16 Random Oscar Thoughts From the Movie Man

1. Anne Hathaway and James Franco? Really?

2. I'm glad they're sticking with the tradition of using clever editing to put the hosts into clips from the Best Picutre nominees (and Back to the Future for some reason?) and I enjoyed Alec Baldwin's and Morgan Freeman's cameos; I think Freeman gets the "good sport" award, and I laughed at the "funny because it's true" line about his ubiquitous narration because of his "soothing voice." But I gotta be honest, Franco and Hathaway are not winning me over here. Billy Crystal did it better. Sorry to sound petty, but he did.

3. I have mixed feelings about Kirk Douglas's presentation for Best Supporting Actress. He's an icon, and I'm glad to see him. But he is hard to understand, the poor guy. Despite, this, he displays some old-school charm. So yeah, frustraing and charming at the same time. I know some people have already posted their annoyance at his comical delaying the announcement of the winner, but I enjoyed it. Not so much when Justin Timberlake goofs on it. I am not a Timberlake hater, as so many people are, but he really bombed tonight.

4. I haven't seen The Fighter yet, but I've been a fan of Melissa Leo since Homicide: Life on the Street, so good for you, Melissa! I think her speech is not great, but enjoyable for its sincerity.

5. Yay, Aaron Sorkin! If I am a fan of Melissa Leo, I'm a super-fan of Aaron Sorkin. Everything the guy touches turns to gold, in my opinion, and The Social Network is no exception. Bottom line, the guy deserves the award.

6. Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson present sound mixing, and their "banter" about the sound of the word "sound" is performed and written so poorly, I'm pretty sure that untalented second-graders could have done a better job.

7. Dave Elsey's comment that "It was always my ambition to lose an Oscar one day to Rick Baker," will probably strike many people as false show-biz modesty, but Baker is so extremely accomplished in his field, I think there might be an element of truth to Elsey's comment.

8. President Barack Obama makes an appearance, giving Republicans an enormous amount of glee that they can go back to the ol' "hasn't he got anything better to do" complaint. Let's be honest, Republicans, you smiled with joy when you saw that.

9. Luke Matheny's joke about getting a haircut gets a surprisingly huge laugh. Is there an "inside" element to that joke that I'm not getting, because to me, it was just a very mildly amusing crack about his hair-style, but the audience loves it. Weird.

10. Billy Crystal at the Oscars -- usually a winner. But I bet his joke about prematurely announcing the Best Picture is just going to confuse some people. His tribute to Bob Hope is touching, and I think that whoever imitated Hope's voice (Dave Thomas?) to introduce the next presenters is shockingly perfect.

11. Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. -- especially Downey's effortless naturalism -- illustrate that even the cheesy dialogue of an Oscarcast can be entertaining, if you deliver it with style.

12. Randy Newman won for Best Song. Not his best effort, so I'm not sure he deserves it. At this point, I feel that his award is more for his body of work than for this particular song. As a loyal Newman fan, I don't care. Anyway, his acceptance speech isn't laugh-out-loud funny, but still the most entertaining speech of the evening. Every line is a winner. Newman's speech easily trumps the writing for the rest of the telecast.

13. Say what you will about Celine Dion -- I know she never recovered from the enormous backlash caused by the annoying omnipresence of "My Heart Will Go On" -- but you have to admit, she really has a beautiful singing voice.

14. Lena Horne -- I know she's a legendary performer, but to me, she will always be associated with Sesame Street. Then I found out on IMDb that she hasn't been on Sesame Street since 1980, when I was five years old. Now I'm busy being impressed by my own memory, and I forget to pay attention to the rest of the Lena Horne tribute.

15. Kathryn Bigelow -- wow, she could have been a model if she hadn't become a director. She looks amazing and exudes sexuality.

16. I have to say that, in my humble opinion (I refuse to use the obnoxious acronym) advertisers have done a terrible job with The King's Speech. Yes, it's done well at the box office, but I make my claim based on the fact that countless advertisements have made the film look boring to me, but the clips from the Oscars really make me want to see the movie. The Weinstein Company should have hired the makers of this Oscar telecast to advertise the movie, and I would have seen it by now.

"Kick-Ass" is Awful Entertainment

Kick-Ass is the most disturbing, unpleasant movie ever passed off as mainstream entertainment. The fact that children -- including a very young actress/ character -- should be at the center of so much graphic violence and people think it's "empowering" because she gives as good as she gets . . . I am actually offended that more people aren't sickened by this movie. Okay, so different people have different opinions, that's fine, if you like it, I am not attacking you personally, because everyone's entitled to an opinion, but the fact that no one else seems to have a problem with any of this?

