Next I want to apologize to those of you who missed our time together last week because of The Undergrounds.  I know it was difficult, but trust me, it was worth it.  Benji’s been working with five writers and an artist to put that little web comic together and, well, writers and artists are about the most difficult people in the world to work with, so give the man some slack.  The comic itself is pretty damned funny, especially if you’ve ever spent time in customer service…

Now, to the topic at hand: The Academy Awards.  This Sunday Hollywood is going to blow some smoke up their asses, let it mingle for a while and then burp in our faces with the biggest sham ever, the Oscars.  A group of rich people swooning over one another, ranting about how great they are and how important their work is to the world… Please.  Anyways, these fascists elitists fleshy bags of hot air will, at the very least, entertain us; I’m sure someone will have a nipple slip, somebody will rant about the environment when they win, someone will end up saying something crazy like “midget-mayonnaise” for no reason, and hopefully, if we’re really lucky, somebody with some talent, not connection, will win an award they deserve.  But doubtful.

So, in lieu of the good Sgt. Angle’s picks, I’m here to give you my wishes-that-weren’t, not predictions, for this years Academy Awards in the following categories: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Picture.  Shall we?

Best Actor:  Cung Le

I speak a language called FukYooUp!

Last year a little sci-fi gem called Pandorum came out and it was, without a doubt, one of the most fun films in the genre I had seen in a very, very long time.  Not only did the movie have some solid work in the writing, directing and production department, but it managed to surprise me at the end, something films rarely do effectively these days.  One of the actors, real life fighter Cung Le, portrayed Manh, a badass mofo with a huge spear and a foreign language.  Cung Le spent the whole movie flipping, slashing and fighting, something that keeps me interested and holds my attention (I know, weird, right?).  Pandorum itself was fantastic and if you haven’t seen it, you’re doing yourself a disservice.  Cung Le wins because he could fuck any of the Academy’s nominations up, without special effects.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Best Actress:  Sasha Grey

I’d take her serious…

I don’t need to introduce this beauty, but I will anyways.  Sasha Grey has been in some of the more timeless pieces of the last few years, including: Teenage Peach Fuzz 3, Spunk’d 8, The King of Coochie 4, and Soderbergh’s latest (and the film for which she wins this award), The Girlfriend Experience.  In the The Girlfriend Experience, the talented Miss Grey plays an escort, which is acting, because she is not an escort in real life, she is an adult film star — totally different!  The drama deals with the escort managing her clients and her personal life in the days of the 2008 election.  You see?  Politics = drama!  The film scored varying reviews, but I can’t see how anyone would oppose a movie where we follow this fine femme around for two hours, can you?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Best Cinematography:  M David Mullen

If she were a mute, she’d be perfect.

Most of you may not know who M David Mullen is, but you probably know his work as a cinematographer…  Love Pig?  Now Renting?  Lipstick Camera?  No?  Me neither.  But I do know his 2009 release: Jennifer’s Body.  Being a cinematographer is hard work. According to Wikipedia, “The title is generally equivalent to director of photography (DP), used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image.”  So, when you see something beautiful on the screen, don’t thank the director, thank the cinematographer!  In Jennifer’s Body we got two moments of beauté (that’s French for “beauty”): A make out scene with Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried and a topless Megan Fox — you, Mr. Mullen, are a master of your craft.  Now please understand, I still think Ms. Fox is a moronic piece of white-trash, but she is an extremely hot, moronic piece of white-trash, so there you go.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Best Director:  Zach Snyder

But, where’d he get the mask?

Fuck the haters.  I know he took out the squid and I know that Watchmen is still a better book than movie, but here’s the bottom line:  Zach Snyder took what was, for all intensive purposes, Hollywood’s wetdream/nightmare property and made a damned fine film.  It’s beautiful.  It’s as true as we can hope for any comic book ground through the Hollywood machine.  It gave us an awesome Rorschach.   And if you’ve seen the extended cut with the Curse of the Black Freighter woven throughout, it’s beautifully told cinema.  You can disagree with me (it wouldn’t be the first time), but Zach Snyder deserves a hearty bow-down from all you geeky bitches for pulling off one of the most difficult comic book franchises-to-film ever.  Even if you hate the film you must respect the doors he’s opened.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Best Film:  The Hangover

Really though, who hasn’t woken up with a tiger?

As Comedies go, I don’t ask for much — just make me laugh!  At some comedies I laugh a little, at others, I laugh a lot.  At The Hangover, I laughed my fucking ass off all three times I saw it!  The cast is perfect.  The humor is spot on.  It starts with funnies and never stops — I heard jokes for the first time on my third viewing because I had laughed through them the first two times.  Does this movie make me question what it is to be human?  No.  Am I a better person after seeing it?  Probably not in the existential sense.  But here’s why The Hangover is the BEST film of 2009: It was exactly what we needed — all of us.  2009 could’ve been better in a lot of ways.  I wanted escape.  I got a hilarious romp through the eyes of four not-all-too-smart guys in the land of hedonism and unadulterated pleasure.  I left the theater and I was genuinely happy, more than I can say for some animated/blue-people/depressing films I saw last year…  Oh yeah, and Mike Tyson was in it singing Phil Collins — automatic win.

Click here to view the embedded video.

