I Heart Zooey Deschanel

Heavy Quick Music Hits! The Lips, The Stripes, The Vampires…Oh, Betty White Too

There hasn’t been a run of great new albums in quite some time. Sure, I’m obsessing over Local Natives, but it’s hardly made a serious dent on the music scene. Since I haven’t had any music talk here for awhile, here’s a few quick hits:

• The White Stripes are releasing a live album titled “Under Great White Northern Lights” on March 16th. The album is for a concert film with the same title that covers their 2007 Canadian tour. You know…the one in which they played a small show on a boat. Oh, if you follow the link here, you can listen to the album online.
• On a side note, if you haven’t seen the documentary “It Might Get Loud”, see it. Even if you aren’t a music geek, you should dig it. It had me on permagrin for two hours. You really haven’t lived until you see Jack White build a guitar out of two pieces of wood and an empty Coke bottle.
• This Saturday, I will see The Flaming Lips perform “Dark Side Of The Moon”. This will no doubt be sick. The Flaming Lips’ movie “Christmas On Mars”…was not sick. It may have actually made my wife sick instead. This is not stopping Wayne Coyne from moving forward with another movie. This time, Wayne is hoping to pull in bigger stars than Fred Armisen. He claims to be in talks with Justin Timberlake…which is actually quite awesome sounding.
• Everyone is talking about how great Vampire Weekend was on SNL this past weekend. Sure, “Cousins” was fun and cool…but “Giving Up The Gun”? So, so boring. I’m just not a fan of the song or a performance that had the majority of the band not playing instruments. The best music of the night was the piano performance of Zach Galifianakis. Greatness.
• Speaking of SNL…Betty White has confirmed she will appear on the show at some point this year.
• Finally…in news to only excite reverb-loving, country rock fans, Band Of Horses will release “Infinite Arms” on May 18th.

Quick, Knee Jerk Oscar Reactions

My immediate thought? Boring. Uber-boring. It’s getting to be painful to watch. That’s particularly sad because I really love movies and all that surrounds them, which makes the film world’s big night even more disappointing.

• Most humble: Christoph Waltz
• Least humble: the chick that won Best Costuming. What a creep.
• Most confusing moment: what the hell was Sean Penn talking about? That guy is setting records in strangeness.
• Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were decent enough. Baldwin played the straight man most of the night, while Martin let himself take the brunt of the jokes. I’d take another year of them.
• Forgetting Farrah Fawcett in the, umm, dead folks montage was pretty inexcusable.
• The best two moments by far were the Sandra Bullock acceptance speech and the bit by Robert Downey Jr. and Tina Fey.

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Let’s Get Ready For An Inevitably Boring Oscar Telecast!

It’s almost Oscar time and there’s nothing like the last minute to post my predictions for tonight. I’ve decided on a different kind of format for this. Instead of just picking the winners, I’ve decided to pick what I think will win, what should win, and the nominee that I’m pulling for. Of course, doing this sort of thing is pretty academic at this point since tonight’s winners are going to be so boringly predicable.

We should really bet on how long I hang with Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech. About five seconds before I puke?

Best Director

Will win: James Cameron, “Avatar”

Should win, pulling for: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”

Best Supporting Actor

Will win, should win, pulling for: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”

Best Supporting Actress

Will win: Mo’Nique, “Precious”

Should win, pulling for: Anna Kendrick, “Up In The Air”

Best Original Screenplay

Will win: Mark Boal, “The Hurt Locker”

Should win: Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”

Pulling for: Joel & Ethan Coen, “A Serious Man”

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will win: Geoffrey Fletcher, “Precious”

Should win: Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, “Up In The Air”

Pulling for: Nick Hornby, “An Education”

Best Actress

Will win, should win, pulling for: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”

Best Actor

Will win, should win, pulling for: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”

Best Picture

Will win: “Avatar”

Should win: “The Hurt Locker”

Pulling for: “A Serious Man”

Odds That SNL Is Funny Tonight?

Since I go back to work for a real job on Monday, I was looking forward to going out tonight for a movie and a nice dinner. Then, I remembered that Zach Galifianakis and Vampire Weekend are on SNL tonight.

So, does Galifianakis actually give SNL a chance of being, you know, funny? Maybe…but I doubt it. As far as I’m concerned, that show is beyond hope.

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It’s A Good Thing That The 3D Glasses Aren’t Comfy, They Kept Me Awake During “Avatar”

30-40 Minutes Of Amazement, Followed by 120 Of Boredom

There’s really no need for me to waste any time here: Now that I’ve seen “Avatar”, I found it to be so bad that I’m upset that I saw it at all.

The fact that “Avatar” is even in the same group as movies like “A Serious Man”, “Up In The Air”, “Inglourious Basterds”, “District 9″, hell, even “The Blind Side” is beyond me. Come Sunday, if this movie beats out “The Hurt Locker”, James Cameron will have pull the wool over the eyes of Academy voters twice. Both times he has used the beautiful green color of money to distract them from the fact that, while technologically amazing, just aren’t that great.

