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I’ve mentioned before how annoying I find it the human tendency to eulogize others, so this particular one really pissed me off. I found it in Rolling Stone (I know, but I get it for free and Matt Taibbi is a really good writer) and it’s about Heath Ledger.

“the oscar that eluded him for Brokeback Mountain could be his posthumously. Small comfort for his family. But a fitting tribute to an actor who never settled for less than extraordinary.”

Really? How can you call yourself a film critic and say that? That’s like a wine critic saying “Ernest Gallo did more to increase the quality of wine than anyone who ever lived”. When I read that, I threw up in my mouth a little.

Don’t get me wrong, he might have finally had a good role in a good movie, and he died before it even got released. That’s a bad beat. But let’s take a good solid look at his IMDB page, and see if we can’t just find something less than extraordinary that he settled for. Here’s some of what we find, with IMDB rankings (on 10 scale) after the movie title.

First we have 10 Things I Hate About You (6.7), a cheesy teenage Taming of the Shrew. Then his big break in The Patriot (6.8). If you consider that movie extraordinary, please do your country a favor and don’t have children. Then, even better, we have A Knights Tale (6.5), which is the result of some Hollywood meeting where an executive said “how can we make a Mel Gibson movie but without Mel Gibson?”

Then we have Lords of Dogtown (6.8), which I’ve never had the privilege of seeing, but I don’t think has ever been called extraordinary by anyone. An even bigger flop than that was The Brothers Grimm (5.9). Thought he hit rock bottom with that one? I guess you didn’t see The Order (4.7). Judging from the rating and the fact that I’ve never heard of it, it may have gone straight to DVD.

He picked it back up again with Ned Kelly (6.3), another movie nobody has ever remarked about. He was in Monster’s Ball (7.2), which was a good movie, though I can’t remember him in it.

I guess I have to give you Brokeback Mountain (7.8). I found that to be the most overrated movie of all time. It was basically two hours of my life wasted that could have been saved if someone just told me “it’s tough being a gay cowboy.” That movie survived on shock value alone. It was basically The DaVinci Code but with good cinematography.

I was going to say that the only good thing he ever did was one line about high school girls in Dazed and Confused, but then I remembered that that was, in fact, Matthew McConaughey (though it was definitely the only good thing he ever did).

IMDB Rankings (out of ten)

6.7

6.8

6.5

6.8

5.9

4.7

6.3

7.2

7.8

Average: 6.3

It would seem that his entire career was mediocre at best. There were at least 6 movies made last year (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Juno, Ratatouille, Atonement, and The Bourne Ultimatum) that were better, according to IMDB, than anything he ever did.

I know it’s scary when someone younger than us dies, as it reminds us of our own mortality. But let’s not let that cloud our judgment. His career wasn’t one gem after another. It was a dog turd with a couple quarters in it. There were some parts that had some value in it, but on the whole it was best left lying on the sidewalk.

Every year I make it a point to watch the movies that do well in the Oscar nominations. This year I got an early jump on it, watching a number of them in the last month or so. I have to say that overall it was a good year for movies. Here are my thoughts, ordered by number of nominations, along with my rankings.

1. No Country For Old Men (9/10, 8 nods): Best movie I’ve seen in a long time, and a return to form for the Coen Brothers, who seem to have done mostly comedies since Fargo. I might even call this their second best picture, behind The Big Lebowski. The acting is great, especially Javier Bardem’s performance as Anton Chigurh. Nominated for 8 Oscars, I’ll take a guess and say it will win 6, including Best Picture, Cinematography, and Supporting Actor. It might have some competition for Adapted Screenplay from the next movie on the list. It’s in 2 sound categories, and remains to be seen whether the extremely minimalist soundtrack will go over well. It definitely did with critics so the movie could take home quite a few.

2. There Will Be Blood (8/10, 8 nods): The only one I saw in the theater. Probably would win a nice chunk in any other year, but is up against No Country For Old Men in 6 categories. The Academy likes to award people for their careers as much as their nominated movie, and I think the Coen Brothers win on both fronts. Anderson got ripped off on Magnolia though (which ran into American Beauty) so maybe he’ll get 3, but I’d guess 1 or 2. If I had to set an over/under, it would be 2.

3. Atonement (7/10 7 nods): Mostly good movie with what I thought was a terrible, cheesy ending. Going to have a rough time in the categories where it’s against the first two on the list, but Original Score and Costume Design might be easy. I can’t guess with any certainty because I haven’t seen the competition.

