THE ABSENCE AND THE OSCARS

Greetings to you all...if there are any of you left standing...or reading, as would more accurately be the case perhaps.
First things first; please forgive my absence and unacceptable lack of updates.
You hunger for film-flavoured chunks of tasty blog posts like ravenous lizard-man slaves chained to the throne of some sadistic, scantily-clad nymphomaniacal queen sorceress...and I have not delivered.
Shame on me.
I have thrown no meaty slabs of prose before you so that you may feast upon my words and grow plump with cinema knowledge and insight.

This will not do.
Allow me to set things right.
Sink your fangs into this and suck deeply until you black out and fall unconscious upon a mountain of soft, velvety pillows surrounded by numerous eager slave-girls with soft, velvety...well, y'know...
Enjoy...

MY ABSENCE:

I moved.
Just like Skeletor who curses at He-Man and his cohorts daily because he covets Castle Greyskull, I too had problems regarding real-estate. I needed my own Castle Greyskull, if you will.
Hell, I would've even settled for a Snake Mountain.
Anyway, after searching high, low, high again and then giving low a second look, I finally found my new home with the help of my clan.
And yes, just like my hero, Skeletor; on my first evening within my new stronghold, I stood at the fortified gates (read: screen-door) and cackled insanely while declaring to all within earshot that I would now rule this dominion with a mighty fist.
A dog barking was the only response.
But trust me...that puppy sounded fucking scared, y'all.

After the move I was then forced to wait for about a month while my new Internet connection was being connected. That's all I shall say upon that matter, for the subject caused me considerable grief and set me back quite a few steps on the path towards sound mental health.
I will, however, take a moment to thank my brother kinsman who assisted me during this gruelling trial.
Some may say I'm overreacting, but c'mon. One can only go for so long without porn and various other websites...which, in turn, provide links to yet more porn.
Think of our ancestors. They had to hunt for food with clubs and spears, fight off wild animals, live in caves, tumble with dames that didn't wax...but at least THEY still had sweet ADSL hookups and swift, ready access to titty-sites.

I mean, I'm not a savage.
That month offline was brutal.

THE OSCARS:
Ugh. What a joke. Okay, I'm not even going to TRY to put on a T-shirt that says that 'I'm shocked', but by the gods, was it a crap affair.
In regard to actual cinema/movie/film-industry value, it has been absolute nonsense and a mere carnival of lies and general crap for years now (The 'magic' died for me the year Julia Roberts beat Ellen Burstyn), but there was always the zing and Hollywood-style flair and excitement of seeing your favourite stars and artists gathering together under one roof to take part in an impressive event that, regardless of inaccuracies, still possessed an overall scent of that wonderful 'movie magic'.

Well, this year the magic wasn't just absent; it felt like it had never even been there.
The entire evening felt tacky, forced and actually, quite low budget. Unacceptable.
But hey, at least I had the awards to look forward to, right?
WRONG! *John Matrix's gunshot*
What a perfect arrangement of absolute rubbish. Let's pick through it like vagrants, shall we?

GOOD:

Best Supporting Actor = Christoph Waltz
This was one of the few things that made me happy. His performance in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/ was beyond impressive. High praise to the man and congrats.

BAD:

Original Screenplay = THE HURT LOCKER http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/
Sigh. I loved THE HURT LOCKER...but BASTERDS was a better screenplay. Simple as that. More effort and creativity went into one Act of Tarantino's script than within LOCKER'S entire page-count.

Best Picture = THE HURT LOCKER
Best Director = Kathryn Bigelow
HURT LOCKER, fair enough...but Cameron deserved Best Director y'all. No question.
As I said before, THE HURT LOCKER was an excellent film...but c'mon, there are plenty of war films just as good, if not better. Will I purchase THE HURT LOCKER when it's on disc? Of course. Will it replace FULL METAL JACKET http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/ as my favourite war movie? Sir, hell no, sir.
Now AVATAR http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/ and Cameron are a whole different story. They were robbed, basically. Yes, Kathryn Bigelow probably did an amazing job directing again (as she's been doing for years) but at the end of the day, she served up just another war film. A superb war film; but STILL just another war film.
Cameron, on the other hand, reinvented the god-damned wheel. Nay, scratch that. Cameron showed up and said, “That wheel sucks. Remove it. Now I'm going to build my own device to replace said wheel and as a result, this vehicle will now run smoother and more efficiently than any vehicles that have preceded it. ...Oh, and I'm going to overhaul the engine, spruce up the paint job and also throw in enough cup-holders to make you say, 'Holy shit. Look at all the cup-holders.'”
Long story short; the guy had his fingers in MANY pies. ...Which he also baked.
He went FAR beyond the call of duty, so to speak; achieving more in one film than most directors achieve in their entire careers.
Throw the guy some kudos, huh? A gold statue perhaps?
Cameron led an ENTIRE army into battle using new techniques and came out not only victorious but so inspiring that other directors now wish to follow in his footsteps and utilise these fresh innovations that he has pioneered.
“Best Director” would have been an understatement, had he won.
But hey; maybe that's just my opinion.

