Oscar Predictions

Best Actor:

Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

Didn't see it, and some are saying it's more of a supporting performance, but I've always liked Whitaker. He should have won an Emmy for his turn on The Shield last year.

Best Supporting Actor:

Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine

Frontrunner Eddie Murphy has pissed off a lot of people in Hollywood, so Arkin might get the lifetime achievement Oscar.

Best Actress:

Helen Mirren - The Queen

No idea - she is the frontrunner.

Best Supporting Actress:

Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls

Same here -- another frontrunner, I have no desire to ever see a musical. My wife and I tried to watch Moulin Rouge a few years ago and had to turn it off. While I can suspend disbelief for any sci-fi movie, musicals just don't work for me.

Best Animated Feature:

Cars

Not a NASCAR fan, and plus the running time for this one was too long to take my kids to see. They have very short attention spans. I did take one of my kids to see Happy Feet and I was bored to tears and so was my son. It wasn't even visually interesting, with a lot of white-on-white scenes.

Best Director:

Martin Scorsese - The Departed

Finally, Scorsese gets his Oscar, plus The Departed was probably the best movie I saw last year in the theater.

Best Documentary:

An Inconvenient Truth

I saw it on a plane, over two flights, but it was intriguing. We saw the also nominated Jesus Camp a few days ago. I was impressed by the objectivity of the filmmakers on that one, but it was actually a little boring.

Film Editing:

United 93

Didn't see it, don't think I could take it, but it should win something.

Original Score:

Babel

I guess.

Original Song:

"I Need to Wake Up" - An Inconvenient Truth

AIT is on a roll.

Best Picture:

The Departed

Of the nominated pictures, I only saw this and Little Miss Sunshine. I hope The Departed wins, but Babel seems to be the type of movie the Academy likes. While LMS was pretty funny, it was predictible, and a central scene was copped from National Lampoon's Vacation. LMS shouldn't even be nominated here, but it seems as though every year some oddball picture has to be nomintated to shake things up. Only once in recent memory has one of "doesn't fit" movies won, and that was Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan, which is one of the biggest blunders in Oscar history in my opinion.

Best Visual Effects:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Not as good as the first Pirates movie (which I believe was overrated anyway), and Bill Nighy's makeup as the squid head Davy Jones was pretty distracting, but Pirates will be rewarded since it was the biggest grosser of the year.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

The Departed

Wishful thinking here again. I haven't seen Infernal Affairs on which The Departed is based, but I hear it's good. I haven't seen Little Children, but I did read the book, which was an excellent satire on American suburban life. Author Tom Perotta's books are hugely entertaining -- he also wrote Election (on which the movie was based).

Best Original Screenplay:

Little Miss Sunshine

The oddball might pull off an Oscar in this category. I'm not sure who the frontrunner is, maybe Babel?


Of the nominated films and performances, I've only seen:

The Pursuit of Happyness - B+ Will Smith was pretty effective, but the movie featured a lot of embellishments on what really happened.

Little Miss Sunshine - B It had me until the (completely unnecessary) Vacation ripoff

The Departed - A- The best movie I saw last year in the theater.

Happy Feet - C- Boring boring boring.

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest - C All effects, and Johnny Depp as Sparrow was a little too much this time.

The Devil Wears Prada - B I went with my wife on "date night" and it was better than I expected. Meryl Streep is pretty great in this flick.

An Inconvenient Truth - B+ See above

Jesus Camp - B See above

Click - B- Normally I like the stupid Adam Sandler flicks, they are pretty brainless yet entertaining. Anything with Walken in it is usually watchable.

Poseidon - C- Saw it because of Richard Dreyfuss, we interviewed him while he was filming this one. Josh Lucas is a very bland leading man.

Superman Returns - B- I had such high hopes for this one, but I actually fell asleep during it.

Borat - B+ Very, very funny, but the hype kind of ruined it for me.

