Marley and Me

Have I written the fact that I totally adore Jennifer Aniston down on this blog? Well there you have it. I didn't care much for her in the Friends series I'm afraid, it was more her real life heartbreak that made me warm up to her.
ANYWAY!
So I went to watch a movie I probably would never watch had I been the only person deciding what to watch that night. I have the misfortune of having a different taste in movies to the people I end up watching movies with. So Marley and Me it was. I prepared myself for it well enough. Knew not to expect much. Imagine my shame when an hour later there I was with tears rolling down my cheaks.

I think my weeping during movies will soon be declared a non event. I bee could die and I'd be balling my eyes out. Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie. Worse, I want a dog because of it.

I'm not a dog person. I suppose it is because we never owned one at home. My liking for the kay-nines actually began to develop a couple of months ago when I met the cleanest and calmest dog in my entire life. Mystique's her name and she's a grey hound. She's a little clumsy, but she's so cute and so easy to just love. Watching Marley and Me kind of rekindled that closet dog lover in me and now I know I must have one...they must prepare you well enough for parenthood no?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Hhhhhhmmmmmm. I am on a mission to watch most of the Oscar films; so, high expectations have been set.


The thing with hype is that you expect more than you should. A perfect story builds and gets woven in your mind and when you see what is really being offered, your mind’s knitting is always better. This is the case. This is always the case. And it is the case with Benjamin.


A man that is born old and ages in the opposite direction. This premise in itself should give loads of opportunity for fantastic philosophy and ideas. And I experimented with these ideas and wondered what fantasies the movie would take me to.


Alas, I was bogged down by stupid detail that just did not make sense to me in my own little mind.


On the movie itself I would like to say, that this was probably made for Brad Pitt. For him to make his mark before time took a toll on his fans, on his looks on his career. This is probably a career highlight for Mr Pitt as he did get THE Oscar nod. Who the hell else could play a gorgeous 20/21st century Adonis? What would stupid movies like Legends of the Fall and Meet Joe Black be without Mr Pitt?


The guy has a place in history, just like Marlon Brando and Paul Newman, he is it, and does not need to work too hard to get my own personal nod. So long as he plays pretty. So you can probably imagine that the suedo old guys he played in Babel was very confusing for me.


Back to the Benjamin Button, the short and nasty is that, I was not moved, I really, really did not like Cate Blanchette in this. That American accent that she thinks she’s got to a T is really really irritating.


That was the first barrier, the second was that, at the back of my own small mind I was, really, through out the movie, playing out scenes of when this script was pitched to the Hollywood execs. So the creatives had the idea to have a guy that ages backward, great, lovely. But no, we need to have more fillers around the story, how about a war, oh yeah, the WW2 we could reference that. And oh, how about black people, yeah we need black people. New Orleans! and we can play out a bit of the foreboding before Katrina hit, cool. Mind you we cannot have And Oh, we need a story that weaves a thread through the movie, my cousin was hit by lightning once why don’t we use that?. Cool, we can say seven times and bring that in the movie every time we think the audience is starting to get bored. Just for a wake up laugh you? And oh, lets just disregard logic as well. I mean if the guy had to start from old age, the fact that you absorb most things when you are young is totally irrelevant. The fact that one’s brain should match one’s age is stupid, we are going to say, as you get older, you get more stupid, in Benjamin, as you get older you get less interesting because we can’t really show your torso so we are going to make you dumb.!


Okay, enough, that was an irrational rant. But that was an irrational movie. It was! The fact that it got to Oscar level is just sad.


No spoons!

Oscar Nominations and Winners

Best Picture - Slumdog Millionaire
o The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
o Frost/Nixon
o Milk
o The Reader

Best Director - Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
o David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
o Stephen Daldry – The Reader
o Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
o Gus Van Sant – Milk

Best Adapted Screenplay - Slumdog Millionaire – Simon Beaufoy
o The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
o Doubt – John Patrick Shanley
o Frost/Nixon – Peter Morgan
o The Reader – David Hare

Best Foreign Language Film - Departures (Japan) in Japanese – Yojiro Takita
o Waltz with Bashir (Israel) in Hebrew – Ari Folman
o Revanche (Austria) in German – Götz Spielmann
o The Class (France) in French – Laurent Cantet
o The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany) in German – Uli Edel

Best Actor - Sean Penn – Milk
o Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
o Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
o Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
o Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
o Josh Brolin – Milk
o Robert Downey, Jr. – Tropic Thunder
o Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
o Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road

Best Actress - Kate Winslet – The Reader
o Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
o Angelina Jolie – Changeling
o Melissa Leo – Frozen River
o Meryl Streep – Doubt

Best Supporting Actress - Penélope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
o Amy Adams – Doubt
o Viola Davis – Doubt
o Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
o Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler

Best Original Screenplay Milk – Dustin Lance Black
o WALL-E – Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter
o Happy-Go-Lucky – Mike Leigh
o Frozen River – Courtney Hunt
o In Bruges – Martin McDonagh

Best Animated Feature WALL-E – Andrew Stanton
o Bolt – Chris Williams and Byron Howard
o Kung Fu Panda – Mark Osborne and John Stevenson

The Oscars

So I have DSTV now. This means that I was able to watch the Oscars.



