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I promise, I promise, after the Oscars tomorrow I won't mention the name Shohreh Aghdashloo until she's in a new movie, at least. But today, it's her day, so congrats to my favorite Iranian actress (okay, so I don't know any others) for snagging an Independent Spirit Award. If you look throughout the history of the Indie Spirit, without fail, the nominees and winners are more deserving than their snoozeville Academy Award counterparts. See for yourself if you think I'm exaggerating. They're also much more fun to watch, I'll have you know.
Where else can you see uber-righteous Jack Valenti mocking himself, Jim Sheridan leading a happy birthday singalong for In America's mortified Sarah Bolger, and Juliette Lewis belting out "I Did A Bad Job Of Raising You" to the tune of "Bad Case Of Loving You" for the movie Raising Victor Vargas, I ask you? It's ironic, I used to dig Juliette Lewis back in the Cape Fear/Kalifornia days, then I got sick of her during the Other Sister/Evening Star days, but now she's back in my good graces by appearing on these sorts of award shows and doing pretty funny commentary on I Love The 80's. She still hasn't won me over on the big screen or anything, I'm not crazy.
If you didn't watch the awards, check out the list below to see who won. And hey, I highly recommend you go out and see them all as soon as humanly possible, they're all quite worthy of viewing. Trust me, I never say that kind of thing about the Oscars. Also, I kid you not when I say this especially, I don't know a single person who's seen In America who doesn't love it. So check 'em out, and then we'll swing by IHOP, nosh on some pancakes, and discuss.
Oh, and before I go, I feel it's my duty to tell you one more thing. According to the article in USA Today, Holly Hunter did a super-nice thing last Monday for her compadres. She held a little luncheon for all of her fellow Oscar Supporting Actress nominees. Only one person was a no-show. If I tell you who, Jen might give me multiple noogies since she says I've been too harsh on this person lately. And I don't want Jen to abandon me on some Cold Mountain, you know?
Indie Spirit Award Winners
Best Feature: Lost in Translation
Best Director: Sofia Coppola (LIT)
Best Screenplay: Sofia Coppola
Best First Feature: Monster
Best First Screenplay: Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent)
John Cassavetes Award: The Station Agent
Best Debut Performance: Nikki Reed (Thirteen)
Best Supporting Female: Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog)
Best Supporting Male : Djimon Hounsou: (In America)
Best Female Lead: Charlize Theron (Monster)
Best Male Lead: Bill Murray (LIT)
Best Cinematography: Declan Quinn (In America)
Best Foreign Film: Whale Rider
Best Documentary: The Fog of War
Special Distinction Award: 21 Grams
With the big show on Sunday, here's a quick twelve question multimedia Academy Awards quiz, courtesy of the BBC. Why is that the BBC website is so much more hip when it comes to pop culture quizzes and whatnot than U.S. broadcast websites? That's a question for the ages.
So, not to brag or anything, but me, I scored 10 out of 12. Yeah, that's right. How well can you do, smarty-pants? And for the record, the two I got wrong are really poorly phrased and debatable; they're both the "odd one out" questions. Why are they poorly phrased and debatable? I got them wrong! Duh.
I'm sure you've heard it by now, woman goes to see Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ, woman keels over and dies from heart attack. Which is sad, don't get me wrong. And I mean no disrespect to the woman here. And I'm not even going to touch the subject matter of The Passion with a 10 foot pole, so put your guns back in your holsters, people. My gripe o' the day is:
Why is this news? I mean, people have medical maladies at the movies all the time. As they do in, you know, supermarkets and baseball games and Avril Lavigne concerts. But have you ever seen in the news where a person had a heart attack during Agent Cody Banks or died from a cerebral hemorrage watching Cuba Gooding Jr. push his shopping cart in Radio? Have you?
The implication, of course, is that The Passion killed the woman. It's just like when Pulp Fiction was coming out and a person collapsed whilst watching the Uma adrenaline scene and that story was on every news channel in America. And in the back of our minds, we're supposed to think "Eeek! That violent movie done kilt that poor woman! I'm gonna stick to movies like Secondhand Lions, thank you very much!"
I don't wanna state the obvious here, but if you die of a heart attack during a movie, then even if you hadn't seen that movie, you probably would have died soon after anyway. You simply would have died in a more mundane fashion, like during the throes of lovemaking or seeing your first two numbers pop up in the lottery drawing, or trying to beat traffic to make it home in time for The Apprentice.
To paraphrase a great line from Scream: Movies don't cause people to die, they cause people to die more creatively.
Here endeth the lesson.
What do you call people who dig watching trailers for movies not in their native tongue without dubbing or subtitles so they're basically clueless as to what they're watching? I call them Mel Gibson true movie geeks, a badge of honor that I, myself, wear with pride. Lest you think I mock.
