Its that time of the year were cinephiles gather around their televisions to cheer on their favorite movies only to leave the night incredibly enraged. Here are my predictions for this years oscars, as well as who I think should win.
Oscar for Actor in a Leading Role.
Who should win: Chiwetel Ejifor (12 Years a Slave), One of the most demanding roles I can remember an actor take on in recent memory.
Who will win: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club), All the momentum seems to be moving his way in what has been a career changing year that started with his role in Mud.
Oscar for Actress in a Leading Role.
Who should win: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), she was brilliant in Blue Jasmine as a neurotic middle aged mess.
Who will win: Sandra Bullock (Gravity), There's a chance that Woody Allen's controversy could rub off on Blanchett.
Oscar for Actor in a Supporting Role.
Who should win: Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave), He brings the devil himself alive in his role as the slave master Epps.
Who will win: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), Leto did a great job in his transformative role, in a category that's hard to pick from this year I would be fine with a Leto win.
Oscar for Actress in a Supporting Role.
Who should win: Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave) with a role just as demanding Chiwetel's, Lupita gives a performance that will be hard to forget in her first ever on-screen role. I also gotta give June Squibb some love for her role in Nebraska, she was one of the best parts of the film.
Who will win: Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle), she is the apple of the Academy's eye.
Oscar for Best Cinematography.
Who should win: Gravity, amazing and fluid camera movements make the cinematography dazzling.
Who will win: Gravity, One of the more sure bets of the night.
Oscar for Costume Design.
Who should win: 12 Years a Slave, wonderful period costume design.
Who will win: American Hustle, people are in love with the tacky 70's outfits.
Oscar for Best Directing.
Who should win: Steve Mcqueen (12 Years a Slave), every decision made in how to make this movie looks like the right decision, probably the win I'm rooting for the most since Mcqueen has a chance to become the first black director to ever win the award.
Who will win: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity), He's been winning nearly all the directing awards, I won't be mad I just want Mcqueen to win so badly.
Oscar for Film Editing.
Who should win: 12 Years a Slave, the pacing of the film always seems right and never draws attention to itself.
Who will win: Captain Phillips, "The editing creates so much tension, man" - some kid in my film class.
Oscar for Makeup and Hairstyling.
Who should win: Dallas Buyers Club, cause who the fuck else are they going to give it to.
Who will win: Dallas Buyer Club, if The Lone Ranger wins for its racist makeup I will riot.
Oscar for Best Original Music Score.
Who should win: Steven Price (Gravity).
Who will win: Steven Price (Gravity), The music is part of what makes this movie so Engulfing.
Oscar for Best Original Song.
Who should win: "The Moon Song" by Karen O (Her), I love this song soo much
Who will win: "Let It Go" (Frozen), the fact that a song from Inside Llewyn Davis didn't get nominated is a travesty
Oscar for Best Production Design.
Who should win: Her, The movies use of color is incredible.
Who will win: American Hustle, again the Academy won't be able to resist tacky 70's production design.
Oscar Short Film - Live Action
Who should win: Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything), this film is so incredibly intense and puts you in the moment.
Who will win: The Voorman Problem, Its got the star power with Martin Freeman playing the main character.
Oscar for Sound Editing
Who should win: Gravity.
Who will win: Gravity, again where is Inside Llewyn Davis?
Oscar for Sound Mixing.
Who should win: Inside Llewyn Davis, Hey finally found it in this category.
Who will win: Gravity.
Oscar for Visual Effects.
Who should win: Gravity, Ooooo so pretty.
Who will win: and this years Gravity award for Visual Effects goes to Gravity.
Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Who should win: 12 Years a Slave.
Who will win: Philomena, I think this will be one of the surprises of the night.
Oscar for Best Original Screenplay
Who should win: Her, an incredible concept that Jonze is able to pull off and make believable.
Who will win: Her, its the favorite and all signs point to it winning.
Oscar for Best Picture
Who should win: 12 Years a Slave, Certainly one of the best movies I have ever seen.
Who will win: 12 Years a Slave, For once I think the Academy will make the right call, but I have a crippling fear that American Hustle might sneak in for the win.

Sunday, March 2, 2014
Oscar Predictions
Sunday, August 4, 2013
The Canyons
The Canyons
explores the dark side of human nature, while trying to offer critiques on the
technology obsession of modern society and a dying film industry. The film follows the story Christian (James
Deen) a manipulative movie producer who makes movies to keep his father off his
back and to keep his trust fund. Trouble
stirs when Christian suspects that his girlfriend Tara (Lindsey Lohan) is
seeing another man. The Canyons is a twisted and erotic tale of the darkest parts of
the human mind.
