Oscar Predictions

It's Oscar weekend and I thought I'd let you know what I think is going to win, what should win, and what you assholes should consider viewing at some point in your life.

First, I'll start out by reflecting on last year's Academy Awards, in which they doubled the nominations for best Picture, from 5, to 10. This coming because they snubbed the dickens out of The Dark Knight in 2009 by nominating stupid movies like The Reader and The Curious Case of Benjamin Fuckface. Now I think that it's good that the Academy recognized their lunacy in not including The Dark Knight in the nominations for Best Picture, BUT I think it's even stupider to have 10 nominations. Movies like The Hurt Locker are up against, Up, which don't get me wrong, I bawled my eyes out like a girly man during, but shouldn't be in the same category because they have no chance of winning.

That being said I was very pleased with the winners last year and felt that the Academy got it right. The low budget tough as nails The Hurt Locker outmanned the highest grossing film of all time, Dances With Wolves II: The Destruction of Hometree. While Avatar didn't fail to titillate (haha tit) it's audience with breathtaking imagery caused by new groundbreaking 3D technology and special effects, it was a story that wasn't only cheesy, but was at the same time overplayed. At first glance everyone was captivated by the tall blue people and thought it was cool that they were speaking in some dumb made up language, but at the end of the day it was just Pocahontas with blue people fornication. The Hurt Locker was clearly the superior film and to the few that saw it, they knew it to be the correct one.

Now on to this year.

I've seen 9 out of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture at this years Oscars and they are all great films. The only one I haven't seen is The Kids Are Alright which isn't because I'm a homophobe, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Even though all films stand in their own right as a great movie, there are two clear favorites that are in a duel for best picture, The King's Speech, and The Social Network. I don't think any other film out of the lot stands a chance at toping either of these and this is why.

The King's Speech is an absolutely wonderful film that hits right on all cylinders. The acting carries the wonderful dialogue and is filled with enriching characters that are joyous to watch. They take what could be arduous and painful, and somehow make it lighthearted and inspiring. It's also taken home a slough of awards already, including the BAFTA (The Limey Oscars) Best Film award which is one of the highest regarded awards.

The Social Network is another film that is perfectly executed. The screenplay by Aaron Sorkin is to die for. Even though Sorkin's dialogue is almost too perfect to be considered realistic, it's like poetry in how well it's written. A lot of that has to do with the way it's performed and the acting brings that out, as well as David Fincher who was the perfect person to put the movie to a screen. It won Best Motion Picture-Drama at the Golden Globes and has received critical acclaim at nearly all award ceremonies this year.

Which will win? My guess is The King's Speech which has picked up momentum ever since The Social Network won at the Golden Globes. Speech is legitimately a better movie all around with acting that over powers most every other movie in the mix. The Social Network has an intangible factor contributing to it's success and that is how culturally relevant a movie about fuckface is. I mean Facebook rather, sorry. Facebook is the world's most widely used website and it is now valued at over 50 billion dollars. A guy, who's under the age of thirty, created a website that is valued at more than 50 billion dollars. That's the thing that makes The Social Network stand on the same level as The King's Speech.

Personally I think Black Swan was the best movie of the year. It was such a haunting movie carried by an incredible performance by Natalie Portman who took it to the next level. It takes all the beauty of ballet and makes them ugly and demented but you can't take your eyes off the screen... Especially when she and Mila Kunis are having their "girl time".

It will be interesting to see which one wins. I feel like either way I guess it's going to be the opposite, but to not pick one would make me a dick, so I'm going to say The Social Network wins just because that's what my gut was telling me at the Globes so maybe it will be that way again.

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech.

Why? He was nominated last year for A Single Man, and many people thought he should've won then. That and he was better than everyone else. Sorry Franco, you can host the Oscars but that doesn't mean you'll win one this year.

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan.

Why? She muff-dove herself in a lesbotronic sex scene that I had no problem with.

Best Supporting Actor: Christain Bale, The Fighter.

Why? I hate method acting but if he had to smoke crack to portray Dickie Eklund then kudos to you, you deserve it. Geoffrey Rush deserves some recognition for his work in The King's Speech as well though.

Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech.

Why? Well this one is a toss up between Melissa Leo for the Fighter and her tenacious portrayal of Micky Ward's mother. Her fighting is much more interesting than Markie Mark's. I just feel that they will give as much to The King's Speech as possible (especially if it doesn't win Best Picture).

Director: Christopher Nolan, Inception.

Wait- Oh yeah they snubbed a nomination for him again this year. Shitheads. It will probably go to Fincher or Hooper though, probably whichever one win's Best Picture.

Cinematography: The King's Speech.

Why? Because they like to suck that movie's dick. Should be Inception because no blockbuster's look anything quite like Nolan's.

Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Why? I just put this "why?" here to not break from convention, but really there's no contest.

Original Screenplay: David Seidler, The King's Speech.

Why? Because the Academy likes to give all the awards to only a few movies. Even though this Award should go to Christopher Nolan for Inception.

Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network.

If he doesn't win, then it's just more affirmation that the world is going to end in 2012.

Original Score: The King's Speech.

Really it should go to Inception or The Social Network because those are the best score's I've heard it years, but I'm willing to bet that I'll be disappointed on this one.

There are a bunch of other Awards that I don't feel like getting to. Basically Inception will win all things that have to do with sound or visual effects. It should win Art Direction too, but it wont because the Academy is dumb with those kinds of awards. If Alice in Wonder-hole wins best Costuming then I hope the Kodak theater collapses into the San Andreas fault in a massive earthquake.

There is one movie that will be overlooked for most of the Awards, and that is Winter's Bone. It's up for a lot of awards but it won't win anything and will be mostly forgotten once the awards season is over and it's sad because it's a truly haunting movie about the crime and underbelly of rural Missouri and about just how awful that can be. John Hawkes performance in it is chilling, and I'm happy he got a nomination for best supporting actor. If anyone could should knock the cracked out Christian Bale off of his best supporting actor throne, it would be him.

Now we'll just have to sit back and see what happens at the Awards tomorrow and hope the Academy get's it right.

But that's probably too much to ask for.

Poster Child: Keyword "Child"

Lately I've noticed that I'm the perfect example of how to live life in College. Skipping class because your work is only half done and you're only half sick makes perfect sense if you know how to do math. Two halves equal one whole: So me not going to class because my throat hurts with a sparse cough and I only completed half my assignments is perfectly logical if you look at it in a mathematical standpoint.

I'm tired on a Wednesday afternoon but I have a lot of work to do. I could either take a nap and then try and do some work, or I could just rough it out and get my work done. Which one do you think I chose? Clearly I invented option three in which I watched a movie to try and fall asleep, which didn't work because I made it all the way to the last few scenes, then I fell asleep for two hours until it was really late and I grew hungry. Then when I could've just eaten at the apartment and gotten my work done. Instead, I went to the bar to get food and watch the Celtics game.

That's what good students do. They invent other scenarios to make sure that they get what they really want. What I really wanted was a surf and turf burger with a red stag Manhattan. Yeah sounds cheap, right? And it sure as hell wasn't so another thing I did was help stimulate the economy.

I also listened in on a sweet and attractive Bartender talk about her sex life with her long term boyfriend. And how the role playing just wasn't doing it for her. And that she doesn't have the sex life of a twenty-two year old anymore and she wishes she did. Being a twenty-two year old I definitely felt good knowing that apparently I have a "good" sex life. I learned that I do from an attractive girl who said she had one at my age so it has to be true. I also took from this that role playing can only go so far in reestablishing sexual connection and that my sex life will be even more non-existant at the age of 24 than it already is.

Say it's a monday and I have a long arduous day at school that seems never ending. I offset it by forgetting my night entirely and waking up in my bed regretting lots of life decisions and choices.

These are the things students need to do to get by. Work must fit in at some point but never let your dream of getting a college education get in the way of playing games like roofi roulette. The things that are acceptable in college wont fly for the rest of your life so just go out and do them.

I'm not saying try heroin, or any other crazy drug that you can easily become addicted to/die from. I'm also not saying go date rape someone, or get date raped because it wont be as easy any other time of your life. I don't support fraternities or Lacrosse teams. Basically just be smartly stupid. Make educated decisions to get fucked up on the reg while still pulling above a 3.0. If you work the nine to five, five days a week when you graduate, I guarantee you there won't be many tequila tuesdays, wine wednesdays, thursty thursdays or no-pants mondays. A solid rule of thumb to live by is, "no pills or powders". But my motto is more like,

"Is that alcohol? No, it was alcohol".

Thank god I want to be a writer or else my dreams of AA meetings and rock bottom would be less achievable.

Unfortunately, there isn't any Pro Wrestling on Wednesdays

I haven't been all to productive lately. Since I've been back at School I've barely written or even thought about writing. I feel like my mind is mush. For some reason I've been kind of "social", which is a concept that is largely foreign to me. I wouldn't say that I'm inept, but rather that I choose to be a social extradite. I'm not sure if that's the correct usage of extradite but I also don't care enough to look the legit definition up.

I guess I want my last semester to be memorable, whereas most of the last year and a half of school has been a blur and mush of self-deprecation and loathing. Finally I've accepted that I'm fucking awesome, and that I don't need to take shit from anyone; let alone myself.