Don't brush your teeth with tap water in Mexico

The aftermath of me going to Cabo San Lucas is that I have been saddled with Reiter's Syndrome for the past three months. Another name for Reiter's Syndrome is Reactive Arthritis.

We had a large group of people that went to Cabo and we stayed in a very nice all inclusive resort called the Riu Palace (http://www.riu.com/palacecabosanlucas/). Evidently, the water in the very nice guestroom sinks is not potable, which they declined to tell us when we checked in. As a result, although we never drank the water, we did use it to brush our teeth. Out of our group of 18 people, everyone who did the same ended up with Montezuma's Revenge and the 3 people who brushed with bottled water did not get sick.

A few days after returning home, the symptoms of Montezuma's hit, and both my wife and I were prescribed antibiotics. A week and half later, we were in Las Vegas to see an Aerosmith/Motley Crue concert, and my wife and her friend got to meet Vince Neil of Motley Crue at the opening of his new tattoo parlor. The next morning after the concert, I woke up with low back pain and pinkeye in both eyes and some urinary tract pain. I had fun at the concert, had a few beers, but what the hell was up this? I limped around Vegas that day and did a bit of gambling (check out Slots of Fun), but generally felt horrible. By the end of the night, my wife and our friends wanted to stay out, but I was in so much agony I called it a night.

The next day the pain was slightly better but the other symptoms the same. We got home that night and I went to urgent care. They gave me drops for the pinkeye and a pill for the urinary thing, but said the back pain was unrelated. Throughout the next few days the back pain got worse and started to radiate down my right leg. I went to my doctor - and was referred to either a chiropractor or physical therapy. I think chiropractic is mostly a sham, but the doctor assured my that this one was not. So I went to the chiropractor and did a bunch of "treatments". At this point I could barely walk and had taken to using a cane. The chiropractor did nothing to help me. I got a couple back x-rays and an MRI (a nightmare). My left ankle swelled up like a balloon, I went to a podiatrist and they thought I had gout. My left leg swelled up once the ankle swelling went down and they thought I had a blood clot so I ended up in the E/R. I had a Baker's Cyst behind my left knee that was causing the swelling. I was put on a drug called Indocin (anti-inflammatory), which seemed to help a bit.

After a couple weeks I went back to my doctor again, and reiterated how this all started. Blood work and urine tests ensued. After a few appointments, my doctor said there is something called Reiter's Syndrome that has all of the seemingly unrelated symptoms I started out with (arthritic things like pain, gout-like symptoms, baker's cyst and pinkeye, urinary tract pain). I was referred to a rheumotologist. This was in late November. I could not get in with the rheumotologist until after Christmas, so I stuggled through the first weeks in December. I tried physical therapy which did not help.

When I finally got in, the rheumotologist assured me that I was young and the steroid prednisone would be a "miracle" for me and I would feel a lot better. I started on the prednisone and after four days of increasing agony gave up on it and returned to the Indocin. The rheumotologist was no help, just telling me to increase the prednisone dosage (which didn't help) and was generally dismissive.

Reiter's Syndrome has no cure, it is very rare (1 in 1000 people get it), and was a result of me getting a dysentary-like infection from the non-potable tap water in Mexico. You have to be of northern European descent to have the gene that would make you susceptible to Reiter's. No one else that I went on the trip with has had any lasting effects but me. My immune system freaked out and now I have arthritis like an 80 year old man would have in my ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders. I wobble around. The most demoralizing thing is that I will feel a little bit better for a couple days and then I am in agony again. Before all this happened I was running several miles a week, in the best shape of my life. I haven't been able to run in over three months. Supposedly the symptoms go away anywhere from 2-6 months from the time of infection. All I can do is keep trying medications to control the inflammation and pain until it goes away. I got a second referral to a new rheumotologist and saw him yesterday. He gave me prescriptions for an antibiotic and a new drug called Sulfasalazine, which I will start taking today. This condition has affected my quality of life and my relationship with my wife and kids. I am constantly pissed off because I am in pain. My job has suffered as well. Hopefully Sulfasalazine will work...

