82nd Academy Awards Preview

Believe it or not, the Academy Awards are just a couple of days away. Am I the only one finding it hard to stop writing 2009 on things?

The year seemed to zip by...but not from the amount of quality movies. Overall, I thought 2009 was a weak year for movies, and ironically, the Academy expanded their Best Picture field to 10 movies in a year where they would have been hard pressed to pick 5 movies that really deserved to be nominated.

I do like the decision to nominate 10 films, as it does give acclaim to more commercially successful movies that wouldn't have been nominated had the field still included 5. But, even though there are 10 best picture nominees, there are probably 7 or 8 films that don't stand a chance of winning, making the expansion a moot point.

And let's face it, the move to 10 nominees is about increasing the Oscar TV rating, which have been slumping over the last several years. The Academy is hoping that fans of more commercially successful films such as Avatar, The Blind Side and Up will tune in.

There still were some really good movies in 2009. And most of them were actually nominated for Best Picture. But what I found lacking in 2009 were the amount of standout performances. Only Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Basterds really jumps to mind when I think of great performances of the year. Maybe Mo'Nique from Precious gets in there too. But George Clooney was George Clooney again in Up in the Air. Did he really need to be nominated? Seeing Jeff Bridges nominated for Crazy Heart is cool, since the performance is very close to his performance as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, a role he wrongly wasn't nominated for. But Bridges can play those roles in his sleep by now. And oh yeah, Meryl Streep was nominated for like the 82nd time in a row. Big surprise there!

But enough rambling. Let's take a look at the important categories.

BEST PICTURE

What's nominated (picks in bold represent the movies nominated if the field was still five): Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air.
What should have been nominated: Star Trek lacked the political messages in District 9, but Trek was much more fun. Crazy Heart should have been nominated in place of The Blind Side which was basically an overly sentimental made for TV movie that happened to feature a solid performance by Sandra Bullock. And while the first 15 minutes of Up was on par with the best of any nominee, the second half of the film was your typical Disney goofiness. I would have liked to see (500) Days of Summer or Sugar in its spot.
What will win: Avatar won the Golden Globe and still might be the favorite based on its technical achievements, financial success and treehugging political message, but my money is on The Hurt Locker, which has been gaining steam in recent months thanks to the buzz surrounding director Kathryn Bigelow, who is only the third female director nominated for Best Director.
What should win: I enjoyed The Hurt Locker, but I absolutely loved Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. His alternative take on WWII was a funny and suspenseful film that featured the most tense scene of 2009, and possibly, of all time (basement bar scene).

BEST DIRECTOR

Who's Nominated: Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman, Quentin Tarantino.
Who Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow. I think the Academy will make a statement (and history) by giving the statue to a female director for the first time ever.
Who Should Win: James Cameron. He created the technology used in Avatar, from performance capture to the next generation 3-D. And while Best Director is not a technical award, Cameron created the world in Avatar, he didn't just hand off the special effects to someone else. His stamp is all over this film.

BEST ACTOR

Who's Nominated: Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman, Jeremy Renner.
Who Will Win: Jeff Bridges with Renner the second horse in this race.
Who Should Win: Jeff Bridges. His performance gives Crazy Heart its...crazy heart. Yeah, I just said that.

BEST ACTRESS

Who's Nominated: Sandra Bullock, Helen Mirren, Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe, Maryl Streep.
Who Will Win: Sandra Bullock. It was a good performance by an actress who has been the same in pretty much ever role she's ever had and made a ton of money in 2009. She's the hot pick.
Who Should Win: Gabourey Sidibe. Her performance in Precious was raw, heartbreaking and uplifting all at once.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Who's Nominated: Matt Damon, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Plummer, Stanley Tucci, Christoph Waltz.
Who Will Win: Christoph Waltz. He was the one standout performance of the year.
Who Should Win: Christoph Waltz. He was the one standout performance of the year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Who's Nominated: Penelope Cruz, Vera Farmiga, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anna Kendrick, Mo'Nique.
Who Will Win: Mo'Nique. Her performance as a despicable inner city mother in Precious is good we can't allow ourselves to sympathize with her when her character finally sees the error of her ways.
Who Should Win: Mo'Nique.

So there you have it. Do you agree with my picks? Let me know in the comment section below.

They don't make 'em like this anymore

I've always been kind of fascinated with the Italian horror movies of the 1970's and 1980's but never really followed that up by actually watching them. After all, you can watch all of the films' famous gory bits on You Tube these days and the movies themselves are infamous for incoherent plots, bad acting, and even worse dubbing.

So why waste the time?

Anyway, a friend lent me his copy of Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery the other day so I popped it in last night while fighting the urge to watch I Love You, Man for the twenty-third time this month. I really need to stop watching that movie.