This is a new blog, and as you can see this is my first post, and while the title may not be so pretty, it fits my writing style. I also didn't name it, my flatmate Nick Paradis did, and I couldn't help but keep the name and the layout he presented. For all those of you who don't appreciate an awesome picture of Mel Gibson, you clearly haven't seen Braveheart, and I disagree with your life choices.

On another note-

I lost the life of something very dear to me two days ago. My old trusty macbook pro laptop, circa, 2007. It got my through some tough times and went through a lot. Like my cousin Dan spin kicking it off my desk, or when I rolled my car, and the countless punches I would use on it to jumpstart the hard drive if it was being a bitch. Slipping on ice and landing on my backpack was the straw that broke the camels back. Hopefully I can retrieve the information off of it but it may be no dice.

I've come to decide that the Mac store is a hell that no one should ever have to see. Every second you're in there is as painstaking as staring into the sun, or standing on hot coals. It's just a dreadful place filled with moderately intelligent, not well groomed, ugly tattooed, hipster fuck-sticks. The moment you walk in you're greeted with a fake smile and instead of looking into your eyes and greeting you every employee stares down at the ipad or iphone that populates their hands as they check you in. Of course they don't actually care about your computer problem they just want you to buy as many more apple products as possible.

"Oh your hard drive is acting up? Well maybe if you bought this new useless touchpad mouse, then you can pay 100 dollars to use mobileme to give yourself virtual head, everyone will be happy."

No fuckheads, I want my computer fixed. After tinkering with my computer for a measly two minutes the tight-jean wearing scumbag tells me that there is nothing they can do for me in store, but if I spend nine hundred dollars for a warranty I can send it out for more competent and qualified people to look at and replace the parts that need fixing. The problem can be as simple as they just need to attach a part of the computer a little more snugly, but the only way I can find that out is by sending it out for two weeks after spending half of what it would cost to buy a new computer.

Fuck. That. Noise.

I'm a student, I don't have the time to send out my computer for two weeks for you guys to sit around with your thumbs firmly planted up your ass. Really it has to be a ploy for them to just get more people to buy computers and you know what... it fucking works because I left the store that day with a brand new mother fucking macbook pro minus two grand and with a sore asshole. While I hate those mother fuckers in the store I do have to say they do make some great computers that work unbelievably well assuming you don't fall on them due to the two inches of sheen ice that covers my driveway from the perilous winter that has befallen us.

The process of buying anything in the mac store itself is as painless as getting your teeth pulled without nova-cane, or watching a nail go right through the center of your foot. After I weigh my options and decide it's best to buy a new computer the bloodsucking begins. They feed on the customers as if it is the only thing keeping them alive. I could make a Twilight reference here but in five years if someone reads this nobody will remember what that is.

So I leave the genius bar only to be swarmed by their salespersons. Of course the one I get is British so he has a cool accent. I appreciate the accent, but then I look at his gauged ears and almost start to feel the grease from his hair sticking to me. Then I look at his attempt at a five o'clock shadow which just makes him look like an even bigger prick. Instantly, I want to get out of this situation as fast as I possibly can.

I feel like that's their plan. Hire the ugliest, most impersonal people to make you feel uncomfortable so that you either leave or are forced into buying things. Now since I needed a computer he knew I was going to be leaving with one. So after I decide what computer I want the guy just starts throwing products at me and I feel like I'm being covered in locusts. I resist a few but eventually give in to a few just so he won't have to keep talking to me. Finally our transaction is finished and I no longer have to look at him. They then set me up with one of the most awkward and dweebiest people alive. I can't remember anything about him other than a stench that reminded me of old people and a whitehead the size of everest that could've been anywhere on his face, because thats all I saw when he talked to me.

(Really this is all making me look a lot worse than I actually am. I'm not all that superficial but when in a Mac store my senses are heightened and my spidey senses start tingling. [That spidey joke is lame but sometimes you just have to be lame.])

So whitehead face talks me through setting up the computer and for whatever fucking reason I have to watch these stupid asshole videos that tell me I just bought a mac.

Really? This is a mac store? I thought I was buying chapstick.

He asks me what I want to name my hard drive, in obvious fashion I name it "Party". This confuses him and he even asks me if that's really what I want to name it. I shoot the whitehead a look and say condescendingly, "yes." He then helps me through a few more things and I can't wait to be on my way but before I go he extends his hand as for me to shake it. Not to be a total dick I always accept a handshake but I am met with the sweatiest, flaccid handshake I have ever received. Whitehead walks away and I am bewildered and disgusted with everything that I have encountered in this experience. I put my new computer back in it's box and throw all my packaging on the floor as I think I'm entitled too, I mean I did just spend two grand. So I leave the place and immediately seek to the bottle of Crown Royal I have tucked in my coat.

Assholes, all of them.