4. Juno (6/10, 4 nods): Unlike most, I found the writing to be pretty subpar. It just sounded too much like an adult trying to write through a teenager’s voice. The acting was a little hokey, the dialogue tried too hard to be witty and often failed, and the soundtrack made me long for deafness’s sweet embrace. It wasn’t a terrible movie, and it might take the original screenplay category (I haven’t seen any of it’ competition there) but it seems a longshot to win more than one.

5. Bourne Ultimatum (7.5/10, 3 nods): About as good as action movies really get. Lots of fast paced punches and explosions, acting that isn’t laughably bad, coherent plot exposed at just the right times. It’s basically a relative 10 in its genre, but that doesn’t count for much with the voters. Still it has a good shot in the categories it’s up for (Film Editing, Sound Editing and Mixing) so I’ll be surprised if it goes home empty handed.

6.Transformers (3/10, 3 nods): For my thoughts on that movie, here’s a snippet from a conversation I had with my friend Keith, who couldn’t believe I hated it:

Me: It was like watching someone ass-rape my childhood.

Keith: They brought your childhood to life.

Me: Yeah, and then they ass-raped it.

Still it’s probably going to be tough to beat for Visual Effects.

American Gangster (0/10, 2 nods): In fairness I watched this movie for about 20 seconds until I realized Denzel was in it, then I stopped and deleted it. Every movie he does is hacky, cliché, overacted, and makes me cry about the two hours of my life wasted on it. So it’s a knee-jerk 0/10, but one I’m sticking by.

I still haven’t seen Ratatouille (and won’t) but it’s up for 5 and it’s by Pixar so it must be a shoe-in for at least Best Animated. And I haven’t seen Michael Clayton but probably should since it’s up for 7 in big categories. But barring any surprises I think the Coens will finally have the year they deserve, and a few other movies will duke it out for a distant second.

 

Every now and then someone unexpectedly gets it. It’s taken the TV industry a very long time, but it’s finally happened. I guess it’s no surprise that it was The Daily Show, since they have a long history of getting it where others don’t.

Their new site is finally taking television to the web the right way. You can view every show ever broadcast. You can search by guest. You can embed clips.
Here’s Demetri Martin on the ViaCom/YouTube suit, which I posted long ago on YouTube only to be removed:

Without a doubt the best movie ever. Ninja Cheerleaders.

See you there.

I caught the finale of The Sopranos Sunday night. Eh. About what I expected. This whole season has been long and boring, and the finale didn’t break the streak. Like the last four seasons, it was overhyped and failed to live up to expectations. And like the last four seasons, I watched it anyway.

I think I know why they ended it the way they did. David Chase loves to defy expectations and throw curveballs at viewers. Everyone who watched the show had an expectation. The most common was Tony getting whacked, followed closely by Phil Leotardo getting whacked and Tony resuming life as usual, and either way that would pretty much wrap it up. There were a few more (Tony ending up in jail) but what nobody expected, other than me, was for there to be no real resolution at all. Nobody thought they might do that because, well, it would be retarded. And it was. That’s precisely why I saw it coming.

Still, for some reason, though it was obviously left vague by design, everyone tries to ascribe meaning to the ending. The most common theory is that it harkened back to Tony’s previous conversation with Bobby, in which they said “you probably never hear it coming” or something like that, and therefore conclude that Tony dies at the end. Still other people said that the guy who went into the bathroom was just staring at Tony the way any random guy would stare at someone who was regularly pointed out as a mob boss on the evening news.

Me personally, I’m just angry. I was watching it on my Xbox courtesy of the newest beta of Transcode 360, and I’d already had a few technical difficulties. I thought the screen going black was just something wrong with Media Center. John said “what just happened there?” and we both agreed it must have been a bad file or something, because there was no way the show’s writers could be that dumb. After a brief search on Digg we found out we were wrong, they were.

So just to be part of the gang, and despite the fact that it was intentionally left unresolved, I’ll give my account of what probably happened at the end.

The thugs who came in towards the end put some Jay-Z on the jukebox, probably the song 99 Problems. The strange guy comes out of the bathroom wielding a gun and pointing it at Tony. Unbeknownst to him, AJ, who had taken ninja-therapy at the hospital he was recuperating in, has a katana sheathed on his side. He pulls it out and slices the guys forearm clean off, which, along with the gun, clatters to the floor. The guy collapses, crying and looking at his bloody stump, in a pool of his own blood.

Meadow shrieks when she sees it happen, but then suddenly Eva Longoria comes in and consoles her with a very long, very hot make-out session. Tony has a heart attack and collapses into some lasagna, but nobody notices because there are two hot chicks getting it on and obviously nobody is going to be looking at a fat guy with that stuff happening. Also, a law is passed that makes old people stop being allowed to drive.