The Canyons is a
movie that features one of the strangest acting ensembles ever assembled in a
movie. A cast that ranges from porn
star James Deen to award winning director Gus Van Sant who plays Dr. Campbell,
Christian’s therapist. It’s a daring
move to cast a porn star as a leading man and judging from James Deen’s
performance it’s a move that won’t be attempted again anytime soon. A reason behind Deen’s casting though could
be the movie’s various sexually twisted scenes.
The movie sports some of the most sadistically erotic scenes that I have
ever seen in a film, the scenes will leave you disgusted (or aroused depending
on whether that’s your thing or not) which I’m pretty sure is the movies
intention. The movie at times borders on
being soft-core porn, but one that sports a sinister quirk.
The big draw of the movie, or the big question that everyone
wants to know is if Lindsey Lohan puts on a good performance. While it’s not the cannonball into the pool
sort of performance that some may be hoping for out of Lindsey, it is a foot in
the water, towards the right direction.
She puts on a solid performance and is undoubtedly the best
actor/actress in the film, though her performance is nothing to rave
about.

Rating: 44/100
Labels:
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Saturday, July 6, 2013
World War Z
World War Z is the zombie’s genre first real attempt at a
big budget action blockbuster. World War Z’s giant budget has given it the
ability to do what few zombie movie can, bringing the zombie apocalypse to a
worldwide scale. For the most part World
War Z works, it balances its action packed thrills, with intense and
suspenseful moments that are paced well throughout the film. This all however maybe comes at the expense
of the film’s heart.
One of the big questions when you have a zombie movie is,
what kind of zombies are we dealing with? Is it your typical run of the mill
slow walking zombies, or the hyper rabies zombies? World War Z’s zombies most closely resemble
the hyper rabies zombies, with the turn time after bite being incredibly fast,
faster than any other zombie movie I’ve seen.
The fast moving disease lends itself to the movie’s scale and intensity
and make for some interesting moments in the film. For the most part all the zombie stuff is
believable with a few small potholes popping up here and there but never really
distract the viewer and the movie is still able to maintain it’s suspension of
disbelief.
The thing that stands out about World War Z is its use of
suspense, which makes for some intense and thrilling sequences. World War Z not only features the traditional
run n’ gun/shoot ‘em up zombie scenes but also intricate and well
presented stealth scenes that make for suspenseful moments. World
War Z should also be commended for being able to break new ground for the
zombie genre. Able to put that
obscenely large 200+ million dollar budget to some use, by not just plugging
and chugging the typical zombie movie set pieces into the film. Instead it takes the zombie action set pieces
to places that the low budget zombie movies are never able to go.
Rating: 72/100
Labels:
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Saturday, June 22, 2013
The East
The East is a political thriller that is the spawn child of
co-writer and Lead Actress Brit Marling, one of film’s up and coming young
women. The East follows Sarah Moss an
agent for a private intelligence firm that provides their corporate clientele
protection from eco-terrorism. Sarah
played by Brit Marling is assigned to infiltrate the eco-terrorism group known
as The East, an anarchist group that plans to carry out three “jams” or attacks
on three different corporations. The
East does a good job of balancing it’s thriller side of the film with it’s
indie soft spot.
The movie is well shot and newcomer Batmanglij continues to
pave his way as good director among the Sundance circuit. One of my favorite moments in the film
included a montage that was scored with a haunting piano soundtrack, which came
from one of the characters playing piano on screen. This film has knack for making some of it’s
intense moments in the film both emotional and touching as well. At points in the film it can become a little
difficult to maintain you suspension of disbelief, but the scripts careful and
personal treatment of the characters are able to pull the audience back in to
the film for the most part.
The East is a little disjointed, but should be commended for
it originality and it’s daring subject matter, which unfortunately shouldn’t be
considered so daring. It separates
itself from other thrillers through it’s message and humanity. Overall it’s a good film with some slight
issues here and there, but it’s humanity, intensity and it’s ability to break
new ground keep the audience engaged.
Rating: 77/100
Labels:
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Friday, May 31, 2013
The new season of Arrested Development and what it means for the future of Television.
(This review contains minor spoilers, a few specifics but mostly talks about the overall concepts of the new season.)
If you are like me you may have spent a good chunk of your
memorial weekend binge watching the new season of Arrested Development. I must admit when I first delved into my
binge I was skeptical of the new season.
The Fourth season follows a new format with each episode revolving
around one character (Micheal’s Arrested Development, Lindsey’s Arrested
Development etc.); this presumably was to accommodate all of the actor’s busy
schedules. Through the first few
episodes the new format left me uneasy about the new season, but as the season went on the old jokes that I loved (her?) and the shows familiar cast of characters put me at ease. This isn’t
the same Arrested Development that we all remember, but after seven years off
the air, a completely new storytelling format and being brought back through
online streaming instead of traditional TV it would have been impossible for it
to stay the same. This time around
Arrested Development is different but is still good and a worthwhile reboot of
the show.
