They Make Movies: The 2009 Academy Awards

I'm writing this now because I know I won't be able to write anything that requires a serious amount of time during the week. I still have a billion things in the inner portals of my mind that I can't remember as of now, but I will proceed with my mini review of the Oscar ceremony anyway.

I've always adored the glitz and glamour of the annual Oscar ceremony. The fashion, the awards, the sheer exhilaration of it all, the celebration of a rewarding artistic medium, the performances--it's just a wondrous sight to behold. And I still have to see some of those movies. Now I absolutely have to see Slumdog Millionaire, despite how corny and schmaltzy the premise sounds.

For me, this year's fashion standouts were Amy Adams in her gorgeous red dress and Taraji P. Henson in her lovely white dress. Both Adams and Henson had delightfully fancy jewelry to accompany their remarkable dresses. (I might showcase my favorite dresses from the ceremony later in the week when I find better quality pictures.)

I loved both musical numbers. Hugh Jackman was a rather fun host. Loved seeing Anne Hathaway (whoa, that voice!) and Beyonce rocking that stage. (But Zanessa? Meh.) Queen Latifah was wonderful, but the "In Memoriam" tribute was kind of awful, with the camera just going all over the place in the most annoying manner possible.

But really, I got a little sick of medleys in the "I don't want to hear another one for a very long time" kind of way.

I didn't care for the five past winners from the acting categories reading cue cards--I mean, praising the nominees before handing out the actual award. During that time, I just kept thinking to myself, "Why can't they just hand out the damn award now?" It doesn't help that the actors didn't seem very enthusiastic about showering those praises. It kind of made me wonder whether or not the actors actually saw the performances they were praising on stage since all of those speeches felt forced. I understand that it's nice for the nominees to get specially recognized for their work and have the spotlight on them for a while, but it resulted in this never-ending drag that made all that jazz slightly less entertaining.

But Kate Winslet won! Finally... Despite the negative criticism about her performance being the least-deserved out of all her past Oscar nominations, I still feel that Winslet's portrayal of Hanna in The Reader is a grand work of excellence. I definitely believe that Winslet's performance in The Reader is superior than her previously nominated performances in Sense and Sensibility and Titanic.

Then Robert De Niro appeared! I was too excited about the fact that he's on my TV screen and barely heard what he said about Sean Penn. I'm a terrible person, I know. But I hadn't seen a De Niro film in ages so I admit, I kind of missed him.

The icing on the cake was when Steven Spielberg presented the Best Picture award. My Spielberg fangirliness kind of came out that moment in a really weird, absurd way. I was saying things like, "Spielberg should win Best Director like, every single year." Well, probably except this year, but that's not my point.

The ceremony didn't really have any surprises so it really did get kind of boring as the evening dragged on. Everyone who I expected to win, won, maybe except for Sean Penn. I guess like everyone else, I expected Mickey Rourke to take the Best Actor award, but Penn was definitely number two on the list. I don't really know what to say since I haven't seen either performances, but it's all about the statistics when it comes to guessing the winner, right?

Despite how pretty the set looked, the entire ceremony felt a little sloppy, though. Lots of obvious cue card readings. Lots of sloppy montages. Lots of in-your-face loud background music. It did feel a little bit like a party, just not a very elegant, well-planned one. But there were fun moments, especially the song-and-dance moments that I somewhat enjoyed and Jack Black's little joke about betting on Pixar. Then again, it still didn't beat the 2007 Oscar ceremony (hosted by Ellen DeGeneres), which was probably the most glamorous and elegant Oscar ceremony I had seen so far in my lifetime.

The 2009 Oscars was just disappointing and unimpressive, although there were some sparks of potential around the edges.

There's always next year...and the year after that...

Head over to IMDb to view a full list of winners from tonight's ceremony. Feel free to discuss the Oscars. I would love to hear what you all thought about the ceremony!

By the way, I really want to see Departures (Best Foreign Film winner). Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?

Rating of Ceremony: **1/2 (out of four)

Obligatory Golden Globes Post

The annual Golden Globes is one of the few prestigious (I use that word loosely) film award ceremonies that conveniently air on network television, along with the Academy Awards. It's always an entertaining event to watch, although I never really catch up with the films until an entire year after the award ceremonies are over. Fortunately, this might change once I get a job and my driver's license.

The Hollywood Foreign Press (the folks behind the Golden Globes) has a reputation for nominating celebrities for the sake of nominating celebrities. That doesn't stop any of the fun that steams from the three-hour telecast (including commercials).

This year's triumphant victor is Kate Winslet, who won both Best Supporting Actress (for The Reader) and Best Leading Actress (for Revolutionary Road). Being an admirer of Ms. Winslet and having seen her act with electrifying passion in The Reader, I couldn't be more proud of her achievements. Here's hoping she finally gets a well-deserved Oscar.

Last night's Golden Globes also awarded the prolonged Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award to director Steven Spielberg. Spielberg was introduced by friend and fellow director, Martin Scorsese, along with a number of clips from the movies Spielberg has produced and/or directed over the years. It is no secret that I am a relatively huge fan of Spielberg (I have seen all but three of his directed films), and I am thrilled that he was honored for his work in cinema.

Finally, I would like to apologize for ever dissing Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar chances. For the past several months, the film has proved itself to be more of a potential Oscar winner for Best Picture than any other film in contention. This also reminds me that I should see it (post-finals, of course).