That’s it kiddies.  Enjoy this Sunday (if you can).  Maybe next year we’ll see some actual talent get an award, like whoever stars in the Burton/Bekmambetov film coming out where President Lincoln fights vampires…

Until next time,

Mr. Wolff

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Now the People’s Choice Awards claims to be a unique show in that they listen to fans (taken from their website):  The People’s Choice Awards celebrates fan favorites in music, movies and television and is the only major awards show where real people — not industry insiders — determine the nominees and winners, setting it apart from other awards shows.

That’s not entirely true…  You see, they don’t speak to all the fans, or go off of a movie’s gross ticket sales, or a TV show’s ratings, or anything like that — they just let people go to the site and vote.  Seems simple and fair, right?  No.  It’s not.  You see, the overwhleming demographic of voters are pre-teens in braces with a hankering to be loud and obnoxious — the rest of us are working or don’t care.  What irks me is that the celebrities who leave with these awards may actually believe they are the “people’s choice.”  SO, in an effort to make things perfectly clear, I’ve decided to go through and address each winner (in the film category only — sorry TV and music, I can’t stomach to even look at you), to let them know whether or not they were chosen by people or mindless, pre-pubescent, acne-ridden germ-incubators, overloaded on hormones teens.

Favorite MOVIE ACTOR
Johnny Depp

No problem, whatsoever, here.  Johnny Depp is one of the most talented actors around.  As far as I’m concerned this guy can’t win enough awards.  He has reinvented himself again and again and again.  My only complaint with Mr. Depp is thus: Maybe a little less Burton — I know you two love each other and I think you make a great team but the formula’s getting a little tired.  I’m sure you’ll be a fantastic Mad Hatter, but it’s just not new anymore.  We get it, you’re both eccentric…

Favorite MOVIE ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock

Sorry Sandie — no can do.  You may have been a qwerky kind of hot in Demolition Man and Speed, but something happened…  Somewhere along the way you started banking off your comedic acting and not your sexiness, which is fine, but you’re not funny.  I’m sure that women across the world would fight against me to defend you, but I’m going to say what all (non-gay) men are thinking: Please stop making movies our ladies want to see.  We’re running out of excuses to miss them.  And “Favorite Movie Actress?”  Not in a million.  You’re just below Tina Fey and barely above that ugly girl from Twilight.

Favorite ACTION STAR
Hugh Jackman

Oh Hugh, you silly bitch.  I want to love you, I really do.  You brought Wolverine to the big screen and for that I will always be eternally grateful.  But your action movies since the two X-Men films have all been, well, crappy: Swordfish?  Van Helsing?  Ex-Men 3?  Ex-Men Origins: (Not-so) Wolverine?  Sorry bud, but you’re not an action star — not yet.  I would give you the People’s Choice for “Best Manly Actor Who Is Probably Gay.”  Action stars are men like Arnold S, Sylvester S, Jean-Claude Van D, and Bruce W.  You’re nowhere near them.

Favorite COMEDIC STAR
Jim Carrey

Apparently Jim made a movie called Yes Man which isn’t so bad, but that’s the problem with this guy lately — all of his movies are not so bad.  None of them are good.  Remember Ace Ventura?  The Mask?  Hell, even Liar, Liar was giggle-inducing.  Somewhere along the line Mr. Carrey went all Eddie Murphy on your fans and forgot what funny was.  Do us all a favor and take a few years off, find your comedic-qi and get back in the haha-saddle.  Jim, you just won a “Best Comedic Star” award on the People’s Choice Awards — that should tell you you’re probably not funny.

Favorite BREAKOUT MOVIE ACTRESS
Miley Cyrus

I have nothing to say about this little attention whore.  I don’t know what movie she was in that helped her “breakout” (apparently she wasn’t famous before), but nobody in their right mind takes her seriously.  Nobody.

Favorite BREAKOUT MOVIE ACTOR
Taylor Lautner

First of all, he was in Twilight.  If that doesn’t establish this farce of an award show, then maybe the competition he “beat” will:  Chris Pine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sam Worthington, Zachary Quinto.  Any one of those men deserves ten times the success of Lautner, if for no other reason than this: they were not in a Twilight movie.

Favorite INDEPENDENT MOVIE
Inglourious Basterds

This movie should win every award it can — it was one of the BEST movies of 2009.  But Independent?  I dunno…  From Wikipedia (which is the most reliable site EVER) “An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced mostly outside of a major film studio. The term also refers to art films which differ markedly from most mass marketed films.”  Best film?  Yes, I’d be on board with that.  But Tarantino hasn’t done indie since Reservoir Dogs…

Favorite Comedy MOVIE
The Proposal

This movie beat The Hangover.  If you haven’t seen The Hangover then do yourself a favor and stop reading this immediately, go buy it and enjoy.  If you have seen it but didn’t like it, you’re an idiot.  If you saw it and saw this and thought this was better you probably produce unhealthy levels of estrogen and lack pubic hair.

Favorite MOVIE
Twilight

Fuck these films.

Now I encourage, as always, you to tell me what you think.  Since most of our readers are not drooling morons in high school, I want to know what you think about the “winners” from last night.  I have a serious sense of dread that our retirement homes will be full of Meyers books, Miley music and models-turned actors — the youth of America scare the shit out of me.

The Future of America…

Mr. Wolff

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