The new season’s grandest accomplishment isn’t it’s comedy,
but it’s mode of storytelling as you see events from the perspectives of
multiple characters, similar to Van Sant’s Elephant
without all of the annoyingly long following shots. However this does make for some confusion as
to the chronology of some events and I found myself losing my bearings in a few
episodes. This leads to interesting use of suspense and
surprise that adds another dimension to the comedy of the show. The comedy
doesn’t quite measure up to the first few seasons, though I probably missed 100
hidden jokes throughout the season. The
show is still funny and full of laughs especially for loyal viewers of the show
as some running gags from previous seasons continue into the new season; it’s
just near impossible for the show to measure up to its previous three seasons.
The new season also suffers from making this show’s
dysfunctional family even more dysfunctional. Even the characters of Michael and his son
(George Michael) have become as dysfunctional as the rest of their family and
have now assumed new roles as pathological liars. At times it becomes almost annoying how
incapable the members of the Bluth family are, the show in some ways has lost a little bit of it’s heart. This mostly likely
stems from the fact that due to the actor’s complex schedules we rarely get a
scene where we get to see the entire Bluth family together, or more than two
Bluths together in the same room for that matter.
Fans of Arrested Development will be happy to hear that the
show still lays on a heavy social commentary behind all it’s comedic genius. Heavy on the religious commentary as always,
on episode in which Gob makes a joke that he thought a painting of certain
famous prophet was a real person. This
along with the new season poking fun at the entertainment industry much like
its predecessors helps us appreciate the sheer complexity and detail of the
show.
The entire season seems to building up to a final event or
something of the sort. However the end to
the anticipation doesn’t really seem to payoff.
The season doesn’t end with a great sense of closure, which is ok since
it’s clear that this most likely won’t be the last we see of the Bluths. Netflix unfortunately has already made it
clear that they won’t be bringing Arrested Development for a fifth
So What Does This All Mean For Television?
This new season of Arrested Development is another step
towards Netflix push to create original programming. But Netflix isn’t the only subscription based
online streaming company that has begun create original programming Hulu and
Amazon have been doing the same as well.
Hulu (from what I can tell from Ads) has been creating many British
online show and Amazon recently released the Pilot for Zombieland the
series. This all adds up to being a bad
sign of things to come for traditional television programming.
The Internet’s power to provide and produce quality content
online is continuing to grow, something that could lead to the death Cable,
broadcast and satellite TV. As Internet
becomes more readily available to people across the country, websites that provide
online streaming will become serious competition for Television. There are majorities of people, mostly young
that already watch television shows on their laptop instead of their TV’s. A move for TV networks to release their
content online along with their regular programming is a very important to help stay relevant in the digital
age. This move also make’s financial
sense, Arrested Development was illegally downloaded 100,000 times, pennies
compared to 1 million illegal Downloads of HBO’s Game of Thrones that occurred
when the third season first premiered.
Netflix is incredibly more affordable and allows access to a larger
range of content, than a costly premium cable package plan that contains HBO.
It is very possible that a few decades from now that TV in the traditional sense could be dead and instead families across America could have what functions as a giant computer monitor as the centerpiece in their living room. A study found that eighty three percent of people under the age of 25 watch at least some of their Television show online, with a quarter of respondent saying they watch ALL their TV online. TV is moving from cable and satellite as its medium to the Internet, for better or worse.
It is very possible that a few decades from now that TV in the traditional sense could be dead and instead families across America could have what functions as a giant computer monitor as the centerpiece in their living room. A study found that eighty three percent of people under the age of 25 watch at least some of their Television show online, with a quarter of respondent saying they watch ALL their TV online. TV is moving from cable and satellite as its medium to the Internet, for better or worse.
Labels:
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Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Kings of Summer
The Kings of Summer was the latest coming of age comedy to hit Sundance, where it received rave reviews. I got someone at work to cover my shift while I went to an advanced screening movie, so I had relatively high expectations and Kings Of Summer did not disappoint.
Kings of Summer is the story of three friends Joe, Patrick
and Biaggio in search of freedom from their parents, build a house in the
middle of the woods. Joe lives with his
divorced father Frank who every time Joe gets in a fight with he ends up
calling the police unnecessarily to the house.
Patrick is trying to escape his overbearing parents, while Biaggio just
seems to come along for the fun of it.

Rating: 88/100
Labels:
film review,
kings of summer,
movie review
Sunday, February 24, 2013
So with the Oscar just a few hours away it's time to roll out the oscar predictions.
Oscar for Actor in a Leading Role.
Who should win: Daniel Day-Lewis, His acting in Lincoln was phenomenal and from what I here he used some pretty extreme methods in order to get in to character for the movie.
Who will win: Daniel Day-Lewis This is one of the most sure bets of the night.
