I saw this movie right...

Ramblings Post #36
There are things probably best left unsaid. I mean there are certain things when you say them that cast a certain light upon you now and forevermore. Like, admitting you're scared of ballerinas. It might be because your older sister used to beat you up after ballet practice, but if you don't explain yourself, the first admission is probably better off a secret. So what does that have to do with this post? Nothing. Just thought I'd say that.

This is a movie rant. I have to get a few things off my chest.

First, I have a bad movie habit.

This weekend, on one of the pay movie channels, I watched Tropic Thunder. For the first time. Ever.

Now, this is interesting because I already have a copy of Tropic Thunder that I have never watched. I had thought about going to see it, but the only movies I'd been to in the past five years had been with Sporty, so I gave it a pass, even though I'd heard it was hilarious. Some months later walking through Blockbuster, I spotted the movie on a rack and decided to buy a copy because I'd never gone to go see it, but the film was supposed to be hilarious. Needless to say having paid for it, I couldn't find time to watch it until it came on TV while I wasn't paying attention.

And it was Hilarious.

And I can think of at least two or three other movies I've purchased and never watched. Okay, I watched the first half of Pineapple Express, but I can't think of another film that I've paid for and watched. I will eventually one day, but I think I did the same with "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins", "First Sunday", "Superbad" and "Smoking Aces", and I still have "Cloverfield", "The Dark Knight" and two or three others to go. All purchased, all never watched.

Why do I do that?

Sidenote: I don't normally like Tom Cruise. He is where Nic Cage appears to be headed film selection-wise: All his characters are heroes, or at worst badly written anti-heroes, and dimensionally as flat as they come. It's as though half of male Hollywood is all caught up in the Gary Cooper syndrome. But Tom Cruises performance as the ruthless studio head Les Grossman was inspired. You almost want his character to pop up in something else just so you can enjoy his scenery chewing performance.

Second, how exactly does the Academy pick the the Oscars?

I mean, the Oscar winners are for the most part, pretentious bullshit. How hard is it play the roles they pick for winners? No period drama should ever win again, and biopics of people alive in the last 25 years are self serving message movies not fit for viewing in most cases (I might own Milk, I dunno. It wouldn't matter, because I have not watched it). Playing someone, i.e., mimicking their mannerisms and cadences is hokey - see: Ali with Will Smith, whereas inhabiting them as a consciousness is harder - see Frost/Nixon.

But building a character from scratch? Wouldn't that be harder than simply trying to nail down an existing person? I mean you know when you've got a live character down, a made up one should be harder. How would you know when you're done?

I bring this up because in Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey Jr playing supreme method actor Kirk Lazurus remains in character at all times as the black Lincoln Osirus, in part playing as Samuel Jackson and convincingly...how is that not Oscar-Worthy? And the afore mentioned Tom Cruise, playing so far against type he might have run over himself coming back around.

What won last year? Okay, wait, I haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire either...so maybe it was better, but why does the Academy think comedy is easy? When is the last time a comedy won Best Picture?

Barkeep, I intend to shoot a movie one day, give me something to shut me up!