So with that in mind, why not check out the eye-candy that is the Casshern trailer and see what you non-film geeks are missing? The look is like a mix between a Terry Gilliam and a Paul Verhoeven flick. Or maybe Ridley Scott crossed with Luc Besson. It ain't Noah Baumbach, I can tell you that much. And I've been to Prague.
Anyhoo, according to FilmForce, it's based on the anime series Casshan: Robot Hunter, and it's about a pollution control robot that goes bad (don't they always?) and attempts to enslave mankind. Guess humankind still hasn't learned from the lessons of Robocop's Ed 209, Judge Dredd, and A.I.'s Haley Joel Osment. Okay, maybe Osment didn't turn bad in Artificial Intelligence. But c'mon, watch him smush those doppleganger Haley Joels again and tell me couldn't have turned on us in a heartbeat. Let me tell ya though, I learn from cinematic history and indecipherable Japanese trailers.
Which is why I'll never let a Roomba enter my humble abode. Ever. Sure, they're supposedly robotic vacuum cleaners created to suck dust and schmutz off the floor, but I just know while they sleep they dream of sucking the marrow out of my bones.
Renee, Renee, Renee. What could you possibly have been thinking when you told that News journalist that you deserve to win the Oscar this year? I'm simply baffled. Let's analyze the direct quote, shall we?
"I've certainly earned the award. Last year I was nominated for Chicago but I left empty-handed."
And she added she is confident, saying: "I think this year Hollywood will be fair."
Was she speaking in jest? Is she really under the delusion that she deserved to win Best Actress last year? I think a certain Empire Records alum needs to swing by the local Blockbuster and rent a little movie called The Hours, starring her "true friend", Nicole Kidman. I have to assume she hasn't seen it yet, for if she had, she'd certainly know that her performance wasn't even in the same ballpark as Kidman's. Nicole didn't just win by a nose. Har har. And I'm not even a big Kidman or Hours fan, but come on, Roxie Hart had nothin' on Virginia Woolf last year.
And about the "this year Hollywood will be fair" line, I actually have to side with Renee and her idealism. I, too, hope Hollywood will be fair in the Best Supporting Actress category. So, with fairness in mind, I have to assume she's with me in rooting for Shohreh Aghdashloo for her incredible performance in House Of Sand And Fog. I take comfort in the thought that both Renee and I have been going to sleep at night hoping for fairness to prevail.
Maybe when our combined powers of persuasions are finished getting Shohreh the Academy Award, L'il Miss Humility and I will work on that whole Israel/Palestine thing.
But damned if this little 10 second video didn't make my morning. See for yourself, and be sure to have the volume on. For as we all know from the Quizno's commercials, the audio is half the fun.
I'm still in shock than in 10 seconds, it has perfectly captured the feeling I have working in a crowded office with certain people who truly do sing songs like Madonna's Ray Of Light out loud or have full-on conversations with themselves all day long, Milton-style. And for any of my co-workers reading this, I'm not talking about you guys, silly. I'm talking about those other guys. You know, those annoying ones on the other side of the building. Those guys. Not you.
Note to self: Bring unabridged dictionary to work tomorrow. (Link via Celebral Clutter.)
So, I was checkin' out Coming Soon! today, and I
saw that Gretchen Mol is about to play 50's pinup/tied up Bettie Page in a new project by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) And Guinevere Turner (Go Fish). The news did not fill me with warm fuzzies.
Don't get me wrong, Harron and Turner did American Psycho, and that was a pretty decent flick, if not a tad overrated. And Gretchen Mol, even though she's as blonde as blonde can be, she has an old school prettiness to her. She can dye the hair, no big whup. And the subject matter seems interesting enough in that Star 80 sort of way. So the story, writer and director, I'm cool with. The look of Gretchen is a-okay by me. So, what's the prob, you inquire? Hmm...how shall I put this delicately?
Gretchen Mol sucks.
Okay, that was a bit harsh. I take it back. She doesn't suck, per se. But she does reek of barely adequate. That better?
Seriously though, in 10 seconds, name a great Gretchen Mol performance on the big screen. See? It's not possible. She can't carry a movie, she simply hasn't given any evidence that she's got the chops. A Gretchen can be your kid sister. If you need a nagging girlfriend, Gretchen's your gal. But spanking and whipping, is not Gretchen's strong suit.
Methinks it should have gone to Angelina Jolie or Ashley Judd, of course. If only they had called me first.
Remember how utterly weak and pitiful the Super Bowl commercials were? Horsies farting and dogs biting groins and monkeys macking on the ladies and Jessica Simpson getting outacted by a pizza do not a Drew impress. What does impress a Drew, you wonder?