Don't tell me I'm taking it too seriously. I can take it and even enjoy it when Jason Voorhees hacks up irresponsible teens and John McClane blows up nameless thugs. I understand that cinematic violence is not the same as real violence. And lord knows I have a sense of humor, it is one of my most prominent traits, for crying out loud, I'm the Funny Guy. But this movie's violence is not played for laughs, it is played for impact. There are brutal beatings in this movie, brutal. People are shot, stabbed, hit by cars, and set on fire (we later see his face with his lips burned off) and this is just what happens to the good guys! This is not a comedy. Or if it is, it is a very sick one, and I don't mean that in a good way. When people start laughing at a movie in which a father/daughter bonding scene involves him shooting a pre-preteen girl in the chest and it's "okay" because she's wearing a vest -- and she is later featured in the bloody, graphic, knock-down, drag-out fight scene with the villain -- I think our society's indoctrination against cinematic violence has gone too far.

Anyone who has access to my Facebook page should already know two things about me, one that I'm the Movie Man, and I understand the difference between cinematic violence and real violence, and two, that I have and I'm even often defined by my sense of humor. So I say again, don't tell me that I am taking this movie too seriously. And at the risk of repeating myself even further, I do not take issue with any one person who enjoyed this movie, but I do take issue with the fact that seemingly no one else is offended by it. This movie is not empowering or funny as some would have you believe. It is an excercise in sadism.

"The Great Dictator" is a Great Film.

I don't use that word lightly. In this blog, I've reviewed movies that were good, bad, terrible, and freakin' cool. But The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin's satire of the contemporaneous Nazi Germany, is a great film, just in the same sense that George Washington was a great man. Alternately hilarious, poignant, and terrifying, the movie is not flawless by any means, but its greatness partially stems from the fact that even many of its flaws work out in the film's favor.

The Great Dictator tells the story of an unnamed German war hero, identified only by his civilian identity, as "a Jewish Barber." After delivering some typically Chaplinesque slapstick on the front lines in the opening scene, the Barber displays heroism during the final battle of World War I, only to be injured in a plane crash. He falls into a coma, and wakes up during the height of Jewish persecution under Nazi Germany. It's a crueler, darker twist on the old Rip van Winkle tale, one in which the Barber has to learn the hard way that life has become very unkind to Jews in Germany.

As the Barber, Charlie Chaplin (who also directed, produced, wrote, and helped score the film) plays the role as a very slight variation of his trademark "Little Tramp" character. The Great Dictator apparently sparked a (still on-going) debate about whether the Jewish Barber and the Little Tramp should be considered the same character, but aside from the fact that the Tramp was a silent-film character and the Barber speaks, the two characters are clearly one and the same. It's not enough to say that the Barber is a "thinly-disguised" version of the Tramp; there really is no disguise at all.

Similarly, the fictional names Chaplin gives to the film's real-life characters are clearly not intended to disguise who they really are. In addition to the Barber, Chaplin plays Tomanian Phooey Adenoid Hynkel (German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler), who has a rivalrous alliance with Bacterian dictator Benzino Napaloni (Italian dictator Bentio Mussolini). The parallels are so clearly meant to be drawn that one almost wonders why Chaplin bothered to come up with false names.

This was a subject so important to Chaplin that it marks the end of his long-standing one-man boycott against the end of the silent era; the characters speak with great purpose of character, from the Barber's humble eloquence, to Hynkel's pitch-perfect parody of Hitler's oratory style, to Jack Oakie's fearlessly broad, scene-stealing performance as Napaloni, which caricatures Italians beyond offensiveness, and takes the caricature straight into the realm of innocent playfulness.

I said that this film is not flawless, and I meant it. Some of the dialogue is preachy, some of the plot developments, too-obviously contrived. But we forgive these flaws, because we sense a heart at their center. One of the most interesting flaws is that some of the comedy just doesn't work, to the point that I suspect that Chaplin was kind of hoping that it wouldn't always generate laughs. For example, one scene makes a far too hasty transition from dramatic suspense to comic slapstick, as two storm troopers harass the hapless, innocent Barber, and the brief fight sequence is abruptly ended, when a a woman conks all three of them over the head with a frying pan. This causes the Barber to dance deliriously about the street in a "comical" daze. It's a very Chaplinesque dance, but this time, it's not funny, because every window in the background is emblazoned with the word "JEW," just as windows were in real German-Jewish ghettos. I submit that Chaplin's clowning isn't supposed to make us laugh here; we're supposed to be distracted by the storm troopers' hateful graffiti in the background. Those postings identifying merchants and residents as Jews serve as an ever-present reminder that the Barber and his fellow Jews live in a constant state of peril, and at the mercy of Hynkel and his brutish storm trooper thugs.

