Legion

I can’t recall the last time I saw a film where Angels were the bad guys, in fact I think Michael with John Travolta was the last time an Angel terrified humanity. Seeing the trailer for Legion got me all jazzed and I couldn’t wait to see the terror and action unfold before my eyes. Wasn’t quite sure why an angel would need large guns but I was open to anything.

What a mess.

That’s the exact thought that came to my head about an hour into this piece of drivel. The sad thing is, I love pre, post and everything in between apocalyptic flicks. The idea that God has had it with us and is about to pull the plug put me in a giddy mood to see some angel on angel action. I thought, at the very least, I could leave my brain at the door and have a good time. But apparently I would have enjoyed this film even more if I left my eyesight, hearing and any semblance of conciseness at the door as well.

Paul Benttany plays Michael, an Angel who defies God’s proclamation that humans are to be eradicated from the planet. He comes down and promptly cuts off his wings. Why? Don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll explain. He arrives at a diner populated by the saddest bunch of sad sacks to protect the unborn child of a waitress because said child will save humanity from it’s fate. How? Don’t know but I’m sure they’ll explain.. Then Angels, who have possessed humans, attack the diner. Why are angels possessing humans? Don’t know but I’m sure they’ll explain. Then another angel, Gabriel, arrives and seems to be the only angel that can now go near the newborn baby. Why? Don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll explain. I’m guessing you’re sensing a pattern here.

And there in lies the biggest problem for me, NOTHING IS EVER EXPLAINED!!!! Now I don’t need things spoon-fed to me and not every single solitary plot device has to be google mapped for me to figure out, but give me a little something. Why do Angels inhabit humans? Why did Michael cut off his wings especially when it would have been a lot quicker to convince people he was an angel and probably made fighting his fellow angels a bit easier? Why are angels afraid of bullets? Why do angels bleed and how exactly can they die? And why is God going through with this elaborate Lex Luthor-esque plan to kill an infant when all he would need to do is just make her miscarry? People tell me I over think this kind of stuff but I can’t help it when it’s pretty blatant. It’s like the writers were slamming away on their typewriters and someone else was reading each page and went “whoa whoa don’t you think you need to elaborate on certain items” and the writers went “Ahhh screw all that explaining stuff, we are giving them kick ass angels they won’t care about shit like that” As far as I’m concerned God did punish us by allowing this film to hit the theaters.

Xmas in Vegas

Like there aren’t enough lights up in Vegas. I’m sure at this time of year Alaskans can see Sin City from their windows. I’m here, once again, celebrating the holidays with my parents. Even though this is considered the adult play ground, Xmas has a way of giving that family vibe. Even if you are driving past the row of strip clubs and nudie bars, as long as they have tinsel and Santa somewhere you get that warm fuzzy feeling and I don’t mean the strippers Va-J.J.’s

Everyone is in the Xmas spirit; those people that hand you hooker business cards seem to have a little more pep in their step, the waitresses don’t glare as much when you tip them a quarter and the bartenders have reduced the amount of water they put in your drinks, it’s a festive time for everyone. Although I don’t think I will ever get used to Santa working the door at a strip club.

Ok I’ve babbled long enough about the wonders that is Las Vegas at this most holiest of times. I want to wish my friends and their family a Merry Xmas. Remember when it comes to gifts, it’s the thought that counts. Except for fruit cake, there was no thought and there for is cause to beat up the giver.

Avatar

Avatar is nothing short of a masterpiece. I won’t go into any detail but say what you will about Mr James Cameron; he’s insane, difficult to work with, an ego the size of Texas, but you can’t deny the man delivers. His near Howard Hughes level of perfectionism is perfectly captured with all that you see on the screen; the beautiful planet, the flora and fauna, the inhabitants themselves, all painstakingly created to make a world that we hope exists somewhere. Then you add the human element and military weaponry that would make Rambo cream his fatigues and you have the culmination of James Cameron. It just feels like everything he’s done before was just a warm up to this. You have elements of almost all his films, neatly mixed together plus a heaping helping of Dances with Wolves. The film looks beautiful, the acting is great and the action sequences totally breathtaking. I am going to make this short and sweet because quite frankly there really isn’t anything I can say without giving away stuff so I will end this by saying “Damn you Cameron, you did it again”

Thug Life 101

We all aspire to be more than what we are. We look for things that bring us joy and that will inspire us to greatness. The gangster life has always had that sexy appeal. I mean if you take away the guns, killing, drugs and death it actually is quite an exciting existence. The white man has seen fit to try to incorporate this type of life and make it his own. Now while some have succeeded (Eminem and Michael Rappaport) others have failed miserably. Now while I don’t profess to be an expert in the urban gang life I think I can give you, my faithful readers, some helpful tips so you can bring out your inner gangster with some class.

