Elijah Wood bug eyes are arguably just as annoying as Renee Zellweger squinty eyes.

No one can gaze longingly like he does.

I've only seen each of the LOTR movies once, but give me the Two Towers, despite the Walking Trees. Just saying.

I forgot one thing: I never believed those dudes were hobbits. I never believed they were supposed to be around 3 feet tall. They looked like 5 footers hanging around 7 footers. They should've looked like the guys from Time Bandits with big heads, short legs, and stubby fingers. And they need to look funny when they run. Midgets running = funny.

They pulled it off with Gimli the but never with the hobbits.

Gam is funny when he runs.

Gam's a more believable hobbit.

I'm more dwarf tempered.

Million Dollar Baby - Here we have the most depressing Best Picture winner since Going My Way. Fortunately, this one is depressing in a good way. For most of the trip, it's a boxing story with an inexperienced fighter with a lot of heart breaking through with stubborn old trainer. These two come to rely on each other as surrogates as she misses her dad and he can't connect with his daughter. Eventually, it turns into a story about something much greater as it becomes a story about euthanasia and spirituality. Some people don't understand what's so great about this movie, but one thing it has going for it is a perfectly constructed story. Everything is established early so you can't say the 2nd act events come from out of nowhere. They reiterate "Always protect yourself", and when she let's her guard down, she loses everything. The stool she breaks her neck on is shown repeatedly being put into the ring immediately at the end of each round (sometimes even before it's over.) The whole euthanasia thing is brought up earlier and in better times when she talks about her dad taking care of the dog with the useless legs. Later, he's her father figure and she's got no legs. It's only natural he should put her down. The one moment that feels a little awkward is Scrap showing up to witness Clint deliver on her wish. Maybe a quick shot explaining how he got into the shadows or showing him following him to the hospital would've been good. But they've also established Scrap hanging around in the shadows when Clint and Hilary Horseface start working together. Of course, perfect construction does do squat if the story sucks, but we get a good one here. These are good people and we like them despite their faults and shortcomings. And at the end when Clint reveals what the Gaelic nickname means, some dust got in my eyes. Yeah, that's what happened. I have to talk about Clint for a second. Sometimes his grizzled old man act seems a bit wooden. He pulls off some nice emotional scenes later, but his line readings are a bit stiff at times and threatened to take me out of the movie. Same thing happened in Gran Torino. Iconic as he may be, he's a better filmmaker than an actor.

Did it deserve to win?: I consider it among the cream of the crop for the year. Sideways and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind may be better, but one's a comedy and the other's too trippy to win. Honestly, the best movie of the year was probably The Incredibles.

(out of 5)

Welp, that about wraps it up. Thanks to everyone for reading and contributing. See ya later.

Not so fast, big fella.

I thought Million Dollar Baby was overrated. Fuck, now I gotta rewatch this one too. Please don't do this to me on the next one.

Sideways didn't do too much for me. I can't stand pretentious shitheads and Giamati played a perfect one. I was glad when it was over so I didn't have to watch his character any more.

The Incredibles is a great movie, but Pixar never disappoints.

This was only the 2nd time I've watched M$B but each time it's had me wrapped around its little finger. It may be just me. It's not another Cuckoo's Nest, but give it another shot someday. Maybe in a few more years.

Oh yeah, MDB was a good. Did horseface deserve to win an oscar? I don't think so, but the Academy also gave one to Reece Witherspoon so obviously my opinion doesn't matter.

Email from Netflix:

Shipped: Crash (Blu-ray)

Arriving on or around:

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Like Christmas eve

Sorry, but the house burned down last night, taking Crash with it.

I just bought a copy and had it shipped to your pile of ashes. Should get there by Monday latest.

The only electronic device I salvaged was an old Colecovision.

You will sit down and watch Crash, mister.

Don't yell at me.

Get to watching then. We've waited about 80 years for this review.

It's the only reason I've acted like I was interested in this thread.

jkjkjkjkjkjkjk :caplaugh:

Let's do this...

Crash - Let's get one thing straight right here at the top: Crash is not the worst movie ever made. Its undeserved Best Picture win has caused many to veer into hyperbole, but its win doesn't make it an incompetent pile of crap. It is well-made and well-acted, yet it is also unfocused, off-target, pretentious, insufferable, and self-important, which makes it a competent pile of crap. It hits an occasional mark, but most often whacks you over the head with its message, you know, in case you didn't get it the first dozen times. The message, of course, is racism and how we all got some prejudice in us. Anyone here not already know this about themselves? Nigga please.

We get off to a roaring start as the movie opens on a small fender bender which sends everyone flying into fits of racial tourette's. The Asian woman actually says "clash" instead of crash which displays the level of depth we're going to plum here. Roll your pants up, boys. We may get into waters up to our ankles this time. Then we meet some black dudes who bitch that everyone is scared of a couple black dudes. They then whip out their guns and jack an SUV proving everyone was in their perfectly right minds when they were scared of these black dudes. Sandra Bullock gets home and yells about the Mexicanness of the locksmith within earshot of the guy, much in the same way that no one ever does. So early on, the movie establishes a bullshit behavioral pattern from its characters and doing so sets up some nice straw men it can knock down. No one is sensitive to anyone else. It's so convenient that everyone here has no problem being an insensitive prick to the person standing in front of them. And it does this over and over and over again. About 45 minutes in, something weird happened. Tony Danza (WTF?) became the umpteenth insensitive prick in the movie. I was watching the movie alone and I made a noise other than a fart. I audibly groaned. If you groan during a movie, you've had enough. And the movie had hammered its point so incessantly that I was sick of hearing it. We get it already, folks, now do something with it.