Oscar for Actress in a Leading Role.
Who should win: Jessica Chastain, she made Zero Dark Thirty her movie and was a big part of what made that movie work.
Who will win: Emmanuelle Riva, I don't think the Academy will pass up a chance to be this pretentious .
Oscar for Actor in a Supporting Role.
Who should win: Christoph Waltz, His biggest competition wasn't even nominated, Waltz was awesome in Django should be an easy win.
Who will win: Christoph Waltz, the Academy loves Waltz and he put on a great performance.
Oscar for Actress in a Supporting Role.
Who should win: Helen Hunt, had a good performance, this category is one of the weaker categories of the year.
Who will win: Anne Hathaway, I'm Against Les Mis getting award recognition, but I wouldn't have any quarrels with Anne Hathaway winning. For the little amount of time she was on-screen she stole the show, a close second in my book.
Oscar for Best Cinematography.
Who should win: Lincoln, It didn't have any beautiful visuals or amazing landscapes to really on, this movie looked beautiful even though it was a dialogue driven movie.
Who will win: Life of Pi, The Academy won't be able to resist all of the sparkly objects.
Oscar for Costume Design.
Who should win: Anna Karenina, Extravagant costumes that contributed to the great mise en scene in the movie
Who will win: Les Miserables, it's not like it has a ton of competition. I mean Snow White and the Huntsman got nominated in this category, come on Academy get you shit together, what is this the people's choice awards?
Oscar for Best Directing.
Who should win: Lincoln, Steven Spielberg. This category had a ridiculous amount of snubs, Spielberg wasn't the best this year, but he's the best of the nominees.
Who will win: Lincoln, Steven Spielberg. He's got the Oscar pedigree.
Oscar for Film Editing.
Who should win: Zero Dark Thirty, the editing did a great job of adding tension and the progression of the movie was seamless.
Who will win: Argo, Eh whatever.
Best Foreign Language Film.
Who should win: No, Chile. Honestly the only movie I've seen in this category is Amour and wasn't a fan of it. I've seen the trailer for NO and I love the movie's premise and I'm fairly certain it's not worse then Amour.
Who will win: Amour, book it.
Oscar for Makeup and Hairstyling.
Who should win: The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey, Make-Up is great. BUT HOW DID CLOUD ATLAS NOT GET NOMINATED? We'll save that conversation for another day.
Who will win: Les Miserables, While accepting this award they should have to thank the mud that they made their actors role around, to make them look dirty.
Oscar for Best Original Music Score.
Who should win: John Williams, Lincoln. You can just feel the vast amount of emotion in this score.
Who will win: Mychael Danna, The Academy will love the "bollywoodish" sounding score.
Oscar for Best Original Song.
Who should win: Skyfall, "Skyfall" by Adele.
Who will win: Skyfall, "Skyfall" by Adele. It'll win because Adele.
Oscar for Best Production Design.
Who should win: Lincoln, It did a great job of recreating the 19th century and bring it to the screen
Who will win: Les Miserables, some of the Production Design looked a little ridiculous, let's hope it doesn't win.
Oscar Short Film - Animated
Who should win: Head over Heels, Incredibly clever and a sweet short.
Who will win: Paperman, It's incredibly endearing, plus it's disney the kings of Animation.
Oscar Short Film - Live Action
Who should win: Henry, It's a much better and psychological version of Amour.
Who will win: The Buzkashi Boys, All the shorts were really good in my opinion, I don't think I would have a problem with any of the 5 nominees winning it.
Oscar for Sound Editing
Who should win: Django Unchained, I don't think there is anyone in the industry cares and focuses on sound as much a Quentin Tarantino.
Who will win: Django Unchained, just taking a shot in the dark. It makes sense to me, so why not the Academy too? Right?
Oscar for Sound Mixing.
Who should win: Lincoln, I don't really have a compelling argument......
Who will win: Les Miserables, ugh.
Oscar for Visual Effects.
Who should win: Life of Pi, The effects are beautiful and it would be nice to see a movie win this award without using big explosions
Who will win: Life of Pi, I could tell that the Tiger was CGI, but apparently a lot of other people couldn't....
Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Who should win: Beasts of the Southern Wild, such a great and unique story, which you don't see to often.
Who will win: Argo, Oh boy another movie about how America and the CIA are awesome.
Oscar for Best Original Screenplay
Who should win: Django Unchained, there are some laughs and the dialogue seems genuine to the time period.
Who will win: Amour, there goes the Academy showing off how pretentious they can be again.
Oscar for Best Picture
Who will win: Argo, It's been surging recently, and Affleck's fellow directors are gonna trying to stick to the academy for not giving him that director nom. Unfortunately in the midst of all that they forget that they're supposed to pick the best movie.
* categories not mentioned Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and Documentary Short
Labels:
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