Been a while since…

It has probably been about 10 years since I last watched the Oscars. I use to be obsessed with award shows. One of my best memories I have of Varsity Res is Oscar evening. Any award shows actually tended to be quite an event for me. Some people love watching sports, my spectator sport was award shows. And yes, I would swear and shout just as baldly as a sports fan whose team is losing or winning, and I would shed a tear for moments like when Tom Hanks won for Forrest Gump or when Forrest Whitaker was nominated for the Crying Game.

It had been a while and I think maybe I needed that break to grow up a little and get excited about things a little closer to home.

Award shows…

One of the main reasons for getting DTSV was for the Award shows. It was a pity that the first that I got to see was the Golden Globes. What a waste. What an utter waste of time. I could only stand about 20 minutes of it. They had no interest in entertaining, it felt like they thought that if start were announcing the winners, that would be enough entertainment. Wrong. I also could not watch the Grammy’s because I don’t know 90% of the people performing or giving awards. I don’t care if this makes me sound old and bitter about not keeping up with what’s hot. The sound is also horrible, I mean they had Stevie Wonder singing with some boys and he really sounded excruciatingly horrible.

So I had lost interest in award shows and started questioning whether I should pay the subscription fees for the stupid DSTV for the next months. I watch DVD’s most of the time. The only other thing I watch religiously is Top Gear. …and the BBC Lifestyle Channel and BBC Knowledge. …Torchwood. … Dr who. …

An evening to remember…

I was watching disk 4 of Queer as Folk (third time) when I realized that it was Oscar night. Kicked myself for missing about 40 minutes of the show after 2 minutes of switching over.

As I said, I have not been watching the previous year’s shows but with this one, 2 minutes into it, I started feeling the same joy (yes, joy) I use to feel. The same excitement, I was emotionally invested, it had me at: ‘ and the Oscar goes to…’.

This is a different kind of ceremony from the others. Hugh Jackman, WOLVERINE was the host. What happened to David Letterman, or Whoopi or Billy Chrystal or Jon Stewart. I don’t know, but it was not a bad move to not have a comedian. It may have been a stroke of genius. We already know that Hollywood can make fun of itself and it is usually same jokes different targets every year (except for Goerge Bush maybe). So it was kind of a breath of fresh air to Hugh present, and the guy can sing and dance too! Oh Wolverine!

I think part of the fun of the Oscars is to see the stars up there on a beautiful stage wearing beautiful gowns and just looking brilliant. A huge part of the fun is actually laughing your ass off to find out that these guys actually cannot read. You wonder how the fuck do they get through scripts and make movies. James Bond cannot read, Sophia Loren should have worn her reading binoculars the woman must be 90, Robert Fucking De Niro (Are you talking to me?) can’t read. It was fun to watch and to know hey, they have disabilities, speech impediments and learning issues too! Ha!

A flame rekindled…

But I loved the Oscars. These Oscars in particular and not because they seemed like the Bollywood awards (big up India!), were really great. It was a beautiful production. It was an amazing production.

One of the moments that I shamefully look forward to at the Oscars is when they show the dead guys. Queen Latifah has always been cool. But that was a beautiful song she sang. And it was beautiful when she said that to most of us the dead guys are just movie stars but to her and her colleagues, they are friends and mothers and sisters etc. I felt a little bit ashamed of myself there. She sang so sweetly. But I wondered why they did not show Heath Ledger, is it too soon? Did I miss him?

So yes the production was brilliant. I was feeling very down about what had been coming out of tinsel town of late. Watching the Oscars, I was tempted to call in sick and spend the day at the movies watching one after another, like I use to do. The first one would be Milk, then Slumdog, then Benjamin Button, then the Reader, then the Wrestler, then… actually all of the movies nominated for direction, male and female lead, film, and script. I will begin my adventure this weekend.

Previous winners honouring nominated ones was an especially special touch I thought!

The thing about Mickey Rourke…

So Heartwarmer, the thing about Mickey Rourke is that he did 9½ weeks about 20 year ago. One of the most erotic movies of that time, he was gorgeous, he was the it guy, he had it all. And then, he developed the Michael Jackson Syndrome I think. Is it called Body dysmorphic disorder? The guy has had so much plastic surgery that it is very difficult to look at him. He has a look like a puza face that has been stretched to its maximum. I need to see this wrestler. But it looks very difficult to watch. He is just freaky.

