Academy Awards 2012 Pre-Game Show: Best Picture Nominees

Its that time again!  Holy Oscar Sunday is only hours away, and of course, I'm as excited as always.  This is my third Academy Awards special for this blog, and I'm shooting for a fourth next year.

Now, I'm not going to be one of those super cynical guys who will claim that the Oscars are totally meaningless and only exacerbate negative trends within the corrupt Hollywood system.  I know every single movie pundit out there has their favorite "worst oscars ever", and loves to pick and yell about that one great injustice that the Oscars brought upon the world.  Maybe it was "King's Speech" beating "Social Network", or "Crash" beating "Gay Cowboys Eating Pudding"*, or even "How Green Was My Valley" beating "Citizen Kane", its endless.  And on Monday, I'm sure ten million critics will call this the most boring show yet, hate on Billy Crystal as being a terrible host, and rant and rave and bitch for no good reason.  All that negativity doesn't do anybody any good.  I'm just here to enjoy the show, find some jokes to make, and in this post, break down all the Best Picture Nominees to see who should win.

Now, I promised, I wasn't going to be negative, but I will admit this:  2012's show has easily the weakest field of Best Picture nominees since the 2009 Awards, that year when the Oscars snubbed both "The Dark Knight" and "WALL-E".  This year they notably have only nine movies as compared to the usual ten, and unlike last year when the Best Picture group had Westerns, Action, Animation, Horror, and the usual Oscar Bait Dramas, this year's group is basically all Oscar Bait Drama and "Hugo".  Somehow the Academy thought that only nine movies would be enough - which just exacerbates the extreme injustice in not nominating "Drive".  "Drive, one of the most creative and amazing movies of 2011, is nominated for exactly one award, Best Sound Editing, right next to "Transformers 3".  So I'm unhappy about that.

Eureka Seven Sequel Trailer

OH YEAH, YES BABY!

"Eureka Seven", one of my favorite anime TV shows of all time, is getting a sequel.  And I'm really happy about that.  Its called "Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean" or "AO" for short.  Here's a trailer for you lovelies:

So, unlike "Eureka Seven: Pocket Full of Rainbows" or whatever that godawful cheap cash-in of a movie was called, "Eureka Seven: AO" is using whole new animation with whole new characters to make a whole new story.  Its set in the near-future in Okinawa, where a kid that looks exactly like Renton Thurston meets the Nirvash and apparently goes on giant robot adventures.  So even though its a "sequel", its set well before the events of "Eureka Seven: Original Flavor" which was set in the deep future when Earth doesn't even look like Earth anymore.  I'm not sure how that works.  The kid, whose name is also "Ao", has teal hair in the manga, making him look like Eureka and Renton's child.  But in the anime, its brown.  I don't understand how that works.

"Eureka Seven: AO" is airing in Japan in April, so I'll be watching that as soon as it gets subbed and posted on the Internet.  Then we'll find out if Studio BONES can make lightning strike twice with this show.  I have my doubts, but I'm still stupidly excited.  See you then!

Oscar Double Feature: Midnight in Paris and Moneyball

So Holy Oscar Sunday is coming up, and it turns out that of the movies nominated for Best Picture, I've only seen three:  "Hugo", "The Tree of Stupid", and "War Horse".  (Also I saw bits and pieces of "The Help, but who is counting?)  So, that means I need to fill up immediately on all the other Oscar Movies I haven't seen, particularly the ones I find interesting.  "The Artist" may be destined to win this Holy Sunday, but I'm not interested in it*.  "The Descendants" is way too depressing, life is depressing enough, you know?  So instead I took the two movies I thought could possibly be decent and well they were.

The problem is, that even though I liked both of these movies, I didn't love either of them.  Honestly, I thought they both were going to be rather light comedies, but unfortunately neither turned out to be particularly funny.  The best part is that both movies are perfectly fine on their own, they're not entirely shameless Oscar Bait movies like many films on the Best Picture list.  "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" comes to mind.  No, these were movies that were made by people who just wanted to make good movies, not win awards.  So for that, they were respectable efforts, both have interesting creative plotlines, and are worth seeing.  I wouldn't be unhappy to see either win Best Picture,  but its pretty much guaranteed that "The Artist" has that one wrapped up, so too bad.