Don't brush your teeth with tap water in Mexico.

Annoyances

Just going to list out a few things in popular culture that annoy me.

1. Justin Timberlake. He was in a boy band for God's sake, quit buying his records and let him return to obscurity like the rest of the boy band alumni. Every day his songs are number one on iTunes. WHY? The whole state of current "urban" and "r&b" music is tired. Every song pretty much sounds the same, either a slow jam or a repetitive looped sound effect with hollerin' for the chorus.

2. American Idol and its bastard children Dancing with the Stars, America's Got Talent, Project Runway, etc. The popularity of these shows is puzzling to me. It's all Star Search from the 80s. Star Search was popular, but not like this.

3. CSI and its copycats. I don't find death entertaining. These shows exploit death as entertainment, making crime scenes as grisly as can be. It's sick.

4. Grey's Anatomy. Enough with the too-pale unattractive intern trying to decide between Robin and the guy from Can't Buy Me Love. They are both geeks. I don't watch the show, but my wife subjects me to catching a few minutes of it every now and then. This is a #1 show? What is happening to TV? Quality programs like Lost and Battlestar Galactica should be the number one show, but maybe I am too much of the "male demographic".

5. The annointment of Tom Brady as "the best quarterback ever". This is ridiculous. The Patriots are a great team that wins due to Belichek and their defense. Brady is a good QB, but he is not Peyton Manning, he is not Dan Marino, he is not even Brett Favre (who I hate). Too much emphasis is put on Super Bowl wins, which is because of a team effort, not just one player. If Brady ends up breaking all the passing records (he won't, but Peyton will), then he can be called the best. For now he is just a really good quarterback.

Enough bitching by me. I had to get out some negativity...

Mas Tequila

It's been a long damn time since I've done a blog, but here goes. I just got back from Cabo San Lucas a couple days ago. I headed out there with my wife and sixteen other people -- some neighbors and friends of friends. It's amazing that after a two days of drinking all day, hanging at the pool bar, and drinking all night, a group of late-30-something people begin to act like they are 21 years old again.

We had beer bongs, women that have had multiple children flashing their boobs repeatedly (but not my wife, thankfully), body shots, upside down shots, vomiting in lawn chairs, skinny dipping in closed pools, trying to swim through 12 foot high waves with a nasty undertow, bonfires, mooning, booze cruising, the list goes on and on. The highlights of the trip were our appearances at Cabo Wabo Cantina and The Giggling Marlin. We flat out rocked Monday and Tuesday nights. Did I mention that we all had an amazing time?

The second to last day we were supposed to be hit by Hurricane Paul, which turned into Tropical Storm Paul, and just gave us some heavy rain. A few of us ran out during the storm down to the ocean. I was hoping the waves would get big enough to hit the pool and wash out the sand volleyball courts, but it didn't happen.

We are already talking about the next trip back to Mexico...

The Shining

Last week I attended the Netflix Rolling Roadshow screening of The Shining in Estes Park, Colorado. Since I missed out on JAWS on Martha's Vineyard on August 5th, and since there was a post about how cool Netflix's screening of Field of Dreams in Iowa was, I figured I had to go to one of these Rolling Roadshow screenings. I am a fan of The Shining, so this was a no-brainer. The event was held at the Stanley Hotel, a historic hotel that is supposedly haunted. Stephen King stayed at the Stanley and wrote most of the Shining there after being inspired by the hotel, and they filmed exteriors of the Stanley for use in The Shining TV Miniseries. The hotel in the Kubrick movie is called The Overlook and they actually filmed exteriors at The Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon.

Anyway, Estes Park is about an hour and 45 minutes from my house, and I got a late start heading there since my wife was unable to go at the last minute due to babysitter issues. It was too late to get anyone else to go so I had to fly solo.