Singing roadkill.
Yeah, you heard me. Quizno's has two new commercials (Clip #1 and Clip #2) whose mascots appear to be...well...serenading roadkill, one with a pirate hat and one with a derby. Seriously. Okay, maybe they're not roadkill. Mutant rats? Alien hamsters? They sort of look like if Brak conceived of an ad starring the offspring of Steve Buscemi and a dead squirrel, and then voiced it with Adam Sandler. Or maybe if the Homestar Runner guys did a commercial in the bizarro world starring the children of the theoretical pairing of if Ren had made sweet love to a tarsier, and then used the singing voice of Grover or Tim Roth after a heavy night of drinking. But not exactly.
I, of course, love Quizno's mascots and the new commercials. They've got joy, they're eye-catching, and I'll be damned if they're not catchy. And how can you not respect an organization who doesn't care about the ramifications of associating these rodents with food? And moreso, any place that will let me take in a pony ride coupon to get a buck off their product is aces in my book. Perhaps in their next commercial they could beat Subway's uber-bland Jared to a pulp with their guitars. I'd probably be a Quiznos customer for life after witnessing that, sort of a passing of the baton kind of thing.
So what are these crazed thingamahoos, and can I see them perform at my local Dairy Queen? Well, dear reader, I sacrificed a few vestal virgins (I couldn't find 16, Procol Harem must have 'em hoarded away somewhere) at the altar of the Google God and found out the nitty gritty. Well, it was either do that, or de-lint the belly button 'til Jen came home. I chose the former.
They're called Spongemonkeys, according to the creator of 'em, Joel Veitch. Or perhaps Spongmonkeys, I can't quite figure out if the fella made a typo or not. But you can see for yourself on his website, rathergood.com. Turns out this guy also did those supercool singing kitten promos on VH1, too. The Fischerspooner one is my fave, for the record, it's on the bottom o' the page. Sadly, there's no info about the origins of the Spongemonkeys, or what they are exactly, or if prefer Diet Vanilla Coke to Diet Pepsi Vanilla. What a bummer. However, there's the original song and video for the l'il Spong(e?)monkeys, "We Like The Moon". It's like finding a lost episode of Just The Ten Of Us, this sort of find!
So, once Jen came home I showed her the commercial, fully expecting her to bask in the wonder that is guitar-wielding spong(e?)monkeys. Alas, though we share a love of the important things in life like IHOP and Fight Club, and well, each other, she was not duly impressed with the spot. She crinkled her face, not unlike when Sally was asked for her opinion on the wagon wheel table, and opined "It's sort of dumb." Dumb! DUMB! She said it just didn't do it for her, thus breaking my heart, and perhaps making me feel a tad foolish about the whole Quizno's thing. And I thought that was the end of it.
But a few hours later, I heard a strange sound coming from the other room whilst I was reading American Splendor. I crept closer, trying to determine what this sound, this tune, if you will, was exactly. Turned out it was Jen. And under her breath, she was singing:
"We love the subs...coz they are good to us!"
"A-HA!" I bellowed, leaping up from behind the couch with a self-important pointer finger in the air, which seemed to have caught her a tad off-guard, causing her to pour Diet Coke With Lime directly into her lung and spill her garlic hummus all over herself. And the couch.
Once she was done beating the crap out me, she did sheepishly admit that it was a catchy commercial after all, and that she did, indeed, like it. It was worth the near-fatal beating. Besides, the doc said that with some grueling physical therapy, my limp won't be so noticeable after a year or so.
Quiznos/Drew=1 Jen=0
And, in summation, since I've already written a Michael Crichton sized-post about a freakin' commercial with singing gerbils with overacting thyroids, I figured I'd just go all the way and transcribe the lyrics of the commercials for you, too. The punctutation is transcribed precisely, lest you think me a bit overeager. Oh, and in lieu of thanks or gobs of cash, you can just tell tales of my self-sacrifices to your grandchildren.
Commercial #1:
We Love The Subs!!!
Coz They Are Good To Us! The Quizno's Subs!
They Are Tasty
They Are Crunchy
They are Warm Because They Toast Them!!!
They Got A Pepper Bar!!!
Commercial #2:
We Love The Subs!!!
Subs Are A Dollar Off!!!
When You Bring In A Coupon
For Things To Eat Or Oil Changes!!!
For Pony Rides Or For Hair Plugs!!
Any Coupon Works!!!
Beware Of Paper Cuts!
Dig, if you will, the picture.
You remember how in Muriel's Wedding, there was that small part where Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths entered a singing contest, and they were really dorky, but in a funny and endearing way? Well, imagine if there was a whole movie based on their singing act. But instead of being funny and endearing, the two leads were more, say, annoying and not funny. And keep Toni Collette, but instead of Rachel Griffiths, use the most obnoxious person of 2002 from the most overrated film of 2002, Nia Vardalos. Hell, let her write the movie, too. And let's use the director of The Santa Clause 2, because who knows comedy better than he?
