Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 4
CINEMATOGRAPHY – the nominees are Changeling, The CC of BB,
The Dark Knight, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire.
Changeling is a very strange. It’s a glamour shot of a movie; Angelina going
all serious as a distraught mother in 1920 L.A. playing off her 2009 role as the
together Mom married to a man who ages backwards. But the movie doesn’t know
what it wants to be. is it about her and her missing son, replaced by an imposter?
Is it a mental institutional horror story, Roaring Twenties Girl Interrupted?, or is it a serial-murder mystery set in the deserts outside what’s going to become Los Angeles?
None of the movies it wants to be is satisfying. And the whole is weaker than the sum
of its parts. Most people on leaving just wonder why it’s not THE Changeling?
But that sounds like some weird M. Night Shamalayan movie. Hmm, might’ve been better. Until the ending. No Oscar for this. But OctoMom Nadya Suleman will be rooting for this one.
The CC of BB will also not win yet another Oscar. It looked pretty enough but
not nearly as pretty as Brad. The director said the same thing to Cate Blanchett
when she asked for better light.
The Dark Knight – somebody had to keep the camera in focus when the
Batmobile goes shooting through Gotham. Good job, focus puller, but not
Oscar-worthy.
The Reader – Nazi porn with an almost-always-nude Kate Winslet braving the colorlessness of postwar Germany. The whole movie is done in grey scale.
So many shades of grey. Or gray. Doesn’t matter, this wasn’t exactly
Lawrencce of Arabia. Not a chance.
And the Oscar goes to – Slumdog Millionaire. More colors than the 256 million
on Photoshop. Now that’s cinematography! Jai Ho!
ART DIRECTION – the nominees are Changeling, The CC of BB,
The Dark Knight, The Duchess, Revolutionary Road.
Changeling had to make present-day Los Angeles look like 1920s Los Angeles.
So they went to East L.A. Not a winner.
The CC of BB might win this. They had an old TV that they watched the Beatles
on Ed Sullivan. They borrowed it from Pee-Wee Herman’s old set. Maybe.
The Dark Knight could be the sleeper. As Stevie Wonder might say, “Gotham City;
just like I pictured it.” Maybe plus.
The Duchess might win if they don’t win the Oscar for Best Costume. If they don’t
win one of these, they might not make effete period pieces. Possible.
And
Revolutionary Road with all those 1950s touches. Again, Pee-Wee Herman’s old s
et could’ve supplied everything for this film. Give the Oscar to Paul Reubens.
I say Revolutionary Road gets the Oscar. It didn’t do any box-office, nobody saw it,
but people think it must’ve been real good.
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM – the nominees are Bolt, Kung Fu Panda, and WALL-E.
Are we kidding? Kung Fu Panda is something on the menu in Beijing.
Bolt is the Wanted of animated films – What the fuck was Bolt?!
And the winner is, again, are we kidding, WALL-E.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – the nominees are Courtney Hunt/Frozen River,
Mike Leigh/Happy-Go-Lucky, Martin McDonagh/In Bruges, Dustin lance Black/Milk, and Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter/WALL-E.
Let’s face it, it’s between the heroic gay martyr, MILK, and WALL-E, the gay little machine in the future. You don’t think he’s gay? WALL-E’s favorite film is the
musical Hello Dolly, starring gay-world icon Barbra Streisand. Imagine if WALL-E
had found a VHS copy of Yentl? Now that’s a movie I want to see!
Milk will win because it will not win so many others and the Penn was brilliant but he won’t win and the guy’s dead and his life and his story matter. And it should.
Showing posts with label WALL-E. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WALL-E. Show all posts
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Everything Matters - 2/19/09 - Academy Awards Edition - part 3
Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 3
ORIGINAL SONG – the nominees are Down to Earth from Wall-E,
Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, and O Saya from Slumdog Millionaire.
Down to Earth from Wall-E – I love Peter Gabriel. He’s was championing
world music before we even called it world music. And who can forget John
Cusack holding the boombox in the rain in Say Anything while In Your Eyes plays?