How quickly we forget, but when Schindler's List, which also dealt so disturbingly with the Nazi regime, came out in 1993, it wasn't just a movie. It was, without exaggeration, a cultural phenomenon. Lines were around the block, high schools sponsored class trips to screenings, and theaters forfeited profit by refusing to sell snacks to audiences, out of respect for the film. The Great Dictator is every bit as important a film as Schindler's List. But at least The Great Dictator is fun to watch.

My Open Letter to Craig's List Personals

FOR ALL YOU LADIES WHO USE CRAIG’S LIST PERSONALS

If this seems familiar, it’s because I’ve already posted a variation of this once. But much of it apparently bears repeating, and some of it has been revised to reflect recent experience. Yes, I wrote this from my own personal perspective, but trust me, I speak for many guys out there.

1. DON’T ASSUME ONE OR TWO DATES AUTOMATICALLY EQUALS A “RELATIONSHIP.” I hope we will end up liking each other enough for a relationship to develop. That’s the goal for both of us, right? But let’s be realistic. Even if we like each other and things seem to be going well, if we’ve had only one or two dates, it’s not a relationship yet. I’m not required to tell you where I was Friday night. If I haven’t mentioned I have a sister in Spain, I haven’t been keeping a “secret.” I’ll try to be as upfront as possible, but just because you don’t know every detail of my life doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve been “lying” to you.

2. IF ALL YOU WANT IS SEX. . . there are countless, and I do mean countless, guys for you, on Craig’s List and just in general. A surprising number of these men are upfront about this. Don’t assume I’m one of these men if I’ve given you no such indication. Believe it or not, some of us guys really do want a woman and not just a woman’s body. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got sexual urges as much as the next guy, and if the date/ relationship is going well, maybe we’ll get lucky in every sense of the phrase. But I’m more than just a penis, and if all you want to talk about is the size of my organ, and whether you spit or swallow, guess what, you’ve just turned me off, big time. It’s worth repeating: If this is all you care about, there are more than enough men willing to accommodate you, and they won’t be hard to find.

3. LEAVE YOUR MAN-HATING BITTERNESS AT HOME. This can’t be stressed enough. First of all, I’m hardly the right target audience for a lecture on how all men are the same. You won’t get any sympathy from me, because I’ll just wonder why you’ve put up with so many bastards and then saved up your anger for the well-meaning me. Second, if you approach a date with the attitude that all men are jerks/ liars/ out for only one thing/ afraid of commitment/ whatever, that’s not fair to me, and you’re setting us both up for failure. Why not get to know me first before assuming that all men are alike, and I’m just one of Them? I understand you may have been hurt in the past, I’ve been hurt too. I don’t open a conversation with “all women are evil.” Please return the courtesy.

4. READ THE AD I POSTED. Don’t ask me to meet you for lunch by Space Mountain if my ad says I live in Connecticut. If my ad says SWM, don’t start a correspondence and then tell me you date only black guys. And don’t ask me my age if my ad already says “34-yr-old.” I typed this stuff out for a reason. Why waste my time and yours by responding to an ad you didn’t even read first? And speaking of wasting time. . .

5. . . . STRINGING A GUY ALONG IS TOTALLY UNCOOL. I don’t care what your reason is. Maybe you’d like to meet but you’re too shy to take that first step, or maybe you think it’s funny to test how many times I’ll answer your emails when you secretly know I don’t have a chance in hell. Or maybe you’re just so “nice” that you don’t have the heart to admit you’re uninterested. (If this last one is the case, trust me, I have infinitely more respect for women who say “I don’t think it’s gonna work out, but good luck in your search.” Yeah, it’s as impersonal as a job interview, but at least it’s direct and honest.) No matter how cruel or well-intentioned your motivation may be, sending lots of emails that say “yeah let’s get together!” is, frankly, a disgusting thing to do if you know you’ll never really agree to any set plans. Ending a date with some variation of “we should do this again some time!” when you really have no intention of doing so – just because it seems the right thing to say at the time – is even worse. If the guy is into you, he’s going to keep calling and emailing until he “gets the point,” which will only annoy you and make him feel like a loser when he finally realizes you haven’t meant a word you said. Maybe you’ve broken a heart, or maybe he’ll just curse you out to his friends and then forget about it. Either way, not funny, not practical, and totally not cool.