But wait, I'm not done. They're not just a regular singing act, of course. I mean, wouldn't it be a hoot if because they witnessed a murder, they were on the run? And since they were hiding out, the only logical way to camoflauge themselves would be that they decide to become women pretending to be men pretending to be women, all Victor/Victoria style? And you'd have to have some hilarious dialogue, something along the lines of:
Connie: We gotta go someplace that they'll never look for us, because there's no musical theater, no dinner theater, no culture at all.
Carla: Los Angeles!
Because that'll bring the house down. Lastly, throw in a hunky television star that's done a ton of movies, but almost all of them have been unwatchable. I know. David Duchovny. Okay, got all that in your mind? Best movie ever, right? If only they would make a movie exactly like this, it could teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Well kids, dreams do come true. I present to you:
The Connie And Carla Trailer.
May God have mercy on our souls.
This, be warned, is going to be a geeky post. But every time I hear new casting news on Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I continue to be a happy camper. First, the casting of Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office) as Arthur Dent was pitch-perfect. Between The Office and Hitchhiker's, he's sure getting the primo roles, no? Then they throw Mos Def in as Ford Prefect, and man, that's some ballsy casting. I'm confident he's got the chops to pull it off. And I'll watch Zooey Deschanel (Trillian) in just about anything. She's one of those people who and add a little zing to every flick they're in.
And then the topper, my man Sam Rockwell has signed on, snagging the role away from the not-so-reliable Robert Downey Jr.! Are they just trying to please me, personally? Instead of WWJD, are they like, WWDD? I can just imagine the conversation over at casting:
Exec #1: We were thinking of going with Mena Suvari as Trillian. The kids love her, plus she looked super-hot in that cheerleader getup in American Beauty.
Exec #2: Are you mad? Drew loathes her very existence. Try again, buddy.
Exec #1: How does Drew feel about Jennifer Love Hewitt?
Exec #2: To quote Scent Of A Woman, he would take a flamethrower to this place.
Exec #1: What about that girl from Almost Famous and The Good Girl? You know, the sarcastic one, big eyes?
Exec #2: Drew will be mighty pleased. Perhaps this will help us in our goal to win his forgiveness for considering casting Beyonce Knowles as Lois Lane.
On a serious note, it's really a bummer that Douglas Adams won't be around to see
the finished product. Adams dies at 49, but Jack Valenti is still alive and kicking at 83. Not that I want Jack Valenti to expire, don't get me wrong. But retire? You betcha.
Is there a weaker crutch for a blogger who's suffering through a bout of brainfreeze than to post tests and quizzes that they find mildly entertaining? I think we both know the answer to that one.
And to celebrate my confession of lame-itude, I present to you Xfm's Album Cover Quiz, which I did quite well on, I might add. There's something curiously addictive about these pop culture quizzes based on low-resolution pictures of assorted hoohah.
Maybe it's because it's not unlike the multitude of quizzes I have to take on a daily basis when I've done a half-assed job of cleaning my contact lenses. Is that my stapler or my Zagnut bar? My timecard or a box of Chiclets? Such are the trials and tribulations of my life. I know you're jealous.
I've considered myself pretty good in this lifetime at telling if people are giving me a smile that is less than genuine. Usually it when they've asked me to sign on the line that is dotted, informed me I didn't the job, reacted to a painful joke of mine, or sighed "Don't worry Drew, it happens to lots of guys."
So I found it pretty interesting that the BBC devised a little test to see how well people could discern between the real deal and the human resources manager type of smile. I scored a whopping 14 out of 20, but when you take the test, you'll see...it's freakin' hard. So I'll takes what I gots. Although, come to think of it....that means that 30% of the thousands of people in my life who I thought were giving me legitimate smiles were actually faking me out. Phony bastards.
Hey, have you noticed that Mr. Keitel has been keeping l'il Harv hidden lately? What's up with that? I feel like I've fallen out of touch with a close friend; I used to be able to draw him from memory. Sigh.
Actually, that wasn't even the point of this post. There's a groovy little quiz over from The Guardian titled "Sex On Screen". It's only 10 questions and all, and really isn't even R-rated, so you might as well swing on by and take it.
Personally, I scored a mere 5 out 10, and have lost all respect for myself. Feh.
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| Drew's Blog-O-Rama:
Obviously, I'm not trying to re-invent the movie blog wheel here. I'm just never lacking in opinions about movies, pop culture, news, and other assorted hoohah. And my mailman has put a restraining order on me, so here's my place to vent.
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