Movie Maven: Superheroes, Smokers, and Shameless Hype

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Of all the superhero films, I have enjoyed the Spider-man series the most. That is even taking into account the Superman 1 and 2 in the 1970s-80s. Spider-man 1 did a fine

job marrying great special effects with great stories and sympathetic characters. One set up the Spidey origin story, his uncle's death that gives him purpose, and the Green Goblin

who would ultimately get between him and his best friend. Spider-Man 2 bettered the first by having a great villain of Doc Oct, Spidey's struggle with his dreams and his responsibilities, and a simply great fight and rescue scene.

When it came to Spider-Man 3, I had read an article in Entertainment Weekly how this film had been rushed and between casting and writing the script filming it was getting a bit tight.

We went to Spider-man 3 having read much of the reviews that were very, very mixed. The reviews said that this installment was an obvious attempt to cash in on the francise and was just seemed thrown together. We watched the film and afterwards saw what the reviews meant, but found that it wasn't as bad as some of the reviewers made it to be.

It was a very long movie that could have been tightened and edited down more. It really didn't help that the theater we went to had played endless commercials and coming attractions. It was an 11:15AM showing, but we didn't get out 2:00PM.

My hubby, who is a big fan of comic books was very wary of using Venom as one of the villains because it wasn't one of the better ones in the Spiderman universe. If you are going to have a multiple villain fight with Spiderman that should include a little origin for each villain, it is hard to fit a subplot about Spidey's struggle with fame, relationship issues with his girlfriend and best friend, and dealing with the memory of his dead uncle and his need for revenge. It was just too much to try to fit well into a film. I didn't get the dance scene either. The ending was a bit sloppy as well. On the other hand, the effects are great and there are some really good fight scenes. What saves the film and what some reviewers missed is that I still cared about the characters. The core cast are people you care about and the director Sam Raimi is a talented director.



Spider-man 3 will make a lot of money even though it is the weakest installment, and that is okay. That is a testament -- a reward for how good the other two movies were.

All I ask is that if they do Spider-man 4, that they slow down and give us something of the caliber of Spider-man 2. Please.

Nicotine Poisoning

We have also renewed our Netflicks and have checked out various films. There are three movies with cigarettes in their title, only one was good. 200 Cigarettes is set in 1981 in New York City on New Years Eve. A bunch of angst-ridden twenty-somethings are looking for parties to go to or being angst-ridden hoping people will come to their parties. I guess 200 Cigarettes are smoked during the film, but we didn't get that far in before we ejected the disc. There were no characters that we cared about. Like its characters, it was a movie that desperately wanted to be cool.

The Smokers is another film that wanted to be cool. It calls itself another "Heathers", a cult-film in the 1980s. It just wasn't. We watched the entire film to see if it ever reaches "Heathers" status, but it just failed. You just have unpleasant rich girls (who, of course, smoke) and a troubled Scholarship Student who go on an anti-male revenge kick to get the feeling of power. They only give a momentary tease that they will deal with cliques, but they never really

follow through. Unlike "The Smokers", "Heathers" had a wry sense of dark humor with better cinematography. Skip "The Smokers" and rent "Heathers" if you want a film on teen angst, cliques, revenge, and wry comment on how communities deal with teen tragedies.

Thank You For Smoking is a very clever film about lobbyists and the art of spin. The lead character is a lobbyist for the Tobacco Industry, who lunches with lobbyists from the Gun and Alcohol lobbies and with a twinkle in his eye argues persuasively for his clients. Check it out, it is really enjoyable. While not as good as Thank You For Smoking, Fast Food Nation and American Dreamz are moderately interesting satire on American life.

We Have Been Oscar Hyped!

It is a truth for the ages that during awards season, studio marketing people are priming the pump to create buzz for their films. You get proclamations every year that their film is

"The Best Film This Year", "The Best Film of the Decade", and "Best Film EVER". For sole purposes of awards prognostication, it is important to pay attention and guess what hype the members of the Academy will fall for. This is why I try not to see any film before Oscars, because I almost always find the movie lacking in proportion to the amount of hype it gets.

Then I get indignant and refuse to vote for a film to get best picture, because the movie I saw was not an Oscar Worthy film. I temporarily forget that "Oscar Worthy" isn't the best film or best performance, but which marketing department throws the most pixie dust over their film.

