Random Thoughts on the Best Original Song Oscar (The 2000s)

Let's finally wrap this up. We start with 2001...


Here is the complete list of nominees and winners in the 2000s

In 2001 Disney/Pixar scored another win with "If I Didn't Have You" from Monster's Inc won. The song was written by Randy Newman who finally won his Oscar:



The only other song I know from that year is "Vanilla Sky" by Sir Angela Lansbury:



Neither song is that good but Angela's is a little worse so let's just say "Good for Randy".

2002 was a better year for Original Songs. U2 and Paul Simon were both nominated for "The Hands That Built America" from Gangs of New York and "Father and Daughter" from The Wild Thornberrys Movie respectively.

Here's U2's effort:



...Meh.

Well these two Rock and Roll Hall of Famers lost to Eminem who's "Lose Yourself" definitely deserved the win:


My second favorite movie song of 2002 wasn't even nominated. That was "Something to Talk About" by Badly Drawn Boy from About a Boy:


Catchy little tune. Still, at least Eminem won.

In 2003 a song from The Return of the King won. Yeah, I know. It was called "Into the West" and it was written by Fran Walsh (one of the screenwriters), Howard Shore (the film's composer), and Annie Lennox:


Yikes. That's some serious suck. I'm gonna guess no one who voted actually listened to that song and just voted for Return of the King in every category.

What should have won? Hard to say..."You Will Be My Ain True Love" from Cold Mountain by Sting and Allison Kraus?


Nah...

"Belleville Rendez-Vous" from The Triplets of Belleville should have won:


Quirky fun.

2004 was not a fantastic year. "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" by Jorge Drexler from The Motorcycles Won:


The only song I've heard of from the list of nominees this year is "Accidentally in Love" by Counting Crows from Shrek 2:



Not their best song by a long shot. Kinda catchy / kinda grating / kinda happy that didn't win.

Moving to 2005 we have one of my favorite winners in Oscar history (original song or otherwise). Three 6 Mafia won for their epic tune "Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle and Flow:



(Note future Oscar Nominee Taraji P. Henson, who was in Hustle and Flow, singing the backup).

This thankfully beat the two other nominees, one of which was from the hated Crash ("In the Deep").

I'm not totally sure that "Hard Out Here For a Pimp" was the best song from Hustle and Flow (though it was always the one that had a chance of winning). I've always liked "Whoop That Trick":



2006 has three songs from Dreamgirls and they all blocked one another I guess because "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth and written and performed by Al Gore (kidding...it was Melissa Etheridge) won:



I think people were surprised that the Beyonce led "Listen" didn't win...


Needless to say that's not my favorite.

Maybe Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale could have gotten a nomination:


2007 was suppose to be Disney's return to the Best Original Song category win column. Enchanted was nominated for three different songs and "That's How You Know" was suppose to bring home the gold(en statue):



But in a great and surprising upset, "Falling Slowly" from Once won the Oscar:



I'm very happy "Falling Slowly" beat Enchanted but I also think there was an even better song in Once that wasn't even nominated:



Finally, in 2008 only three songs were nominated. Many whined that Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" was not nominated but I honestly can't tell you why as I thought the song sucked.

The winner was the fun and smile inducing "Jai Ho" by A.R. Rahman from Slumdog Millionaire:




And that's all there is for now. Hope you enjoyed this look back and the winners, losers, and should have wons in this category over the last 40 years

Everything you wanted to know about Transformers 2...

Some Linky Goodness:

Everything you might have wondered about Transformers: Rise of the Fallen...

Warning: There are spoilers in that article but you really shouldn't care)

Henry Saw: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

I hate America


I won't pretend that I have anything that new to say about this movie. Better critics than me like Roger Ebert and Russ Fischer at Slashfilm.com have already had a go at assessing Transformers 2 and saying all that needs to be said about this horror show. In short, this movie is a total mess, blatantly offensive at times, and a 150 minute long headache that has made 200 million dollars in 5 days. Jeez...

I don't quite know where to start this autopsy so let's start with the plot. Now, contrary to what other reviews might have said, this movie does have a plot. An inane, confusing, deux ex machina filled, dumb plot. But it has a story. Anyone who has suffered through other bad science fiction, or lame saturday morning cartoons, should be able to track this film's storyline. Picking up two years after the last film, the good robots (Autobots) are helping the humans find the evil robots (Decepticons) and kill them. Meanwhile, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is leaving for Princeton and is still in his relationship with his hot girlfriend Mikaela (hot Megan Fox). What Sam doesn't know is that during the events of the first film, his mind got imprinted with directions to a hidden super weapon that the Decepticons want to use to destroy the earth. Thus the fight is on for Sam, and the Earth's, safety.

