The Billboards of Sunset

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POPWATCH: At the Oscars

This year, I attended a very swanky Oscar event at Universal Studios.  It was very very exclusive but as long as you could afford $200 and a suit or a dress (whichever was appropriate), then you were exclusive enough.  

The money raised went towards MEND which helps people get out of poverty in Los Angeles so you didn't have to feel too guilty about spending an evening oogling stars who are much better looking than yourself.  

I had a great time and I would do it again.  

So here's my rundown of my random observations about the event and the movies that surrounded it.  It was a depressing year for movies, wasn't it?  Except for Bridesmaids.  I'm sooooo looking forward to some good ol' popcorn movies.  Anyone going to see The Hunger Games?  

Anyhoo, here we go ...

*Have you seen The Artist?  I think most people are saying that it’s a good but not a great movie.  Is it Best Picture material?  Well, if you compare it to The Descendants, then you’re comparing Godiva chocolate to shit-on-a-stick. 

*Yes, I will admit it that Angelina’s posturing was a little strange but in my books, she can do no wrong.  She is talented, beautiful and a great humanitarian and she can stick out any body part she wants wherever she wants.  And as someone else said, maybe she was just trying to air something out. 

*Meryl Streep had the funniest line of the night with her “whatever” acceptance speech.  She obviously has a great sense of humor even if “Iron Lady” didn’t. 

*Billy Crystal is a great host.  Everyone knows that.  He is far better than Ricky Gervass who is a mean-spirited fat British unfunny dwarf.    (You can dish it out Ricky but can you take it?)  I think Billy should host every year but occasionally let NPH do it for variety’s sake. 

*For the first time ever, I watched the shorts.  Most of them were good but I can’t understand why something like “Time Freak” made it onto the list.  It looked like something a bunch of drunk college students put together which, I suppose, is not necessarily a bad thing.  My choice for the Live Action Short was Tube Atlantic about a dying guy shooting up seagulls.  No, it definitely wasn’t PETA friendly but it was very bizarrely amusing. 

*Hugo is a little overrated.  I know I’m being picky when I say that it didn’t make any sense that NO ONE in this PARISIAN movie spoke French.  They all had British accents and sometimes very bad ones.  And Hugo didn’t know whose story it was telling.  Was it about the old man?  Or was it about the little kid?  It wasn’t a family movie.  If I were eight, I would have fallen asleep after the first ten minutes or peed in my pants so I got to go home.  In fact, at my age, I nearly did the latter but I didn’t want to clean up the mess. 

*Okay, I’m going back at The Descendants.  Not sure what the point of this movie was except give me the desire to stick needles into my eyes.  And if they wanted to make it more depressing, they really couldn’t have.  They even threw in a confused old Iady who thought she was off to visit Queen Elizabeth instead of her daughter who was in a coma.   I did like the stoner surfer dude.  He made the movie watchable. 

*Mara Rooney should have won for Best Actress.  This was a very complex violent role and she pulled it off perfectly.  And she wasn’t afraid to really bare it all (literally).  The movie was good too but I have a hard time believing that you can put on a wig and sunglasses and waltz into a bank and withdraw several billion dollars no matter how tech savvy you are. 

*Bridesmaids.  Yep, it was a good one and actually ENTERTAINING which a lot of the Best Picture nominees failed at.  Potty humor is really undervalued in our society.  We should have more films where women do disgusting things.  And I think Kristin Wiig is pretty damn amazing.  I was first introduced to her in Knocked Up and she had the funniest five minutes even with very few words.

*They really should have had the dog from The Artist up on stage at the Oscars.  Hollywood people are suckers for animals and in my profession, that’s a good thing. 

*Why does Jennifer Lopez always think she is attending the Miami Beach Hot Body contest?  As much as I admire the heavy lifting that her dresses do, I still don’t think it’s appropriate to pull that kinda shit at the Oscars.  Cover up a little bit, there J.Lo.  We know you have the boobies but you’re distracting us from what comes out of your mouth.  (Is that the point?) 

