Monday Morning Critic – 10 Thoughts on The 2014 Academy Awards, 300 Reviewed

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As much as I really didn’t want to watch the Oscars, as it’s celebrating everything that wasn’t all that good in film for 2013, it’s kind of an obligation if you write about film. Thus I tuned in to watch the proceedings and since it was a fairly innocuous show I figure a fairly innocuous column will suffice for this.

There wasn’t much happening in film this past week to right about, outside of the requisite retrospective on Harold Ramis, as we were building up to the biggest *ahem* weekend of the year for film. This is the Super Bowl of film, right? Well … if it really is the Super Bowl of film then it’d be like watching this year’s Super Bowl with the Packers vs. the Ravens for all the marbles. Don’t get me wrong, Baltimore was a nice team and whatnot, but squashing Green Bay for the world championship this year would feel all sorts of wrong.

Here’s my ten thought on this year’s Academy Awards, with some pictures and the usual requisite goofiness involved.

10. And the Oscar for closest resemblance to Buddy Christ goes to … JARED LETO! He gave a great, touching speech that should be the standard. Didn’t get preachy political, didn’t go overboard on thanking everybody .. but thanked his family, his best friend and then discussed that this award is “for you” and such. Kind of an upset that he won as far as I’m concerned. I thought this would be the place where Bradley Cooper or Jonah Hill would get an Oscar for films that probably won’t win many of the other big awards.

9. Ellen Degeneres made me yearn for the comic stylings of Seth McFarlane as the host. Hell, I’ll settle for Todd McFarlane at this point. Can we just let Billy Crystal make his old man jokes every year from this point forward? I’m thinking sometimes the ability to tell jokes doesn’t translate well from being a morning talk show to being an Oscar host in a lot of aspects. At least it was short I suppose. Hugh Jackman’s been the only Oscar host who hasn’t been completely rancid in the last decade, though. Hitting that lame pizza joke three more times after it wasn’t funny the first time was a sign that what felt like a good joke in the writer’s room sometimes doesn’t translate to actually being funny.

8. Steve Martin’s Oscar should’ve been during the main ceremony. For a guy who’s such a profound and major star he should be honored with his “Sorry comedy doesn’t get squat compared to some film from Turbekistan about a gay, alcoholic midget in the Holocaust that three people saw” Oscar on screen. Not during a clip montage.

7. Norm McDonald’s Twitter Feed made the Oscars worth viewing. Normally he’s not brilliantly funny on Twitter but he unloaded with both cannons during the ceremony.

6. The show had a great pace to it … up until the Ellen bits during the show. They felt like they’d be funny on paper but wound up being profoundly unfunny in practice. The show moved really well but it would’ve worked way better without any of Ellen repeating her gags from 2007 but with Twitter instead of MySpace. There was so much that didn’t work that could’ve been eliminated and it would’ve been a perfunctory awards show instead of an awful one.

5. You mean I missed True Detective tonight for this? Seriously? It’s the downside of writing about film on some level, I suppose, in that I can’t go “this sucks” and change it.

4. Gravity rightfully cleaned up on the technical awards. It reminded me of Avatar in this way: it was an amazing technical display that really made you appreciate the power of a regular theater screen. It was even better on IMAX, as well, as a pure spectacle. It wasn’t a great film but it was a great movie experience. Winning all of the big tech awards felt appropriate because it was a genuine technical masterpiece. I didn’t think it was a great film, barely a good one, but it was great on a pure film-making spectacle level.

3. Benedict Cumberbatch wins the internet tonight. Photobombing U2 on the red carpet? Yeah … leave it to the star of Sherlock to crush it like a boss.

2. American Hustle won as many Oscars as it should’ve: Zero. It was profoundly mediocre and the fact that it went zero for ten was appropriate. It wasn’t that good and was insanely over praised on every single level that matters.

1. Matthew McConaughey never has to take his shirt off again. What a remarkably powerful and eloquent speech from the man to win his Oscar. You can argue for other people to win the award but McConaughey has always been spoken of as a good, decent and honorable man. And that’s what he was last night: a good, decent and honorable man who gave the sort of speech we don’t hear often enough.

Stuff for General George S. Pimpage, Esq

From elsewhere in the Inside Pulse Network:

I gave predictions on the Oscars late last week … how right was I? Click and find out.

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness was fairly ok. Check out my review here.

Mike Noyes writes on Chastity Bites here. He also was a braver man than I and sat through Pompeii.

Kyle Smith from the NY Post wrote a niece piece on the neutered level of comedy in modern Hollywood right here.

And now on MMC … we DANCE!

If you want to pimp anything email it to me with a good reason why. It helps to bribe me with stuff, just saying ….

A Movie A Week – The Challenge

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This week’s DVD – 300

With the sequel coming out this upcoming weekend, one which no one wanted or demanded after everybody dies at the end of the first film, I opted to pull out 300 for a fun little spin. My buddy Nick the Stand Up and I debated on whether or not this film has become profoundly dated since its release almost a decade ago. He said yes … so I took it as a personal challenge.

Simple premise. Zack Snyder adapted Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name, his take on the tale of the Greeks vs. the Persians at Thermopylae. At this place of battle 300 Spartans, and a horde of assembled Greeks, fought off the million man plus army of Persians until a secret path allowed them to flank the Greek army. The Spartan army stayed behind to buy them the time to get back to Greece and warn the country, heroically fighting to the death to get them a decent enough head start to not be chased down.

Miller’s novel says “eff all those other guys” and makes it a battle between the Spartan army vs. the Persians at Thermopylae, with cool style and hard R-rated violence.

King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads Michael Fassbender and a bunch of other Spartans into battle against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae because they want the Spartans to submit to their will. And you know what happens when a bunch of swole dudes get told to submit or else? They say “yeah, no, ain’t happening bro” and decide some swords & sandals combat needs to happen.

The real battle is insanely fascinating, as it was a naval battle as well as a land one, but I get why Miller focuses on the 300 Spartans solely. Thermopylae is a tale of courage of the highest order, having been covered once by Hollywood in The 300 Spartans, and this is Miller’s telling of it. He imagines it as a great Greek war story, told through the fires of night before Plataea by the one Spartan tasked with repeating it to his countrymen so that there tale can be spread.

Nick was wrong. Still loved this flick. Highest recommendation.

What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 tall boys of Red Fox and community college co-eds with low standards at the Fox and Hound

300: Rise of an Empire – Everyone died at the end of 300, which made a ton of money. This is how they made a sequel to it.

Skip it – This is a film that should be a congruent sort of sequel, of the events that happened alongside the land battle of Thermopylae, not a direct sequel.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman – A new version of the old cartoon

Skip it – The ‘60s animated cartoons are one thing … but was anyone demanding a feature length version of this old comic?

Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings his trademarked irreverence and offensive hilarity to Twitter in 140 characters or less. Follow him @ScottSawitz .