Pic of the Day: “I’m telling you, man, this ceremony is a big mistake.” “The Catholic Church does not make mistakes.” “Please. What about the Church’s silent consent to the slave trade?” “And its platform of noninvolvement during the Holocaust?” “All right, mistakes were made.” (25th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Almost at the moment He died, I heard Him say, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'” Even then.” Even then. And I felt His voice take the sword out of my hand.” (65th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “I rebuke the spirit of drugs in the name of Jesus. What’s his name?” “I.B. Bangin’.” “What you mean I.B. Bangin’?” “I.B. Bangin’!” “What the hell kind of name is I.B. Bangin’?” “I don’t know his real name.” “It’s Frederick Smith.” “Okay, Freddy…” “It’s Frederick.” “Okay, I.B. Bangin’, we’re gonna bring you back from the dead.” (25th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Apollo?” “Yeah, who is it?” “Its just me, Rocky. Listen, could you answer me one question?” “Yeah, sure.” “Did you give me your best?” “Yeah… yeah.” “Thank you.” (45th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “What is that smell?” “It’s gas.” “We’re leaking gas?” “We are now.” “What, you thought you needed another challenge or something?” (30th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Let me tell you I am not a father figure. I am not a brother figure or an uncle figure or a cousin figure. In fact, the only figure I intend being is a total stranger figure.” (60th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “They’ll talk to ya and talk to ya and talk to ya about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.” (55th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Where were you?” “I was out of town.” “Have you been back long?” “A couple of days.” “Are you staying?” “That depends.” (40th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “There’s a tiny door in my office, Maxine. It’s a portal and it takes you inside John Malkovich. You see the world through John Malkovich’s eyes… and then after about 15 minutes, you’re spit out… into a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.” “Sounds great! Who the fuck is John Malkovich?” (25th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Boy, that escalated quickly… I mean, that really got out of hand fast.” “It jumped up a notch.” “It did, didn’t it?” “Yeah, I stabbed a man in the heart.” “I saw that. Brick killed a guy. Did you throw a trident?” “Yeah, there were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.” “Brick, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. You should find yourself a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for a while, because you’re probably wanted for murder.” (20th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “I mean, fuck, we’re here to have a good time. I just wanna have a good time, until this shit’s over, man. This life’s gig a fucking rodeo and I’m gonna suck the nectar and fucking rawdog it till the wheels come off.” (5th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “If I could only get inside that brain of yours and understand what makes you do these crazy, twisted things.” (80th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “I was wrong to treat you that way. I’m sorry…” “See? Now you respect me, because I’m a threat. That’s the way it works. Turns out there are lots of people, whole countries, that want respect, and will pay through the nose to get it. How do you think I got rich? I invented weapons, and now I have a weapon that only I can defeat, and when I unleash it… Oh, ho ho! You sly dog! You got me monologuing! I can’t believe it.” (20th Anniversary)
96th Academy Awards Recap
Okay, another year in the books. We are somehow creeping ever closer to the eventual 100th Oscars, and I’m sure they’re gonna go all out for those. But for these — pretty much everyone saw what was gonna happen ahead of time and there weren’t any real surprises. Most years, a ‘surprise’ is something winning out of nowhere. This year, it’s ‘oh, this alternate beat the other nominee we figured was probably going to win’. The biggest surprise was “oh wow, Zone of Interest won Sound.” Or, for me, “They went with Emma Stone over Lily Gladstone” and “Boy and the Heron beat Spider-Verse.” Both things that seemed very likely, but neither of which seemed like something that was guaranteed to happen. Otherwise, pretty straightforward all the way through and nothing really to mention from a winners standpoint.
But I will say — the production this year of the actual telecast was superb. They finished early. 3 1/2 hours is the norm, and they nailed it. They were moving, they found ways to make things interesting. The bits in between categories worked. They did a fantastic job with the actual show portion this year (and bumping it an hour earlier was also a tremendously smart choice. I hope that continues in the future).
So yeah. That’s that. Let’s recap how it all went. (more…)
The B+ Oscar Ballot: Guide to the 96th Academy Awards
Here we are again. Another year, another Oscars.
One thing I really liked about this year is that there’s a consensus about the nominees. Most people seem to generally feel like the Academy got it right. You can quibble about a few specific categories and nominations and omissions, but overall, the films that got the majority of the nominations are largely ones everyone agrees are very good films. And it’s rare to have that kind of unanimity for an Oscar year.
The downside to that unanimity is that it typically leads to a feast or famine type of year, with films being either wholly embraced or wholly rejected. I don’t know if we’re gonna get that smorgasbord of films winning like we have in recent years. But that’s why we do the analysis, to see what’s actually gonna happen.
I will say the thing I say every year — I’m not doing this anymore to see how well I can guess. I, of course, want to get everything right, but the end goal for me is more to see how accurately I can pick apart each category to predict how well things are going to go. To me, having the film I chose as the secondary choice beating the first choice is almost as good as getting it right. I’m okay if the analysis is correct and I just got beat. I’m just here to try to help everyone else do as well on their ballots as they possibly can.
Now let’s see how well we can do this year. (more…)
B+ Movie Blog 