*The older kid from The Tree of Life should have won something.  I don’t care what they needed to call it.  Young Actor’s Award or something?  I don’t know how old he was but he did a remGarkable job in a very haunting movie that everyone seemed to love or hate.  I loved it but I think I could have done without the dinosaurs and the cosmos and other ridiculous imagery that only made the movie feel pretentious. 

*I don’t think anyone got “played off” by music at the Oscars this year.  I wonder what the Academy told the winners so that they kept within their allotted time.  They must have threatened them with winged monkeys or something.  I was impressed that they kept the show running right on schedule. 

*Doesn’t it suck when you defy million to one odds and receive a nomination for Best Supporting Actress and then you show up on the red carpet wearing something that looks like a billowing tent?  Melissa, you really needed to talk to Joan Rivers before you made that choice.  That plastic old bitch would have told you like it is. 

*How many times did the cameras cut to George Clooney during the telecast?  Yes, he is good looking but so are the hundreds of other people in that room.  

*My favorite for Best Picture was the quirky Midnight In Paris.  It had a quiet charm and I thought it was far more magical than the heavy handed Hugo.  I didn’t entirely trust the set-up; there is no way that the main characters would have ever gotten engaged in the first place (he was a dreamer and she was a raging bitch) but I was carried away about the romance and Woody Allen did for Paris what he has done for New York in his previous pictures. 

*Whatever happened to the musical numbers?   Sometimes it’s good to have something really disastrously bad so that people have something to talk about the next day other than the women who tried too hard on the red carpet. 

*I like Emma Stone.  I really really like her.  She looks like she is enjoying her time in the spotlight and she isn’t afraid to act her age.  The Help was just a so-so movie but perhaps the fact that I watched it on an 8 inch screen while flying over the Pacific had something to do with my attitude.    

And last but not least, I didn’t do very well with my voting ballot.  Trying to think like an old white guy is actually very difficult.    

Can't wait till next year.  

Until then, we should all make love in the firmament.  

Ciao baby!  

WORST MOVIE SMACKDOWN

There seems to be some debate over what is the WORST MOVIE of all time.  Of course, I’m not talking about those awful low budget student productions which are so bad, they’re just bad.  I’m talking about the movies which are soooooo bad, they’re really really good.   And we have two contenders.

In one corner, we have The Room (2003).  This is Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece which deals with the passion and the pain of a modern romance that ends in tragedy.  With scenes that go nowhere, transitions that leave you scratching your head, actors who don’t understand the concept of subtlety and some very icky sex scenes, NOT TO MENTION a lead actor who looks like a long-haired Quasimodo, The Room has all the right ingredients to make something so wrong. 

But equally fierce, I would like to present you with Troll 2 (1990) which has a cast of vegetarian goblins who make unsuspecting visitors eat green food so that they turn into plants.  In this movie, we learn that a kick in the groin can make you into a “homo” and coffee is the “devil’s drink”.  The most frightening aspect of this movie is that the director found money and people to make this disaster. 

As far as I know, both movies were meant to be serious movies.  The Room was meant to be a drama and Troll 2 was apparently meant to be terrifying.  But that’s what makes them great WORST MOVIES.  If the directors had tried to make them as bad as they turned out to be, they never would have been as good.  Or as bad.  Which is good. 

I think. 

But only one movie can be the WORST MOVIE so I took a very analytical approach to come up with a winner.  I’ve compared these two movies with regards to the common goods we look for in our so-bad-they’re-good movies.

Here are the results:   

Gratuitous sex and nudity:  The Room gets off to a banging start with a scene that looks and sounds like a 70s porno.  There is soft music, a red rose, weird moans and entangled limbs all shot through the gauzy filter of the bed’s canopy.  And did I mention there is butt clenching?  Yes, my friends, there is MALE BUTT CLENCHING that just doesn’t stop.  At least, it didn’t seem to stop.  This scene is repeated a couple of times throughout the movie and it doesn’t get any more tolerable by the third time.

I don’t recall if there is any nudity in Troll 2 but they probably would have had to pay the actors more if there had been a nipple shot so they probably avoided it.  They do, however, have a sex scene which is just about the weirdest sex scene I have ever seen in my life.  It involves corn and popcorn and well, you just have to see it because I’m not sure if I could describe it.  I have no idea what the popcorn had to do with anything except perhaps to remind audiences that they should buy more concessions or take a bathroom break. 