The plot, if you can call it one, is simple. A family moves into a house near Boston so that the father can continue some research that was put on hold when his colleague mysteriously killed his mistress and then hung himself. But little do they know that a zombie doctor is living downstairs in the basement, murdering his victims so he can harvest their organs to stay alive.

And while THBTC commits all of the sins of Italian horror (incoherent plot, bad dubbing, etc), it still manages to be a good and creepy little movie. These Italian horror movies are known first for their gore, and THBTC doesn't disappoint in that regard. But perhaps the second best aspect of Italian horror films are their atmosphere, and THBTC nails the dreamy and creepy atmosphere that most modern horror movies have forgotten about.

I mean, there's a freaking tomb in the floor of the house! How freaking creepy and awesome is that? Also, the house is located right next to a cemetery (hence the title, duh) and horror movies can always use more cemeteries. Perhaps the film's best scene is when mother and son are searching the basement for proof that the child just saw the head of his dead babysitter roll down the stairs (yes, I just wrote that). As they are searching the basement, the killers' eyes pop out of the darkness. It's something you don't expect and while it doesn't cause you to jump out of your seat like the loud jumps that most horror movies employ these days, it does send shivers down your spine.

THBTC is a relic from an era when film makers wanted to genuinely scare you, not treat the movie as if its a roller coaster ride. And that's what I miss about these kinds of horror movies.

But despite as much as THBTC gets right, it gets as much wrong. I mean really, how can the filmmakers ignore such blatant inconsistencies?

Take for instance the family's babysitter, cleaning up the blood from the previous night's murder. The mother notices the sitter cleaning the blood and just asks "what are you doing?" I don't know about you, but if I woke up to find a massive blood smear on my floor, leading to the basement, I'd call the freaking cops! After that scene, I started thinking that maybe the sitter was a protector of the zombie doc, but then she gets killed. There goes that theory!

The film's ending is also a mind-F of the worst kind. We're lead to believe different things throughout the film (is the little girl real?) but at the end, nothing is explained or made clearer. A quote at the end of the movie, attributed to poet Henry James, is actually Fulci's, and does nothing but make the proceedings even more confusing.

But let's be real. We don't watch these movies for the seamless film making. THBTC is basically a prono. You can watch the best parts on line. After all, why sit through all the exposition when all we want to see is people fucking?

So do I recommend THBTC? Not exactly. If you find yourself bored by today's horror movies and miss the atmospheric creepers from the past, check it out.

But I would recommend Ti West's The House of the Devil to a fan of film in general, as it's just a great movie, and not just something for fans of cult movies.

Beach House

Beach House's third album, Teen Dream, received a 9 out of 10 rating from Pitchfork.

Hailing from Baltimore, I've found it difficult to get into the city's musical offerings. Occasionally my musical tastes mesh up with quasi-Baltimore act Animal Collective, but most times I shrug off their nauseating repetitiveness which is basically Caucasian vegan Baltimore club music, circa 1994, when DJ Boobie was still making mix-tapes.

That is until Beach House arrived on the scene. Their self-titled 2006 debut caught my ear when I heard "Master of None" on Sirius radio. However, their first two albums were downtrodden and difficult to sit through in their entirety. Instead, I opted to be a fan of the band in small doses. "Yeah, Beach House, they're from Baltimore. I like a couple of their songs, and I want to like them, but..."

Then came Teen Dream, officially released last Tuesday, despite having been leaked last November. The wait was worth it. Teen Dream is by far the band's best album to date.

Beach House, made up of French-born Victoria Legrand and Bmore native, Alex Scally, push their core minimalist sound to the limit in Teen Dream, resulting in an album of more movement and layers. The band previously consisted of Legrand on vocals, Scally on guitar, and a drum machine rivaling the cheapness of the one that Terrance Howard's character found in Hustle & Flow. Now, there is a drummer (I think, or they bought a better sounding drum machine) and organ-sounding keyboards at the band's disposal. They make great use of the new wrinkles, but this is still very much a Beach House record.

Thematically, Teen Dream evokes the 80's as seen by a depressed teenager who watches too many John Hughes movies. I mean, come on...it's dream-pop at its best. But I've never experienced so much beautiful sadness on an album. In that regard, Beach House isn't for everyone. Despite it's revamped sound, this is still a slow album, one that takes it's time getting to where it wants to go, and even in some cases, still takes too long getting there.

And in a year that looks to be filled with new albums from some of my favorite bands (The Walkmen, Arcade Fire, The National, Stars, Radiohead, etc.), it's ironic that an album that I wasn't expecting comes out of nowhere and hit me so hard.

Teen Dream is going to be tough to wake up from.

You can check out their album at lala.com here.