That's the plot in a nut-shell. And yes, it sucks. And yes, it goes in all sorts of other directions, distractions, and "Really? You're gonna spend time showing us this?" ways. But the plot is not what keeps this movie from being good. It's not like the first film's plot was Shakespearean and I kind of enjoyed the first one. What hurts this sequel is how goddamn bloated and stupid it is. There's an extended scene of Sam's mom running around his campus high because she accidentally ate a pot brownie. It's not funny, it doesn't advance the plot, and it's so forced that it made me squirm in my seat. There's a tiny decepticon that Mikaela captures that has a nasty attitude and ends up humping her leg to her great amusement. This character is slightly more important to the plot in that he has one line of dialogue that helps our heroes but he's another superfluous and groan-worthy distraction in the film.

So much of this movie is superfluous in fact. Sam's roomate Leo, played by Ramon Rodriguez, comes along for the ride for comic relief and adds nothing (not laughs nor pathos). There are multiple shots of Sam's two dogs humping each other because that's funny I guess. There's a long scene in Sam's Astronomy class featuring Rainn Wilson (from the Office) that is just completely useless. You get my point. But it's not that this movie was a good editor away from being acceptable. It gets worse.

There are two robot characters in this film that have to be seen to be believed. Maybe you've read about them. Their names are Skids and Mudflap and while they're not in black-face they come damn close. They're design is somewhat ape-like, one has a gold tooth prominently featured (for no practical reason), they talk in stereotypical "street" talk (as written by two white guys), brag about being illiterate, and are just kind of jaw-droppingly...wrong. Look, can I say that the two characters were out-and-out racist? Well, I'm not really in a position to judge that. Not only that but there is an argument that could be made against the idea that the characters are racist. One could say that I'm projecting my own thoughts on the characters and that the two robots aren't supposed to be "black" but just "generic street-thug": White, Hispanic, Asian, whatever - any kind of person who enjoys calling people "bitch-ass", picking fights, and revels in being ignorant. Well to that I'd say that perpetuating a stereotype commonly associated with people of a certain race then claiming that the problem is with how people are perceiving that stereotype is a very weak defense. All I know is that these two characters made me very uncomfortable and the writers of the film felt the same.

Michael Bay was of course the director of this film (he did the first one too) and you get all the Bay-isms one has come to expect in his film. Amazingly hot ladies who never have a hair out of place, awesome military dudes doing awesome things in awesome machines (seriously, why didn't he just direct G.I. Joe?), lots of things blowing up, lots of famous buildings falling down, etc. I actually like Michael Bay. I think there is a place for him in cinema. The Rock and Bad Boys 2 are two of my favorite action movies (The Rock because it's just a really tight and solid film and Bad Boys 2 because it's so charmingly over-the-top). With the first Transformers I actually enjoyed the set-up and the comedy (though it was often groan-worthy) but couldn't follow the action at all. It looked like it was choreographed by children banging action figures together. There was no way to identify the good robots from the bad and Bay focused way too much on the human perspective of the action rather than actually showing what the audience wanted to see. I remember wondering how Michael Bay had made a movie about Robots Fighting in which the best scenes had nothing to do with robots fighting.

Well Bay kinda reverses that with the sequel as the best scenes are now all the action scenes while everything else is embarrassing. The action is much clearer this time out but you still have too many robots, who all look too similar, just kinda rolling on and around each other. The standout scene is a big fight between the main robot hero Optimus Prime and two (or three? Who knows?) Decepticons that occurs in a forest near Princeton. It's a solid "rock-em sock-em" fight scene but it's also incredibly hard to get too invested in cgi robots repeatedly punching each other. Without a lot of variety or consequence to the action scenes I found I just didn't get too excited for them. The last action scene, which lasts around 50 minutes I'd guess, is shockingly dull. Am I kind of saying that Bay can't win for me with this franchise? ...Kind of. But it didn't need to be this bad.

I led off this review by saying "I hate America". Well I hate America because my packed theater last night was laughing at whatever Step-Bot and Fetchit-Tron said and did. I hate how this quintessentially American film portrays France, immigrants, the government, college, etc. And I hate that this film is a gigantic hit (though it I predict it will have a big drop next weekend) and that most of America (Yes, and England, Japan, etc.) will forgive this movie its sins because it's just a robot action movie. Normally I'd agree with this thinking: not every movie needs to be, or should be, a film like Schindler's List. Nor does every action movie need to be as oppressively serious as The Dark Knight; I loved Taken more than any other movie this year so far. Yet, we should demand more of our pop entertainment than Transformers: Rise of the Fallen. Yeah, this movie is just a big toy commercial but does it have to be such a stinking pile of crap? Do we have to have John Turturro talking about a robot's "scrotum" while the Decipticon's giant metal testicles swing around?

Don't see this movie. Don't listen to someone who says "Well if you're gonna see it you have to see it on the big screen". Just don't see it. It's like the first one but much more retarded, exasperating, and forgettable. I went in expecting to dislike the film but I'm surprised at how much I hate it.

Grade: D+

Best Scene: That Forest fight I guess...or just the hot girls in the film in general...I dunno. It really stunk.

Henry Saw: Half of Year One

I made it a whole 45 minutes!


