I'd like to thank the Academy....

As a former film student, the annual academy awards can be an important thing. My fondest memories are of the suarees that we would throw at FSU in honor of the event, where the undergraduate film school director would hold an open tab at a local bar for all the students who "might" have been of legal drinking age. Not surprisingly, people were losing their lunches by the time Best Picture was announced (and the 14 pints of Guinness on top of that) while others were either passed out or drunkenly flailing their arms at the screen, appalled by the winners. While I haven't had the good fortune of re-living that experience for a few years, I still treat the event like Easter and park my rear in a seat for four - plus hours to see what "I could have done if I had the constitution." (That would be my parents speaking.)

So, of course I ended up still being in Tampa with three hours to get home to watch. I can say that I successfully avoided the troop of police officers on highway 60 while going 80 mph in a 55 mph zone. I made it in just in time for the pre-show, which is of course more important than anything. So here are my top 5 best and worst things about the oscars this year:

Top 5 best things about the Oscars this year:

1. Ellen Degeneres and the Clint Eastwood/Steven Spielberg stunt

It would work as a beer coozie.

For those who DIDN'T watch, Elllen did a damn fine job of hosting. There has been some general dissent with her "flat" opening (which I thought was fantastic and appropriate) and her sense of humor, but I believe she nailed it. The partially improvised conversations with celebs were hysterical, but nothing is funnier than handing a digital camera back to Spielberg asking him to correct the framing. Fucking brilliant.



2. Marty winning the big one.




Yes, I am a huge Scorsese fan. "Taxi Driver" is one of the most amazing films ever made, in my opinion, and while I felt "The Aviator" was alright at best and "Gangs of New York" was just a device to let Daniel Day-Lewis chew scenery I do believe that this award was well deserved. Let's just hope Marty can keep the good ones coming.


3. The Poulabalos Dance Crew

For those who have not ever been to a show, trust me and go. They are incredibly imaginative and it's hard not to respect people who can suck their own dicks (or vaginas, for that matter.) The Snakes on a Plane gag was hysterical and the insignias were done to perfection.

4. Alan Arkin

You're a TIGER!!!

It's about time. I have always loved Alan Arkin, even in disastrous films. (Did anyone see "Catch 22"?) He's drawn criticism because people say he's always played that same character, but you can say the same about Christopher Walken, and I'm not going to be dissing him anytime soon. His foul mouthed agent in "Glengarry Glen Ross" was amazing, and he was the funniest thing about "Grosse Pointe Blank", which happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Good job Alan, you deserved it.

5. The Departed

This closes out the list because it is my biggest surprise. I had put my bet on either "The Queen" or "Little Miss Sunshine", both fine films and ones I will add to my library. However, history has shown us that the academy sometimes over-thinks the gravity of the best picture award, and in turn will give it to a film that isn't the "crowd favorite." We saw it when "Shakespeare in Love" won over "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Insider". Other films, like "The English Patient" went up against heavy competition and won solely by splitting the others' votes. What we needed to win this year (after last year's despicable atrocity; "Brokeback" losing to "Crash") was a crowd favorite, and a movie everyone loved. They got it right this time, because when we look back we will think of "Departed" with fond memories, and not the disdain and embarrassment of something like "Chicago."


Top 5 worst things about this years Oscars:


1. "Pan's Labyrinth"

"Pan's" should also go under the top five best things, because if you had told me that it would beat out "Children of Men" for cinematography I would have promptly rushed you to a psych clinic. That award, along with Art Design and Makeup, was well deserved. However, it DOES NOT excuse the snubbing in best foreign film. It made me feel terrible for the brilliant Guillermo Del Toro, who cried with joy when his whole crew was winning awards while they gushed about his vision and imagination. German winner "The Lives of Others" was a great film, but not on the level of "Pan's". Sorry academy, try again.

2. Eddie Murphy

Shit, didn't win, gotta jet....

I don't put him on here because I think he got snubbed. The very opposite in fact. I think a man who makes such GARBAGE for a whole career should be thankful even FOR A NOMINATION. But apparently that wasn't good enough for him, and when Arkin's name was announced he exited stage left, not even listening to Arkin's acceptence speech. Shame on you. You used to be funny, and now you're just a disgrace to comedians. To add insult to injury I hope he gets nominated again, and then loses to Bill Murray or Jim Carrey, both of whom are magnificently more talented than Murphy.


3. Michael Mann's montage


I understand the need for a million montages come Oscar time, but this one proved one too many. While the yearly eulogy and Oscar rememberance was fine (fuck, even the new Apple phone commercial was clever) Mann's montage totally broke the momentum of the show. Cut together with the precision of a power loader from Aliens, and completely lacking in structure, form , or coherency, I truly believed I was back in my first year of film school watching another studen't cut of a "Law and Order" episode. Mann is a fine director, but I guess since he wasn't nominated this year he had to do something to spite the Academy.


4. The ABC Sound department


I counted EIGHT times where ABC had a sound malfunction. Now I know sometimes these things happen, and I'm not saying anyone should be fired, but it makes the industry look pretty stupid when you are having microphone and bandwidth issues while they are presenting the award for Best Sound Effects Editing.

5. Albert Hollis II wasn't nominated

Bringin' sexy back

This is the biggest issue I had. How could you not take the world's most beautiful bulldawg, with his DKNY shoots and insurance accounts, and nominate him just for being AWESOME. Sorry Albert, it wasn't your year. Maybe if they make "Damn Good Dawg: A Football Tale" you can get nominated as writer and star.


Odds and Ends

The commercials during the awards this year were actually better than the superbowl, or at least I thought so. Apple made a big push for their new phone/ipod/blackberry/organizer/video game console/deharmonic convergence controller, the aptly titled "Hello." I am not really technology savvy, and my phone is huge and from 2001, but I want one of those suckers. I. Can't. Wait.