That’s my dream ending. What’s yours?

Once before I asked you guys for some television recommendations and you really came through for me. Someone said to watch Arrested Development, and that it was “far better than anything that’s on TV now and I liked it as much, if not more, than Seinfeld.” I watched all three seasons. I don’t think I’m ready to put it on par with Seinfeld, but it was pretty great. Certainly too good for television.

Another person said The Office and My Name is Earl were “both quality new programs”. Yes, and yes. The Office proves what I’ve been saying for way too long, which is that Steve Carrell is maybe the best comedic actor around. The 40 Year Old Virgin might have sucked, but it would have sucked far worse with anyone else in that role. Same with Little Miss Sunshine. I can’t really think of anyone who could pull off Michael Scott as perfectly as he does.

And my name is Earl is definitely one of the best shows on television. Every time someone mentions karma I find myself saying “oh, you must be a Carson Daly fan too.” Lame, I know.

I got a ton of recommendations from friends for House, which I find to be pretty much the worst show on television. But then, I don’t watch much TV. It’s just the same bland, broadly drawn characters in hokey situations, just like every drama. It’s basically season 872 of Law and Order, but in a hospital.

Ooh, a guy who’s kind of good and kind of bad at the same time, but at the end of the day you just have to love him because he helps people. Never seen that before. He’s like John C McGinley’s character in Scrubs, but not funny.

I tried watching 24, and got bored pretty quickly. Yet another show aimed at society’s lowest common denominator. Same with Grey’s Anatomy. I’m checking out Lost but don’t expect much better.

That show quickly became one of my favorites too. The last season was a little off I thought, but there were a few great ones in there. I’m usually hyper-critical of anything set in a hospital too, since it’s so cliché, but they do a good job of not being just like every other medical show, mainly by being hilarious.

So I guess what I’ve discovered is that I prefer one-camera sitcoms with no laugh track. That’s not surprising I guess, given my low tolerance for repetition, and perhaps the fact that the more creative film makers seem to be drawn to that format these days.

Still I’m open to any format. I’ll even watch reality TV, though very skeptically. I need something to fill the hour or so before I go to bed at night, and spending so much time on the internet has made me unable to read anything more than 150 words long, unless I wrote it. So, any more suggestions?

I’ve been to my fair share of concerts and have probably listened to at least one album from just about every rock band known to man. That’s how I was able to come up with my first law of rock and roll, which is that any band named for a geographical region sucks, and the extent to which they suck is directly proportional to the population of that region.

Today I was trying to get my friends hyped about the impending delivery of Guitar Hero 2 for the Xbox 360 to my house (that game is harder to get than a Nintendo Wii) and was IMing them stuff like “are you ready to rock Cleveland?” when the second law of rock and roll occurred to me.

Maroon’s Second Law of Rock and Roll

 

A bands recent success is inversely proportional to the number of times they say the name of the city they are in during a concert.

 

I saw Green Day a couple weeks after they won 872 (well-deserved) Grammys for American Idiot and I think they mentioned Cleveland once. Long before that I also saw a Poison, Whitesnake, and Enuff Z’nuff concert (it was free and there was a girl involved, but yes, I am appropriately ashamed) and each of those bands said “Cleveland” at least once after every song. I felt so bad that I didn’t even have the heart to tell them that they were in Cuyahoga Falls.

Well, ever since I posted the link to Anna Nicole’s seminal action flick To The Limit it has received 11 votes (plus mine) and has actually dropped to 2.5 stars (out of 10). Seems a little shady to me.

First of all, I think most men subscribe to my rating system, which gives a movie 2 stars for each boob shown, plus one bonus star if some of them happen to be two cup sizes larger than anything you can find a proper container for at your neighborhood Victoria’s Secret. And since I’m sure no woman other than Anna Nicole Smith ever watched that crapfest of a movie, that means the lowest rating it should receive is 5 stars. So I was a tad suspicious of IMDB from the beginning.

But since then myself and eleven of my readers undoubtedly gave it a ten and it somehow is rated worse than it was. It should be at least at 4 right now. There could be two reasons for this discrepancy.

The first is that some of the ratings came from someone other than my readers, maybe people who saw her IMDB entry when searching around for her after her death. But surely nobody would be so cruel as to give 3 or fewer stars to a movie starring a girl who just died, so we’ll toss that out.

The second possibility is that IMDB is rigged. They’re taking money from the studios for ratings. Since Anna is no longer alive to pay them, they’ve begun punishing her classic film for it.

That must be the answer. I can’t think of any other reason why a movie deserving of five booby points alone (and, I’ll admit, probably no non-booby points) is only rated 2.5. It just doesn’t add up.