This is a limp, sad, boring, stupid, choppy, irritating, predictable, cliche-ridden, fart stain of movie that has not one redeeming quality (I went those painful 45 minutes without even smirking once) and is just a huge turd. This isn't historically bad but it's certainly the worst film of the summer this far. Both Jack Black and Michael Cera need to be shot to the moon or shot in the head. Their shtick is incredibly played out and the combination of the two was just more than I could handle. I'd hate this movie but it wasn't even enough of a movie to feel passionately about. It was just a series of random skits that were the opposite of funny. The worst thing about a really bad comedy is that there is nothing funny about them. A bad drama or action movie you can sometimes laugh at the film; a bad comedy is just awkward and infuriating. I could go on but I don't have the time or desire to continue to tell you not to see this movie. Instead, I will quote a smart man who was in the theater when I saw V For Vendetta with two friends. This wise fellow stood up as the credits rolled on V For Vendetta, another terrible film, and yelled loudly:

"BOO, BOO, BOO"

Indeed. Boo Year One. Boo, Boo, Boo.

Grade: D-

Best Scene: Not Applicable

Oscar Expands Best Picture Nominees to 10

Wow...I'm kinda surprised.


Full story here at Variety.com

You may or may not know that until 1944 the Academy would nominate 10 films in the Best Picture category. So this isn't entirely new...but it is pretty surprising. The thing my brain immediately leaps to is that this is in reaction to The Dark Knight not getting nominated but it obviously has more behind it than that.

Look, now an additional 5 films get to market themselves as being "NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE" which will help them at the box office in the early months of the new year. This could also spike ratings for the broadcast of the Academy Awards as more people will have a dog in the fight (do you know how many nerds would have tuned in last year if there was the slight chance The Dark Knight could win Best Picture?). Finally, it will just generate more business in general...more adds in magazines, on T.V., etc.

I am not sure how I feel about it yet. My first reaction is slightly negative...just feels like too much. Is it nice that Pixar's Up will now get nominated for Best Picture instead of just winning the Best Animated Film award (though it will still win that)? Yeah, it's nice. It's good that more quality films will get recognition and attention, but maybe I just don't like change because I am not a big fan of this move. Still, it's interesting, and because my favorite film of last year Let the Right One In is actually eligible for the awards this year for some reason...I'll admit I have my fingers crossed.

Henry Saw: The Taking of Pelham 123

An okay thriller but nothing remarkable...


So Tony Scott's new film The Taking of Pelham 123 is actually a little better than I thought it would be. John Travolta is usually movie poison and Denzel Washington has not been a guarantee that a movie will be good for the last half dozen years (John Q, Deja Vu, Out of Time, The Manchurian Candidate, were all varying degrees of lame). As for Tony Scott, he's very hit or miss, and his last few films were big whiffs. Both Domino and Deja Vu were very weak (Domino being the worse of two) and his "extreme" style, which helped make Man On Fire a bizarre, awesome, fever-induced dream of an action movie only made Domino and Deja Vu headache inducing.

So I was a bit worried that Pelham 123 would be a bit of a disaster. It's not, in fact it is perfectly watchable, but it is also quite forgettable. It's a remake of a film from the 1970's that I haven't seen but from all accounts is a very different kind of movie. Where the 70's version is quite gritty and a clear case of good versus evil (Walter Matthieu starred as the hero and Robert Shaw was the hijacker) played out in grimy 70's New York, the updated 2000's verison adds moral ambiguity to the main characters, a subplot about the New York Mayor, stock market manipulation, and of course, Scott adds action, jump cuts, and a modern slickness to the whole proceeding.

The basic plot is similar in both films: Some armed gunman hijack a New York Subway car and demand a large sum of money (in the 1970's it was 1 Million dollars, now it's 10 Million). Someone back at the dispatch offices gets stuck talking to the head of the hijackers and having to negotiate with him. That's the basic hook of the film.

This means that the key moments in the film are when John Travolta and Denzel Washington talk to each other, find out what they can about one another, and try to relate to each other despite the wild circumstances of their "meeting". And these scenes are actually pretty strong. Travolta, who is playing it over-the-top, still manages to not be too annoying; and Denzel does yeoman work as the dispatcher put in a very hard position.

The rest of the film, however, is not nearly as compelling as these all too brief scenes between Travolta and Washington. The actual taking of the subway by Travolta and his men (including Luis Guzman for some reason) is not exciting in the least. Also dull are multiple shots of ransom money being ferreted around the city and everything having to do with James Gandolfini's Mayoral turn. Scott's hyper-kinetic, quick-cutting, ultra closeup, style is actually scaled back a bit here but Scott does nothing in real service of the story. He tells the story just fine but doesn't add to it in any way.

The leads are also flawed in their roles in some ways. As I said, Travolta manages to not be too annoying but he's also not exactly an all time great villain here. Travolta talks loudly, drops a lot of F-Bombs and seems to be having fun with the role but we are never totally with or against him. He never forces us see things his way or root against him...he's just kind of a stock caricature of the "crazy and fun" villain. Do I respect the film for letting him actually shoot some people and make good on threats? Yeah, I do, but the script lets Travolta down a bit (I can't believe I just wrote that). The only problem with Denzel Washington is that he's Denzel Washington and so I never really bought him as just an average Joe, which is the point of his role (Look! He poured coffee all over himself! He's just like me!) and he also doesn't sell the action beat his character gets towards the end of the film.