AGE CAN BE A FACTOR

Let me say this: you simply can’t be gangster if your testicles haven’t dropped. It’s a point of fact that 99.9999999% of gangsters can shave. So if you can walk into Chuck E Cheese by yourself and no one thinks you are a molester you are too young to be involved in the life. But if you do choose to go down this road remember, in order to be taken serious as an urban street soldier, you should lose the Tweety Bird clock, maybe it’s me but I tend to think that cute little animated bird clocks takes away from the gun toting ruffian persona you are trying to show off.

GANGSTISM

The formula for Gangstism is Gangster + Autism – Dignity. You must be realistic if you are going to attempt this. Put on your proper gangster hat ware to the side and ask your self “Does this make me look like a car jacking badass or a terrifying woodland creature from Grimm’s fairytale?” If the latter, put the hat down, put on your polo shirt and realize that something’s were never meant to be.

THE LOOK

Facial expression and body language can speak volumes. You are trying to look tough and for some this can be a challenge. Here we have an example of a man doing his best to seem intimidating; trying to strike fear in our hearts. Unfortunately his pursed lips and exposed belly help him cross the line from being cash stealing thug into Zima drinking back up dancer. Remember you are trying to look mean, not give Lance Bass a come hither look.

JUST GIVE UP

I don’t care how many tatts , arrest warrants, or items of bling you have; you can’t be gangster if you look like the staple guy from Office Space.

SIGNS

Gang signs are a vital part of the gangster persona. They are an indicator that you belong, that you “represent” as they say. When doing a group photo it is imperative that you and all your friends are in sync. Having the same or close to similar gang signs shows unity. In this case, the unity here is represented by the sheer retardedness of their hand signals. One guy looks like he just gave up and decided to show us a butterfly, another one seems to be giving the Vulcan salute and the rest are just crunching their hands up making them look less gangster and more arthritic.

TOO MUCH

There is such a thing as too much gangster as represented by this gentleman who looks like the lone survivor of post apocalyptic South Central. He endeavors to fit in so much that he decided to try to appeal to every form of gangster there is, thus making him, in his own mind The Uber Gangter; an amalgam of past, present and future gangsters to come. This is a big no no as you should find the look that fits you best and stick with it because by going over board you end up being less of a trash talking street hood and more like Liberace.

Well I would like to thank you all for taking time to check out my little tutorial. Remember dreams can be achieved if you put your mind to it, never give up and in the immortal words of Casey Kasem “keep you feet on the ground and keep reaching for Westsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!!!”

Terminator Salvation

So I was sitting in the theater all excited about this film. While I was skeptical at first about a McG Terminator film, after seeing the footage and getting bits and pieces of what the story entailed I was hooked. Not Star Trek hooked mind you but enthused nonetheless. So the film starts, it’s 2003 and we see Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) in prison signing his body away to Cyberdyne Systems and then waking up 15 years later to find himself in a completely different world. And then finding out that he is pretty much no longer human and how he has to deal with all these new revelations. I’m starting to get into this story. And then some guy starts talking, just yammering on for no reason. I’m thinking, “ Could someone please tell this guy to shut up, he’s interrupting, what is turning out to be, a great flick” But no one said a thing and this guy kept making his comments and even did some speeches and I was getting more and more annoyed. I just wanted to reach out and strangle this guy and I would have to if it hadn’t been for one little thing; that annoying guy, interrupting a good movie was one of the characters in the movie and his name was John Conner.

