Oscars 2011: Tears, Triumph and an accidental F-Bomb

Well, the Oscars have come and gone for another year, and in a timely manner, clocking in at just over 3 hours. And, much to my relief, it was an interesting show this year, with many of my favorites taking home the gold, some funny moments, some emotional ones, gorgeous set pieces, and an off-kilter moment or two. Let's go over some highlights...

I'll get the big one out of the way first. Melissa Leo won a much deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Fighter and in her excitement dropped, if I'm not mistaken, the first F-Bomb on the Oscar stage, right on live television. I'm sure a lot of people are going to make a big deal out of it over the next few days, but I found it quite charming, and it was a rare truly unscripted moment during an award show. Winning an Oscar is often a once in a lifetime thing; you can't fault someone for reacting to it strongly.

As I said, many of my favorites walked away with statues, which hasn't happened for a while in award shows I've watched recently (the last Emmys being an example). There were many times during the night I cheered. Some of those favorites include Toy Story 3 for best Animated Picture, Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor, Natalie Portman for Best Actress and Colin Firth for Best Actor, all of them well deserving and having done exceptional work in The Fighter, Black Swan and The Kings Speech respectively (plus all of them gave wonderful speeches, especially a choked up Firth). Alice in Wonderland managed to grab a couple of awards as well. But in the biggest race of all, it looked like it would be a tight race between The Social Network and The Kings Speech. But, much to my relief, The Kings Speech pulled out ahead, taking the Best Picture statue and my heart.

The Oscar broadcast ran smoothly and promptly this year. I didn't notice any major fashion disasters, though I'm sure the fashion critics will disagree with me. We had some wonderful off-the-cuff moments from the unbeatable Kirk Douglas and other presenters and winners (loved Robert Downey Jr. and Jude law presenting together; can't wait for the next Sherlock Holmes movie). Auto-tune made a surprise appearance. The set and visual effects for the show were just gorgeous, conjuring up the first televised Oscar broadcast (with a hologram of Bob Hope at the hosts podium on stage) and Mann's Chinese Theatre.

And then there were the two hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco. I have to admit in that regard, I thought Hathaway did the better job. She was charming, beautiful in her many outfit changes, had some great ad-libbed lines and seemed to be loving every minute of being on stage. Plus she was genuinely funny, especially in her musical dis of Hugh Jackman. Franco, on the other hand, I found a bit flat through most of the broadcast, leaving me to wonder a few times if he was on something while doing this. Perhaps he was a little distracted, being the first host who was also up for an award, but what the hell? The only signs of life from him was during the opening Inception spoof, when he was in a Munroe dress and right at the end. Bah.

Overall, I was very happy. It truly was a great year for movies, and watching them get their proper due is always satisfying and only fuels my love of motion pictures in general. And makes me hope that, one day, I may be on that stage myself, maybe for writing, possibly for directing. One can dream, can't they?

The Valentine's Day Disconnect

So it's Valentine's Day. Hurray! And yes, there is a tone of sarcasm in there (it doesn't come across well in print). Forgive the cynicism but this holiday often brings that out of me. That might have a lot to do with the fact that once again I am single during it, but for a holiday that comes across as being exclusively for couples and seems to punish those who are not part of one, I think I have a right to feel this way. It's like that episode of The Simpsons where Burns tells the plant that everyone who's found love can leave early. Everyone cheers and runs off, except for one poor guy who looks down at the floor sadly while a single tear runs down his cheek. That's how I feel today.

Romance in general has been a touchy point for me lately, and part of that is my tendency to watch court shows while I'm off during the day. There have been soooo many cases involving exes, and it seems to be a feature today. All these people who were once head over heels in love and now hate each other with a blistering passion. It's sad, kind of sick in it's own way, and seems to be fairly common.

Now me, I've never been big on dating. Which is kind of a problem, as everyone tells me I have to get out there if I want to meet the guy of my dreams. Yeah. Dating, to me, is exactly what Jerry Seinfeld once described it as; "A job interview that lasts all night".