Since this must be the tenth (or tenth billion) post about the Golden Globes, I'll just cut the rant short. If you're curious, a complete list of the Golden Globe nominees and winners can be found here.

I Capture the Title

I recently stumbled upon Steven Hill's Movie Title Screens Page. It is a wonderful collection of screen captures of movie title screens.

I've always enjoyed watching opening credits to movies. I usually notice which the font is used, where the title pops up on-screen, and the music that plays throughout the opening credits. It is not something I think a lot about, but when I see a good title screen, I appreciate it because sometimes it makes a bold, non-verbal statement about the film I'm going to see.

Now, in alphabetical order, I present to you, a list of my ten favorite title screens.

I love the whole writing-on-notepad opening credit thing. I think it's pretty darn cool that it was writer/director Cameron Crowe writing it. That man has awesome handwriting, compared to my own sloppy scrawl.

I know this is pretty much the usual title screen to most Woody Allen movies, but I love the simple white text on black background. It is unbelievably classy.

This image is a true icon of the bristling elegance of early sixties cinema. Audrey Hepburn + Pastry + Tiffany's + Moon River = Title. I love it.

Catch Me If You Can is one of Steven Spielberg's most entertaining and underrated films of all-time. But fortunately, the highly stylized, sixties-inspired opening credits is often not overlooked. Like the film itself, the opening credits is a lot of fun, complete with a brilliant John Williams score to top it off.

I just saw this film fairly recently and liked it quite a bit since I'm a fan of Bob Dylan's music. I have to say, Cate Blanchett is really as marvelous as everyone says she is. Anyway, I love the opening credits to I'm Not There. "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" is a great choice for the opening credits but what I really love was the font used for the credits. I'm no expert on fonts, but it looks like a hybrid of Helvetica and Verdana. Or am I thinking too much into this and it's really just Arial?

Yeah, I have a thing for plain, simple fonts used in opening credits. When I see title fonts for movies like Star Wars and Jurassic Park, I tend to think that they look way too commercial-ready. The way the title appears across Steve Carell's post-suicide attempt Frank kind of sets the mood for the somewhat depressed, unstable bunch at the center of Little Miss Sunshine's dysfunctional family.

Gorgeous, much? Nobody films New York like Woody Allen.

I love this movie and I also love simple fonts. But this font is in pink so it makes it rather special.

This is probably my favorite opening title sequence ever. I find the revealing of the title really cool and creative for some reason. Elmer Bernstein's score is enchanting and lovely to listen to. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite movies (and books) of all-time, so I pretty much love everything about it.

Honestly, Vertigo gives me the spooks. So does this insanely freaky title screen.

-----------------

Feel free to share your favorite title screens/opening sequences!

Back-to-Back Spielberg

I had the horror of watching Steven Spielberg's 1979 bomb, 1941. Okay, can someone please tell me what was the point of this movie? I understand it's supposed to be about the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and an incoming invasion of California by the Japanese, but there is really no actual story to sustain this general summary. There are about a gazillion characters with their own stupidly unfunny little subplots. This film tries so hard to be funny and it shows. By the middle of the film, it turns into an absolute mess, one of the worst catastrophes I've ever witnessed on film. For the entire 2 hours and 26 minutes (which I swear, felt like five hours), I only found one scene slightly amusing but was bored throughout. I guess some attempt to use the comedic talents of Dan Aykroyd and John Beluishi might have helped the film a bit, but I don't think anything could have saved the film from its ultimate doom.

Even Spielberg himself is kind of embarrassed about the film's existence (Wikipedia):

Spielberg humorously joked at one point that he considered converting 1941 into a musical halfway into production and mused that "in retrospect, that might have helped."

(If anyone knows which interview the above Spielberg quote is from, please let me know.)

If this wasn't directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, I would have banned them from working in the film industry (even though I wasn't even alive in 1979). But this is Spielberg, Gale, and Zemeckis, so if they were banned after the release of 1941, we wouldn't have Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, etc. So I guess they've redeemed themselves pretty well.

While watching 1941, I realized the only person working in the film industry who is always consistent is John Williams. I don't think I've ever heard of a bad John Williams score. Even his march for 1941 is pretty awesome, despite the movie's awfulness.

Rating: 3/10 (Yes, this means I enjoyed a Rob Schneider film more than a Spielberg film.)

Same director, 23 years later:


I'm kind of glad that ABC aired Catch Me If You Can last night so I could wash the bad taste of 1941 out of my mouth. The film certainly isn't Spielberg's greatest effort as a director in his post-1941 career, but it is truly one of my favorites. I don't think I've seen a film as effortlessly entertaining and stylish as Catch Me If You Can.

What I find myself liking about this film after multiple viewings is Tom Hanks's understated work as Carl Hanratty, the FBI agent that spends years trying to catch Leonardo DiCaprio's young con-man, Frank Abignale. I have always sympathized with the character because the man is so obsessed with his job to the point that he even loses his family. Hanks is so subtle and funny here that he gives one of the best supporting performances of recent years. Fine, his southern? Boston? accent did sound awkward, but who cares? It is starting to become one of my favorite Hanks performances, too. I like how he doesn't completely steal the film away from DiCaprio because after all, it is DiCaprio's movie, but he is able to keep up with DiCaprio's youthful energy.

Plus, the funniest scene in the entire film. (Contains the F-word, so that's why ABC had to replace it with some other word (flog?), which unfortunately diminished the humor.)

Rating: 9.5/10