The movie "300" has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes right now, which is causing me to have joygasms. If I have ever been more pumped up about a movie I don't remember it very well. Let's hope the movie lives up to it's bombastic style and violent subject matter. I want to see at leat 50 heads fly or I'm asking for the price of admission back.

Also, this past weekend I traveled to Tampa to see the musical "Wicked" (my girlfriends Christmas present) and I must say that my socks were completely rocked off. It was the best time I've had at a musical since I saw the original broadway cast of Rent. Unfortunately, Idina Menzel did not make a guest appearance so I could attempt to woo her. It's probably for the best, I would have made a pass and then Taye Diggs would have come running out of the shadows to fuck me up. I definitely would never get my groove back ever again.

Be my Valentine? (hehe.... sucker!)

Another Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and once again I’ve escaped it without the self destructive second guessing that pounds my brain this time of year. For those of you who don’t know me, as I’m sure nobody does because this is my first REAL blog topic I’ve ever written, please let me break down the my own history of Valentine’s day with you.

I’m not a Casanova, and I will never claim to know one bit of shit more about women than anyone else I’ve come into contact with. But, for some unforeseen reason, I have had a pretty decent track record of attracting lovely women (who must be self-destructive themselves since they so readily choose to be with a guy like me,) dating them for a while, gaining their trust and their love, and then completely and utterly demolishing their hearts like I was Godzilla and they were Tokyo. Why? I have absolutely no clue.

This is me... hello baby.

Now my friends have led me to believe that this is simply a defense mechanism so I don’t get too close to women. Ordinarily I would agree, but in order to get the full effect of my asshole-edness you have to take into account the duration of time I was nuzzling up to these women; 1.5 years, 1 year, 9 months, 2 years, and 11 months. A couple of years ago I had a brief period of meditation and came to the obvious conclusion: I am the thing that drives most men to shrivel in fear, a serial dater. Now usually this handicap is applied to women who are always looking for the next hot thing, but the application of it to my personality is something far more dangerous. You see, I am a constant optimist. I have gone headfirst into every one of my doomed relationships thinking that this girl could, in fact, be the one. I often feel like Ted on “How I Met Your Mother”, immediately crowning a girl the queen of my soul and all other living things the second I find out she can quote any line from Ghostbusters. This, of course, ends slowly in disaster when I slowly start to see the REAL person I am with. But, like most guys, even then I bottle it up and hope for the best, like I get a cookie for toughing it out. Inevitably it ends up on my long list of disappointments after I find another girl with that “thing” I like and “fall in love,” or whatever that bullshit is. Not that I don’t believe in love, but sometimes being desperate to get out of a sticky situation and looking for an excuse feels a lot like love.

On the bright side, my love life isn't this bad.

So then I end up back in the beginning and ready to do it all over again. Past examples of my wretchedness:
I broke up with a girl the day before Valentine’s Day because I had heard this beautiful, amazing girl wanted to go out with me. (This was in high school, but that is still no real excuse.) Not only was I dishonest with her, I told her it was because I was about to go to college and I wanted to be free. I then proceeded to date the other girl for the entirety of my freshman year at FSU. (Looking back, that was likely the biggest mistake of my life.)
The girl I started dating was great, a scholar, and generally interesting, however after I bit my lip and suffered through an ENTIRE year at FSU monogamously, I waited until I was back home for summer for two weeks before declaring that I wasn’t in love with her anymore. (Reason; my ex from England was about to visit for a month and despite the fact that she had a serious boyfriend back home I wanted to sleep with her. I did. Now she’s married to that guy and the girl I left is, get this, engaged to an English guy. As if Alanis didn’t define ironic.)
Also, one year on Valentine’s Day I had just started dating this amazingly cool chick. (Another one I wish I could do over.) I had planned on helping my best friend set up a dinner for his girlfriend, I was the (shirtless) butler, and I was then going to take my lady out for some sushi. So she picks me up and we begin driving to the restaurant, I could practically taste the edamame on my tongue and my freshman roomy calls me up and tells me that his girlfriend just broke up with him on Valentines Day. Putting bros before hoes, I told my date that she was dropping me off at his place so I could console him. She was fantastic and said “yes”. What she didn’t know is that we drove to my house, bought two kegs, invited a shit ton of girls over, and that I then proceeded to sleep with a random girl (with whom one of my other friends had hooked up with just weeks before.) I never told her, but then again I didn’t have to. I used the excuse of breaking my neck three weeks later as an excuse to avoid breaking up with her for the right reasons.

So I’m an asshole, right? I’ve never been able to settle down, even after two years, and I always think something better is around the corner. Well, at least I did. So fast forward a few years and I’m working in south Florida and living with my girlfriend of a year and a half, although we’ve been friends since we were fifteen. I thought I had moved beyond all of that immaturity and haphazardness, but recent weeks have led me to believe that I haven’t. Yesterday was Valentines, and while we both promised ourselves that we would take it easy (no gifts, nothing fancy, just cards) I still found myself feeling awkward when we went to eat. It’s a terrible feeling when you look across the table and you see someone you know you love, but you wish you were somewhere else. After a dysfunctional sex episode (which happens frequently, I won’t explain) I found myself laying in bed and pondering, say, that new girl at work or the Asian waitress at the restaurant.
But who am I fooling? The greatest heartbreaks of my life were the ones where hindsight showed me that there was a lot more there than I would leave myself to believe. Maybe that’s why I am even more and more tentative about acting impulsively now. But the fact is, for right now I’m with her. And I’d guess I’d rather be with her, Valentine’s Day or not, than wishing she was still with me. Love the one you’re with, that’s how the song goes right?

When mooninites rule the world!

First, Boston! TOMORROW THE WORLD!!!