TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES - Official Trailer (2014) [HD]

So the trailer for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came out. There is a lot to be excited about here. First, they are mutants and are built like Quasimodo. April O'Neil is dressed in yellow. Um...ok, I am stretching to find awesome thoughts about this. William Fichtner is kind of maybe the Shredder? So Michael Bay has attempted to rebuild his image after ruining Transformers for a generation (and if you see Mark Wahlberg in the new movie, the joke is on you my friends) by attempting to ruin another childhood favorite of mine. I try not to swear too much on here but fuck Michael Bay. Fuck him in his cock garbled mouth. The man couldn't even make a speech on film making without a teleprompter. I don't want to crap on the movie. It can be good. Maybe it will redeem Michael Bay and Megan Fox. There is at least one thing I can say that gives me hope. There is no Shia LaBeouf. That's about it. I want to say that there is a lot to be excited about. The turtles look like they can kick ass but it comes down to the Bay of it all. 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Transformers looked cool in the trailers too. Then Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf came along and shit the bed. Chances are...Michael Bay will pull horribleness from something that should be awesome. It is his way.

Unhappy's Oscar Picks...

I like the Oscars...the pageantry, the speeches and the emotions. It is the dream of every young person in the film business to win an Oscar. So I thought I would dole out the Oscars both as I feel they should be given and how I think they will be given...some are just best guesses. I didn't watch the short films or the Documentaries. I just didn't have the time but I'll pick them just to be consistent.

Based on Actual Nominated Films

Best Picture- 12 Years a Slave

Best Actor- Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actress- Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine

Best Supporting Actor- Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club


Best Supporting Actress- Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave

Best Director- Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity

Original Screenplay- Her - Spike Jonze

Adapted Screenplay- 12 Years a Slave - John Ridley

Film Editing- 12 Years a Slave - Joe Walker

Cinematography- Nebraska - Phedon Papamichael

Production Design- The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin and Beverly Dunn

Animated Feature- Frozen


Animated Short Film- Mr. Hublot

Documentary Feature- Dirty Wars

Documentary Short- Facing Fear

Live Action Short Film- The Voorman Problem

Foreign Language Film- Omar - Palestine

Costume Design- American Hustle - Michael Wilkinson

Makeup and Hairstyling- Dallas Buyers Club - Adruitha Lee and Robin Matthews

Visual Effects-  Gravity - Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk, and Neil Corbould


Sound Mixing- Gravity - Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead, and Chris Munro


Sound Editing- Gravity - Glenn Freemantle


Original Score- Saving Mr. Banks - Thomas Newman

Original Song- The Moon Song - Music by Karen O , Lyrics by Karen O and Spike Jonze

What Mr. Unhappy sez should've been...

Best Picture- Her

Best Actor- Michael B. Jordan - Fruitvale Station

Best Actress- Judi Dench - Philomena

Best Supporting Actor- Sam Rockwell - The Way Way Back

Best Supporting Actress- June Squibb - Nebraska

Best Director- Spike Jonze - Her


Original Screenplay- Her - Spike Jonze

Adapted Screenplay- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Simon Beaufoy, Michael Arndt, and Suzanne Collins

Film Editing- 12 Years a Slave - Joe Walker

Cinematography- Nebraska - Phedon Papamichael

Production Design- The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin and Beverly Dunn

Animated Feature- Frozen


Animated Short Film- Mr. Hublot

Documentary Feature- Dirty Wars

Documentary Short- Facing Fear

Live Action Short Film- The Voorman Problem

Foreign Language Film- Omar - Palestine

Costume Design- American Hustle - Michael Wilkinson

Makeup and Hairstyling- Dallas Buyers Club - Adruitha Lee and Robin Matthews

Visual Effects-  Gravity - Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk, and Neil Corbould


Sound Mixing- Gravity - Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead, and Chris Munro


Sound Editing- Gravity - Glenn Freemantle


Original Score- Nebraska - Mark Orton

Original Song- The Moon Song - Music by Karen O , Lyrics by Karen O and Spike Jonze

The back end of both are pretty much the same because I was mostly guessing. We'll see how I do tomorrow on the real ones but Mr. Unhappy picks are the ones that have already won...in my heart. Jesus that was sappy and pathetic.  