Now lets get this out of the way. I didn’t hate this movie. I did enjoy most of it. I enjoyed the Marcus Wright/Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) scenes, I enjoyed the giant robot with the cycles coming out of its leg and I enjoyed the little nods to the previous movies-although the Guns N Roses song was pushing it. There were some eye catching action sequences and I was excited about getting my first glimpse into Skynet. But the one person I couldn’t get past was John Conner. Now if the stories are true; Christian Bale was offered the Marcus Wright part but decided he wanted to play John Conner. In the original script Conner only appeared in the last 3 minutes of the movie, it was primarily going to be Marcus and Kyle Reese as the main characters. So he brings in Jonathan Nolan, co-writer of Dark Knight, to beef up the Conner part. Now seeing as the same two guys who wrote The Net and Catwoman wrote the original script, maybe a pass by Nolan wouldn’t be so bad. So he beefs up the character and we get a film that feels like there are two competing story lines going on. And unfortunately the good story line is getting beat out by Bale’s ego.

The John Conner we hear about in the previous films is this, almost, mythological messiah. He’s the guy that everyone talks about, the one that battled an army of Terminators all by himself with just a pulse rifle and pair of scissors. You hardly see him but you know he’s there; pushing you to go forward and you gladly do even if it means you’ll die. The John Conner we usually see is the whiney, self absorbed little brat that makes you wonder how he could be the leader of anything, let alone the savior of man kind. The John Conner we get in this film is more mature and starting to get his footing in terms of who he is to become. But there in lies the problem. The people are following him but you never really get an idea as to why, it’s just that they follow him. They feel he’s right and the those above him are wrong and maybe it’s that simple but I felt that something was missing, a strong enough reason for everyone to just ignore orders from their higher up to follow this guy, because that’s really who he was, just this guy. And that’s what saddened me. They had a really great story going with Marcus Wright and his relationship with Reese and the relationship with Blair (Moon Bloodgood); I would have loved to see that develop. They had the makings of doing something unique with this but all the Conner stuff drags it down.

A few other little things that bugged me included; the fact that Conner didn’t seem to be suspicious about his relative ease breaking into Skynet. They seem to know he was coming so wouldn’t Skynet have had Terminators positioned everyone to blow is ass to pieces and the same with Reese, they had him but just kept him locked up. I had issue with the Helena Bonham Carter bit at the end. It’s that idea of “well it’ time to put a face on the faceless villain” They did it with the Borg and now they did it with Skynet. It’s kind of ironic since machines are taking over and trying to wipe out humans but yet a human face is their representative. Like I said I didn’t hate but I was saddened to watch a film, that had the chance of being something special, brought down by ego and by people who just couldn’t say No.

A little side Note: I read this several times and I am curious to hear what people would have thought of this. It’s the original ending. Apparently Conner was going to die. He was fatally wounded in the final assault against Skynet. He lay dying and convinces Marcus Wright to take up the mantle of John Conner. Conner dies and they graft Conner’s face on too Marcus’s skeleton ala Face Off. So in the end John Conner, the savior of Mankind, the leader of the human resistance would actually be a Terminator. I’m not sure how I would feel about that; I mean it would be balancing that tight rope between awesomely shocking and totally retarded. So if you made this far, let me know your thoughts on this.

Price Tags

I recently found out about a friend of mine decided that enough was enough and it was time for a major change; It was time to stop drinking. He had been an abuser for many many years, nearly dying at one point. But even near death wouldn’t get him off, but then he got his girlfriend pregnant and that’s when things started to change and he realized that he wanted to live for the sake of his child and it was time to be a man. So he decided to go to rehab. We all applauded his choice and thought that this was it, this was for real. Well there was one little problem; his insurance wouldn’t cover rehab. Specifically they wouldn’t cover out patient rehab, they would cover a 30 day in patient stint. But there was no way he could do that since he a had a full time job and a family to support. So the rehab facility, said “your insurance won’t cover you so we can’t help you, good bye” And that was that.

So what is one to do? And I know there are other options but at the same time when one goes in for help, how can you turn someone away?? It’s no secret that the medical industry in this country is almost in a choke hold with the insurance companies. It’s good to have insurance but don’t you dare try to actually use it. So if any one reading this happens to be in the insurance industry could you tell me what is the current retail value of a human life?