Some of you women may find this ad to be insulting or maybe even unintentionally hilarious. Fine. If none of this applies to you – even better. I’m just trying to inject some should-be common sense into a process that has been far more insane than it has any right to be. Follow these simple rules, and you’ll save a lot of heartache on both sides.

movie review: Punch-Drunk Love

Punch-Drunk Love is a fascinating film, full of contradiction and nuance. Because the star is Adam Sandler, and his character is not unlike many other Sandler characters, it is very much an Adam Sandler movie, yet at the same time, it very much isn't -- filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, a master at creating and developing interesting, three-dimensional characters, has taken the Sandler persona, and used this script to delve into the character's psyche. We are not spoon-fed any Freudian explanations, but we sense, through Sandler's interactions with his employees, sisters, and acquaintances, how he came to be the way he is, and with our understanding, comes empathy. Roger Ebert, by no means a Sandler fan, felt that Punch-Drunk Love was the key to understanding and even appreciating Sandler's other films, and while I think that evaluation goes too far, I can at least see where Mr. Ebert is coming from when he makes that statement.

As Barry Egan, the central character of the film, Sandler portrays a character whose moments of rage and violence (never directed at a human being except in self-defense, by the way) punctuate a gentle and kind soul. The character has similarities, both in detail and theme, to Sandler's character in Anger Management, although that film goes for laughs while this film goes for poignancy. The two movies would make an interesting double bill for film students.

Punch-Drunk Love doesn't show us much of Barry's life outside of the central narrative, but it shows -- or sometimes just hints at -- just enough of it for us to understand that he is a lonely, shy, well-meaning young man. If he has problems with anger or depression, it is only because his constant attempts to please people -- even people who clearly don't deserve it -- are too often unappreciated, and if he has problems with honesty, it's only because he needs to learn to like and trust himself more than he does. The dishonesty he sometimes exhibits, sometimes for seemingly very little reason, aren't intended as hurtful or self-serving, but as a mask to hide behind. Watching this movie, I wanted him to realize that he doesn't need the mask, to learn that his love interest, played effectively by Emily Watson, is attracted to him not despite the glimpses of Barry's true self, but because of them.

Narratively, this movie is a conundrum, because it tells the simultaneous stories of how Barry's life -- so completely rooted in mundanity and routine -- begins to both completely fall apart, and yet, simultaneously, finally start to come together. You get the sense that if he can manage to survive the series of misadventures that happenstance throws his way, he will emerge a better, stronger person. Only a character like Barry -- written by a screenwriter with imagination, love, and wit -- can get away with not only saying "I'm a nice guy" as he's preparing to beat the s*** out of someone, but also making us believe it. Note that I'm not just saying that we believe his sincerity, I'm saying that we agree with him. Barry is a indeed a nice guy who has been pushed too far.

Now, you may have read this far, and find yourself asking, "yes, all of this sounds good, but you still haven't told us anything about what actually happens in the movie!" And my response, not out of laziness, is that if you want to know what actually happens, there are other places online to find out plot points. In my mind, Punch-Drunk Love is not about plot detail, it's about character, style, and tone. The character of Barry Egan is so fully fleshed out that the incidents that happen to him are just that -- incidental. Writer P.T. Anderson probably could have chosen any number of alternate misadventures for Barry, but his grasp of the character is so strong, the results probably would have been just as good. So yes, I'm being vague. I don't want to ruin the sense of discovery you'll enjoy while watching this movie. The vagueness (if that's even a word) of this review is somehow fitting for the film, and all I can say is that you have to trust me. Trust my recommendation. This is one movie so beautiful, so smart, that it deserves your leap of faith.

*Note: I wish I could end on that positive note, but one final comment, however parenthetical, must be made. Jon Brion is credited as the film's composer, a credit which does disservice to the late, great songwriter Harry Nilsson, whose love song "He Needs Me" (originally from the musical Popeye) is at the heart of the film score. Yes, Nilsson receives a standard song-writing credit , during the song listing that is standard toward the end of the closing titles, but come on. Nearly the entire score of this film is based on the tune of "He Needs Me," which, in my mind, warrants a co-composing credit for Nilsson. I mean, Brion deserves praise for taking a single song and using it to musically illustrate an entire motion picture, but giving him sole credit is like giving Kenneth Branagh sole credit for writing Hamlet without even mentioning Shakespeare except for fine print buried within the closing titles. Alright. Now that we've got that straigtened out, go watch the movie!