After all, Kathryn Bigelow did give us a quality film...and oh yeah, I think she's also a woman, apparently. The media kept mentioning that, so it must be important. I dunno.
Gotta keep it all fair, right Academy?

I guess I'll continue to sit all alone and naively think that the Oscars are based on actual merit, not gender, politics or whatever other bullshit is in the Top 10 that year.

(Let it be known right here and now that I'm a BIG fan of Kathryn Bigelow; NEAR DARK http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093605/ and POINT BREAK http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102685/ are badass. It is not her fault that this garbage surrounded her Oscar experience. High praise to her, regardless.)

Original Score = UP http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/
UP beat SHERLOCK HOLMES? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988045/ I do not think so. Utter nonsense. Hans Zimmer's HOLMES score was mind-blowing. As soon as the film finished, I bought the score as soon as possible.
I don't even remember a single note of the music in UP...which surprised me considering it was done by Michael Giacchino, who composes the amazing music on LOST. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/
Strange.

Best Animated Film = UP
UP beat CORALINE? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/ Eat shit. I'm getting angry now.
I enjoyed UP and was like, “Wow, what pretty colours!” and I loved the opening and so forth, but it's a very noticeable step backward after the utter brilliance of WALL-E http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/ , which was pure genius. UP felt like it was part of the dark, pre-Pixar days when every animated film needed a crap song sung by a 'cute' animal sidekick voiced by a comedic minority.
Such a song thankfully never came, but that still didn't make me love the film like 99% of the planet apparently does. I didn't hate the film, it just didn't even come CLOSE to how much WALL-E (and previous Pixar films) moved me.
Now, CORALINE was the best animated film and one of the best films I've ever seen. Some may love stop-mo animation and some may not, but I find the animation method to be completely irrelevant when the story and performances are this good. I was INSIDE this film. It gripped me like the skeletal fingers of an evil old-woman who kidnaps children and sews buttons on their eyes.
Utter brilliance.

I'll wrap up now with some quick points in regard to the BAFFLING omissions from the nominations:

- No Sam Rockwell nomination for MOON? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/ I just do not understand. My mind works on a system of logic and this just does not process properly. Go and watch his performance in MOON and TRY to even begin to tell me that he doesn't deserve a nomination, at the very least. (You won't get far. I'll walk away as soon as I smell your anti-Rockwell musk. It's a skill. Like rats sensing disease in potential mates.)

- No Sharlto Copley nomination for DISTRICT 9? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/ Firstly, I must say that I think D9 is flat-out bulletproof. Loved every frame. It is just a shame that it was going up against the blue juggernaut that is AVATAR. On any other day, D9 deserved to win EVERYTHING it's nominated for, and then some. That being said; Sharlto Copley's completely improvised performance that knocked it completely out of the park, should have taken home some gold.

- No Zoe Saldana nomination for AVATAR? Pathetic. Open your eyes, Academy. It's still a legitimate performance, you rubes. They just paint over it. Wake up and realise that motion-capture performances are valid acting gigs because, HELLO!? They CAPTURE the MOTION/PERFORMANCE! Can't capture anything if there's no actor there performing, yo.
A foolish oversight, amongst many, that will hopefully be remedied in the future.

Oh and yes, I do realise that this post is a bit late, but I've been busy and I wrote most of this stuff while I was still offline.
Savvy?

UP

I watched UP http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/ the other day.
It was enjoyable, but I'm disinclined to go along with the majority who claim that it is PIXAR's best work thus far.
Sure, this film is good and I enjoyed myself; it's just that it gets blown away by the likes of WALL-E, Ratatouille and the greatly underrated The Incredibles.
At least UP kicks the crap out of Cars. Ugh, that movie annoys me. It was just like a big-budget adaptation of those irritating BBC kids shows involving sentient vehicles that caper about the village and mockingly cavort in front of humans; their rightful masters.
Burn them all and crush them into a cube, I say.
I wish I could say that'll occur in the sequel, but I know it won't. Shame.

Let's take a look at the highs and the lows of this particular adventure...

HIGHS:
- The early montage involving Carl and Ellie's relationship. This was just beautifully done. The film had basically just begun and I found myself already crying. Their early courtship followed by the rise and inevitable falls of life are displayed with such care and emotion that I was hooked instantly.
PIXAR have always stuck to their motto that “story is king” and that belief is backed up by their diligent attention to the little details regarding character interaction. Simple little moments like Ellie gently placing her hand upon Carl's as children, coupled with the painted hand prints during the mailbox scene just provide depths to the story that sucks you in until you finally realise that you're staring at the screen through moist eyes.
PIXAR made me cry with a speechless little robot and they did it again with this wonderful sequence. Well done.
In fact, such an emotional high point so early in the narrative actually left me kind of detached from the later stages of the film, but perhaps that's just me.