Best Picture Part 10: Best Picture of the Best Pictured Films

As I wrote the reviews I did for the 9 Best Picture contenders for the Academy Awards show tomorrow, I was stuck by a kind of odd fact. As much of a movie fan as I am, I have never seen all the Best Picture nominees before. Whether there were five or 10, I had never watched them all yet I always had opinions on which movie deserved the award. I can remember quite vividly that I was incredibly upset when Forrest Gump won all the awards that should have rightfully gone to Pulp Fiction. Then, well after the awards, I sat down and watched Forrest Gump and I had to admit (God Damnit) that it was a great movie and deserved of all the celebration. Still I had never seen them all in any given year. I’ve come very close a few times through the years. This year I made a vow to see all 9 before the Oscar broadcast. I barely made it, but I did see all 9 of them. I came to a odd but certainly not unexpected result. The 9 motion pictures nominated were all great movies. Yet there can be only one winner so I have to break them down one more time and choose a winner. Hence Part 10: The Showdown of the Best Pictured...

I will count them down... as I see them... in order of most unlikely to the eventual Best Picture.


9. Nebraska - While a fine movie, which highlights the bothersome time in your life when you grow old and people stop trusting you can take care of yourself, Nebraska just doesn’t have the juice to win this race. In a tightly packed race, Nebraska is the least likely I see of having a shot.

8. Philomena - Again a movie that has tremendous heart and the ability to pull the heartstrings of the angriest most heartless man. It has a great hook to bring in Oscar voters. Judi Dench will sway most people to the greatness of the movie but while a movie about a mother searching for her stolen and sold to adoptive parents son is like putting cat nip in the crazy cat lady’s house, the race is too close to call which leaves a movie that is great but not world changing will most likely be overlooked.

7. Her - Again this falls into a great movie that is perhaps even better than the big nominees, it is simply too small a movie to be taken seriously. The oddness of the story also leads to people not considering it a worthwhile choice. This movie is the Best Picture I saw all year but this is not about my opinions. It is what the Academy will do and they have been particularly annoying in overlooking movies that don’t fit their mold. Her is a game changer of a movie but that in and of itself takes it out of contention.

6. Captain Phillips - This movie seems like an obvious choice. Smart and emotional. A tale that tells the plight of an American hero and a social issue like the plight of the Somali people which force them to take action as pirates. This movie was Oscar bait the moment they wrapped the movie. But Tom Hanks is not nominated. The director Paul Greengrass was not nominated.  Barkhad Abdi was nominated but in a category he has no chance of winning (though he should). This tells me that the Academy wants to honor it as a great movie but really just the honor of a nomination more than the honor of a gold naked man.

5. American Hustle - I liked the movie but it has little of the fun and joy that radiated from Silver Linings Playbook had last year. I just think this movie is a little smug and feels it deserves the honor more than it actually earning it. It isn’t the only one...I just have to hope that the Academy knows it as well.

4. Dallas Buyers Club - This movie has two awards basically sewn up. Jared Leto will win for Best Supporting Actor (but as he was playing a transgendered man, shouldn’t we honor her character as Best Supporting Actress.) Matthew McConaghey also seems to have sewn up the Best Actor win according to all the posts and deservedly so. This movie has some Best Picture staples too... though kind of offensively so. It has a character dying of AIDS, it tells a great story and there is a touching story of a gay character as well. I would love to say that this is the Best Picture winner but it doesn’t seem like it will be. Dallas Buyers Club could have won in a less stacked year but this year there are too many Great Pictures let alone a Best Picture. It certainly is in the top 5 and that is pretty damned impressive.

3. The Wolf of Wall Street - We’ve entered the realm of possibility. Up until now we’ve been dealing with great movies that cannot win. As you get to The Wolf of Wall Street, you find that there is little people can find wrong with the movie. Let me point out a few. It is a non redemptive movie where the characters are the same at the end of the movie as they are at the beginning. It also involves a 1 percenter getting away with horrible crimes in the face of overwhelming evidence. Sadly it is directed by a legend (Martin Scorsese) and starring someone the Academy feels they owe. That is why I even ranked it this far up. I just hope that the Academy can look past the Scorsese effect and the Leonardo DiCaprio really deserves a win attitude and realizes that in a pack of great this was just good.

2. Gravity - This movie has changed movies in general. Not in the storytelling and smart way that Her did but in the way films are gonna be looked at. The visual effects and acting allows you to look past a blah story and a some hokey moments. I swear if George Clooney comes back at the perfect time one more time I will die of smugness. Yet this movie seems to have legs and the Academy likes it. The Best Picture race is too close to call but since I have to, I choose the only movie I felt was required viewing...