All in all this is a painless 100 minutes of movie watching. It's certainly a step up from Scott and Washington's last effort together (Deja Vu) and Travolta manages to not make me squirm at his terribleness...but there's nothing special here. It is a movie you forget about the minute the credits start rolling and you won't remember it until it pops up on Starz in 20 months. It's fine, it's just that there are better things to see right now, and this will play just fine on an airplane...

Grade: B-

Best Scene: When Travolta demands for Washington's character to get back on the phone.

Random thoughts on the Best Original Song Oscar (The 1990's)

Let's keep this going. We start with 1991...



Here's the complete list of the winners and nominees for the 1990s

1991 was a big year for Disney (which will be a bit of a theme this decade). Beauty and the Beast (one of the most overrated Disney flicks) got three nominations (all by Menken and Ashman) and the title track won the Oscar:



If something had to win from Beauty and the Beast (not that the other two nominees were any good) than it should have been "Be Our Guest":



Which is a better song, better scene, and performed by Lenny Briscoe.

Also nominated that year was the immortal Bryan Adams for "(Everything I Do) I Do for You". I will not post the video to that P.O.S. but thought I'd mention it.

1992 was another Disney year with Aladdin being the prize pony this time. Two songs were nominated and, again, the wrong one won. "A Whole New World" by Menken and Tim Rice won but "Friend Like Me" by Menkin and Ashman should have got it:



Also nominated were two songs from The Bodyguard. "I Will Always Love You" was not nominated as it was written by Dolly Parton many years earlier. "Run to You" and "I Have Nothing" were the two losers:



Could be worse but Aladdin was an easy choice here.

In 1993 Disney and happiness took a vacation which allowed AIDS to win the day:



That was "Streets of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen. Definitely the best song of the year and a very solid movie song. Depressing, but very good.

But in 1994 Disney was back at it with three nominations for The Lion King all by Elton John and Tim Rice. And, yet again, the worst song won. "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" took it home when both "Circle of Life" and "Hakuna Matata" were better songs.



But if it can be played on Lite FM then it wins the Oscar (just like "Beauty and the Beast" and "A Whole New World"). The other nominees from the movies Junior and The Paper aren't even worth mentioning.

1995 had two different Disney movies get nominations (if you count Toy Story) with "Colors of the Wind" from the crappy Pocahontas winning over Toy Story's "You've Got a Friend in Me" by Randy Newman.



I like how he can apparently understand her instantly in this movie...



Also nominated was the depressing (again) Springsteen song "Dead Man Walking" and the Bryan Adams led catastrophe "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" All these songs are kinda weak but I guess I wish Randy Newman had won as he'd already lost the award three times, his song is the most tolerable, and it's from the best movie.

1996 is another year in which the Academy got it wrong. Shamefully, but not surprisingly, "You Must Love Me" from Evita (written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and sung by Madonna) won when the better choice would have been "That Thing You Do!" from...That Thing You Do!



Such garbage. Long, painful, garbage.



Overplayed in the movie (inevitably) but a great imitation of the pop songs of the 1960's while also being pretty solid in its own right.

1997 featured a song we all wish we had never heard but will never forget:


Yes, "My Heart Will Go On" won the Oscar but at least it didn't beat anything too grand. Music snobs were probably rooting for Elliot Smith's "Miss Misery" from Good Will Hunting:


Which is a much better song...but nothing too memorable. Also nominated that year was a pretty weak effort called "Go The Distence" from Disney's Hercules and "How Do I live" from the classic film Con Air which probably would have won if not for the Titanic juggernaut.


1998 has one song I've ever heard of and I'm shocked it didn't win. Aerosmith's hit single "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from Armageddon somehow lost to "When You Believe" from The Prince of Egypt.



Lost to



It's not that I think "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" is a great song...but it's better than "When You Believe". And I'm just surprised they didn't give it to the song that was a far bigger hit.

Disney made a comeback in 1999 as Tarzan's "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins won the Oscar:


Disney also got a nomination for one of my most hated movie songs of all time - a song and scene so insipid that my dad and I walked out of the film while the song was playing - "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2:



But the Academy got it all wrong in 1999. No Disney film deserved the Oscar that year. No, there was another animated musical in 1999 that deserved it two times over. One of its songs was nominated, which was surprising given that the movie in question was South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, and that nomination was for the song "Blame Canada":


But everyone who has seen the film knows the best Original Song in a film that year was unquestionably "Uncle Fucker":


Sigh...


Finally, in 2000, we have five songs that I'd never heard. The winner was Bob Dylan for his song from Wonder Boys "Things Have Changed"



...I've heard worse.

Also nominated was Bjork for "I've Seen it All" from Dancer in the Dark:


I don't like Bjork.