The Room gets the edge.  Did I mention the butt clenching?  Ugggghhhhhh ….

Catchy One –Liners:  The Room has got so many great one-liners that you can purchase a bobble-headed doll of Tommy Wiseau that spouts them out.  My co-worker has one and this is how I was first acquainted with the movie.  Here are some of my favorites …

“I’m fed up with this world!”

“Don’t touch me mothafucka!” 

“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” 

“The candles, the music, the sexy dress. I mean, what's going on here?”

By themselves, these quotes may not sound like much but you have to hear them with the main character’s voice which is a cross, in my humble opinion, between a Jersey accent and an Eastern European trash accent.  Yep, it’s as bad as you might imagine.  Who sounds like this?  Okay, you’re right.  I guess Tommy Wiseau does and who the hell knows where he grew up. 

Troll 2 also has its fair share of great one-liners. 

“I’m the victim of a nocturnal rapture.  I have to release my lowest instincts with a woman.” 

“Grandpa!  Are you really in hell?” 

“And you can’t piss on hospitality!  I WON’T ALLOW IT!” 

“Joshua is not a little shit; he’s just very sensitive.” 

I’m gonna go with Troll 2.  Although The Room has some great lines and there are bonus points for the obnoxious accent with which they are delivered, there seems to be more variety and bite with Troll 2. 

Awful Acting:  You can’t have the one-liners if you don’t have the atrocious delivery.  Tommy Wiseau is just plain dreadful as the lead character in The Room.  When I was watching him, I got the feeling that a dog turd would have more emotional range.  When he actually tries to emote, it comes off as hysterically funny such as when he has a breakdown at the end of the movie.  He lets out these loud groans which sound like he has a bad hairball caught in his throat and then he trashes his apartment like an enraged Frankenstein.  He is supported by an equally awful cast.  The actress who played Lisa should get an annual razzie for her portrayal of the cheating girlfriend and her mother who “definitely has breast cancer” spits out her monologues as if she is reading off a teleprompter.  I pity the guy who played Mark (Greg Sestero) who probably regrets ever being credited in this disaster. 

Troll 2 has a uniformly horrible cast.  From the overzealous dad who takes his family to a town inhabited by Goblins to the grandpa who has the creepiest pedophile grin I’ve ever seen in a movie, there is not one redeeming actor in the bunch.  All the lines are delivered in an inappropriate way and a special mention should go to the wicked witchy lady who has never met a piece of dialogue that she didn’t want to punctuate with crazy eyes and weird smiles.  Thankfully, most of these actors realized that they shouldn’t give up their day jobs.  At the screening of Troll 2, George Hardy (who played the dad) was there and he is now a dentist in Alabama.  Good choice, George. 

I’m gonna give the nod to Troll 2.  Tommy Wiseau is in a league all of his own but as an ensemble, Troll 2 should get the award.
 

Outrageous Plot: The Room is really a very simple movie and without the bad acting, the unrealistic dialogue, the heaving body parts, it is quite boring.  It’s about a girl who doesn’t love her boyfriend anymore so she decides to sleep with his best friend.  The boyfriend finds out about her cheatin’ ways and he *SPOILER ALERT* blows his head off in slow motion.  Everyone is sad and that’s the end.

Troll 2 is just completely f*#@ng nuts.  It’s about a family who goes on a vacation to Nilbog which is a town that is full of goblins.  Not trolls but goblins.   (The reality is that there aren’t any Trolls in Troll 2).  *SPOILER ALERT*  These goblins are vegetarian so they turn people into plants and then eat them.  How great is that?!  I’ll give them points for such a gruesome storyline because after all, I would not want to be turned into foliage and then have my extremities munched on by a bunch of ripened dwarfs.  That is a little terrifying when you think about it.  But then it gets better.  How do you kill these things?  You use a Bologna sandwich which has CHOLESTEROL and TOXINS! 

There is no way that The Room can compete with the madness in Troll 2.  And that Bologna sandwich is a huge plot twist that I didn’t see coming AT ALL.  Kudos to the monsters. 