But when is the dvd release date?

I hate that I missed 40 minutes. Do video shops carry award shows? I’ve never seen them, will have to talk to my video store. I am already having a vision of renting out the shows from 10 years ago, that would be a magical weekend.

Seven Pounds

The only thing I can really say about this movie, which stars Will Smith, is that it is probably the most depressing movie I have EVER seen in my entire life.
You know sometimes you go to a movie and its sad, and you find yourself with tears rolling down your face. That's not this movie. This movie made me sob. As in, "heeeeeeeeeee, heeeeeeeee." It was so sad, I cried all the way home from the cinema.
Seriously!
I didn't have a clue what the movie was about. Just kinda picked it because it starred Will Smith, and its something both the lover and I agreed we'd like to see. Perhaps it is because I didn't know what it was about that I found it so heartbreaking. So I'm not going to give you a synopsis on it. Just go see it if you are in the mood for a good cry. Bring lots and lots of tissues with you.
2 spoons

Beauty and the beast

2009, SA, and the only character for a black man in a fairy tale is Lefur, Gaston’s monkey. This put a sour taste in my mouth and ruined the show for me. Do not see it.

Wondrous oblivion

This is not meant to be a title of a movie. It is a state of mind. One to avoid, one, in a fucked up way, that lets you know you are alive, you are capable of feeling, even though those feels will most certainly be unrequited. I suppose there is something romantic about it, that is something to hang on to.

DVD night

Had a girl's DVD night on Saturday. Out of all three: The Great Debaters, Mama Mia and Kung Fu Panda, I'd have to say Kung Fu Panda gets my vote - no doubt.
I slept through Mama Mia. The Great Debaters just re-awakened a hate and anger I feel everytime I watch such types. You know what I mean, the era when they would write on benches "whites only". You know the story and you've seen plenty movies like this. For some the focus is swimming, some it is football, for this movie it is debating. I remember Oprah made a big deal about this movie, I suppose she would since she is one of the producers (I think).
But it is really not all that fascinating or interesting from a political point of view. The best part of it, in my opinion ofcourse, is the romance between the debaters and just how some of the characters mature in the movie. Its certainly nothing gripping - I'd say wait for it on DSTV rather than pay extra money to watch it on DVD.

Mama Mia...I think I need to give it another chance really because it wasn't so much that it was bhard that I slept through it, but it really was because I was tired. Mind you I managed to wake up and watch Kung Fu Panda till the end and loved it. So...okay, give Mama Mia a miss too. But Kung Fu Panda is worth a watch.
And the spoons:
Great Debaters 1 spoon
Mama Mia! half a spoon
Kung Fu Panda two spoons.

Best ever performance by a scientologist!!!

The best laugh I’ve ever had this year. I need people to guess which movie I am talking about because I am not going to name it. I am not going to list the ridiculously, hilariously vein popping funny guys in this movie. All I am going to say is that it is on dvd at the moment (23 January 2009). And you need to tell me who the surprisingly, side splitting hysterical (my neighbors are wondering what the hell is going on in this flat) guy in this movie that made me laugh so hard was. I challenge you. What a breath of nitrous oxide!

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I love this line: Unfulfilled love is the most romantic form of love there is. I know it isn't earthshattering stuff, but it just rang soooooooooooo true for me. Its like the tragedies that Shakespear wrote. They are only that good, and you only love them so much because there isn't that typical happy ending.

There is a lot of that in Vicky Christina Barcelona. A lot of it. Untypical love. Or is non-typical? I will watch anything with Scarlett Johanssen (or Keira Knightley - she's such a tease, can't wait for the Duchess). I loved Penelope Cruz in this. She was so passionate, and sexy, and dangerously nuts. Hehehehe. Javier Bardem was awesome. He was scary in No Country for Old Men, but is oh so yummy here...in a very...erm...artistique way. The other lead actress, Rebecca Hall, was so very, very disappointing. But nevermind her this movie is a must see. Its a story of passion and how even the strongwilled or strongminded end up givin in to, almost as if its only natural to, this demon (PASSION). It is a story about love, untypical love, and how we can so easily find ourselves in and out of love with people and things we never imagined possible. Most of all I think it demonstrates how the human heart's desires can never be fulfilled. That has always been the scary bit about life and love for me.

Synopsis
Two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is sensible and engaged to be married; Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is emotionally and sexually adventurous. In Barcelona, they're drawn into a series of unconventional romantic entanglements with Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a charismatic painter, who is still involved with his tempestuous ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz). Set against the luscious Mediterranean sensuality of Barcelona, 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' is Woody Allen's funny and open-minded celebration of love in all its configurations.
SOURCE: www.moviefone.com