Well that does it for the 1990's. I'll conclude this look at the winners of the Original Song Oscar by going through the films of the current decade soon.

Random thoughts on the Best Original Song Oscar (The 1980's)

Continuing my look back at Best Song winners at the Oscars...we're up to 1981



Here's the complete list of winners and nominees for the 1980s

In 1981 "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager (who wrote "Nobody Does it Better") and performed by Christopher Cross.



It beat "Endless Love" by Lionel Richie:


and "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton:


Maybe nothing should have won in 1981...cause those are all pretty bad.


1982 is only slightly better with the way over the top "Up Where We Belong" as performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes (her again) from An Officer and a Gentlemen won.


Ugh...

Somehow that beat "Eye of the Tiger" (performed by Survivor). Not the best song but certainly better than that nonsense:



In 1983 they got the movie right but gave it to the wrong song. The good news is that one of the two songs from Flashdance beat the two songs from Yentl. The bad news is they gave it to "Flashdance...What a Feeling" over "Maniac". You be the judge:



or



I think it's Maniac easily.


1984 had Stevie Wonder winning "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from The Woman in Red. It's a bad song that actively damages Stevie Wonder's amazing career in my mind. The four songs it beat are all well known. One of the losers was the equally crappy "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" by Phil Collins from Against All odds. Two of the songs are the Kenny Loggins "greats" from Footloose including the title track:



But now we get to the greatest disaster in Oscar history outside of Crash winning Best Picture. Something that makes just no sense...

This somehow didn't win best Original Song:



Now I guess the problem was that some people thought it wasn't totally "original" and that it took the music from "I Want a New Drug" by Huey Lewis. Well Huey Lewis and The Academy of Motion Pictures can both go **** themselves because "Ghostbusters" is unquestionably the most fun movie song of all time and it's just a joke it didn't win the Oscar.

By the way...also released in 1984 was a little movie called Purple Rain...man the Academy just really sucked that year.

1985 was a weak year. "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie from White Nights won:


"Seperate Lives" by Stephen Bishop was also nominated from White Nights.

Both songs stink but there wasn't really a better option. Many people would probably argue that "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and featured in Back to the Future should have won but, as I said, Huey Lewis can go **** himself:



Sappiness won the day in 1986 as "Take My Breath Away" (performed by Berlin) won the Oscar for Top Gun:



None of the other nominees stand out but I've always had a soft spot for "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail:



But the best song from that film, and what should have won the Oscar that year, is this gem:

.

I'm kinda serious.


In 1987, predictably, "I've Had the Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing and recorded by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes (again) won:



But...somehow...that might actually be the best song nominated from that year. Which is scary.

1988 only had three nominees and the winner was Working Girl's "Let the River Run" by Carly Simon:


Bleh. That's awful.

Somehow that makes Phil Collins' "Two Hearts" from Buster seem good:




1989 had two great songs nominated for Best Song and they were both from the same movie.



and



Both songs were by the team of Menkin and Ashman. "Under the Sea" won the award but I've always preferred "Kiss the Girl".

Finally, 1990's winner was "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" from Dick Tracy, written by Musical guy Stephen Sondheim, and performed by Madonna in the film.



Not the best song every but nothing else nominated that year was particularly good and with that pairing it's hardly surprising that it won.

Well that's it for the 1980's...definitely a better decade for movie songs than the 1970's. The Best being Ghostbusters and Kiss the Girl. Will anything from the 1990's compare? Probably not but check back here soon to see...

Ben Saw: Drag Me to Hell

After a long work/exam/laziness/'vision quest in to the Himalayas' hiatus, I'm back with a review of Drag Me to Hell, Sam Raimi's just-because-he-can love letter to the B-movie horror flicks that defined his early career. Can I avoid the excessively lengthy essays that have been my earliest contributions to the site? Find out after the jump.



Drag Me to Hell (we'll call it Drag from here, but for brevity's sake, not John Waters') is a movie that that might as well have its director's signature on every piece of celluloid. For those familiar with his work, the whole movie just SCREAMS Raimi (especially Evil Dead 1 & 2) although the whole thing is carried off with a bit more restraint. The plot itself is a piffle, serving only as an excuse to get a warm body introduced to its supernatural tormentor. The warm body du jour is Christine Brown, Loan Officer, (played by Alison Lohman) who is cursed by an old gypsy after she denies said hag another extension on her loan. The gypsy flips out, attacks Christine in the parking lot and then curses her. The curse in question is what the titular 'dragging' refers to as Christine now has 3 days of increasingly frightening harassment by an evil spirit (the Lamia) before she is taken (*cough* dragged *cough*) to hell. Christine, understandably, wants to avoid this fate and enlists the help of a spiritual medium to deter or defeat the Lamia. This is really all the plot strictly requires as the whole movie is an escalating cycle of scares and Christine's efforts to beat fate. Sure, she has a bland boyfriend played by the always bland Justin Long with less bland charmlessness than I expected, so he's unobjectionable and borders on likeable despite my expectations, and there's a subplot with her coworkers and there's a character from the (very fun) intro that should have obvious relevance to anyone that's seen a horror movie before but none of these characters are really necessary, they're just there to provide a bit more character definition and drama as we hurtle towards answering the only relevant question: does Christine escape the Lamia?