“Avatar” is about a group of people called Na’vi on a planet called Pandora. This planet is laden with a precious ore called Unobtainium and the evil human race is there to take it from the Na’vi.

All of the stereotypical bad guys are present. You know…big business and the military. The bad guys send the parapalegic Jake Sully (annointed megastar Sam Worthington) into the Avatar program, which is able to put humans into the a Na’vi body. They want Jake to infiltrate the Na’vi and learn their secrets in order to force them out of their home, which is a huge tree on top of a big Unobtainium deposit.

It doesn’t take a genius to know where this is going. Jake meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and, after three months in their society, they fall in love and he turns on the evil humans and helps the Na’vi fight back. That’s the story. That’s it. I don’t care how much amazing effects you show me, I’m going to need more than that or at least you better tell it better than “Avatar” does.

So, the effects. Yes, it is amazing. The colors pop off the screen and I would think not seeing in it 3D would take away from the movie. There were several moments that definitely blew my mind, which is surprising since this stuff usually doesn’t sell a movie for me.

Once I got over the effects, I was terribly bored. The middle 100 minutes are painfully slow. Besides, you know that all of it is just leading up to an epic battle in the end, which wasn’t really that epic. It all felt so anti-climactic.

The White Bread

If not for the groundbreaking visuals, I would have really torched this movie. I also kept it short because you are probably tired of reading about “Avatar” already. Obviously, thousands of people disagree with me, but this type of thing just isn’t my cup of tea.

Why I Have Avoided “Avatar”…Until Today

Today, I see “Avatar”. There are a few reasons why I am finally going to check it out, most notably being the fact that I start a new job on Monday and had this entire week off. Basically, this is an effort to get me out of the house in order to avoid insanity.

But why did I not want to see “Avatar”? Here are some of my reasons:

• I cannot handle James Cameron. I was so irritated that “Titanic” swept the Oscars over the much better and more deserving “L.A. Confidential”, that I swore off Cameron’s future films. Luckily for me, “Avatar” is his follow up to “Titanic”.
• I have no interest in movies shot entirely in front of a huge blue screen. See, I like my movies to have legit dialogue and real, you know, acting. For my money, the first 30-minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” is much more technically impressive than watching cartoon blue people run around in the jungle.
• I’m not going to open this can of worms up…but I know what the underlying agenda is in “Avatar” and lets just say that I don’t agree.
• Who decided that Sam Worthington was a big star? Not me. Actually, I just watched “Terminator Salvation” and he’s fairly bland in it. Sure, he’s playing a robot but Arnold did it with more pizazz than this guy.
• It pisses me off to know that $700 million plus worth of humans go to check this movie out, but movies like “A Single Man”, “A Serious Man”, “(500) Days Of Summer”, etc. are completely overlooked by movie goers. It’s really pretty messed up.
• I just flat out don’t care for the big budget, blow everything up action movies these days. They never have a good story and they are all such cliched, mind-numbing wastes of time.

I’ll get my review up shortly afterwards, but fair warning…I’ll probably hate it. It is my first 3D movie, which I am actually looking forward to so that’s a plus.

It’s Too Late For Sayid…But Never Too Late For Cinematically Correct’s “Lost” Thoughts

All work & no play makes Sayid a dull boy.

“You’re a killer, Sayid.”

It appears that when Ben Linus told that to Sayid, he was 100% correct. Last night’s episode of “Lost” has left me quite staggered and even more in awe of the fearless turn the series has taken. After all this time and investment in characters like Sayid and Claire, it turns out that they aren’t really that great of people in the end…or are they? There could still be hope for Claire, but Sayid is long, long gone and I don’t think he’s coming back.

Tomorrow, I See “Avatar”

Tomorrow, I will see “Avatar”. Yes, I’m lifting the embargo and finally going to see what all the hubbub is about. My only decision is whether to see it in IMAX 3D or digital 3D. I know that I really dug the IMAX scenes from “The Dark Knight”, but the idea of watching blue cartoon characters run around that huge…ugh…

In the meantime, I’m going to watch another gimmick movie tonight, “Paranormal Activity”. I’m sure it will annoy me extremely.

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Please Hollywood, Leave “Arthur” Alone

Before I get into tonight’s “Lost”, I’m going to need a good, strong night of sleep. That episode firmly planted its boot in my ass. Seriously, if a TV show could deliver a hit that could concuss me, this one did it.

Before I rest up, there are two things that I must address. The first of which is the guy on these new Old Spice commercials. He is fantastic. When watching things recorded on my DVR, I actually stop fast forwarding when I see his commercials. That is how much kickass this guy has going for him. Of course, I wouldn’t put Old Spice on my body if human life depended on it…but it’s funny nonetheless.

Next up is the disappointing news that a remake of the classic “Arthur” is really going to happen. This time around, Arthur is going to be played by Russell Brand. I suppose if you are going to do this, Brand is a fine choice…but the idea itself is the problem. Not only is the original the crowning comedic achievement for the brilliant Dudley Moore, Sir John Gielgud won an f’ing Oscar for it. There are some things that you just leave alone.

You want to know something? I’m going to have a bath.