Val's Oscar Picks!

Valyrie’s Oscar Picks-By: Valyrie Mia Stone

Hello! Tomorrow is the big day for us movie lovers! It’s like the Super Bowl, only the people involved wear awesome things and have talent. Now, remember, these aren’t who I think will win, it’s who I want to win. Enjoy, and leave your opinions below.

Visual Effects: The Avengers
No one really cares about these but the nominees and their moms. But I guess I’d say The Avengers, simply because they probably aren’t expecting it and it would mean the most to them.

Writing (adapted): Silver Linings Playbook
I really want this to win. It deserves it. I don’t even have anything funny to say here. (Insert your own Robert DeNiro joke here)

Writing (original): Django UnchainedWhenever this movie is nominated, I will want it to win. It was my favorite movie of the year.

Original Song: That one from Ted
I don’t even care what it’s called, I just want Seth MacFarlane to have an Oscar really bad. He deserves it, and people are going to trash him no matter how well he hosts the show, so he’s really going to need a win.

Makeup and Hairstyling: Les MiserablesHelena. Bonaham. Carter.

Costume Design: Snow White and the Huntsman
I didn’t find that movie all that great, but the costumes were the best of not only this year, but perhaps the decade.

Directing: Silver Linings PlaybookIf Life of Pi wins, I’m going to…well, I don’t actually care that much, but I’m going to be mediocrely disappointed! You know what, it’s funny, but aside from when Django is nominated, this year I’m not overly impassioned about most of the categories. Huh.

Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz
Remember when I said I wasn’t overly impassioned about it this year? This is the big exception. De Niro was good, but I mean, it’s Christoph Waltz! He’s literally, in my opinion, in the top 3 actors of all time.
(For those who are curious:
5.-Gary Oldman
4.- Angelina Jolie
3.&2.- I don’t know which is 3rd and which is 2nd, but Robert Downey Jr. and Christoph Waltz
1.-Gene Wilder)

Actress in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway

She needs a win at the Oscars at some point(here’s looking at you, James Franco).

Actress in a Leading Role: Jennifer LawrenceI love you, Jessica Chastain, but Jennifer Lawrence was too perfect in Silver Linings. This is another one that I’m impassioned about (but not as much as Christoph Waltz).

Actor in a Leading Role: Jamie Foxx
Wait, he wasn’t nominates? No, don’t be silly, he had to have been nominated. I mean, he was the third best actor this year (Christoph and Jennifer, obviously), so clearly, they would have to be crazy not to nominate him. I mean, the only people crazy enough to not nominate Jamie Foxx would be people crazy enough to nominate Joaquin Phoenix…he was nominated? Wow, Academy, wow. Fine, put me down for Bradley Cooper. Because he knows how to be crazy and still be awesome (take notes, Oscar Voters)

Best Picture: Django Unchained
They won’t win. But they should. My fingers are crossed, Waltz!

To the categories I skipped, get more interesting (the same goes to Amour and Lincoln).

-Kisses, V.

Chicago

Chicago

By: Nicolette Karter

        I loved this. I like musicals in general, but the thing that was always a little “Well, that’s unrealistic” in every musical was the fact that the characters broke out into choreographed song & dance on a regular basis (Side note: I wish my friends & I would have a flash mob when we meet for lunch. Mostly out of curiosity as to what the other customers would do). Anyway, I liked how the makers managed a way around that oddity musicals have by having most of the numbers a figment of the main character’s imagination. Much more realistic that way, especially because she wants to be a star in vaudeville (which I think is like 20’s Broadway, but I’m not sure).

        So, it starts off showing actual vaudeville star Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) doing a show at this nightclub (before the police come to arrest her for killing her husband & his mistress/Velma’s sister) with Roxie, played by Renee Zellweger, looking on in jealousy. During the number, the editor & choreographer show off while having multiple segues between Velma’s musical number & Roxie’s tryst with a man who promised he could make her a star. A month later, she finds out he was lying, so (being completely rational & level-headed) she shoots the guy. She then proceeds to pin in on her very-willing-to-take-the-blame-for-her husband played by John C. Reilly. He’s not my favorite person, but he was perfect for the role of Amos, the guy who makes any Zach Galifinakis character look like Einstein. He makes it so easy for people to put one over on him, that it was a little shocking when he told the cops he didn’t kill anyone, & let Roxie go to death row for murder.

        This is not so bad in a musical, particularly when Queen Latifah has a musical number to introduce her as the Matron “Mama” Morton of murderer’s row, as it’s called. Here Roxie meets (yes, via musical number. Everyone in here seems to be introduced through a musical number) the other murderers, including Velma. A competition between the two ensues, with both vying for top dog in jail, & the newspapers. This is partly because if you have a lot of headlines, you will probably live because you have Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) as your lawyer, & he’s never lost a case. His introductory number isn’t my favorite, but I appreciate the irony of the lyrics with the cut-away shots to his real life.

        After Amos has a change of heart & hires Billy, Roxie starts her little charade for the papers the will save her life. This leads to another musical number, & the choreography is amazing. I like how the movie did things the play physically can’t (like cut-away shots & certain parts of “They both reached for the gun”). After almost losing her fame, & then almost losing her lawyer, Roxie has her trail (a court date she stole from Velma, along with the fame killing people gives you in 1920’s Chicago). Might I say that Mr. Flynn has a suit that could easily be made entirely from sequins, & Elton John would be jealous.