All’s Fair at the Job Fair

So back in October I became a member of a very exclusive club called “The Unemployed”, very few members to my understanding. So while on my many trips to Monster.com, applying for careers I have zero experience in, I came across an ad for a job fair they were holding here in Los Angeles. I thought, “this was my chance to meet some employers and wow them with my personality and extensive experience”. So I headed out in search of my silver lining, my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we call Broke Ass Mofo.

Our tale begins with a trip to the quaint little cottage known as The Downtown Marriot. Things didn’t start out well as I was expected to valet my car for $13.00. Now as a member of The Unemployed I must do whatever I can to conserve my meager nest egg (No lip from anyone concerning my DVD purchases thank you). That right there told me things were not going to go well. I mean shouldn’t the job fair had made some sort of deal with the hotel to maybe cut down on the cost of parking, something to help out the people who are making an effort to get work. So I noticed across the street there was a sign that read “$9.90 all day before 10:30am” Awesome, it’s only 9:50. So I frogger my way across the street, park and headed for my future.

Once inside there was the sign next to the escalator telling me where to go. When I got to the top, there was a line of people waiting for the doors to the big hall to be opened. To be honest, I figured the place would be packed with wall-to-wall job seekers but it was rather light for our current state.

I took my place and began making conversation with some of the other folks. I met Andrew, we exchanged pleasantries, which consisted of “how are you:” and “How long have you been out of work?” He told me he had been laid off a year and half ago. I asked him what he did and he replied that he worked for the auto industry. At this point everyone within earshot gave a collective pity groan. Every horror story we all heard regarding people in the auto industry from builders to sellers came crashing in. I’m surprised no one put a hat in front of him and started throwing change in. He was happy though; hopeful that this little event would help him in some way, we all thought that. I also met Richard, a young man probably around his early 20’s. He had worked in sales (nobody groaned about that) and got laid off 6 months earlier. He cracked me up because he kept mentioning how hot some of the girls were and if he didn’t get a job he might get a date. I just smiled and nodded a lot but all I kept thinking was “Well you’re unemployed and she’s unemployed so what are you going to say to her, ‘Hey want to go dutch on a cup of coffee?’

So..your cardboard box or mine?

I get it; we are doing all we can to look for work but we also need time to just be human and not worry about things. It’s a strain on both body and mind to be stressed and this is a stressful time. If I wasn’t so tightly wound like I was that day and if I didn’t have a girlfriend, I would have been bird watching just like him, But my mind was so focused that nothing was going to get me off the path. So I was confident that this was going to be a positive experience, especially after I got my name badge and personal Monster.com pee-chee folder. That was until they opened the doors.

The room was set up with booths, sort of like Comic-Con for the broke. Each booth had between 2 to 3 people all with that Stepford smile that said “Hi, I would rather have my hair on fire than be here” They all had black curtains and simple white signs that had black lettering indicating who they were. At times I didn’t know if it was a job fair or a puppet show.

Suprisingly no unemployed muppets were here.

I took a quick tour around the place (it wasn’t very big) and then hit my first booth, which was NBC Universal. My dream is to be involved in the entertainment industry. I don’t care what it takes to get my foot in the door, if making coffee and mopping the bathroom floor will get me in the front door, then had me a mop and a percolator. So I stood in line with the other hopefuls and finally made it to the front. There were 2 women and a man; the guy was wearing a universal studio polo shirt. I proceeded to talk to the ladies, handing my resume to them and discussing my qualifications.

Ladies (doesn’t matter which): So you seem to have a lot of people experience and you have a lot of managerial work behind you.

Me: Oh yes I’ve been running crews for over 10 years now.

Ladies: Well great. Ok so just go to our website, up load your resume and you’ll be all set.

Me (a bit confused) Ummmm well I already did that.

Ladies: Great well you are all set.

Yes apparently I was being too proactive in my job search and beat them to the punch when it came to letting me know about going to their website. I was a little annoyed but I sucked it up and decided that I would ask them about possible job opportunities at Universal Studios

Me: So can I ask you about jobs at Universal Studios

Ladies: Oh well you can talk to the gentlemen here, he can help you

Me: Great (I start to move toward him)

Ladies: Oh I’m sorry you are going to have to go back in line.