So our characters are assholes, but what about their individual stories? Plenty of good movies have been made about jerks, so what's the problem here? Well, they all keep running into each other and it's not believable because the movie doesn't establish a sense of time and place when all these people can converge. Think of a movie like Short Cuts, Nashville, or Magnolia where the area is completely established and the events within all make sense. L.A. is a big place. I cannot believe for a second would be running into each other in all these different places, or more importantly that all these people would have life-changing events together at random locations covering a friggin huge area. It worked in Short Cuts because the characters had brief encounters, sometimes not even being aware of each other's presence. It works in Magnolia because the takes a looooong time establishing that these people are to experience an event together. Crash just has its way because it wants and needs things to be that way. Again, not believable. The centerpiece of the movie is Matt Dillon's rescue of the black chick from the burning car. He just molested her during a routine stop the night before. This little tale of redemption could work if we believed it, but we're lost when, of course, he stumbles upon her overturned car the very next day during a completely random drive-by. Maybe if it were a different black woman, we'd believe it. Maybe if they established how these two could be in the same place at the same time, we'd believe it. But hell, I even have trouble believing that this one woman could have two traumatic events happen to her within a 24 hour period, so maybe someone can explain that first.

I said it does a few things right, but those are small moments. The best is a simple one after Ludacris's failed attempt to jack Terence Howard's car. After all the cops are revealed to secret Klan members, everyone calms down and Ludacris gets a lift out of the neighborhood. He is told from one successful negro to hoodlum, "You embarrass me." It's a nice, quiet, subtle moment. More moments like that and fewer "We're not Arab, we're Persian" speeches would've been a lot better. I also always thought the parts with the Mexican locksmith and his daughter were nice. Too bad they had to screw it up with the whole "there were blanks in the gun" bit. Really creative. Brought to you by the same folks who made the Asian lady say "clash".

Ultimately, the movie is a failure because it tells us nothing new about ourselves that we didn't already know, and it creates a false reality to illustrate its point. Some of its individual stories may have worked as their own movies if they were fleshed out and set in a realistic world. But that's not what we got, and I didn't buy its bullshit.

Did it deserve to win?: If you don't know the answer to that question, you haven't posted here that long. It was a weak year, but that's no excuse. Everyone has their own choice for best of the year, and they're all better than Crash. My choice would've been The Constant Gardener, or maybe Syriana. Brokeback Mountain was the frontrunner during the whole awards season, and it was better than Crash. The ironic thing about its win is that Crash is about prejudice and it beat Brokeback because a good chunk of the voters were prejudiced against gays.

(out of 5)

Up next: The Departed

:highfive: for your courage.

I haven't seen this one and doubt I will unless it's rereleased with some edited in transforming robots n shit. Never saw Brokeback either. I think this was when I was right in the middle of sign hell and basically took a few years off from seeing movies.

I would only give this one afro. One of the characters is named Sheniqua. However you spell it. Are you friggin kidding me?

Thanks for reviewing, Tit. I know that was a difficult one for you. At least you got to see boobs.

Oh yeah, I to see a boob. Jennifer Esposito's.

Tit whistle just won the forum. Spot on review.

It was a nice boob, and unexpected.

When you say Bullock talks about the Mexicanness of the locksmith within earshot, the way that no one ever does, you're excluding Walt, right?

Yes, and if Crash were made after Walt's move to LA, I might believe its message or at least believe its heart came from honest experience.

Sheniqua is a completely legitimate name... in college I wrote a parody of "A day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" called "A day in the life of Sheniqua Daniggabitch". Got an A on it at that time...would have been expelled today...

The Departed - The thing we need to wonder about this film is what would we think of it if it didn't say "Directed by Martin Scorsese" at the end credits. Would the exact same film be considered as great if it were by some unknown director? Would it be easier to point out its flaws? Does his name escalate our estimation of the film, or do we hold it to a higher standard because it's another violent Scorsese film? It's hard to tell. This is a very good film, and a lot of fun to watch, but it's not even in Scorsese's top 5. Some will tell you it's not even in his top 10, yet it's the film that finally got him his Directing Oscar. They also threw it Best Picture in what may have been an afterthought. It's a remake of a film from one from one of those kung-fu countries. I tried watching the original once but didn't get too far into it. I got confused by some of the characters since they all look alike, and didn't feel like fighting through it. I'm probably better off as this is one confusing plot. You got the undercover cop working his way into the mob, but the mob has their own mole who worked his way into the po-lice. That there is one helluva twist on your usual crime story, and it's a blast to watch it all unfold even if it's tough to follow at times. In fact, the thick plot is really my only problem with it. Maybe I'm dumb, but some things could've been explained a little better. It's a minor nitpick. It's got a fantastic cast, and they all have great fun playing Irish Boston douchebags. There's lots of blood and dudes getting shot in the head, which is a nice bit of territory for the Academy to move into. After the Crash debacle, the next movie they awarded drops an N-bomb in the opening monologue. Bet they didn't even realize that.

Did it deserve to win?: First off, I believe we need about 5 years to really be able to tell, so we got that caveat the rest of the way out. It clearly rode the Scorsese wave all the way to the end. The prestige movies of the year weren't all that great. Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, and United 93 were probably better. Still, it's hard to believe this is the only Scorsese BP winner when it's not as good as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Mean Streets, The King of Comedy, After Hours, or Last Temptation of Christ.

(out of 5)

Up next: No Country for Old Men

I've never rewatched The Departed after being very whelmed the first time around. I would probably like it more when I could pick up on a few things I probably missed the first time around. Scorsese being attached to this film carried a lot of weight. The Queen would have run away with best picture that year if he wasn't a player.

I've never really considered the concept of being simply whelmed.