My brother thinks part of the problem, not just for me but for a lot of girls, is what he likes to call "Disney-itis". He defines it as that unrealistic expectation that a lot of Disney movies, and movies in general, instill in women that there is a perfect guy out there and once you meet him, you'll know. My brother insists life isn't like that, that you have to kiss a few frogs to get to the prince, and that a lot of great guys are getting passed up because they don't meet that 'Prince' criteria. To give you an example, after doing the Tim Burton exhibit I put on Corpse Bride last night, one of my favorite Burton movies. Despite it's grim subject matter, it's a very romantic movie, and features one of my best loved movie couples, Victor and Victoria, two soft-spoken individuals who have been intended for each other by their parents, and find from their first meeting that their wedding, that they'd both been dreading, couldn't come fast enough. Unfortunately, a mistake and a lovely but dead bride named Emily throws a wrench in the proceedings. But you just know that love will conquer all, right?

My brother may have a point, that a lot of movies may instill unrealistic expectations about what romance and courtship should be (I mean, some of them do feature the living marrying the dead after all). But I can't help but wonder, well, what's wrong with finding your perfect mate? I see so many women in these daytime TV shows putting up with sub-par men for a variety of reasons, likely because romance eliminated all traces of logic and common sense in them, but one likely reason being that they just don't want to be alone or they're under pressure to be in a relationship by the people around them. So they cause themselves no limit of heartache dealing with these losers just so they can say they have a Valentine on Valentine's Day. What the hell? I admit I haven't dated much in my life, but I knew from a very young age that I would much rather be alone than with someone who doesn't get me, who doesn't make me happy or excited or passionate. In short, I'm not willing to waste my time with someone unless there's even a remote chance that he'll check off any of the above list. Not all of it necessarily, but at least some if it. At the very least, I want to be excited to see his email rather than "Oh God, I guess I should answer him and be polite out of a sense of societal obligations". I've never had that before. Really, is that so much to ask? That I find a guy who makes me feel happy, who can talk to me and understand what I feel and just makes me feel love and loved?

In the mean time, I'm going to go treat myself a little today, maybe with a cupcake and a new book, and get a heart shaped pizza for me and my roommate. Why the hell not? If you can't love yourself, you can't love anyone else, right?

And as for romance one day coming my way, well, hope springs eternal. Someday, my prince will come...

The Cape debuts on NBC and proves the Incredibles wrong

Has anyone seen The Incredibles? Fantastic movie, possibly my favorite Pixar film. In it, however, they make a very good argument for not wearing a cape when you design a superhero costume. They can get caught on things that you really don't want them to get caught on and are a huge hazard. But, as anyone who's read a comic book or seen a Batman movie knows, it's tough to do-away with capes because they're just so freakin' cool! Seriously. I mean, capes create an allure and make the wearer mysterious and larger than life. Plus, they flow in the wind and look so graceful. Not practical, maybe, but still cool.

NBC knows that, and they've made it a central theme to their new superhero drama The Cape, starring David Lyons as Vince Faraday, an honest cop in a corrupt town, framed for a crime he didn't commit and presumed dead. He returns as the titular costumed hero he and his son used to read about together to take down the head of the private police force (James Frain) now running the city, who's also a masked villain with freaky eyes named Chess, and regain his good name and his family. The Cape is assisted by the investigative blogger Orwell (Summer Glau, putting another notch in her fanboy fantasy belt), and by a circus gang of bank robbers (you read that right). Oh, and he wears a cape, which also acts as a weapon and can retract into his hood, which does away with a lot of the pesky issues the Incredibles mentioned.

So they had the two-hour debut tonight, and so far not bad. The Cape takes a bit of a different direction than the peacock networks last attempt at a genre show, Heroes. With Heroes, the storyline took more of a modern comic book series feel, with ordinary people dealing with extraordinary things; there were no tights involved and, at least in the first season, the characters dealt with their emerging powers and their enemies as realistically as possible, given the subject material. The Cape, however, has a more old school pulp comic feel to it. The villains have creepy eyes, scales or tattoos hinting at larger criminal networks. The Carnival of Crime are experts in escape artistry, fighting, illusions, cape kung fu, etc. and are willing to teach this new crime fighter all they know. It all centers around a good man whose been left with nothing to loose and must now do something really extreme to make it right. Personally, I like this direction. It's been a while since we got back to basics with superhero story lines. Sure they're not very realistic, but who needs realism here? We've got enough of that elsewhere, thank you very much. And while things happened very quickly over these two hours to set things up, and some of the dialogue was a little strained and corny, it stayed entertaining and engaging, plus completely free of irony. There were a few laughs, cool characters, a bunch of action and The Cape's costume is pretty awesome.

