The Weigh In #45

Sitting here watching this year’s Oscar telecast I can’t help but dedicate part of my article to the salute to, as Academy president Sid Ganis calls it, “state of the heart” cinema.

The Oscars are a time when Hollywood gives itself a pat on the back for making the movies it considers the best of the best it has had to offer over the last year and I am bored outta my mind. Next year I think I need to get hammered out of my skull when I watch this. I can’t help but laugh while the president of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, and Sciences makes an appeal to people to remember the magic of seeing movies in the theater, while reading the announcement on imdb.com that Madea’s Family Reunion is number one at the box office, taking down the unexpected movie juggernaut that was The Pink Panther, and of course Big Momma’s House 2. Yep. Run out and check them out in theaters now, before the artistry that is these movies gets marginalized by DVD. On a side note, I think Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are high, babbling about god knows what while at the same time giving Robert Altman verbal head in front of millions of people. As you can tell, this years telecast is putting me in a wonderful mood.

I just wanted to take a few lines to give you a few thoughts on the Oscars this year and then we’ll shift this article into a different gear.

• I like John Stewart as host. He is kind of like the Dennis Miller of award shows, which probably means they will be moving the Oscars to E in three years and do the fashion pre-show on CBS. At least they won’t be interrupting whatever chick show happens to be on at the time.
• It was good seeing Tom Hanks doing comedy again. The only thing that was missing was a drunken donkey and a tranny hooker. A man can dream.
• The whole Ben Stiller thing was pretty groan worthy and I am sure it had something to do with Dustin Hoffman’s nervousness later on. Probably a Meet the Fockers flashback.
• Three 6 Mafia won an academy award. I could make a “rich white ceremony disturbed by a young black crowd” joke, but I was beaten to the punch by pretty much every white guy that took the stage for the next 20 minutes.
• Crash won best film. I think that took a lot of people by surprise. The producers panicked when they realized there were no gay people in Crash to make a joke about.
• There were three homage’s to classic films. Randomly thrown in and they really don’t seem to have any place at all, more filler really. No joke here. It just seemed to weigh down an already snoozer of a show.
• The gay cowboy film piece. They wanted to include scenes with Clint Eastwood but he threatened to sodomize John Stewart to death with his .357 Magnum.
• I was 4/6 in my Oscar picks. Not too bad.

Click here for a list of full list of nominees and final winners.

A few notes about this weekend at Staple:

After a four hour drive from Dallas, Paul and I met up with Dave and his cool wife Melissa where we hung out at what has to be the most extensive comic book shop in the world. The writer of Hate Song made the trek all the way down from the great white north and he seems like a pretty cool guy, if not for the being Canadian thing. But we all can’t be perfect I guess.

Staple was a blast. A comic convention for independent comic publishers, writers, and artists, it was perfect for such a small company like Stumblebum Studios. I think we made more connections and met more people like ourselves than we could have from five Wizard World conventions. There are a few around the country that we are definitely going to try and hit this year. We’ll update that as the plans become finalized.

“Brain Goop” creator Dave DeGrand made it down with Barry Rogers of Big Beard Comics and Paul and I spent some time hanging out with them and their significant others. All in all, a pretty fun-filled and productive weekend.

I can’t say enough about how well the Staples convention was run and how comfortable the guys that put it together made us feel. I think we are definitely going to make it a point to make it down there next year.

This weekend at your local multiplex (3/10/2006)

The Hills Have Eyes: Horror
Aaron Stanford, Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Vanessa Shaw
Plot: A remake of the 1977 film of the same name, a family on vacation stumbles on upon an abandoned nuclear test site where they become prey for a family of mutants.
Buzz: Rumor is that the studios had to cut more than 8 minutes off of the film to meet MPAA R rating standards. Incredibly violent is the word coming from a lot of reviewers. But that doesn’t necessarily equal a good movie.

The Shaggy Dog: Comedy
Tim Allen, Kristin Davis, Spencer Breslin, Robert Downey Jr., Danny Glover, Craig Kilborn, Jane Curtain
Plot: An inattentive DA is bitten by a radioactive Doberman pincher and becomes a dog. A remake of the Disney film of the same name.
Buzz: Who greenlights this crap. People wonder why people don’t want to spend $8 watching this turd. Judging from the last few weeks, this stupid crap is destined to be #1 this week. And an eventual sequel will be in the works I am sure.

Failure to Launch: Romantic Comedy
Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zooey Descahanel, Kathy Bates, Terry Bradshaw
Plot: A mother and father are tired of their 30 something son living at home and decide to hire a woman to woo him and convince him to move out with her.
Buzz: It looks like there were so many crap movies made at the end of last year they had to extend the throwaway movie season into March. This movie sounds really bad. Uggh

This week on DVD (3/7/2005)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (see review)
The Cosby Show (season 2)
Jarhead
The Brady Bunch (final )
Just Friends
The Tenants
Prime
Undertaking Betty
Howl’s Moving Castle
Walking Tall (series)
The Thing Called Love (se)
The Warrior
Police Woman (season 1)
Harry Potter (1-4)
The Flintstones (season 5)
Debbie Does Dallas
Scooby Doo and Dynomutt
The Buster Keaton Collection
The Spike Lee Collection
Three’s Company (season 6)
Free Enterprise (se)
Hogan’s Heroes (season 3)
The Shaggy DA
The Shaggy Dog

As always, be sure to drop me a line at DPlace76@yahoo.com, or if you want to be privy to my random ramblings be sure to check out www.livejournal.com/users/bigdpimpin.