of The Brothers Bloom, Brick and Looper. All great movies and the stories he tells are always interesting. So when he mentioned to Kevin that he should see the movie Primer, I was up for the adventure. Primer is a time travel adventure about two guys who accidentally make a time machine and begin going forward in time to make money. Unfortunately the movie is bogged down in a endless mire of talking moments about what the box does in the most technical terms possible. I read a article on the movie that explained that the director did not want to dumb down the movie for the audience. To that I say, mission accomplished. I only got 45 minutes into it and still the only thing that appears to have gone back in time is a Russian nesting doll. Good lord it was an exercise in staying awake during this movie. I didn't understand half of the jargon and science in the movie but that has never been my strong point. They did mention something to the effect of what the machine Ben Affleck made in Paycheck did but I don't know I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it was too cerebral for me. So if you want to test your intelligence and understanding of physics by all means, see Primer. I just didn't get it, I might revisit it to see if it gets better as time goes along. It just bored me. That happens. You can't win them all.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Primer made me feel stupid. Fuck Primer. Just kidding, Rian Johnson liked it...maybe you will too. I'd just prefer to watch Brick or Looper instead. 

Amber Lake

Amber Lake is an interesting story. It starts with the discovery of a body out on Amber Lake. The body is of a psychologist who had initiated a reunion with his 3 estranged daughters, all named Amber. The question of guilt is quite obviously one of the Ambers. Thus begins the telling of three versions of events the day before. There was definitely an incident in town but what happened after the "family" returned to the cabin on Amber Lake. All of the stories are similar but cast a shadow of doubt on a different sister. The town Sheriff is tasked with figuring out who did the deed and arrest the killer. It is a bit of the mystery but by midway through the movie I had a decent understanding of what happened. The final twist because in a movie like this, there has to be a twist, is exciting and unexpected, at least for me but we've already shown with Primer that I am an idiot. I liked the movie because it was quick and interesting. While the story often retold parts you've already seen, I was never bored with the repetition. The Ambers were especially fascinating. Each girl grew up with a different psychological problem. I thought that each Amber may have been the Id, Ego and Superego of one Amber. Maybe that was the initial intent. Yet this movie surprised me and kept me interested. I never hovered over the pause button to turn the movie off as I am know to do when doing an experimental watch. For me, that might as well have been a 4 out of 5 star review.

Mr. Unhappy Sez: The Ambers stories are often sad but the tales told are very bold.

I cannot say that I am a great judge of movies. In fact, some of you would probably say that I am a bit of a idiot when it comes to this stuff. I have a love of movies though. If a movie can keep me watching and entertain me, depress me, make me laugh, or make me cry, I will recommend them to you. Check them out for yourself. They are, at the very least, interesting for a boring rainy day watch.

another found movie...

Amber Alert

I've become a bit weary of watching found footage movies and yet when I go to one I am instantly sucked into the film and want to see where it goes. Yeah yeah yeah shaky camera, whiny girl, annoyingly unsupportive boyfriend, movie ends with a camera falls to the floor but you can't really understand why the y are still filming. The movie that started all this phenomena (to the extent it is now, there certainly were shaky cam found footage movies before) was The Blair Witch Project. It began as an ad campaign that set the world to thinking. Could someone release footage of a crime? Could they release footage that proves that someone died? In the end of Blair Witch, we are left to ponder the questions and the filmmakers quite ingeniously played on our fears of watching a truly horrific scene unfold before us as "found footage." I don't pretend to get us but as much as watching real lives end in The Bridge horrified me, so does the found footage movie. It taps into a need that we all have to see the head of some poor accident victim rolling down the highway as we drive past. We don't want to look but we cannot stop. 

     I came across this latest movie "Amber Alert" while looking through trailers on Hulu. The idea messed with my head and by the time it was all over, I had paused it a few times because I didn't want to scream out. To see this in a movie theater would have had me curled in a ball at the bottom of my seat. I just couldn't look away and yet I wanted to. The movie which stars Summer Bellessa and Chris Hill as two friends who want to sign up for an Amazing Race type show. They are in the process of filming their audition tape when they notice an Amber Alert. For those of you not familiar with the Amber Alert, it is a system that alerts drivers to possible abductions and the cars the suspects were last seen driving. So Sam (Bellessa) and Nate (Hill) are driving to an adventure when they see the car from the Amber Alert signs they've been passing. I found myself wondering exactly what I would do. I would call the police, that much is sure but does your responsibility end there? Sam and Nate decide that they will follow the car until the police arrive (giving constant updates to the cops). The movie slows a bit here and you can see the whining and needless arguments between the two friends. Sam cannot fathom letting this car out of their sight while Nate recognizes that they are not the police and probably cannot do anything to stop. There is a bit of a mention that Nate probably has feelings for Samantha but the story is not fully explored. It does however lend credence to why Nate goes as far as he does.

Amber Alert does raise the question as to how far I would go? I'd like to think I'd follow the guy for as long as I could and intervene if given the option. Yet there is a part of me that would simply not want to get involved. It is probably a custody battle gone too far, I'd tell myself. I would report it to the police and hopefully they would come to take down the kidnapper and all the little girls and boys would be safe and sound. The police are definitely not at their finest here. They seem to be completely clueless and non responsive. I doubted seriously if someone called in a Amber Alert if the police would be so lackadaisical when responding. They would swarm the freeway and the citizen reporting it would not have to make a decision as to the length of their involvement. Justice would be served, danger averted. I am man enough to know that I am not Shemar Moore and I cannot slam a grown man to the hood of a car and hold them until the police arrive. What can I honestly do? So I would hope that the police were on their game and could respond. I understand though that the pretense of the movie demanded that Sam and Nate be the only help this girl had coming. Otherwise the movie would be a rather boring affair. The car is spotted, police arrest bad guy, little girl avoids being diddled in the basement of a surprising large ranch home in Arizona. 

Amber Alert is not a movie for someone who cannot suspend their disbelief a little and enjoy the ride the movie literally takes you on. There is not a lot of jump out of darkness, cat runs across the piano, jolting scare moments. Amber Alert is a movie where you yell at the screen and plead for them to not be so stupid. I read a review after watching this movie and it mentioned that the main characters where two of the stupidest people they've ever seen. I'd offer that if you've spent any time watching horror movies that the characters in horror movies do not come from the smarter side of the gene pool. Sam and Nate are just as valid as the camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake who keep trying to reopen when Jason and his Mom keep showing them why they should stay away. I'd even give them more of a valid excuse for their actions. They want to help and save a little girl who has been abducted by a bad man. Isn't that something you would aspire to? See this movie if you like found footage films. If you don't, then don't. 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Bad people who kidnap little girls need to be caught...hopefully by the police and not Sam and Nate.

If you are interested this movie is available for rent on Amazon.com