There's potential here, and I think I'm going to stick it out and see where it goes for now. I just hope The Cape goes somewhere really good and doesn't suffer the same sad fate as it's predecessor Heroes. Seriously, the less said of that, the better.

A New Geek Milestone: My first viewing of TRON

So the new Tron: Legacy movie is due this December, and there has been much buzz about it care of Disney and ComicCon and Fan Expo, etc. But it's got me wondering; how many people have actually seen the original Tron? It was a bomb back in 1982, and while it's visual style is still recognizable thanks to references in many forms of media, who's seen it? Who remembers it? Who actually knows what it's about?

Well, I can officially add myself to that select group. I can now see Tron: Legacy and say that I have seen Tron. Yay for me!

So what is it about? Basically it centers around a software engineer named Kevin Flynn (a young Jeff Bridges), who was with the powerful computer company ENCOM until his colleague stole his ideas for games and forced him out. Flynn now runs a video-game arcade, and he's a little annoyed about the whole thing. He's been trying to hack ENCOM to find the code he needs to prove the games are his, but the artificial intelligence that runs ENCOM's mainframe, Master Control, keeps him out. So with the help of a couple of his friends, Flynn makes one more ditch effort to hack in. But Master Control has a surprise for him. Using new ENCOM technology, Master Control digitizes Flynn and brings him into the mainframe. Now, Flynn must survive games and light cycles and work with the computer program Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) to bring down Master Control and find the codes.

Honestly though, the plot is rather secondary to the visual effects. Yes, though the technology was absolutely groundbreaking back in 1982, it looks dated by today's standards. Regardless, it is still visually stunning to look at. Part of it might be that I had the opportunity to watch it in high def, but still it looks amazing. It really gives you an idea of how far film technology has come, and it really makes me wonder why this film wasn't a bigger success. This would've blown people away back then. Maybe it was too new for the early 80s crowd. A shame really. But still, sequel coming!

So join the nerd masses and see it. That way when Tron: Legacy makes use of modern film technology and blows us all away in the present day, you'll know where it all came from.

My annual war on Christmas begins even earlier

I saw the most ridiculous thing yesterday. A Christmas commercial. Do you notice the date on the calendar? Halloween hasn't even happened yet.

Hell to the no! I am such a big advocate of keeping Christmas at Christmas time, that to see a commercial before my second favorite holiday has even happened just burns my canolli. They are not taking Halloween from me, darn it! Who's with me?

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving People!

The leaves have changed, the air is crisp, and the smell of turkey and pumpkin fill the air. I love this time of year so much. And again I have a lot to be thankful for. Of course there are my friends and family, my job, my kitty. There's also my new car, my new computer, my HD DVD player. Plus the world of entertainment has been intriguing and well...entertaining.

Not too many recommendations for Thanksgiving entertainment that I haven't already mentioned from last year, but there is "Thanksgiving" from the final season of Boston Legal, and the song "I've got plenty to be thankful for" from Holiday Inn.

Now go eat the turkey!

Simpsons + Glee + Flight of the Conchords = AWESOME!

The Simpsons being back for their billionth season wouldn't normally be big news to me, but then I found out who was guest starring. In "Elementary School Musical", the 22nd season opener, Fox has decided to merge their powerhouses of entertainment together by having some of the Glee kids, namely Cory Montieth, Lea Michele and Amber Riley, stop by and add some music as fellow members of an arts camp Lisa attends. I did wonder, though; Where the heck were arts camps where I was growing up? Seriously?

But if that wasn't exciting enough, playing camp counselors were Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, otherwise known as Flight of the Concords. Their show that aired on HBO is dearly missed by all of us fans of guitar-based, digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo. Clement and McKenzie actually played a much bigger role in this episode than the Glee kids, but I can see why all the promos hyped the Glee stars instead, since Flight of the Concords have more of a cult following.

It's all good though. A solid episode with funny songs. I may have to download this one. Anything with more Concord action is alright by me.