I really wanted to get one of these:

But of course, they were sold out, so I decided I also wanted this one:

And they were sold out of that one as well. They only had 40 or so Shining posters to begin with (nice planning!). Even though I arrived only 20 minutes late for the pre-movie stuff, there were already several hundred people filling up the empty field in front of the Stanley. One brave couple decided to dress up as the two girls that were murdered in the Overlook and that Danny keeps seeing in the film. "Come and play with us Danny, forever and ever and ever ..."

The pre-movie festivities included 13 people participating in a 10 minute horror story contest, where they had 10 minutes to write a story, and it had to include words specified by the Netflix people, including Stanley, plumber, green, finger, and a few others. The audio wasn't that great so it was difficult to hear a lot of the stories, and they tended to be more humorous than scary anyway.

I hadn't had time to eat in my rush to get to Estes Park so I hit the makeshift snackbar, and grabbed some popcorn and one of these:

Yes, it is Redrum Ale! Brewed in Estes Park in honor of The Shining. It was a pretty good brew that reminded me a lot of Killian's Irish Red, one of my favorite beers.

At this point it was starting to get dark and the head organizer came out on stage to introduce the movie. I was expecting Lisa Loeb, since she is the official host of the Rolling Roadshow, but for whatever reason, we got this guy instead. His words: "I came here to see The Shining. If you came here to have a conversation, get the hell out of here." This brought some cheers from the audience, and shortly thereafter they began rolling some trailers. First up was Creepshow, based on a Stephen King graphic novel or comic or something. I had read it when I was a kid and seen the movie, which was pretty cheesy. The fact that Leslie Nielson of Naked Gun fame was in the trailer brought a few chuckles from the crowd. Next up was the trailer for Motel Hell, and then came Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (which, I have amazingly not seen), and finally another Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange. And then... THE SHINING:

All in all I had a pretty good time and I highly recommend going to these Rolling Roadshow screenings, but there's only a few left, so you'll have to hurry.

More info here:

http://www.netflix.com/roadshow

Recent Movies

Date night with my wife, and we saw The Devil Wears Prada. This one really took me by surprise, since I didn't expect much from it and only thought it would be the same boring chick flick that is being produced over and over every few months by Hollywood, usually starring Kate Hudson. What was good about Devil was that it had Meryl Streep in it, and she gives an amazing performance. I completely forgot that she was Meryl Streep. This is rare for me, to see the actor as a character if they are a "big name". Anyway, this is a great date movie, so see it. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

If I want to see the latest popcorn or "summer" flick, I usually hit the multiplex with my brother in law. We recently checked out Superman Returns, during which I fell asleep, continuing a trend that began with my second viewing of Mission Impossible III. Although I hate Tom Cruise, MI: III was pretty great and Philip Seymore Hoffman is a villain for the ages in that movie. I fell asleep during Nacho Libre and X-Men: The Last Stand as well, so what does this say about all these movies? Does popcorn put anyone else to sleep?

Superman Returns - 3 out of 5. I was not that engaged by it. I found the early part of the film boring, the character of Lois as played by Kate "generic" Bosworth unbelievable, and Kevin Spacey too over the top as Lex Luthor. His giant crystal continent plan was a little too out there as well. I fell asleep during the most action-heavy part of the film, so what does that say about it? I did like the part where Superman saves the plane, and I thought Brandon Routh is a good heir to the legacy of Christopher Reeve. I was just expecting a lot more from Bryan Singer, given how much I enjoyed X-Men and X-Men 2.

Nacho Libre - 1 out of 5. It had a few mildly amusing moments, but was populated by a cast of the most disgusting people seen in a film since Napolean Dynamite, which I thought was great in the theater, on DVD, not so much. Director Jared Hess is obviously a one-trick pony. Jack Black gave it his best shot, but ultimately it is a bad movie. The only parts that made me laugh were the way Black said some things in his fake Mexican accent. I fell asleep during the middle section of the movie, when Nacho is doing God knows what, and woke up in time for the ending which I have already forgotten.