I'm being flip and I think that's appropriate. As a concept, Drag is derivative. As a script, Drag is dumb. As a vehicle for acting, Drag is underwhelming. Drag's great accomplishment, and what keeps it from being tired and boring, is that the directing, editing and visual effects tie it all together in to a suitably silly B-movie that manages to be genuinely scary (although I am a wuss) while being refreshingly light-heared and funny. This can't be too much of a surprise, as the movie is basically the the Twinkie cake of The Ring injected with the wonderfully, non-nutritious cream filling of Evil Dead 2, one of the movies that Raimi cut his teeth on. As a result, we have the ominious curses, jump scares and creepy imagery we'd expect out of supernatural horror, but we also have slapstick violence, malicious inanimate objects (the world's most threaten handkerchief that's a clear headnod to the flying book in Army of Darkness) and the inevitable appearance of The Classic, the Oldsmobile that Raimi has put in every one of his major motion pictures to date. It's limited, but it all works pretty splendidly as the movie does a genuinely impressive job of never letting you feel safe while giving you plenty to giggle over. The best example of the silly/scary tightrope being walked is a scene later in the movie with a goat. As soon as the seen is set you should know exactly where it's going but I was still laughing and cringing with the appropriate beats. The movie's great fun and it's only the aforementioned acting and writing limitations that keep it from getting a higher grade (even though better acting might have been counter-productive).

The Raimi touches feel like visits from an old friend. The camerawork has his fingerprints all over it, with the best example being the 'attack' shots; whether a murderous creature is a malicious spirit or the homicidal metal arm of Dr. Octopus, Raimi's go-to shot is a hyperactive creature-POV on a tilt. Raimi brings it to the point of (amusing) absurdity in this movie by employing a tilt seemingly any time a scare was coming. If this doesn't work for you then don't see Drag since something like 20% of the damn movie is done with this technique. The practical effects are a logical extension of the look and feel of what his team was doing on Army of Darkness (the cake and the posession both come to mind) and the demented escalation of 'horrible things' is very much in keeping with the Raimi style of horror. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, apparently the movie was originally written in '92 just after Raimi had finished Army, but every few minutes I was reminded of who was directing Drag. Occasionally this would misfire, Lohman paying homage to Bruce Campbell comes to mind, but it was mostly to the good. Speaking of Bruce, where was he? IMDB says that he had a conflict with Burn Notice (one of the few shows I follow because it's a fun MacGyver retread), but Bruce's absence was felt. He really couldn't have done a small cameo?

Clearly, I'm squarely in the 'Raimi fan' camp so I'm naturely inclined to like his style, but the movie isn't simply a love letter to his own appproach. Yes, his motifs are all over the place, but I don't think they usually take away from the movie. Frankly, if you don't know his work then I doubt they'll stand out too much but, more importantly, Drag is recognizably in the 'supernatural horror' sub-genre along with classics major and minor like The Exorcist and The Ring (while being not nearly as scary or smart as those two movies) and the scares and plots developments stay true to that family of movies. Going through the Raimi filter has washed the sub-genre in camp and an anarchic sense of fun, but this is not just Evil Dead meets the suburbs. The fact that this movie worked well for me and that Raimi's still 'got it' leads me to believe even more that Spider-Man 3 was screwed up despite Raimi as opposed to because of him, but that's another rant for another day.......

I enjoyed Drag despite not really being a horror stalwart, so the fact that it seems on track to be a commercial flop is a shame. Too much of recent horror seems to be either a hack-level J-Horror remake (ahoy Dark Water!), a damnably lazy remake of a horror classic (I have you in mind The Hills Have Eyes) or a creepily excited head-nod to 70's era exploitation flicks (Saw 2 through 73 being the obvious examples). Drag is pretty stupid, but it's still a lot smarter (and fresher) than those uninspired pieces of garbage I just mentioned. I would be especially glad to see a more psychological kind of horror replace the sadism and cruelty that seems to be today's horror's recent stock-in-trade. As with everything in life, there's all kinds of ways to enjoy movies but I will be glad when the movie industry has again banished that particularly breed of movie-watching degenerate back to dark bedrooms covered in autopsy photos as opposed to sitting next to me breathing heavily any time it looks like there might be another lovingly crafted disembowelment. Call me a wuss, but high levels of realistic gore and a gleefully pornographic excitement over a victim's pain just isn't my idea of a fun time at the movies. Drag, on the other hand, is. So go see it to pump up its box office. You'll almost certainly have better movie-going experiences this year, but if you can tolerate some gross-outs and a lot of jarring jump scares then Drag should be among the most fun.

Grade: B+

Best Scene: The goat is a great deal of fun, but I'm going to have to say the moment that Lohman (*ahem*) urgently searches for her pet cat is better handled while making me laugh a lot.