As I mentioned before, I lost points this year on the Oscar competition because I watched The Departed before the Oscars. I refused to vote for it for Best Picture even though

I picked it for Best Director (even though I knew that it was Martin Scorsese's year since he was due after a large body of work without an Oscar) because I was disappointed in direct relation to the amount of hype it got. It wasn't that The Departed was bad, it just wasn't the best crafted film that Martin Scorsese ever done. Another problem was casting Leo Dicaprio, who just didn't sell the lead role, which just made the movie lack the weight it needed. This was a problem in another Scorsese film, The Aviator.

The Inconvenient Truth was not a bad movie. It had an important message to deliver. Unfortunately, there was not much new information for us and we thought it was a PowerPoint presentation mixed with a campaign movie for President. It certainly wasn't the best documentary that year. The best documentary I saw last year didn't even get nominated and that was Shut Up and Sing. Jesus Camp was a compelling and scary documentary about how the religious right evangelists are indoctrinating young children to be an army

for God, but I still think "Shut Up and Sing" had a better narrative.

Happy Feet won for best animated feature. While the music was good and the message was laudable, I don't think it was better than Monster House or Cars. Like Inconvenient Truth, this Happy Feet won because of its message.

Little Miss Sunshine was a pleasant film that had its moments of charm and humor, but it really wasn't one of the best films last year. It was better than The Devil Wears Prada which felt like an updated Working Girl from 1988. Meryl Streep will forever be one of the best American Actresses for her work in Sophie's Choice and Out of Africa, but Prada wasn't her Oscar worthy role.

So much hype surrounded Dreamgirls. Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy were shoe-ins for Oscars. Three songs from the movie were nominated along with a host of technical awards

like costume design. Much was made post-Oscar about only Jennifer Hudson winning for best supporting actress and the movie only getting awarded for Sound Mixing. People

cried foul that it got snubbed for Best Picture because it was an all-Black cast. After watching the film, it wasn't a bad film. Bill Condin, who also directed Chicago, did the best he could with a flawed musical with forgettable songs, broad characters, and lack of humor. Given better source material, this would probably be Oscar worthy as Chicago was regardless of the color of the cast.

Children of Men was not a bad movie. It created a very oppressive scary world were there is a world-wide epidemic of infertility. It had a really good use of sound and and had some really suspenseful moments, but it somehow fell short for me in comparison of another futuristic film, V for Vendetta.

So far, Pan's Labyrinth is in my mind the best film for 2006. It is so good on so many levels. I am still interested in watching Last King of Scotland, The Lives of Others, Volver, and maybe just maybe United 93 before I make a final decision.

Oscar Maven Wins Again

At the 2006 Oscars or the Brokeback year, I won our Oscar night with 17 out of 24 categories correct. That was with a reasonable amount of research and being relatively pure when it came to not screening nominees beforehand. I had gotten complacent and distracted in the weeks leading up to the Oscars. Then there was my husband's trash talk. We decided this year to get an Oscar like trophy for the winner of this year's Oscar prediction game. My husband started to crow how the trophy would look nice on his side of the bed. A sense of dread came over me. This could be the year that my dominance in prediction would end since I hadn't studied enough. I prepared myself to be gracefully defeated.

This year I only won with 14 out of 24 categories, because I watched The Departed, Cars, and Monster House. In error, I picked Cars to win for Best Animated Film, since I had no idea about that film about dancing penguins and I thought it would be Pixar's year. I knew Martin Scorsese was going to win for Director, even though The Departed was a mediocre movie, but it was so hard voting for the movie for Best Film and picked Babel instead.

I also fell in love with Pan's Labyrinth through its musical score and got blindsided by my pre-screening love of this movie in the Best Score and Best Foreign Film. After listening to the scores on NPR, I really thought Pan's Labyrinth would get it over Babel, because of its memorable melodic score over a rather non-traditional score. I had heard about "The Lives of Others" about the Stazi in East Germany and thought it may win, but promptly forgot about it when I was rushing through my ballot and only focused on voting for Pan's Labyrinth as much as I could.

Who knew Eddie Murphy would be left out in the cold? I also thought United 93 would get something like Best Editing. Silly me, since Marty's editor has been his career long editor and I should have caught that.

My win had a lot to do with Best Song and Best Documentary. My opponents for some reason didn't think that Inconvenient Truth would win in either category. Many felt that since Dreamgirls was nominated for three songs, that one of the songs would have to win. It is obvious they didn't heed the big rule in such things. When one film gets nominated in a category multiple times, votes are split, and the odd nominee benefits. I know my father, the Foxnews devotee, purposely voted against Inconvenient Truth because he thinks Gore is dangerous for this country.

Another reason I won was the Best Costume Design. My rule of thumb is historical dramas always win this category. Many thought that since "The Devil Wears Prada" was about fashion it would win, but contemporary fashion normally doesn't win.

