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28

Feb

People today are overly critical of award shows but I guess that is just our time. After all, that’s what generates buzz. That’s what gets you the facebook “like” or comment and that’s what gets you that retweet or that one extra follower on twitter. It’s not posting about how you “loved The King’s Speech.” It’s making a snarky comment about stuttering featuring The King’s Speech. Cynics run social networking sites and people are addicted to them. The Oscars were too long, too dry, too awkward, not enough, blah, blah, blah. There will always be something! An award show is a giant red target. It’s not moving. It sits there for three or more hours and all of its cracks and flaws show sooner or later. Critiquing it just seems gratuitous. You’re not really being clever or smart. You’re being obvious and so you might as well not say anything at all. If I had to critique The Academy Awards this year it would not really be a critique at all. It would just be a disappointment in how the cards fell. I can’t say that I was inspired overall. I found Christian Bale’s speech to be great. I loved seeing Dicky Eklund, the man who’s life inspired his character in The Fighter, and I loved how Christian promoted him and his website (Eklund trains professional boxers today just as he trained his brother Micky Ward in the film). I found many of the other wins, although justified, to be somewhat dull in that they weren’t truly moments they were just speeches. It’s hard to find the balance between how much of this is for them and how much of this is for us. After all, movies are made for our entertainment; however, it is to be assumed that many of these people work very hard for these oscars. It it 50/50? I’m not sure. If I don’t find Colin Firth’s speech to be particularly inspiring after waiting three hours for it, do I get angry because it wasn’t an overly emotional moment for him as I felt it should be? or do I reconcile that it’s his speech and he should do what he wants with it because we still got a great movie? The way I see it, even if an awards show only generates but a few seconds worth of inspiration, it’s probably much more worth it than not experiencing it at all, especially for someone with dreams of making it big in entertainment someday.

People today are overly critical of award shows but I guess that is just our time.

After all, that’s what generates buzz. That’s what gets you the facebook “like” or comment and that’s what gets you that retweet or that one extra follower on twitter. It’s not posting about how you “loved The King’s Speech.” It’s making a snarky comment about stuttering featuring The King’s Speech. Cynics run social networking sites and people are addicted to them.

The Oscars were too long, too dry, too awkward, not enough, blah, blah, blah. There will always be something! An award show is a giant red target. It’s not moving. It sits there for three or more hours and all of its cracks and flaws show sooner or later. Critiquing it just seems gratuitous. You’re not really being clever or smart. You’re being obvious and so you might as well not say anything at all.

If I had to critique The Academy Awards this year it would not really be a critique at all. It would just be a disappointment in how the cards fell. I can’t say that I was inspired overall. I found Christian Bale’s speech to be great. I loved seeing Dicky Eklund, the man who’s life inspired his character in The Fighter, and I loved how Christian promoted him and his website (Eklund trains professional boxers today just as he trained his brother Micky Ward in the film). I found many of the other wins, although justified, to be somewhat dull in that they weren’t truly moments they were just speeches.

It’s hard to find the balance between how much of this is for them and how much of this is for us. After all, movies are made for our entertainment; however, it is to be assumed that many of these people work very hard for these oscars. It it 50/50? I’m not sure. If I don’t find Colin Firth’s speech to be particularly inspiring after waiting three hours for it, do I get angry because it wasn’t an overly emotional moment for him as I felt it should be? or do I reconcile that it’s his speech and he should do what he wants with it because we still got a great movie?

The way I see it, even if an awards show only generates but a few seconds worth of inspiration, it’s probably much more worth it than not experiencing it at all, especially for someone with dreams of making it big in entertainment someday.

1 year ago Short URL 2 notes

academy awards/oscars/christian bale/the king's speech/the fighter/colin firth/the social network/toy story 3/black swan/dicky ward/

22

Jun

Toy Story 3 not only delivers as a secondary sequel to a very successful Disney Pixar film, it also delivers as a great re-imagining of the Old Hollywood prison flick; most notably Cool Hand Luke!

The third installment was more nostalgic and sad than anything but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t great. I couldn’t believe that there were some jackhole critics on Rotten Tomatoes that had to ruin the series consecutive “100% ripe” ratings, all due to the fact that it wasn’t “happy” enough. Yes, the series started as a children’s franchise but it was smart enough to hold the attention of a maturing audience. This current installment wasn’t just an attempt to milk the Toy Story series for all it was worth. It was a chance to give the audience more of what they wanted and to revisit some much loved characters one last time. Disney and Pixar have continuous success with their animated features. They didn’t have to do Toy Story 3.

Also, much of the film’s premise was a re-imagining of the Old Hollywood prison movie, including the film this blog is dedicated to. What I’ve posted above is a clip from Cool Hand Luke. If you’ve seen Toy Story 3, or if you’re a Newman fan and want a reason to see it, zoom ahead to about the 7:30 mark in the video. Yes, Toy Story 3 reinvents “the box!”

As if seeing Mr. Potato Head get thrown in “the box” (now a daycare sand box) wasn’t funny enough, the entire conflict the film surrounds, toys escaping for pre-k hell, is a clever take on the old-school prison genre in general, and while the film is most definitely enjoyable to newcomers in their single digits, these parallels are thrown in for the older fans. Where it truly succeeds is that it could most definitely stand alone. Had you never even heard of the original two films, you could still appreciate this one.

There aren’t many areas that I would critique. I would have liked to have been more familiarized with some of the newer characters. Also, (minor spoiler) I think the kid in me would have liked a little sign from Andy that maybe he would one day check up on his old “friends,” although I know this would not be realistic.

1 year ago Short URL 7 notes

toy story 3/toy story/cool hand luke/paul newman/prison movie/disney/pixar/woody/buzz lightyear/slinky dog/mr. potato head/mrs. potato head/rex/rotten tomatoes/jackhole/