Oscar fever, anyone?

Okay, so yesterday, before we got into the segment that I’d like to unofficially call ‘why all parents are lame,’ we were discussing the Oscars. Now, in that entry, I mentioned that I haven’t so much as seen any of the best picture contenders, which is true. BUT, then I realized that I’m so incredibly pop culture savvy that it doesn’t matter. I’ve driven the information superhighway in and out of the global village for my whole life, bro, and as such I know enough to recognize the tropes and well-worn techniques that make something “Critically Acclaimed” right? Of course I do. It’s as easy as looking at the current crop of films through the lens of the past. And that’s what I’m gonna do for you all today.

Now, I’d like to preface this exercise by saying that I’m not looking any of these films up at all, so this is the culmination of what little I already know and/or what I can guess from what little I know. In the case of movies where I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, I’m just gonna blindly guess (this means don’t get all pissy if I get stuff wrong or if my guess differs from your opinion. People love to say that comparing opinions is like comparing apples and oranges [an asinine phrase, by the way], because opinions are fundamentally different if they come from different people, but comparing opinions to guesses is like the general life-philosophy of Tommy Lee, in that it’s just fucking stupid.)

So, without any further ado, I present to you a completely (COMPLETETLY) uninformed guide to this year’s best picture Oscar Contenders:

127 HOURS- The lovely heartwarming story of a handsome guy playing an ugly guy who gets stuck in a ravine and has to hack his own arm off using nothing but a swiss army knife. It’s kind of a Passion of the Christ meets Castaway story with a tiny bit of Cliffhanger outtakes thrown in for good measure. This one’s based on true events so that could help it out, and the one-armed guy in the crowd is gonna be hard for the voters to look at if this doesn’t win, AND it also sounds like it’s generally torturous to watch (in that it vacillates between being super gruesome and unbearably slow, two things the academy seems to revere for some dumb reason). James Franco also claimed in a recent interview that he beats off like seven times a day. That’s a philosophy I can fully relate to. What?

BLACK SWAN- What was missing from Single White Female? I’ll tell you: super fruity (and subsequently highly creepy) high art undertones, chicks that were actually good looking and overt muff diving (I’ve seen neither movie, by the way). If you’re the kind of person that obsesses about the passion of highly attractive people going crazy about their various desires and the way ambition can become creepy/terrifying, OR if you just want to see simulated pussy eating and your work firewall blocks Unratedperez.com, well, this is probably worth it. This is the kind of movie you go to with a date and afterwards you don’t fuck even though you’re both pretty horny. Like Shrek 2 but for different reasons.

INCEPTION- Shit that’s super weird is always a good time, especially if it’s full of good looking people. And this movie features the extremely handsome (Leo) and the button cute (Juno) teaming up to steal things from people’s dreams or something. This movie occupies the space where big budget crap like Avatar meets highly weird shit like that one backwards movie with the Australian guy where Trinity spits into his coffee…but the big selling point of Inception is that the end apparently bums everyone out. THAT’S oscar fodder, folks. Think about this: the end of Rocky=everyone’s bummed=Oscar winner, whereas the end of Rocky IV= people are standing up cheering and punching Russians in the face due to the spontaneous outpouring of patriotic joy=didn’t even get nominated.

THE FIGHTER-Combine the desperate family pathos of pretty much any movie set in Massachusetts with the ‘pookie’ character from New Jack City and add in a little Rocky just for flavor and you’ve got the winning tale of a former Funky Bunch Member brooding around while a cracked out Batman looks on and does his best impression of Mick from the aforementioned Rocky crossed with Steven Tyler or something. Oh, I’m guessing there’s a woman that cries a lot in this one. That’s the kind of thing that you just can’t leave out when you’re talking about disappointing men. Ask my wife/mom.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT-A sloppy, dumb, predictable movie that wouldn’t even be given the time of day if it didn’t feature middle aged (gasp!) lesbians (gasp!) living a fairly happy life (gasp!). Now, I think Juliette Moore and Annette Benning are both super hot, and I’d love to see a movie about their lesbian relationship, but this is not that film.

THE KING’S SPEECH- Essentially a historical Rain Man or My Left Foot for the stodgy Anglophile set, this movie features everything that makes academy turds get boners: Geoff Rush, characters based on historical figures, Fancy period mise-en-scene and of course a guy who’s got a disorder that requires “acting” to exemplify. You know what? If I want to watch a guy learn to get over a stutter, I’ll just wait a few years ‘til one of my kids develops one of their own due to my shoddy parenting. Fuck, what’s next? A movie about getting braces?

THE SOCIAL NETWORK- Now, this quaint little movie stars that weird, remarkably unlikable version of Michael Cera as a wealthy, privileged child who grew up with every advantage to beat no odds and finally claim his birthright as one of the richest people in the world and have the unique distinction of getting a movie made about him that features him getting laid all the time and hanging around with Justin Timberlake…all before he turns thirty. Who wrote this, Mark Zuckerberg? I mean, I dig, it’s the story of ambition realized and money and power. But people are saying it’s unfair to Zuckerberg? Um, no. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s like Blow without the sad ending. It’s also about facebook. There is no script and no performance and no statue that will ever alter that it’s about facebook, folks. It’s about facebook.
Facebook.

