And the Oscar Goes To....

Living in Hong Kong is great...but its not conducive to throwing a good Oscar party.  To throw a party for the Sunday evening event in Los Angeles would mean an early Monday morning here....not so good!   Now Colorado, there was a place to throw a party for Oscar night.  The Red Carpet would kick off about 5:00 and the whole thing would be done by about 9:00...making work on Monday morning bearable!

Anyhow, the local Hong Kong station will air the awards Monday evening here and I'll invite a few film loving friends over to see if we can recapture the magic.  We'll play "Oscar Bingo" where everyone gets a bingo card filled with random, sometimes crazy, events that always seem to happen at the awards.  As we see them occur we mark them off on the card.  But the real focus will be on whether our favorites of the year will win...or Black Swan

So my thoughts on some of the key movies nominated this year:

The Fighter:   True story of boxer Micky Ward's (Mark Walburg) struggle to overcome adversity which comes in the form of his white trash family including his cocaine addicted half-brother / trainer Dicky (Christian Bale).  With the help of  the girl (Amy Adams)  and a little grit though  he becomes champ.  Boxer movies like this are always Oscar favorites and with the strong performances of the cast I imagine some gold will be brought home on Sunday night.

True Grit: Jeff Bridges did what few could do and thats step into a role made iconic by John Wayne...and he does a good job!  What I found a little disappointing was Matt Damon who I usually enjoy in just about every role he's in...except this one.  For some reason when Glen Campbell (who had the role in the original film) compares favorably with an actor of Damon's caliber, you know something ain't clicking.  The kid was pretty good to but is it just me, or was she just getting on my nerves by the end?

The Kids are All Right  Closeted heterosexual Julianne Moore is in a struggling homosexual marriage with Anette Benning.  She strikes up an affair with their children's sperm doner father played by Mark Ruffalo.  Unfortunately society today is just not ready for heterosexuals to find true love in these situations and she dutifully goes back to her family.  Annette Benning gives a strong performance as always and I would not be surprised if she took home a statue.

The Social Network:  Unbelievable that a movie about how Facebook got started could be this good.  Chalk it up to an airtight script penned by Aaron Sorkin (for which he will most likely get a screenplay award)
If you haven't seen it...you need to.

Black Swan:  Natalie Portman plays an innocent ballet star who develops a REALLY dark side during a production of Swan Lake.  Her acting level is incredible but the movie itself is the type of pretentious nonsense film that always seems to find a place at awards time.  I admit I only got half way through the movie before I stopped it and read the plot ending on Wikipedia.  Life is too short and there are good films yet to be viewed.

The King's Speech:  I'll admit it, movies like The King's Speech are like oxygen to Anglophiles like myself. Colin Firth as the stuttering King George V, and Geoffrey Rush as his unorthodox speech therapist has become the front runner for...well...just about everything.  Amazing movie and if it wins, it will be well deserved.

Toy Story 3 & Inception:  Neither one of these films have a chance of winning but the expansion of the Best Movie category to ten nominated films gives these two movies some of the attention and accolades they deserve.  I loved both of them!

Anyhow, we'll see how things turn out Sunday night.  Feel free to comment on some of your favorite films of the year!

Best Movies Ever: "The Right Stuff" or My thoughts on how to get Obama to fund the American space program again!

Yesterday I felt this compulsion to watch "The Right Stuff" the 1983 film chronicling the test flights of Chuck Yeager and first flights of the original Mercury 7 astronauts.  My friend Tom reminded me on Facebook that it was probably because it was the 25th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy!  Wow, I hadn't put the two together but it is funny that I really wanted to watch that movie last night!

BTW, not to digress, but where were you when the Challenger exploded?  I was working out at a gym doing some cardio on a bike machine.  The gym had the radio on and suddenly there was breaking news that the Space Shuttle had exploded shortly after take off killing everyone on board.  I just sat on the bike stunned as everyone in the gym just went quite.  A mixture of horror, helplessness, and sorrow...

Anyhow, The Right Stuff... Why is it called "The Right Stuff".  When you see what these pilots and early astronauts went through...you'll know immediately.  The film is a snapshot into an era where America was reaching for the stars and every boy my age wanted to grow up to be an astronaut.

Scott Glen, Ed Harris, Sam Shepherd, Fred Ward, and Dennis Quaid are the flyboys whose competition and comraderie turn this film into a high octane film for men.  I must have seen The Right Stuff  20 times and every time Alan Shepherd is about to launch or Chuck Yeager is accelerating to Mach 1, I get goose bumps and giddy inside.  Fast cars, fast planes, fast rockets...yep this is a "guy night" flick.

And this all got me thinking.  President Obama recently put the axe to President Bush's vision to see NASA go back to the moon as preparation for a manned trip to Mars.  I admit it, I'm a hypocrite because I think the President doesn't do near enough spending cuts...but I flipped out when he cut NASA.  Why?

Because reaching to do the impossible is what makes America.  It's in our DNA.  If we are told the boundary is "X" we'll make it "X" + 1.  We HAVE to go...because its THERE! It's who we are as a people!

So how do we make Obama change his mind?

We have to trick him.  We have to frame it as an issue that he and the Democrats can really sink their teeth into.  And there is nothing Democrats love more (after taxes)  then turning any completely random issue into an issue of racial and gender discrimination.  Now watch closely (but don't try this at home, leave it for the professionals):

"President Obama do you realize that at this very moment the American flag is flying on the moon  but that only WHITE MALES have been allowed to go there.  That's right...women, minorities, gays...ALL have been excluded from that private bastion of white male privilege we like to refer to as 'the moon".  


And have you seen the film footage of them there?  


Astronauts taking golf shots and driving around their private country club in that expensive moon buggy bought and paid for by the American taxpayer.  I have no doubt that while they were hidden behind those protective visors, they were secretly laughing and joking about how they don't have affiliate  with "those people" while "up here.".  

President Obama, this discrimination and exclusionary policy must be stopped at once! The moon must be a place where men & women of all ethnicities are able to stand tall and walk proud. (By walk I mean that 'hopping walk' thing the astronauts do there)  

Please Mr. President, for the sake of fairness & equality, we need you to fund NASA now!!!!