It’s pretty close.  Both The Room and Troll 2 raise bad moviemaking to a fine art form and I congratulate both of them for their twisted endeavors.  But, like in all those award shows, a winner must be chosen and so, for the WORST MOVIE, I choose ….

Troll 2.  It does everything right … er, I mean wrong.

 And for that, I am thankful.  

A day at the movies

Ah, there's nothing like Southern California ...

The beaches!

The sunshine!

The fake body parts!

And of course, don't forget the overpriced tacky tourist attractions like Universal Studios!

Universal Studios isn't far from where I live and it's one of my guilty pleasures.  I bought a ticket at the beginning of the year so I have an annual pass for free.  I don't think I would want to spend all my weekends tramping around the park, but every so often it's fun to pretend that I'm part of the movies.  

Universal Studios is a fully functioning studio but a large area is dedicated to being an amusement park.  All the rides are based on films or tv shows.  

Like any amusement park, there are certain rules that must be followed ...

Thankfully, I just met the height requirements for this one.  Phew!

Before the Simpson's ride, there was the Back to the Future ride.  Both rides put you inside a car and you are bounced and jerked around in front of a massive screen.  I loved the Back to the Future ride but it was sadly dismantled a couple of years ago.  

The Simpson's ride?  Don't feel the same type of love.  There is too much happening on the damn screen and I come out feeling as if I had just experienced a really bad acid trip.  An acid trip starring the Simpsons.  It's as scary as it sounds.  

If you're lucky, you might get to see your favorite movie stars.  On my most recent visit, I was very fortunate to hang out with Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster, the stars of the Fast and the Furious movies.  They didn't say a lot but when you're looking this hot, nobody expects you to open your mouth.  

Vin Diesel was driving his car in a neon outer space.  He is way too cool to be driving around city streets like the rest of us mortals.  

By the way, if you haven't seen Fast Five, you should see it.  Pretty fun movie.  Completely ridiculous but still pretty fun.  

And now we come to Wisteria Lane.  If you're a fan of Desperate Housewives, this house may look familiar.  

If this house were really in Los Angeles, I'm sure it would be worth over a million dollars.  Living expenses are a little ridiculous here.  

This is my favorite part of the studio tour:  The destroyed neighborhood that was used as the set in War of the Worlds.  

If you've seen the movie, you'll remember that the neighborhood was flattened when a jumbo jet crash landed.  I'm not sure which is worse; getting abducted by freaky aliens or finding part of a fuselage in your bedroom.  

This exhibit is part of the studio tour.  These are dancing cars.  Yes, they dance to the music of Daddy Yankee.  

And there are explosions.  

And water is sprayed.  

And not much else.  

It's very exciting if you're a nine year old boy.  

This is a reproduction of a quaint Mexican village that just happens to have a tsunami of water running through it.  There are no screaming villagers which is comforting but still somewhat disappointing.   

Does this look familiar?  It's a miniature that was used in the recent King Kong movie.  

SKULL ISLAND 

Beware, there are giant apes lurking around that have a blonde woman fetish.  

Jurassic Park is another great ride at the park.  You're in a boat and you start off cruising by the nice, friendly dinosaurs.  You know, the ones that have long outstretched necks and eat grass and look like they could be giant pets.  

But then you see a car that was tossed around and ripped fences and ominous flashing red lights and all hell breaks loose.  The last thing you see before a giant drop is this ... 

***SPOILER ALERT***

Here's King Kong again.  He is just hanging around looking for Fay Ray.  

For those people who are dying for a Transformers ride--they said that it won't be open till next year.  If the ride is anything like the movies, it will be loud, have lots of explosions and feature good looking actors who have no acting skills whatsoever.  

I can't wait.  

Universal Studios is located in Universal City which is just north of Hollywood, California.   It's open all year around.

Enjoy!

Trip to Universal Hollywood

Hurry! 

Before the end of the year, if you buy a day at Universal Studios Hollywood, you get 2011 for FREE! 

(Blackout dates apply.  See the fine print for details.) 

So, like 200,000 of my fellow tourists, I made the trip over to the hill today to get my annual pass. 