Me: Go back in Line?? But he’s in the same booth, right next to you.

Ladies: Yes but he’s not affiliated with us.

Me: Wait, isn’t this NBC Universal??

Ladies: Yes but he deals with the amusement park, it’s a separate entity.

At this point I felt my brain oozing out of my ears. I stood there for what felt like 10 year and slowly moved to the back of the other line (I was waiting for the slow Bruce Banner music to start playing). I won’t go into too much detail about the meeting with the Universal dude, but know it was pretty much the exact same thing which was “go to the website and upload your resume and you’ll be all set”. I hit 3 other booths and they all said the same thing. I’ve come to hate the phrase, “You’ll be all set” The reason I only hit 4 total was because the other places were hiring for sales positions. Now if that’s your thing God bless you, but I’m not a sales person, never been good at it so those places were out and the rest were temp agencies; half of them I had signed up with to such rousing success that I ended up at the job fair (that was sarcasm by the way).

There was a stage set up for a presentation about the Do’s and Don’ts of interviewing and resume writing. I decided to stick around; maybe they would give some helpful advice. Oh did they ever with such little nuggets as

Remember, use your spell check and make sure there are no spelling or punctuation errors on your resume.

I giggled a bit. I was thinking “wow this is silly I mean who really needs to be told that?” Apparently A LOT of people need to be told that. I looked around and saw quite a few people scribbling that piece of genius down as if their life depended on it. The guy next to me wrote it down and started repeating it to himself like it was his new mantra. I was stunned that this was something people didn’t seem to know. I would have loved to have seen these resumes; commas after every word, letters in the middle of the word capitalized, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they were written in crayon with a backward S. And the wisdom train kept chugging along with this handy little tip

Remember; don’t be late for you interviews. Employers will hold that against you.

If I wasn’t seated in the second row I would have left at this point. This was getting ridiculous. I understand that if they have to say it then it must have happened but I’ve always had the misguided thought that people were generally smart. But the fact of the matter is we live in a time where people need to be told that their coffee is hot and that being late for a job interview is bad. Again, I scanned the audience as she unleashed this revelation and the look of clarity that swept across their faces was the equivalent of 5 years olds being told that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. The lady finally ended this stunning overture. I was hoping for a big finale like a song and dance bit; maybe people dressed as giant pinks slips dancing to “Working for the Weekend”.

I walked out of there disheartened and frustrated. I looked back; at what was essentially, a feeding frenzy and all that was offered were scraps. The idea is great; give everyone a chance to meet the people who hire. They are either just voices on a phone or anonymous emails, so here was our chance to meet, greet and show them what we got. But it turned out to be just meet, greet and direct me to your website that I already went too. As I was leaving I ran into a couple of sales reps for Monster and they asked me what I thought. I told them what I just wrote and also said that there just wasn’t enough variety; everything in there was geared more toward sales. One of the reps said that a few were also offering IT work (forever the sales person). I told him that while I am good on computers I don’t have the level of experience to work IT. But I thanked them for at least attempting to help people get back on their feet. As I walked out I began feeling scared about my future. Before this event I was more positive, more hopeful that things would turn around but afterwards I just got depressed; I literally thought, soup kitchen here I come. But thanks to a great girlfriend, awesome friends and supportive family, I think I found my smile again. Slowly I’m getting back to my positive frame of mind because I believe, sooner rather than later, change is a-comin. In the mean time I did find a part time job that will keep me a float until I find something more permanent. I just got the uniform.

If you see me at your local liquor store don’t hesitate to say hi.

The Anti-Sugar Daddy

*We would like to apologize for the delay of our next presentation. The author has been suffering from writers block (if writers block means “being a complete lazy ass” ) But we appreciate your patience and hope you enjoy the show-The Management

My blood sugar is 125!!!!

Yes oh thank God.