But for all the hype about Wall-E, the first 30-40 minutes are brilliant when it’s
just the machines and their world. Once humans are introduced, as in life, the
whole thing turns to shit, or in this case, an eco-friendly lesson episode of The Jetsons.
With fat people. And this song is not In Your Eyes. There is no light, no heat,
and no Oscar.
Jai Ho – the perfect Bollywood ending, the entire cast dancing in the train station
to the uplifting Jai Ho. This should win and if not, you are a mother-jodh which
probably means what we all think it means.
And if it doesn’t win then
O Saya – should win. MIA just had a baby and she should win simply because
she didn’t have eight babies!! At the Grammys her belly looked almost as big as
Kanye West’s ego. I’m playing this now.
The Oscar goes to O Saya.
Had there been a Love Theme from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button done by,
let’s say, Phil Collins, that’s another Oscar that The CC of BB wouldn’t win.
Either way, Jai Ho or O Saya, world music wins. Sorry, Peter. And for the record
they don’t call it world music. Wherever it’s made they just call it THEIR MUSIC.
ORIGINAL SCORE – the nominees are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button/Alexandre Desplat, Defiance/James Newton Howard, Milk/Danny Elfman, Slumdog Millionaire/A.R.Rahman, and WALL-E/Thomas Newton.
I defy anyone to hum or whistle anything from the CC of BB. Impossible. We were
too busy thinking about all those different Brad Pitts.
Defiance? Belorussian Jews killing Nazis? No, but if you hum a few bars…
Milk, score by Danny Elfman. Elfman usually works with Tim Burton.
What would Tim Burton’s Milk have looked like? First off, Johnny Depp is Milk
and he’s the single prettiest 40 year old Jew in history. And I’m counting Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson and they’re younger!!! So lets be glad it wasn’t Tim Burton’s Milk. But still, not a winner.
WALL-E? NO-E?
And the winner, Slumdog Millionaire. Accepting the Oscar are the 39 million people
of Mumbai. We may be here a while.
SOUND EDITING – the nominees are The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, and Wanted.
The Dark Knight, great look. But the sound? I heard everything. Isn’t that the fucking point?!
Iron Man. Yep, heard everything here too. Even Samuel L. Jackson screaming as Nick Fury after the credits. Okay, making his voice palatable for the human ear, I can see that thia is sound editing.
WALL-E is animated. The actors are in a recording studio. How hard is that? Nope.
Wanted. What the fuck was Wanted? Anybody? It’s not even on IMDB. Nope.
The winner – Slumdog Millionaire. The filmmakers went all over the Indian subcontinent and we heard everything in glorious SOUND.
SOUND MIXING – the nominees are The CC of BB, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, and Wanted.
Once again, if the sound mixers of The CC of BB had aged backwards maybe they’d
win an Oscar but as they didn’t, no way.
The Dark Knight – a real movie movie. But we come out talking about Heath Ledger
as The Joker. I guess that means we heard everything he had to say. Thank you sound mixers but no big prize yet.
WALL-E – again, you don’t like the sound, call the actors up and have them do it again, over and over. It’s an animated feature, you have them locked in a room. You can do anything you want with them. No big deal mixing this sound. Sorry.
Wanted. Again? Somebody greased some Academy palms. Wanted? Oh, that mindless movie with Anglina Jolie where they bend bullets by flicking their wrists as they shot their guns? Even as I watched it I realized I was dying a little more as time was slipping away from me for the 2 hours I was in the theater. No fucking way!
And the winner is – Slumdog Millionaire. Y’know how hard it is to mix Hindi and Urdu and Bengali and English and cars and cows and cellphones and television studios and television sets and the sound the Taj Mahal makes at night? Clearly the best Sound Mixing.
ORIGINAL SONG – the nominees are Down to Earth from Wall-E,
Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, and O Saya from Slumdog Millionaire.