- Kevin the bird is great. I'm not able to type volumes of text concerning this character, because, frankly, she doesn't do very much. What she does do though, and well, is stare about blankly in that awesome 'vacant sidekick' kind of way and squawk in a manner that is funnier than any line of dialogue could be.
She must have been fun to write. Just change the surrounding context and the audience can provide their own meaning for the squawk. Worked for me; I was laughing, and while I was underwhelmed by Kevin at first, by the end of the film, I found myself wishing that she had more screen time.

- Dug is the second character who I wished was given the chance to show off more. He's a big, squishy Golden Retriever...with a collar that allows him to talk. That's just awesome, right there. He's eager to please his master (whoever that may be) and he has that that delicately balanced canine personality that teeters between focused attention and squirrel-based distraction. He gets his share of laughs and he's generally always present on screen...but I couldn't help feeling that the multi-lingual collar plus his personality hinted at some wasted potential, script-wise.
Still, his solid visual design makes him a nice addition to the PIXAR roster and it'd be nice to see him used in some shorts or something similar down the line.

(Clearly reading his lines.)

- PIXAR never really fail to impress with their opening shorts, and 'Partly Cloudy' continues this tradition. I'm even inclined to say that I laughed more during this short than during UP. The concept alone is impressive enough to warrant extended praise and without trying to spoil anything, I'll simply say that the storks that deliver babies have a sort of work-like relationship with clouds. It's a brilliantly simple premise that works wonderfully.
...Oh, and there are few things funnier than watching a stork get winded after a baby ram smashes into its chest. Hilarious.

(Poor, poor stork...)

LOWS:
- Russell is a strange character. He's got a great design and there's loads of potential under the surface, but he never gets any really good lines and I just generally found myself wondering when he was going to click into place, y'know? Yes, I laughed when he got whipped across the face by a tent support strut but that wasn't enough.
Usually the sight of a fat kid getting injured is a comedy high-point and enough to make me enthusiastically recommend it to any film fans who'd enjoy the humorous sight of a plump child being accidentally whacked in the face by a plastic rod.
Alas, this time I felt like something was missing.

- The script could've used some more punch. The dialogue and narrative did the job and everything zigged and zagged where appropriate, but I expected some more spice. If someone cooks you a steak and just hands it to you on a plate, you'd be like, “Sure, this is a well-cooked steak, but I'd like a side of fries, some sauce and a frosty beverage to go with it.” THEN, sir, you'd have a meal.
With UP, I still felt hungry afterwards.
I saw this with my brother-in law and young niece and I think it left her unsatisfied as well. During the car ride home, she spoke more about how much she loved Monsters vs Aliens, instead of how funny Dug was.
Hmmm. Not the words of a customer who's just enjoyed a full meal, says I.

(Potentially hungry UP viewer)

- The talking dogs were wasted. I've already mentioned Dug, but all of the other dogs are basically just loud obstacles. Snore.
Speaking of which; the whole opposing force is nothing to rave about. Okay, the whole 'hero becomes villain' angle is not bad, but Charles Muntz just felt like a hollow place-holder. I got the same vibe from Clayton in Tarzan back in the day, who looked like Captain Hook's brother and seemed like he was merely the villain-shaped peg necessary to fill the villain-hole.
Lazy, folks.

I mentioned The Incredibles earlier, and I'll mention it again now for 2 reasons:
1. It's awesome and it warrants repeated viewing.
2. UP has a few things in common with it in the ways that it has been painted with some darker narrative tones in comparison to most of PIXAR's lighter fare.
I should make it VERY clear now that I personally do not consider this to be a textbook negative; au contraire. I yearn for the day when there are countless animated films aimed at more mature audiences. (Hurry up and get released, 9 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472033/ )
I mention this purely because I was feeling more down than up during this film, and that was not what I had expected. Especially not when 2 key characters had the potential for far more comedy than what was served to us.

As I write this, I'm detecting a scent of negativity that was not my intention.
This IS a good film and the adventure was worth every step. I guess I'm just not as passionate about this film as I thought I'd be. And, as I've learnt like any artist who explores their craft; my work suffers a little when the passion is not there.
Oh well, no drama.

My advice is to suffer through a painful viewing of Cars again before watching UP; then after being in the company of Larry The Cable Guy and the rest of the lame components that make up that bland, damaged wreck, you'll find your journey far more uplifting.

Seriously; Cars is crap, folks.