Ok so you are probably wondering what I’m ranting about. Some of you will look at that statement and go “Oh that’s great, good for you” A lot of you though will look at that and say “What the hell is he talking about?? What blood sugar level?? I came here to read a rather long but ultimately pointless movie review or some crap about his childhood.” I will get back to your regularly scheduled fart joke after I delved into a more serious arena (well as serious as I can make it)

Back in October I was diagnosed with diabetes. Now this didn’t come as a complete shock as it runs in my family. But to hear it said, to actually know for sure that this is happening, well it still hit me like a ton of bricks. The thing is I saw the signs, I knew something was wrong but I didn’t want to face it. I just went about my business ignoring everything and treating those signs as if they were normal. And then I met my girlfriend and she started noticing the weird things that were going on. Things like my consistent drinking and continuous peeing ( I might as well have just stayed in the bathroom with the amount of time I had to go) She noticed dark patches around my neck and my sleep wasn’t exactly restful. Oh did I happen to mention she’s a nurse practionare, yeah she’s like one step below a doctor (a bit of advice. If you want to bury your head in the sand, if you don’t want to face the truth about your health DON”T DATE A MEDICAL PERSON!!! Hell even a podiatrist can see things)

Well anyway she had me do a test called “Oral Glucose Tolerance Test” You take your blood sugar level in the morning before you eat, then you drink 75 grams of glucose which is like drinking clear molasses and then wait 2 hours and test it again.. Normal readings are between 80 and 120. When I took it in the morning my level was 225, when I took it two hours later it hit 323. I remember looking at the numbers and just feeling drained. My girlfriend sat with me and just stared at the reading. This was real. No joke, no excuses, this was the plain and simple truth. I was scared. I knew my mother had it but I didn’t know about type 1 or type 2 diabetes. All I thought was “I’m going to have to give my self shots” and I have a horrible time with needles. My gf found a doctor for me and I started doing the research.

OK so first things first; diabetes is basically a lack of insulin. What is insulin you ask; Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar (glucose), starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. Now I learned that I’m a type 2 diabetic which means; either my body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin. This type of diabetes can be controlled with diet and exercise and maybe a pill, which is what I am doing. Interestingly enough, Type 2 diabetes is more common in African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, as well as the aged population ( I swear whitey gets all the breaks). Type 1 diabetic or juvenile diabetics (usually diagnosed in children and young adults) are those whose body does not produce insulin and they require daily shots. Symptoms include frequent trips to the bathroom, unquenchable thirst, weakness and fatigue. And as far as what can happen to you if you don’t get treatment; those include heart disease, kidney disease, eye complications and the grand daddy in my opinion erectile dysfunction. Yes men diabetes can give you limp dick and believe me I would much rather have a heart attack than not be able to attack hard. Another thing I found interesting, and by interesting I mean totally and utterly terrifying, was that diabetes can cause bad blood circulation, which again if not treated, could cause you to lose your feet in either pieces or one whole chunk. Did you see The Good Shepard? Did you notice how Robert De Niro’s leg kept getting shorter and shorter; yeah that’s it exactly. So if you have diabetes keep an eye on your foot, because if you don’t, those little piggies will go “wee wee wee” all the way to a plastic bag.

Look I’m not trying to scare anyone but the truth is; this can affect anyone. My diet was lousy. The closest I came to eating healthy was a rice cake covered in Nutella. And my exercise regiment consisted of me jogging…from my bed to the couch and doing remote control curls every half hour. It was pretty much inevitable that I would get as it runs in my family but I quickened its arrival by just not taking care of myself. But that has changed. I have started working out on a fairly regular basis (I try to work out 3 times a week which is great for me since I used to get winded filling out a gym membership) and I’ve cut my portions down significantly and I always look at the carbohydrate count on most products I buy. My doctor put me on medication but she said if I lose enough weight and keep up the exercise I’ll have no need for it anymore so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

So there you have it. I’m not going to be mother hen or anything like that but if you or someone you know have any of the symptoms I mentioned please see a doctor. It’s better to be safe than lose a foot, suffer a stroke or lose the ability to have morning wood.

Let the Viewers Decide

So I have been very neglectful with my blog. I have been helping an old company of mine with a project and I’ve been getting home late and, truth be told, I have just been lazy to write. But I must remedy this huge faux pax so I plan on working on some stuff. Now my dear friend Rachel posed the question “What’s next on the Yvis menu?”Now I have things I would like to write about but I am curious as to what my viewing audience would be interested in reading from me So here are the topics that have been swimming around in my head.

