MOVIE DAY

Today is Academy Awards day, which is basically Super Bowl Sunday for film geeks. There were a few good movies this year, and some real turds. Does it make any difference? Get the guacamole ready, we're coming over for the Oscars!

Another bad movie. Mindless fun or an insult to your imagination?

Have you ever watched a movie? Sure you have. Over the years we've all spent a fortune on films--and for every great cinema experience we've endured a hundred stinkers. Did you see any bad movies this year? Sure you did. Did watching some of that crap make you wonder if you could make a better movie? Could you match wits with "Witless Protection?" How about "The Love Guru?" or "Over Her Dead Body?"

A lot of money is at stake, and even Academy Award nominees for Best Picture can fall prey to a by-the-numbers formula, as shown here with "The Curious Case of Benjamen Button." (By the way, Button leads the Oscar pack with thirteen nominations.)


Benjamen Button vs. Forest Gump

"You paid to see them," the Hollywood schlockmeisters counter. "That's why we make them. The box office justifies everything. Think you could you do any better?"

What condescending horse manure. Just because people want something--entertainment, thrills, a good story--and pay good money for it, are they responsible for what they get? We didn't ask for that. Is water-boarding any better if you're really thirsty? Is drowning any better after eating a can of Pringles?


Michael Killen, professor of screenwriting at Stanford, gives some pointers

So make your own movie. You may not be able to get it made, but by all means use your imagination. The creative part of the brain requires occasional nurturing or it dies like a neglected houseplant. Spritz it from time to time, not like the house sitter who leaves your plants dead but wet the day you return from vacation.

Robert Rodriguez is famous for making a film on an extremely low budget. Here he gives you a film school lesson.

HERE COMES OSCAR!

It's Oscar weekend, and may the best movie win. Actually, it's not about the best movie or the best actor (Benicio was brilliant in "Che" but wasn't even nominated) but about backstage politics and take-no-prisoners lobbying. Okay, so no "Che," and no "Dark Knight." "The Visitor" was excluded, and so was "In Bruges," but they basically got it right, didn't they? They generally do, don't they?

Well, no. Not necessarily.

Lost in space? "2001: a Space Odyssey" not even nominated for best pic in 1968

Take 1968, for instance. That year "Oliver!" won best picture against nominees "The Lion in Winter," "Rachel, Rachel," "Funny Girl," and "Romeo and Juliet." "2001: a Space Odyssey" wasn't nominated for best picture that year (it got a director nod) and neither was "Rosemary's Baby," "Battle of Algiers,""Faces," or "The Producers." Neither was "Once Upon a Time in the West," "Planet of the Apes," "Bullitt," or "Night of the Living Dead." The best they could come up with was "Oliver!"

"Oliver!"???

What's the dang deal? The game is rigged. To help clarify the confusing world of the Academy Awards, here's an interview with Harvey Weinstein, master of greasing palms and mercenary awards campaigns. He's one scary dude. Click here to read the Weinstein interview. Click here to read Weinstein's latest press release regarding Best Picture nominee "The Reader."

Tom Cruise hugs movie mogul Harvey Weinstein

If you're like me, you're already going over your tux with a lint brush. This should be fun. See you Sunday...Ciao, baby!



A list of nominees for this years Academy Awards, click here.

SAID THE JOKER TO THE THIEF

The late Heath Ledger--who died from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs--has been posthumously nominated for Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight, the latest film in the Batman franchise. Ledger stole the show with his evil antics, but no less of a performance was his turn as singer Bob Dylan in the arty, experimental film from 2007, "I'm Not There."

Heath Ledger as the Joker, posthumously nominated for an Oscar

In the Todd Haynes film, six actors portray various sides of the mercurial songwriter, and Ledger plays Robbie Clark, an actor in Greenwich Village struggling with his career and his marriage to Claire (a fictional character based on Sara Dylan, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Like Dylan, the film isn't for everyone--and those seeking formulaic entertainment or a standard bio-pic should look elsewhere--but it brims with excellent performances and a thought-provoking montage of styles that mirror the phases of the shape-shifting singer. Ledger's performance is dark and complex, as you can see from this clip.


Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg in "I'm Not There" (2007)

Listen to the song, "I'm Not There," by Bob Dylan, one of the unfinished basement tapes recorded with The Band at Big Pink. Just push the button to play.

PEACE ON EARTH

This 1939 MGM cartoon directed by Academy Award-winner Hugh Harman was released at the dawn of the second world war. In this animated reel, the war is over and mankind has been wiped out.


According to Harmon's obituary in the New York Times, the film was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, though it is not listed in the official Nobel database. Either way, it is a classic cartoon from the golden age of animation and worth your time.

All that, and singing squirrels.

OSCAR MEET DIABLO

Diablo Cody won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Juno, a witty little movie and my favorite coming of age/teen pregnancy film of the year. You know, cool soundtrack, sassy dialog -- snarky with a heart. The story behind the story is Diablo Cody's meteoric rise from stripper and phone sex partner to Oscar winner, and sure she's sexy, but she's also whip-smart, and wrote a screenplay that didn't follow the tired old formulas that insist on a bump every ten minutes, and "plot points" that you can set your watch to. I got a kick watching this quirky oddball in a leopard skin mu-mu snake her way through the gowns and opulence of Hollywood and grab the gold. Or brass, or whatever it is.

This interview is a year old, when she was flogging "Candy Girl," a book she'd written about her experiences "stripping for Joe Sixpack," as she puts it. The other screenwriting award went to the Coen Brothers for their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men," which also won an Oscar for Best Picture. If you haven't read McCarthy, read the Border Trilogy (starting with "All The Pretty Horses") or dive in to the darkly brilliant "Blood Meridian."