TOY STORY 3- This is kind of like Lord Of the Rings: Return of the King in that it’s the third of a highly entertaining series of movies and is probably far and away the most fun to watch of any of the nominees, BUT, it’s animated. And if an animated film wins best picture, then it’s just a matter of time before everything goes out the window and all Hollywood is just robots talking to other robots about their sex lives and committing robot-on-robot crimes and suddenly there’s no work for Jake Gyllenhall anymore and the whole thing goes topsy turvy. The academy is nothing if not deeply and fundamentally indebted to the status quo. Therefore, I’d say this has about as much chance of winning the oscar as Fuck My Tender Pink Pussy #27 (also a highly entertaining sequel).

TRUE GRIT- A western hosted by the Cohen Brothers and starring the Dude. It’s probably pretty good, even though that whole thing in the trailer with Matt Damon making fun of Jeff Bridges for only having one eye is downright retarded. Well, and my uncle said the end was pretty stupid, so there’s that. Still, gimme this over most of this crap.

WINTER’S BONE- All I know about this is that my mom knows the dude who wrote the book. It’s apparently about the meth life down in the Ozarks, (where my mom lives) and uh…aside from people high on meth being generally pretty entertaining (from a distance), the powers that be in the Ozarks let motherfuckers just keep tigers in their yards down there, so this movie is probably pretty good.

Okay, that’s my completely uninformed take on the best picture nominees. Without having read any other takes on this, I’d say my version is probably the best. Happy Oscar season, everyone!

I’m going to the zoo.
Bye.

ah, finally you can poop.

Oh, hello, Dogs of War. Where have you guys been? It’s like I’ve just been talking to myself over here. Nah, sorry about the last few days. I had a bunch of late work nights in a row and a whole full slab of early mornings and the results have been that lots and lots of naps were needed in order for me to keep up my energy and maintain my title as “Most Kick Ass Dude of All Time (north america [not including Quebec])” and something had to give. So yeah, but I’m back now.

Anyway…

My neighbors to the immediate east of my place have crap all over their yard: plastic birds, sculptures, garbage, old signs etc. and the shit’s just haphazardly scattered everywhere. On any given morning, the paternal leader of the clan can be seen clad in his loose fitting yellow(ing) jockeys, sitting at the table in the yard, reading a paper or just chilling out with the big droopy-sacked basset hound that occupies the space between all the clutter (and howls like a drunken werewolf).

There are lots of people in this family, and when they get together, there’s lots of beer and big sloppy sandwiches and cursing and loud, raucous good times. The family features at least one fat woman in a sports bra and umbro style shorts, a few possible juggalos, a ton of potential juggalos (kids under ten), a classic car stuffed into their crammed garage, and various assorted ‘creepy uncle’ types; skinny with beer guts, in mesh hats, amber glasses and mustaches who all sit around and eat tuna salad and drink Hamms while waiting for the sheet cake to get cut during these get togethers, and of course, the wives, who are all, to the last, fat.

Now, lest you think I’m judging anyone, these people seem like they have an absolute blast when they all get together and I’d LOVE to be invited to one of their wacky backyard blasts. In fact, they seem like the happiest people on earth, except for one thing: their neighbors two houses down.

The neighbors two houses down are harder for me to see, so I don’t have as clear of a picture of who they are, but here’s what I know: they’re Mexican, and they too are all fat. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty of them in that house and they often congregate in their garage, which is spotless and empty, save a television, some chairs and party streamers around the ceiling, where they watch whatever it is that they watch on television. They also seem like a good time, and they also love hosting big family get togethers, which also seem awesome.

These neighbors seem to dislike each other rather immensely. They are the two biggest clans on the block, they both party in the back (heyoo!) out by the alley, and on days like the fourth of july, their parties take on this crazy hatfields/mccoy’s thing that is pretty great to watch.

The young ones (juggalo age) tend to spill out into the alleys where they (both families) pull out various motorcycles and scooters and go carts and shit and zip around the alleys, glaring at the rival camp, while the old guys waddle out with their beers every now and then and just kind of assess shit. However, on fourth of july, this alleyway rivalry takes a positively awesome/wildly dangerous form when the two families compete head to head for dominance using the weapon of choice: illegal fireworks.

Now, I live in a crowded neighborhood and our alley butts up against the el tracks, and trains go by about every five to ten minutes. Various wires crisscross above the alley, bringing cable and phones and high speed pornography to all the thousands of people in all the buildings on my block. And amidst this, on sunday, I sat on my porch and watched these two families stand in two groups about twenty feet apart, around various huge, fat cardboard tubes, and blast off fireworks that would, quite seriously, be at home in a mid market town’s new years eve display, glaring at each other all the while. It was awesome.

The people next to me had the numbers. They shot off five huge blasting things for every one that the Mexican family shot off. But the Mexicans had the big, really, really impressive shit. It was a good old fashioned quality vs quantity battle and I think the Mexicans ultimately pulled it out due to the sheer massiveness and majesty of their bombs. As I looked around the city, which looked a little like a gay version of Baghdad with all it’s rainbow colored explosions and smoke everywhere, I was struck by the fact that these two sets of rival neighbors clearly had the biggest, most insane fireworks that weren’t legal in the whole city, and some of the ones the Mexicans had were comparable in size to the legal display down at the water.

Yeah, sure, there were a couple of misfires that resulted in all the neighborhood rooftops being showered in sparks, and at least two bombs blew up right there in the tubes, causing all families involved to scatter in panic, but overall, it was absolutely awesome. And the cops didn’t come at all. Goes to show, you can pretty much do whatever you want in this town as long as enough other crazy sumbitches are doing it too.

Anyway, it was a good holiday, but I’m back, at least for a while. I’m going around to visit all sorts of family in a week, so shit’s gonna remain sporadic for a while, but hey, I gots a new baby, man! Gimme a break.

Happy Thursday. Now get wiping!