1. 12 Years a Slave - This movie is so good. It tells a story that you should see and want to see. I know the fear that a lot of people have but seriously this movie is not about casting blame but about telling an truly horrific period of our history. That could also work against it. Gravity is a heroes story while 12 Years a Slave tells a story that could bum people out. It shouldn’t be viewed that way but I think it might be. Of all 9 movies, I will say 12 Years a Slave is the Best of the bunch that have a chance. I’m still rooting for Her but 12 Years is the only other movie that accomplished the task of proving to me that it was one of the best pictures ever.

***

This year really has some good movies. I feel there are some bad movies (The Wolf Of Wall Street is the one I’m looking at) and some movies that I don’t think have the juice to win (Nebraska, Philomena and sadly Her). I would have loved to see the powerful and emotional “Fruitvale Station” get nominated but it seems like it was just flat out ignored. American Hustle, Gravity and Dallas Buyers Club are great films in and of themselves for different reasons but it isn’t Best Picture by Scorsese or Best Picture that used innovative effects. It is the Best Picture of 2013.

Mr. Unhappy sez: That movie is 12 Years a Slave.  

Best Picture Part 9: Nebraska

Nebraska

 

Getting old sucks. Worse than that is losing who you were and not knowing how to stop it. As the child of a retired man, I wonder often about what my father is doing and if he is living a fulfilled life. I think when you spend your entire life working and suddenly you no longer need to go into work or have very little you need to do with your day it can be disorienting. I can understand that. Not having worked since June, I am quite off my game as far as what it requires of me to do. Do I need to get up before noon? Not really. What does it matter if I sleep one more hour or three? After a while, the lack of something you are needed for can drive you stir crazy. I think everyone wants to be needed for something.  For me it is writing a movie blog that no one reads. For my father it will be finding time to play golf or do some of the things he always wanted to do. Growing old can be worse if everything you do is questioned or if the people you love start whispering about whether or not you need to be in a home. All of these moments in retirement can be very scary and depressing. This is the general idea behind “Nebraska” , the final movie nominated for Best Picture in Sunday’s Academy Awards.

Bruce Dern stars as Woody, a quietly retired person nearing the last stage of his life. His wife Kate is constantly berating and calling him a fool, threatening to have him put in a home. So it isn’t too surprising that when he receives a letter telling him that he won a Million Dollars, he sets out of Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska by foot. The police soon pick him up and call his son David (Will Forte) to pick him up. After a few more attempts prove that Woody will go whether or not they bring him back home, David agrees to take him to Lincoln to claim his prize money although he knows that the letter is just a ploy to sell magazines (much like the Publisher’s Clearing House). The film is the trip from Billings to Lincoln as David tries to learn more about his father and his father just wants to be treated as a person again. They end up in Hawthorne, Nebraska staying with family and David learns about his father’s life before he was born. It was not an easy life and you feel as though there were many things Woody wanted to do that he gave up for his kids and his needy wife. The movies heart comes in the silent moments when Woody stares off at memories from his past and confronts the people he left behind in his hometown. May it be old business partners (Stacey Keach) or family members who all want a piece of the million dollars. Throughout Nebraska is a story of growing old and the problems that happen as you age.

Bruce Dern (he of the wild unkempt hair) is deserving of his nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of a man who is slowly losing his battle with old age and just wants one more moment when he is a man of respect instead of a joke. One last hurrah so his sons and wife can see he isn't just a doddering old drunk. Will Forte is also deserving of awards talk although I can see why he is not nominated. As a son, I identify with David’s character. You are watching the man who was the strongest person you know, age and fall and slowly die. You can’t stop it but you don’t want to lose them. I loved the dynamic between Kate and Woody as they fought and she called him a fool. Perhaps the most telling is a trip to the cemetery in Hawthorne. Kate (played by June Squibb) walks through the row of Woody’s family and friends, finding fault with every one of them. Woody stands in the back as she moves from headstone to headstone, another reminder of his own mortality, and finally decides to wait in the car.

The truth in Nebraska is that we will all grow old and we will all die but how we face it is more important than how we are when we finally meet our maker. Did Woody really believe he won a million dollars or did he just hope so much that he could have one more moment to be a hero and leave his sons with something after he passed so that they would remember him fondly? It is never an easy thing to look upon death and smile. Most of us will go screaming to the grave, fighting for one more moment in the sun or one more beer with our kids. There is nothing wrong with that and in fact, it is worth striving for. Getting old sucks but being a good man and leaving a good legacy for your children is worthwhile. Not only that but perhaps when you go towards death knowing that your kids will be fine, you don’t have to scream.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Nebraska is a fine movie. I laughed and felt that there were many moments I could relate to my own father. In terms of being the Best Picture, I feel it is reaching. In a year with so many great movies, Nebraska is a worthwhile choice but not powerful enough to win Best Picture.