#rickyshore

Night Moves (May 30) - New Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy, Meek's Cutoff). 

22 Jump Street (June 13) - The first half of the first film's hilarious. The second half's all gunshots and car chases.

Boyhood (July 11) - Richard Linklater shot this over the course of twelve years. I've been reading about it since day one.

Magic in the Moonlight (July 25) - Could be amazing (Blue Jasmine), could be so-so (To Rome with Love), could be bad (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger). You never know with Woody.

The One I Love (Aug. 15) - The script was only 50 pages.

The Green Inferno (Sept. 5) - Eli Roth is the best contemporary horror director. Sorry.

The Skeleton Twins (Sept. 19) - Maybe it'll be good.

Gone Girl (Oct. 3) - Gillian Flynn's novel had me turning pages. 

Exodus: Gods and Kings (Dec. 12) - Ridley Scott directs Christian Bale as Moses. Dunno if 2014's big enough for two Biblical epics. I wouldn't have any interest in seeing this if it weren't for Scott.

Inherent Vice (Dec. 12) - From one of the funniest novels I've read.

Big Eyes (?) - Tim Burton re-teams with the screenwriters of Ed Wood, my favorite of his films.

Carol (?) - Todd Haynes's new film probably won't be out until 2015. Give it to me now!

The Cut (?) - New Fatih Akin (Head On).

Knight of Cups and Untitled Austin Music Scene Movie (?) - David Lynch said Tree of Life wasn't his cup of tea.

Return to Nuke 'Em High Vol. 2 (?) - Enough with splitting movies, already.

They Came Together (?) - Along with Inherent Vice, this is my most anticipated film of the year.

The Trip to Italy (?) - Michael Winterbottom's sequel to The Trip.

On Sunday night, I watched the Oscars for the first time since 2001. Not all of it. The second half, and only the good parts. I paused it and just fast-forwarded through everything I didn’t want to watch, which was most of it. I liked seeing Blanchett, DiCaprio, Scorsese, Streep, Day-Lewis. Didn’t care about Bradley Cooper. Ellen looked uncomfortable the whole time and I’m sure she was because hosting the Oscars has got to be a shit gig. I liked her Andy Kaufman-esque post-modern bits like the selfie and the pizza, though I didn’t actually see that stuff. I read about it. The only jokes I saw were delivered with anxious eyes and a whittled patience. 

Maybe the reason I watched is that I enjoyed every film that was nominated for Best Picture. To me, Nebraska and The Wolf of Wall Street kill the other nominees, but whatever. 12 Years a Slave is good.

The same movies are up for all the awards so you end up hearing someone say the titles “American Hustle” and “Gravity” like three dozen times each throughout the night. 

Ratings were up this year. Maybe it was the Leo-McConaughey face off. Did anyone actually believe Leo had a chance? Sure, he probably deserved it, but this isn’t about who deserves it, and how do you even rank one great performance over another anyway? Vegas odds were on McConaughey. He won when he inked the contract for that movie. His win was a magnificently coordinated PR effort that started a couple years ago when we saw pictures of his (melo)dramatic weight loss.

And whatever anyway. Leo can buy his next 18 year-old girlfriend. He picks and chooses his roles. Does anyone actually feel sorry for him? Even weirder, does anyone think he cares? 

I love all of the performances that were nominated for Best Actor. Next year, can the award be announced before Best Actress, just to continue with this image overhaul the Academy’s attempted in recent years? And what happens when we have our first openly transgender nominee?

Leto sounded like a politician.

After Bill Murray improvised a tribute to Harold Ramis (where he appeared more serious than I've ever seen him), he looked toward Gravity’s section and said, “Excuse me, gentleman,” then opened the envelope. Did he know they would win? Does everybody know in advance?

The Great Beauty is an annoying film.

Was it surreal when Philip Seymour Hoffman’s picture was projected onto those doors or whatever and Bette Middler walked through them and then sang an R&B rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings?” Kinda like a Mr. Show sketch.

Jack Nicholson wasn't there. Alzheimer's? Sad. 

There were so many awkward moments it sends chills down my spine just thinking about them. All of the banter during these things is ridiculously wooden and clumsy. When DeNiro squinted at a teleprompter, I hit fast forward.

Blanchett totally deserved the win. I liked what she said about how stories with female protagonists don’t appeal exclusively to a niche market. One of the best things about Woody Allen is that he’s always written great roles for women (btw, this recent news of Dylan Farrow re-opening old wounds has brought so many facts to light that now I actually side with Woody in the whole ordeal - though it’s undoubtedly weird to date your girlfriend’s adopted daughter).

I always look forward to The Walking Dead. Even though it oozes with self-important dialogue like, "When my girls were born, that's when I finally figured out what it was to be a man. I mean a real man." Every song in it sounds like Christian rock by the worst bar band you've ever heard (the original score is alright). In recent seasons, the writers have learned to focus entire episodes on single characters, like the episode where Hershel runs around trying to save everybody, or the two episodes about the Governor. Makes the series feel more like a novel with individual chapters than one meandering soap opera. The post-apocalyptic setting offers up firelight, gas lamps, the Sun. Never cared about any of the characters. They're like uncooked potatoes. Rick and his son make me snooze (and the kid's a weak actor; used to think Andrew Lincoln was too though he's grown over the course of the series). Hershel's proselytizing was repetitive, spoiler, glad he's gone. Michonne is nothing more than a sword and a scowl, occasionally smiling for children. Tyreese verges on being an ethnic stereotype.

Whenever a new ethnic character is introduced, an old ethnic character is killed. At least the series portrays something of a harmony between people, and in this past season it introduced its first gay characters (unless we're supposed to presume Milton was gay), then killed one of them off. The show is smitten with itself, resting on Rick as he gazes into the woods while taking a break from working in the garden, or showing three hours of a zombie trying to cross a river. Regardless, the suspense usually has me biting my nails, wanting to see scenes from the next episode. Love the show. They shouldn't have fired Frank Darabont or killed off Michael Rooker. HBO is better at creating an environment where creators thrive. The Walking Dead sometimes feels strangled by AMC.

The show has realism, or at least some semblance of it, which was sorely lacking in Breaking Bad. The ditches to catch zombies, pillaging bands of survivors, maintaining the fence, kennel cough, a rotating cast. The story is rarely surprising. Of course Rick was going to leave what's-her-name when she admitted to killing the diseased people. Yep the Governor was going to kill what's-his-name when they were on top of the RV, didn't buy the Governor's "transformation" for a minute. Why is he evil? I think I knew he was going to stay evil because the show never explained who he is at all, just evil. Duh Glen would survive the outbreak. As for the mid-season finale, sure, let's endure another exhausting shoot-out between the gangs, a step back, a repeat of last season's finale, overkill. Now I'm just kind of annoyed that the prison is destroyed, can't wait until February. Based on how much screen time Hershel was getting at the beginning of the season, I started waiting for him to die. He followed the reality show rule of if we suddenly start seeing a lot of somebody, it's only a matter of time before that person is voted off. Why did the Governor kill him instead of Michonne anyway? Didn't he have a personal vendetta against her? Made no sense, a producing choice. Michonne's a cooler character to keep around; axe the old guy, plus they needed Michonne to kill the Governor, so… whatever.