X-Men: The Last Stand - 3 out of 5 - don't be killing off X-Men, Ratner. Director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2) has a rep as a Hollywood Hack, and it shows in this movie. It seemed phoned in, the performances were bad (Halle Berry, Kelsey Grammer), and several X-Men were killed off. The character of Angel is useless and the scenes that featured him were nonessential to the plot. Ian McKellen is good (as always) as Magneto. Famke Janssen as Dark Phoenix was a little bit cool, but kind of a missed opportunity. I have to unfortunately see this movie again since I didn't stick around for what happens after the credits, and apparently it's "pretty cool".

The next flick on the horizon is Miami Vice. I will see it, the brother in law is excited to see it, but I really can't stand Jamie Foxx, so we will see...

DJ

Mormons

So as mentioned before, I will briefly discuss Mormons. I just don't get it. They are basically a cult, with ridiculous beliefs, and a questionable history (the founder Joseph Smith was a convicted con-artist). Most of them live in one place, the state of Utah. Although officially condemned, some Mormons still practice polygamy, which as depicted in the great HBO show .Big Love, seems like a real pain in the ass.

Once upon a time, back in the days of when I worked for a DOTcom with HeavyD, we had to travel to Utah against our wills to work with some crazy-ass Mormons out there, a new acquisition of the DOTcom. At the time, our DOTcom stock was quickly becoming worthless and the DOTcom wanted us to hook up what we were producing with what the Mormons were producing, and our technology was as different from theirs as their "religion" is from the rest of the United States. We landed, were promptly issued a minivan as our rental vehicle, and could not find a bite to eat - much less a beer anywhere in town since it was after 9 pm. Everyone we saw had blond hair and blue eyes. One of the websites we had developed was a picture/people rating site and the Mormons had a real problem with this site despite its massive and brief popularity, due to the sometimes provocative pictures uploaded by people desperate for attention. The highlight of this first visit to Utah was that there was a brand spanking new Krispy Kreme right next to our hotel. HeavyD and I, having never experienced the joy that is Krispy Kreme each ate a dozen hot fresh donuts in a matter of minutes, plus dragged another dozen back home with us to our wives.

The Mormons came to a Christmas party in New York with the rest of the divisions of the DOTcom and looked like lost children. Unable to drink caffeine or liquor, clothed in secret underwear, they huddled together in a small group in the middle of the room, and made their exit fairly early in the evening. Our three person "division", meanwhile was enjoying White Russians with the CEO of the DOTcom, several months before he escaped a very rich man in his Golden Parachute.


The bottom line is that since that fateful trip to Utah, I have a fascination with Mormonism (and Krispy Kreme), that so many millions can be swayed by something so utterly strange (and delicious).

There's a great South Park episode that sums up, in song, the beliefs and history of the Mormons. I also recommend the book Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. Krakauer, uses a true-story framing device of a mother and child murdered by fundamentalist Mormons in his discussion of the history of Mormonism, including Warren Jeffs, the polygamist wanted by the FBI.

Finally, back to Big Love on HBO, starring Bill Paxton as a polygamist trying to hide it and be a successful business owner in Utah. Season One is being rerun currently (it began on July 12th), so check it out. Particularly outstanding is the Warren-Jeffsish portrayal by Harry Dean Stanton of Roman Grant.

DJ

Back

Well, I was able to stay in Deadwood, but was not really that impressed. My wife had been out of town for the last week and a half, visiting family. I flew out to Minneapolis and proceeded to drive with her and our kids to Watertown, SD. My mother in law is from a small town near Watertown and the town was having a centennial celebration. Once the festivities were over, we continued west until we hit Deadwood. Due to it being the Fourth of July Weekend, and given that we hadn't booked a hotel room, we had to go for the only one available at The First Gold Casino. It was a decent sized room, a bit expensive and we had two young children staying in the room with us who both were suffering from colds. The casino part was as depressing as most casinos not in Vegas are, filled with cigarette smoke and sad elderly people sitting in front of slot machines. We had to try and get a bite to eat before putting the kids to bed so we hit the only restaurant the casino offered. There wasn't much of a menu selection and a damn fly that kept trying to land on my son's food. The waitress was pretty slow and inattentive as well.