Parking is a ridiculous $15 so I took the metro, which is completely free as I have explained in previous posts.  It took about 1/2 an hour to get there from my apartment. 

Unfortunately the crowds were a little crazy but there were still some options ...

Like play in the half-melted snow under the Grinchmas Christmas tree

...watch the Grinch's dog who fell asleep on the job

... laugh like a mummy after seeing how much a simple hotdog costs 

...stare at nasty foreigners with greasy hair

...get your picture taken with a bunch of astronauts

...get eaten by a shark

...walk quickly past the studio tour because the wait line was over 80 minutes long

...get drunk in a bar because there wasn't any wait to get in

...give up the studio stuff and go shopping at CityWalk

...get your picture taken with your best bud in front of the Universal globe

And for those people who really love this place, I'm sure there were job applications!  You too can be in the movie business!!!

Since I have the 2011 pass, I'll be back.  I haven't seen the new 3D King Kong and I like the Simpson's ride and walking all over the park is heck of a good workout, so I'll make the effort to return next month ...

when there are about 180,000 fewer people!

So you wanna move to L.A.?

And you wanna know how much it's gonna dig into your wallet? 

The total cost of moving to LA (from the other coast) will depend on a lot of factors so it’s very difficult to give an accurate estimate. Thankfully, the final cost will really depend on YOU and what you’re willing to do to keep costs as low as possible.

Let’s just look at the first month and see what you would be looking at financially.

Here are your major expenses:

1) MOVING: The most economical way is to hire a U-haul and load it up with as much stuff as possible. Of course, that will limit how much stuff you’re bringing with you but hopefully you’re not moving a whole house worth of crap. It’s gonna take a couple of days to do a cross-country journey and it’s better if can convince a friend to take the journey with you to cram more driving hours into the day.

Estimated cost: $1500. This price will be higher if you want to take more stuff with you and take longer to drive or lower if you decide to leave most of your junk behind and just jump on a plane.

2) APARTMENT: First you have to decide if you want to get into a roommate situation or rent a one bedroom. Obviously the roommate sitch is cheaper but I can tell you from first hand experience that roommates are crazy and will spend every waking hour trying to drive you crazy so the discounted living quarters may not be worth it. If you want to live in the valley close to Hollywood, you need to search in the following neighborhoods; Universal City, Studio City, Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood and possibly Van Nuys. Don’t even think about living in Northridge, Chatsworth or Encino if you want to get any respect from people living over the hill.

Estimated cost: $700 (shared) to $1200 (one bedroom). Of course, the move in costs are doubled because they will ask for a security deposit so you’ll want at least $1400 to $2400.

3) FOOD: Eating in LA is damned expensive unless you decide that you can survive on the Subway/Carl’s Jr. diet. I shop at Ralph’s grocery store and I tend to buy about $400 worth of groceries each month but admittedly, I’m not always looking for deals and I’m not a coupon clipper.

It’s hard to stay away from restaurant eating once and a while. And if you’re in LA, you should check out some of the scene. So …

Estimated cost: I’m gonna go with $300 to $500.

4) CAR: Don’t even think about using the public transportation system in LA. Actually, I have a metro link close to my apartment and it isn’t a bad way to get down to Hollywood but it’s pretty much the same price as when I drive. It is also a longer trip. So you need a car. And it has to be reliable; the last thing you want it to be stuck on the 101 because your transmission blew up and suddenly, you’re gonna be 2 hours late for a script meeting. Cost of gas is very expensive and can be painfully expensive if you have a long commute to work. Also add in the insurance. When I moved to California, my insurance rates doubled and I got less coverage. Welcome to helLA!

Estimated cost: Including gas and insurance, $300 to $500.

5) MISCELLANEOUS: There are other costs involved such as apartment utilities, internet, cell phone, movie tickets, gym fees (c’mon, this is LA, you gotta look good) as well as parking tickets (we all get them, just accept this fact). And you do want a buffer of cash, just for emergencies.

Estimated costs: For the first month, I would have an extra grand on hand, just in case. You never know in this crazy city.