Random thoughts on the Best Original Song Oscar (The 1970's)

Just watched the film Once for the first time, really sweet little movie, and it made me think about songs from movies that have won (or not won) the Oscar.



I'll start with the 1970's because outside of a few things here and there in the 1960's like "Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head" and "Talk to the Animals" (which somehow beat "The Bear Necessities"...) there aren't that many from the 60's I recognize.

(Here's the complete list of winners and nominees for the 1970's)


In the 1971 the Theme from Shaft won which is awesome that the Academy was cool enough to give it to Isaac Hayes. This very well might be the best movie song of all time (not the best song in a movie but just the most bad-ass, apropos, movie song ever).




In 1972 "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adeventure won...I've never heard of it.



And now I know why I've never heard of it.


In 1973 "The Way we Were" (by Barbara Streisand) beat "Live and Let Die" (by Wings). This is a joke. "Live and Let Die" is one of about four good things Paul McCartney did after the Beatles. It's a great Bond song (probably the best in fact) and there's no way it should have lost.





In 1974 "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno won. And it is a major turd:



Everything from 1974 stunk though...even this Mel Brooks' song for Blazing Saddles which is a nice riff on the classic Movie Western Song but also isn't...funny.



In 1975 "I'm Easy" by Keith Carradine from Nashville won and it is everything I dislike about John Denver-esque 70's schmaltz:



1976 has our next great highway robbery. "Evergreen", the theme from A Star is Born, another Streisand song, beat "Ave Satani" from The Omen:



Which song do you think gets played and referenced more today?


Another Bond movie was robbed in 1977 when "You Light Up My Life" by Joseph Brooks beat "Nobody Does it Better" (recorded by Carly Simon). Here's Radiohead covering the theme from "The Spy Who Loved Me":




I was surprised not to see The Beegee's hits from Saturday Night Fever be nominated but learned that all five songs were written for a regular album before the Beegee's became associated with the Disco film.

Speaking of disco, 1978 has the first genuine dance hit we've seen as "Last Dance" (performed by Donna Summer) from Thank God It's Friday won. It beat "Hopelessly Devoted to You" from Grease. Here's a silly video of "Last Dance":



I've never heard of 1979's winner "It Goes Like it Goes" from Norma Rae and performed by Jennifer Warnes. The only nomiee I've heard of from 1978 is "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie. Here's Kermit and Debbie Harry dropping a little duet on you:



...I'm not sure anything deserved to win that year.


Finally, 1980 is just ugly for the Academy. "Fame" from Fame won. Theoretically this is both predictable and just another generic bad song that won the Oscar. But it beat two solid songs: "Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton (not a great song mind you but pretty decent) and, AND, "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson from Honeysuckle Rose:



That's a real miss by the Oscars...


That's it for the 1970's. I'll post my thoughts on the 1980's soon...

Scene of the Day: The International

Thank god for Youtube.

I had kind of wanted to see The International just for this scene. I'd heard the movie was pretty damn bad (and boring) but had this one standout scene. This saves me some time and money. Enjoy:

Henry Saw: The Hangover

Three! Three good summer movies in a row! Ah, ha, ha!


A few quick words on the funniest movie of the year thus far...

The Hangover is exactly what it looks like: A crass and foul-minded comedy with an incredibly strong starting concept. If you've seen the trailers you know the basic plot is that three guys wake up in a Las Vegas hotel suite after having gone out on a crazy bachelor party only to find their hotel room is a complete mess, there's a tiger in the bathroom, a crying baby in the closet, and the groom-to-be is missing. It's a great idea that leads to a pretty damn funny film.

The three main characters who spend most of the film searching for the would be groom are: Phil (Bradley Cooper) - a good-looking school teacher who is the defacto leader of the small group. While Cooper is arguably the most famous person in the movie (actually that's not very arguable) he's actually given the fewest funny lines. He's pretty much the straight man throughout, using his frat-boy charm to win the audience over, rather than mad cap antics or dialogue.

He leaves that to his two costars. Ed Helms (who kind of resembles a grown up McLovin from Superbad) plays Stu, a dentist, who is desperate to keep his overbearing wife from finding out he went to Vegas and not on a wine tasting tour. The supposed breakout star of The Hangover is Zach Galifianakis who plays Alan. Alan is the groom's fiance's brother (so the grooms soon to be brother in law). He's a very quirky, immature, and troubled guy who is very appreciative to be invited on this dude's weekend. Galifianakis is given the most humorous material as he bonds immediately with the baby, carries a man purse (which he calls a satchel), and has many throw away lines that made me laugh.

But the highlights of The Hangover are not the characters, or even their interactions (though some of that is very funny), it's the situations they find themselves in as they try to piece together what they did the night before. Encounters with Mike Tyson, a bitter police officer, and a naked Asian man in a car's trunk are the kind of thing that really made The Hangover work.