Oscar Maven!

As a movie fanatic, I anticipate the Oscars like some anticipate the Super Bowl, World Series, or the World Cup Finals.

A long time ago, I had a grasshopper moment when I was a freshman at an all girl catholic school and I ditched school to go to the racetrack with a friend. With help from a random adult we were able to place bets on a horse of our choice after looking at them in the pen. Of course, I picked the "cute horse" while my friend picked the horse who had the eyes of a vicious street fighter. Of course, I lost my 2 bucks, but I learned a powerful lesson -- you MUST have ice water in your veins when you bet money.



I have since won a March Madness pool knowing nothing of College Football (much to the distress of the boys in the office who were fanatics). I do best when I have no emotion attachment to the outcome. When I take this attitude toward Oscar pools, I always come out on top. Once I love or hate a movie, I will lose this category.

My philosophy is that it doesn't matter who or what should win an oscar, my job is to divine who or what will win. This has served me well in our annual Oscar contests (this will be our 12th year). Before I fill out my ballot, I read everything and make sure I know what each nominated film is about because sometimes that will give you a clue. For instance, if it is about the Holocaust, it will most likely to win. Predicting the oscars is like peeking into a tea cup full of tea leaves and you have to dig through to see the leafy kalidescope that makes the most sense. I will look at:

1. Critics and columnist predictions

2. Other award results

3. The level of studio hype & "buzz"

4. Oscar Historical data at who actually wins

5. Look at the subject matter of a film or actor/actress history - because sometimes actors will win not because of the film they are nominated for but because they were overlooked in an earlier film or are awarded for a body of work.



None of these factors alone can be reliable, but in combination with other factors you can come up with pretty good guesses as to who will win.



Some years are easier than others. I call these "Sweep Years," these are the years you know that a film will sweep, like "Return of the King" for work on the entire trilogy. If you misjudge what is going to be a sweep year, you risk things going badly. Last year, a friend decided to go against conventional wisdom and did slightly better than someone who had no idea about any of the films. Doing your research does make a difference.

So, as a public service to my 360 friends I am going to help you do reasonably well in your oscar pool and maybe, just maybe win it.

Oscar Maven: Best Documentary

This category is interesting this year since all of the films are highly topical and controversial -- no penguins in this category (but you can find them among the "Best Animated" nominees). The first documentary is Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, about global warming. The next is Deliver Us From Evil which follows a catholic priest who is a molestor and his victims. Then there is Jesus Camp about how the religious right creates a new generation. Then there are two films documenting the conditions in Iraq for Iraqis (Iraq In Fragments and My Country, My Country).

The conventional wisdom is that two of the same film usually cancel themselves out -- so that would rule out the Iraq movies. I think Jesus Camp will make too many voter feel uncomfortable. Deliver Us From Evil is very much like Capturing the Friedmans to win, as Capturing the Friedmans lost out to The Fog of War. My vote goes to Inconvenient Truth.

Go Al Gore!

Oscar Night wrap up

It's me! It's me! I like to thank all the oscar articles which handicapped this year's oscar race and gave me the edge on our annual oscar party contest.

I won picking 17 out of 24 catagories correctly. In second place was John with 14. Last place was our friend, Shelley who got 10 right (actually our 2 year old, Lewis got 9 right -- picking Movies and people who should have won). People were bitter about the fact that I studied for this event. Let them stew, victory is mine. Bwahahaha.

I won, even though I have only been able to see four nominated movies so far, Revenge of the Sith (bad movie), Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were Rabbit (good movie), Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (bad movie), and Batman Begins (decent movie).

While many sites gave the Best Picture to Brokeback, I was intrigued by a possibility of an upset that I read on a few sites. This morning I am reading discussions on why Brokeback lost. There is much talk of homophobia, which I cannot say that it doesnt exist, but doesn't really seem to be the case.

Gene Stone claims, "60-year-old straight white men who compose most of the voting." Then why did "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" win over Dolly Parton? If there is this monolithic old white boy's club in the Academy, wouldn't Dolly Parton have won? George Clooney would have won for Best Director over Ang Lee.

The academy honored the film for what they thought was exceptional, the director Ang Lee and the writing. What I think is the more compelling reason is that
it lost in the sea of Oscar campaigning -- the world of buzz and peaking. Some say Brokeback just peaked too soon. There was so much hype and interest in the movie as a phenom that all the surprise or curiosity of the film dried up.
It got to the point where there were too many jokes and too many quotes from the film that it was hard to take it seriously as a film.