Let’s see. It adds up to $4500 on the low side to about $6000 on the high side. That sounds about right. Ideally, you will have a good job that will pay the bills after the first month and by the second month, you’ve sold that million dollar script and will be working out the costs to move to BH.

Good luck!

At the Oscars!

Watching the Academy Awards is a little like having a beautiful girlfriend who steals your money; you keep seeing her because she's nice eye candy but you keep hoping that she will change her less than endearing ways.

The 82nd annual award show was business as usual. There were lots of gorgeous women and stylish men but at the end of the evening, I felt robbed, just like I do every year. The show was too long, too predictable and certainly not entertaining enough to keep me wide eyed for nearly four hours. Yes, I understand that the producers have a tough job but it’s time that someone thinks outside the box.

Here are my suggestions. Thanks for asking.

• Get rid of any cheesy opening number which features a guy in a glittery jacket belting out a lame Broadway-style song. Instead make this guy the host of next year’s Oscars and if he knocks it out of the park (which I suspect he will), then give him a contract for 10 years.

• Enough gushing over the actors and the actresses! Yes, we know they are all perfect people and were amazing to work with so the saccharine tributes by their friends were redundant and should be cut.

• Reduce the number of categories. Do we really need separate categories for sound mixing and sound editing? (What the hell is the difference? Actually, I don’t care and certainly don’t want it to be explained during the telecast!) Does anyone care about the Documentary Short Subject, Animated Short or the Foreign Language Film? It’s better to reduce the number of categories than treat the winners of these categories like buzz kills by shutting them up with swelling music and kicking them off the stage.

• Don’t ever allow Miley “Cabbage Patch Doll” Cyrus to give out an award again. It’s just insulting to everyone else who has deserved to be there.

• Get rid of the In Memoriam. This is just a depressing dose of reality that nobody wants during a generally upbeat awards show. Save it for another show and see how many people show up.

• Let Cirque de Soleil take over the dance numbers. They will be weird, exciting, bold and above all, acrobatic. Don’t allow anyone to do the robot dance again.

• Bring back the original song performances. Reduce the number of nominations for Randy Newman to one per year. Preferably have the original artists perform the song.

• Coach the winners. Act happy! Act like it was unexpected! Burst into tears or jump up and down! Don’t be boooooooring. I think that Mo’Nique knew she was going to win so that speech was pretty lame coming from a stand-up comedienne. Some of the most memorable Oscar moments have come from actors who have exhibited pure uninhibited JOY. Cuba Gooding Jr., Adrien Brody and that Italian guy who wanted to make love to everyone in the firmament come to mind.

• Reduce the number of Best Picture nominees to five. Make it an exclusive group. Show clips from these movies that make us realize again why we fell in love with them.

And I know you are dying to know who I thought SHOULD win so here are my votes:

LEADING ACTOR: Colin Firth for A Single Man. I did not see Crazy Heart but Colin Firth’s portrayal was so honest, it was painful.

LEADING ACTRESS: Sandra Bullock. Okay, she deserved it most among the nominees. Meryl Streep, you’ve had your well deserved turns at the podium and I’m not sure why it was so difficult to portray an expressionless fat black chick.

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christoph Walz. Perhaps the best thing about this strange movie.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Vera Farmiga. When I first saw her, I wondered where this talented beauty had come from. Completely believable in her role and perfect age-appropriate chemistry with George.

ANIMATED FEATURE: Up. No doubt about it, this movie is another charmer from Pixar.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Up. A completely original concept with beautiful arcs for indelible characters. The Hurt Locker was a great movie but the screenplay was not what made it that way.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: There is no doubt that Precious was a fine screenplay but my vote was for District 9 which gave us a very sympathetic view of alien life forms.

DIRECTING: James Cameron. Yes, I know he doesn't seem like a very likeable person but the guy is truly a visionary and he knows how to keep an audience captivated.

BEST PICTURE: Avatar. Can anyone ignore the fact that this film has made gazillions of dollars? The Best Picture category should never be a popularity contest but this film took a decade to make and will revolutionize the industry. I’m not sure that The Hurt Locker will stand the test of time and it may have won simply to give an extended middle finger to the director’s ex-husband.

That’s it. See you at the movies!