Still, if you must watch any Oscar Nom'd movie, see "Hugo".  That's not to hate on either of the movies I'm currently reviewing, but "Hugo" was just considerably more fun than either of these.  I have to say, they were both better movies than "War Horse", if only because they were both more original and less emotionally forced.  But yeah, these movies should have been more fun, that's they're biggest problem.

Rick Santorum: The Most Dangerous Man in America

Remember when I used to write political posts?  I don't either.  But on the site banner, there's a claim that there are "politics, reviews, and nonsense".  The second two are definitely here, but as for "politics", unless its the politics of Oscar Picks, I seem to have forgotten that.  Anyway, here's just a quick post for you people.

The currently most despicable man running for President today is Newt Gingrich.  This is a well-established fact.  However, the most dangerous man running for President is Rick Santorum.  Its been widely reported that on Friday, Santorum publicly called President Obama out for making laws based upon a "phony theology*, not a theology based on the Bible."  Now, I can immediately feel the gulf between what has become two Americas.  Now, automatically, I am not the kind of person who thinks what Santorum describing is a bad thing.  In fact, I have to wonder why anybody would want a political leader to base his or her decisions on the Bible.  Base your world view on realpolitik or universal moral values or the Constitution or heck, even the Communist Manifesto, anything but the Bible.  Where is this coming from?  Now suddenly its completely fair to criticize a president for not viewing the Bible as his political roadmap?  Where is Santorum coming from?  Who is this guy?  What country is this guy representing?

Rick Santorum is a seriously dangerous person, probably one of the most dangerous men in America right now.  Lately he's been riding high in his ability to offer an honest political platform to Republicans sick of the two-faced Romney and the Machiavellian Gingrich.  Santorum's platform has currently evolved to a full-fledged assault on sexual liberation.  The guy has mentioned that he opposes contraceptive use even for married couples.  Is Santorum secretly a Saudi cleric?  People call Obama a radical Muslim, but the irony is that its none other than folks like Santorum who really wouldn't have much problem with Osama bin Laden's platform, other than the fact that Osama is using the wrong book to preach for it.  Santorum implies that President Obama is a not a Christian, while ironically nothing he does or believes is in any way based upon the teachings of Christ.  He's an all-around nightmare.

The Secret World of Arrietty (UK Dub)

As most readers to this site know, I usually review movies weeks after they are released in theatres.  Which means that my advise is usually useless because even if I convinced you to see the movie, its already probably too late.  Anywho, I'm going to justify my lack of professionalism by saying this:  I don't get paid.  If somebody were to wire me twenty dollars every week to review new movies on the day they come out, I would do it.  Instead you pay me in love.   Which is fine, but most theatre chains don't accept love as money, sadly - even on Valentine's Day.

But this time, I'm actually review a movie on time... even if it isn't the exact movie that's coming out tomorrow.  You see, "The Secret World of Arrietty" or "The Borrower Arrietty" if you're in Japan or just "Arrietty" if you're in Britain, is the newest Studio Ghibli movie directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (who was the animation director for the utterly gorgeous "Tales from Earthsea") and was written by the Mikado himself, Hayao Miyazaki.  This movie has three titles, and three different dubs:  the original Japanese from 2010, Disney's American dub that's coming out tomorrow, and a British dub that came out last year.  Now, usually I would wait and go see this movie tomorrow, but the British dub does feature one little actor named MARK STRONG.  Am I going to see the version of "Arrietty" that doesn't have Mark Strong?  Hell no.  I'm seeing the version with Mark Strong.

As for "Arrietty" as a movie, its a solid Ghibli movie.  Its definitely a lot more low-key and less ambitious than other Ghibli movies of the past like "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle", but "Arrietty" retains that classic Ghibli charm.  As far as Ghibli movies go, this is fairly mediocre, but that's like saying this is one of the dimmer stars in heaven.  Its still beautiful, it still gives warmth, its still worth seeing, and its still a Hell of a lot better than a mediocre American animated movie.  Remember, you could be watching "Madagascar 3".