After the family went to bed, I ventured down to the casino again, part of my quest to have a shot of whiskey and gamble in the famous town of Deadwood. After 8 hours of driving, though, I wasn't really in the mood, so I sat down at a 5 cents slot machine. Slot machines are such a scam, poker is really my game, but all this casino offered was something called 3 card poker. Evidently 3 card poker is similar to a game my friends and I used to play called "Son of a Bitch", where you only have three cards but straights and flushes still count. I was playing a "Jacks or Better" poker slot machine, which at least gives you more of a chance than the standard slot machine. Somehow I ended up with 4 of a kind, but since I bet only the minimum in an attempt to make this "gambling" last as long as possible and to lose the lowest amount of money possible, I only won 80 nickels. My goal was to get a couple of free drinks while sitting at the machine, but I was only able to get one whiskey sour before the nickels ran out.

The next day we checked out a few of the sights in Deadwood from the driver and passenger seats of the van, since we didn't want to take the kids out and had a long drive ahead of us. The trek continued through Wyoming, where I wanted to maybe hit Devil's Tower (of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame), but it would have added four hours onto an already long trip. Man, Wyoming is a desolate place. We drove for over 80 miles with nothing, no towns, no houses, until we hit Lusk. It was almost as bad as Utah, where we once had a stretch of 120 miles with nothing, no exits, but probably lots of Mormons lurking in the hills. More on Mormons next time...

The Fourth brought some fun in the form of a neighborhood barbeque, complete with a torrential downpour and talk of neighborhood husbands getting "fixed". Such a thought terrifies me since I have heard tales of things going bad during and after this procedure ...

Deadwood

I'm really hooked on the show Deadwood. I'm a sucker for history and a lot of the characters in HBO's show are based on real people and events. Although the show is in it's third season on HBO now, I am finally watching Season One on DVD. Like most HBO dramas, authenticity is the key, and it's all there, the dirt, the grime, the whores, the gambling and drinking. I normally don't like westerns at all (Silverado excepted), but this show is amazing. The cast is outstanding, from Ian McShane as Al Swearengen to Timothy Olyphant as Seth Bullock, to William Sanderson as EB Farnum. Keith Carradine as Wild Bill Hickock -- I was truly shocked to see him go so soon, even if it is true to what really happened. Robin Wiegert as Calamity Jane - she's hard to understand and every other word is "f&cking" or "c*cksucker", but she is so good in this role.

There's a chance I might be in the real Deadwood over Fourth of July Week and this time (I've been there before) it will hold a whole new significance for me. My plan is to rush through the rest of Season One and a lot of Season Two before the weekend. Maybe I'll do a bit of gambling and drinking and visit the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane.

First Blog

Blogger sucks. I had practically written a damn novel for my first blog and tried to highlight in the posting tool and lost it all. DAMNIT! Since I lost it all, I will just post a few things:

I was inspired to do this blog after reading http://heavydrambling.blogspot.com/, a blog by a good friend of mine.

I've lived in Denver for almost 4 years, after spending the first 33 years of my life in Minnesota. Minnesotans never leave there, they choose to live in misery. I am glad I escaped.

I am a huge Vikings fan and have renewed my interest in the Twins this year. The Denver teams don't do much for me. I hate hockey, and everyone here is a Denver Avalanche fan. They are called "the Avs", which is stupid. The Broncos are decent, especially since a player lives in my neighborhood, but ultimately they are an AFC team, and the NFC is better. The Nuggets were the team I thought I could get behind, but they pulled so much BS when they played the Wolves in the playoffs a couple years ago that I can't stand them. Carmelo Anthony is a punk-ass.