Down to Earth from Wall-E – I love Peter Gabriel. He’s was championing
world music before we even called it world music. And who can forget John
Cusack holding the boombox in the rain in Say Anything while In Your Eyes plays?
But for all the hype about Wall-E, the first 30-40 minutes are brilliant when it’s
just the machines and their world. Once humans are introduced, as in life, the
whole thing turns to shit, or in this case, an eco-friendly lesson episode of The Jetsons.
With fat people. And this song is not In Your Eyes. There is no light, no heat,
and no Oscar.
Jai Ho – the perfect Bollywood ending, the entire cast dancing in the train station
to the uplifting Jai Ho. This should win and if not, you are a mother-jodh which
probably means what we all think it means.
And if it doesn’t win then
O Saya – should win. MIA just had a baby and she should win simply because
she didn’t have eight babies!! At the Grammys her belly looked almost as big as
Kanye West’s ego. I’m playing this now.
The Oscar goes to O Saya.
Had there been a Love Theme from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button done by,
let’s say, Phil Collins, that’s another Oscar that The CC of BB wouldn’t win.
Either way, Jai Ho or O Saya, world music wins. Sorry, Peter. And for the record
they don’t call it world music. Wherever it’s made they just call it THEIR MUSIC.
ORIGINAL SCORE – the nominees are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button/Alexandre Desplat, Defiance/James Newton Howard, Milk/Danny Elfman, Slumdog Millionaire/A.R.Rahman, and WALL-E/Thomas Newton.
I defy anyone to hum or whistle anything from the CC of BB. Impossible. We were
too busy thinking about all those different Brad Pitts.
Defiance? Belorussian Jews killing Nazis? No, but if you hum a few bars…
Milk, score by Danny Elfman. Elfman usually works with Tim Burton.
What would Tim Burton’s Milk have looked like? First off, Johnny Depp is Milk
and he’s the single prettiest 40 year old Jew in history. And I’m counting Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson and they’re younger!!! So lets be glad it wasn’t Tim Burton’s Milk. But still, not a winner.
WALL-E? NO-E?
And the winner, Slumdog Millionaire. Accepting the Oscar are the 39 million people
of Mumbai. We may be here a while.
SOUND EDITING – the nominees are The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, and Wanted.
The Dark Knight, great look. But the sound? I heard everything. Isn’t that the fucking point?!
Iron Man. Yep, heard everything here too. Even Samuel L. Jackson screaming as Nick Fury after the credits. Okay, making his voice palatable for the human ear, I can see that thia is sound editing.
WALL-E is animated. The actors are in a recording studio. How hard is that? Nope.
Wanted. What the fuck was Wanted? Anybody? It’s not even on IMDB. Nope.
The winner – Slumdog Millionaire. The filmmakers went all over the Indian subcontinent and we heard everything in glorious SOUND.
SOUND MIXING – the nominees are The CC of BB, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, and Wanted.
Once again, if the sound mixers of The CC of BB had aged backwards maybe they’d
win an Oscar but as they didn’t, no way.
The Dark Knight – a real movie movie. But we come out talking about Heath Ledger
as The Joker. I guess that means we heard everything he had to say. Thank you sound mixers but no big prize yet.
WALL-E – again, you don’t like the sound, call the actors up and have them do it again, over and over. It’s an animated feature, you have them locked in a room. You can do anything you want with them. No big deal mixing this sound. Sorry.
Wanted. Again? Somebody greased some Academy palms. Wanted? Oh, that mindless movie with Anglina Jolie where they bend bullets by flicking their wrists as they shot their guns? Even as I watched it I realized I was dying a little more as time was slipping away from me for the 2 hours I was in the theater. No fucking way!
And the winner is – Slumdog Millionaire. Y’know how hard it is to mix Hindi and Urdu and Bengali and English and cars and cows and cellphones and television studios and television sets and the sound the Taj Mahal makes at night? Clearly the best Sound Mixing.
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