Perhaps if the film was viewed as just another great movie about forbidden love, Brokeback would have done better. Gay themed film will do better when it is no longer a big deal, and merely movies about human affection, attraction, and relationships. I understand that Gays and Lesbians face great societal scorn and injustice. I have fought on various public forums for their right to marry, adopt, and enjoy the same rights as all other citizens of this country. I just don't think that it was about the discomfort about homosexuality as much as too much hype and too much wrong hype.

I have not gone to see it because of all the jokes and spoilers that are out there have basically threatened my enjoyment of discovery of this film. The hype was about homosexuality in film rather than the merits of the storytelling skills of the film.

Additionally, I make it a policy to see movies well after oscar season to clear the palatte, so to speak, and see a movie sans the hype. Overly hyped movies almost always seem to disappoint.

My wish is that films about gays and lesbians become just part of a body of film about the human condition in recognition that there is a full spectrum of human experience.

People who are miffed about the Brokeback/Crash upset, should really check out what the religious right has to say.

"Not only are the Oscars out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, they have indeed become an "atheistic pleasure dome" ruled by neo-Marxist liberals and cultural pimps who hate the traditional American family and its Christian values." - Dr. Ted Baehr, founder of MovieGuide and Chairman of Christian Film & Television Commission.

Bottom line is that it is best not to take Oscar night or Hollywood very seriously. The voting often has more to do with the timing and nature of the studio campaigning than the merits or demerits of films themselves.

It turns out that the biggest theme of this Oscar night was to encourage us to go to the theaters more and reject DVDs and downloads. So,
Hollywood is not about liberalism or hedonism, but more about good, old-fashioned capitalism.

Jon Stewart

I tend to agree with the mixed reviews that Stewart did on whole an okay job. After reading Andy Dehnart's article, Stewart may have done better than it seemed. The reason it seemed that he had a tough time, and many comedians have a tough time is that it is an audience that cannot laugh or see the how puffed up they are. David Hiltbrand of the Philadelphia Inquirer talks about the no-win situation facing Jon Stewart. If the audience at the Kodak can't take a joke it can look like the comic is bombing when he is actually hitting the mark. It makes one think that what might please the audience at home may not please the audience at the Kodak theatre.

Anyone who isn't Billy Crystal is just going to pale in comparison with Steve Martin who is in somewhat distant second place. Billy Crystal is an ideal host for the Oscars since he is embued with Vaudeville spirit and old school skill sets needed to host the Oscars. He is the new Bob Hope and Steve Martin is kind of a new Johnny Carson, but with musical talents in his back pocket.

Whoopi Goldberg is a strange creature. She seems to be embraced by Hollywood, while I never found her work on the Oscars particularly entertaining, even though I do like her and her off-Oscar work.

It is not enough to be smart and funny. It is not enough to be likeable. This is proven by the long line of smart, funny, and likeable yet hosts like Chris Rock, David Letterman, and now Jon Stewart. In any other forum these people are brilliant and highly entertaining, but Oscar night does something to them. They either have to mute or tone down what we love about them and risk boredom or risk having what we like about them seeming crass and ill-suited to the event.

Billy Crystal can sing, dance, tell jokes like a Hollywood insider, and he has this smile that blasts sunshine even when he is making jokes at Nicholson's expense. He has the pixie dust about him, and that is why when somebody other than Billy Crystal does the Oscars there is a sense of doom laced with hopeful optimism.

I thought the opening with Billy Crystal, former Oscar hosts, Halle Berry, and George Clooney was hilarious. The Bjork joke worked in his current favorite object of ridicule, Cheney's markmanship.
"I do have some sad news. Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."
I loved his comment after a montage of clips about issue films, "And none of those issues were ever a problem again."

"Tonight is the night we celebrate excellence in film. . .with me, the fourth male lead from 'Death to Smoochy.' Rent it."

"not all gay people are cowboys — some are effete New York intellectuals."
"There are women here who could barely afford enough gown to cover their breasts."
Just when you start wondering how the antics on The Daily Show could intersect with the Oscars, you get rather clever send ups of Oscar Campaigning and infamous political campaign ads. These ads included claims that Charlize Theron was “hagging it up” in her quest for Oscar glory while Keira Knightley bravely acts “with cheekbones so improbable, they may well be flecked with God dust.” Thanks to Steven Colbert for great voiceover.

Our oscar party laughed out loud at Tom Hanks being assaulted by a trombone and the rest of the orchestra. Given the orchestra's history of aggressively cutting award winners off, you know they they are capable of battery if necessary.

Bottom line is that it wasn't the best oscar show ever because Bill Crystal wasn't there, but it wasn't the worst oscars because Jon Stewart was there.