There's not really much more to say except that, looking ahead to the comedies coming out this summer, it's very possible this is going to be the best comedy of the summer. That would be okay, as The Hangover is a really solid comedy, but also a little disappointing as it's not quite as good as Forgetting Sarah Marshall or the aforementioned Superbad. Yet The Hangover does what every good comedy should do - leaves you smiling as you exit the theater - and talking about how funny some of the stuff in the movie was.

Grade: B+

Best Scene: When we find out why the Asian man was put in the trunk...it's a "blink and you'll miss it" line but it is still making me laugh thinking about it now.

Henry Saw: Star Trek

Two solid movies in a row...it's a 2009 summer movie season miracle!


Finally caught up with seeing Star Trek and I'll admit I'm impressed.

I'm the very opposite of a "Trekkie". I knew almost nothing about Star Trek going into this film. What I did know about Star Trek I didn't care for. I'd only seen two Star Trek films in my life: Star Trek VI with my dad, Ben, and Ben's father and that was a really bad movie and I slept through a lot of it. I also have seen Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, which is widely considered the best Trek movie but I find it incredibly overrated. It's dull, silly, and is probably only worth watching if you like/love the original show and cast. Or if you like Shatner making ridiculous faces and screaming:



Anyway, I wasn't too hopeful for the new Star Trek. I think J.J. Abrams (the man behind Alias, Lost, Cloverfield, and Mission Impossible 3) is a very talented guy but I wasn't sure he could pull off a big space epic. Well he did, and he did so in a very impressive way.

Star Trek is the most fun movie of the summer thus far. I've heard it compared to last year's Iron Man, and while that's stretching it a bit, it gives you an idea of what Star Trek is like. Like Iron Man, Star Trek is bright, shiny, fast-paced, witty, trusting of its audience, and under two hours. Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are to be saying this, but Star Trek is just a great time at the movies.

The first smart thing Abrams and his screenwriters did was they decided to "reboot" the franchise. This movie is basically an origin story for the characters we've all heard of (Kirk, Spock, etc.) but through a story device, a very clever one I might add, this isn't the history of the characters the way Trekkies know them. Something happens that rewrites history so that all the baggage that might have been carried in from the original series and films is not there. This reboot also allows for this prequel (of sorts) to still have risk for the characters. When watching the Star Wars prequels you knew Obi Wan was never at risk because he had to grow up to become Alex Guinness. By restarting the franchise, while also still allowing for all the prior stories to have occurred (so that Trek nerds wouldn't bitch), the makers of Star Trek were able to make us believe that anything could happen to the characters in this new time line.

So Star Trek is a movie you can watch and enjoy even if you know nothing about the Star Trek universe. Everything you need to know is up on the screen. The film does throw in some things we all know about the original series ("I've given her all she's got captain!", "Live Long and Prosper", etc.) but they don't feel forced and are more amusing than annoying.

The cast is charming if all a bit on the bland side. Chris Pine, the new Captain Kirk, is a cocky and charming lead but really nothing more than a Frat Boy playing space-man. The best acting comes from Zachary Quinto who plays Spock. He does the whole dual-nature thing very well (Spock is half "logical" Vulcan and half "emotional" human) and makes Spock a compelling character as opposed to Leonard Nemoy's creation which always seemed kind of dull. The rest of the cast, Zoe Saldana (the girl from Drumline) as Uhura, Karl Urban (from Bourne Supremacy) as Bones, John Cho (Harold from the "and Kumar" movies) as Sulu, and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) as Scotty are all fun and manage to avoid doing flat imitations (which would have played like parodies) of the original cast.

If there's a weakness in the cast, and it's not really his fault, it is Eric Bana as the main villain Nero. The reason I don't blame him is that the role just sucks. Nero is not interesting or menacing and a giant chunk of his character arc makes zero sense. To fully enjoy the film you have to be able to just shrug off the nonsensical actions of the villain and just go with it. Bizarrely, Winona Ryder shows up in the film as Spock's mom. It's weird and jarring but also kinda cool, and it was nice to see her in a movie again. She's perfectly fine in the 3 minutes of screen time she's given.

What really makes Star Trek work is that the film's "big scenes" are very well executed while also having enough sharp dialogue in the "small scenes" to not bore the audience. The special effects on this movie are really strong. Compared to Wolverine, for instance, the effects in Trek are dazzling. There is one scene in the film where three of the heroes have to "space jump" from their ship in orbit onto the villains' ship which is hovering in Vulcan's atmosphere (imagine Sky Diving but jumping from a space ship instead of a plane) and it looked incredible and led to an exciting dynamic scene.

I fully recommend Star Trek. Now, I acknowledge that it might just not be for you. I can't tell you that Star Trek is now a "cool" franchise... it's still Star Trek. All I can say is that this Star Trek film, with this fresh start,this young cast, and this kind of action film making, is a really solid summer movie. It's eminently watchable and the most fun "space" movie we've had in a really long time (this just crushes the three Star Wars prequels for instance). So, again, I understand if you just won't go see a Star Trek movie on principle, but take it from me, if you skip this one you will definitely be missing out.

Grade: A-

Best Scene: The Space Jump