Weight Loss
Dating and being single
My experience being an audience memeber on the Ellen Show
Diabetes
Movie and TV stuff (reviews things like that)

Or if you have something you would like me to rant about please feel to speak your mind. I’ll see what the consensus is and take it from there. Let the games begin.

Oh Look, Oscar Predictions, How Original

So the Oscars are upon us once again.. Now I know there are others giving their Oscar picks so I’m sorry for being unoriginal but hey I gotta throw in my 2 cents so I will pick the ones I believe The Academy will chose, the ones that should win and the dark horses. If they are not mentioned that means I wouldn’t be surprised if they won. I will only do the major categories because I really don’t think anyone cares who I pick for Best Sound editing.

BEST PICTURE
WINNER: Slumdog Millionare
It’s the little film that has been racking up the awards. I can see the Academy members giving this one the prize simply because it is such a small film that has made it’s mark and this would be the logical ending.

SHOULD WIN: Benjamin Button
An epic movie that really hit the emotional buttons (no pun intended). A film that makes you thinks about mortality and being happy with who you are and where you are at. People have said it’s Forest Gumpish but is that really a bad thing since Forrest Gump took home Best Picture, I think not

DARK HORSE: The Reader
I know this film is good but I haven’t heard much about it. Holocaust movies seem to be money in the bank when award season starts. And while Kate Winslet has been given oodles of praise, the film itself hasn’t really been given a huge push.

BEST ACTOR
WINNER: Sean Penn-Milk
The caliber of actor Penn is, playing a beloved historical character, mixed that with the current political climate regarding gay rights and this seems to me like a slam-dunk.

SHOULD WIN: Mickey Rourke-The Wrestler
Hands down one of the best performances this year. Rourke’s heart wrenching portrayal of Randy “The Ram” showed the world that he is back. Regardless of how this turns out, no one can argue the brilliant performance he gives.

DARK HORSE: Richard Jenkins-The Visitor
He is a great character actor. He was wonderful in Six Feet Under and he does a great job here. He is a first time nominee up against some heavy hitters. I see him getting out shined here.

BEST ACTRESS
WINNER: Kate Winselt-The Reader
She took home the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards. Everyone has been heaping praise upon her left and right. She is the lead actress in a holocaust movie, so with that all signs point to her taking it home.

SHOULD WIN: Kate Winslet-The Reader
I finally saw the film and she was amazing. She was riveting and is such a natural actress. She truly deserves this award, no doubt about it.

DARK HORSE: Melissa Leo-Frozen River
Suffers from the same problem as Richard Jenkins; great performance in an emotional film but still up against some powerful and better-known actresses.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
WINNER: Heath Ledger-The Dark Knight
He gave an amazing performance and he died, nuff said.

SHOULD WIN: Heath Ledger-Dark Knight
See above…

DARK HORSE: Robert Downey Jr-Tropic Thunder
He is a brilliant actor but I just don’t see this one being the film that gives him the award. He was great, no doubt, but I think his time will come in another film.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
WINNER: Amy Adams- Doubt
She did a great job in this role; you felt her inner struggle with all that was going on.

SHOULD WIN: Marisa Tomei-The Wrestler
She breathed new life into the “hooker with a heart of gold” character (yes I know she was a stripper but same difference), She projected both physical and emotional vulnerability with such ease. She deserves this one more than the one she got for My Cousin Vinny

DARK HORSE: Taraji Henson-Benjamin Button
While she did a great job in the movie I don’t see it as Oscar worthy. She really didn’t do anything that was all that eye catching.

And the rest…

BEST DIRECTOR
WINNER: Danny Boyle- Slumdog Millionaire

SHOULD WIN: David Fincher-Benjamin Button

DARK HORSE: Stephen Daltry- The Reader

BEST SCREENPLAY (ADAPTED)
WINNER: Simon Beufoy – Slumdog Millionaire

SHOULD WIN: Eric Roth- Benjamin Button

DARK HORSE: David Hare- The Reader

BEST SCREENPLY (ORIGINAL)
WINNER: Dustin Lance Black- Milk

SHOULD WIN: Jim Reardon and Andrew Stanton- WALL-E

DARK HORSE: Martin McDonagh- In Bruges

There you have it. Feel free to come back and check out how many I got wrong.