        SPOILER ALERT This is quite the entertaining trial, & I enjoyed the tap dance metaphor during the final defense for Roxie. Sadly, after getting set free (& I mean right after), her spotlight was stolen. Seeing as Velma & Roxie are now both 5 minutes ago, you’d think they’d be friends & help each other out. But you’re forgetting that women hold grudges, so they still don’t like each other. The final musical number was nice & gave the movie a full-circle ending because it (along with the opening number) was one of the only two actual performances (like, it didn’t happen in Roxie’s mind).

        What did you who saw it think of this movie? Are you as in love with the costumes as I am? Out of all the movie musicals you’ve seen, how does this compare? What would you like me to review next?

Really, Glee?

Dear Glee, thanks for setting back the feminist movement 30 years in like 10 minutes.
Glee
By Valyrie Mia Stone

                 Hey guys! I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. I was on vacation. I didn't go anywhere. It was just a laziness vacation. But I'm back now (from my couch), and I bring a review of most of an episode of Glee from like 2 weeks ago. Pretend I'm classy.
                So, I know I've comlained about Glee before, and I wasn't planning on doing it again so soon, but I am pretty mad about the "Sadie Hawkins" episode. Glee, I know you have gone downhill lately, but that was straight-up offensive. I had to stop watching. Literally, I only got far enough to see Tina ask Blaine out, and I was like "Excuse me, but I would rather go give myself root canal with a dull screwdriver than watch one more second of this".
                First off, what was up with Sam and Blaine? That whole weird chap-stick thing? I'm hoping that it came into play later, but I can't imagine any plot twist that would validate the uncomfortable 20 seconds that I had to spend watching Blaine watch someone put on his chap stick in a weird close-up. Maybe the cameraman has a chap-stick fetish. Who knows?
                But mostly, it was the entire idea of a Sadie Hawkins dance. Hey, Glee, it's not 1964. I don't know how else to say this- Women are permitted to ask men to school dances nowadays. Maybe you haven't heard, but we can also vote and own our own land. And wasn't it you who has had gay kids go to dances together? Yeah, it was. Which made this not only offensive to women, but also to the gay community. It simply didn't make sense. It felt like lazy writing, like Ryan Murphy was like "Look, I need to focus on American Horror story, so just write up an hour-long, terrible rip-off of an 80's movie, and we'll call it a day".
                 And why was it Tina's idea. I'm not a fan of Tina's, I find her to be whiny and annoying and as far as I'm concerned she could be completely written off the show. But it would appear that I don't hate her half as much as the writers. Why are they trying to make her look like an idiot? First there was the whole "Gee wiz, us gals will just have to sit around waiting for some nerd to ask us out for the prom, because no cool kids have ever asked out nerds before, especially on this show." But what was with the whole sing-inviting Blaine to go to the dance with her? Did she really forget? Kurt hasn't been gone for that long, and Blaine wears enough sweater-vests and short pants  to still make it obvious. At least he said no. I was afraid they were going to try to make Blaine straight. Which they kinda already did in season 2 with Rachel, but it made sense then.
                  Also, for the love of god, Finn is not a teacher! WHAT IS HE DOING!? I don't understand it! Also, the Glee Club lost, and so you don't need to keep showing up and making everyone uncomfortable. They should have had him go to a local school to get some kind of a degree in teaching, and then introduce him to teaching. This just feels forced, ridiculous, and illegal. Dumb former students cannot walk around like they work there. And stop with the ties. You just look like a 52-year-old accountant who keeps trying to make his terrible rock band work even though it's putting a strain on your marriage and you friends are all kind of over it.
                      I would like to take a moment to comment on the fact that New Girl seems to have pulled itsleft together. At the begining of the season, it was getting annoying, and I kinda stopped watching it, but I caught last week's episode, and aside from a few racial issues, it was doing better. Good for you, New Girl (take notes, Glee).
                      Also, I have yet to watch the return of Smash. I will when I get a chance, but what did you guys think? Is it better? Worse? Did you fall asleep? Do you not care? Would you prefer to talk about SNL? Cause I'm excited for Christoph Waltz too. Let me know guys!
                    Lastly, how pumped are you guys for the return of The Voice? I hate it when people dislike shows just becasue they are older. I know it's not in it's first season, but I think it's doing a pretty good job, considering. I don't know what to make of the new judges, though. It could go either way.

                                                                 Kisses, V.

Oscar winner guesses

Oscar Nominations

By: Nicolette Karter

        Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone announced the Oscar Nominations, and I’ll admit that I hadn’t really seen any of the movies. I saw trailers, some of the actors in other pictures, but not those movies. As a movie lover and reviewer, this is a bit humiliating. But I have seen some now, and some I won’t see because I don’t have enough time to watch all movies ever made & some (like Lincoln) don’t interest me, so I sadly won’t have all the movies nominated reviewed on this site. Sorry for any inconvenience. But I will have my best guesses for some of the categories, based on the movies I have watched, other performances of the best actor/actress nominees that I’ve seen, and what I’ve heard. That last one doesn’t sound reliable, I know, but despite what you think, gossip is what makes the world go ‘round.

        Let’s start with Django Unchained. I’ve already posted a review for this film (& its trailer) & while it doesn’t seem like the typical Oscar winner based on the trailer, it deserves all the nominations it got. It got a total of 5 nominations (including Best Picture), but only 1 is for acting, that honor goes to Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor. He deserves it, no doubt about that; he’s an amazing actor. But more of the actors should have gotten nominations, as I’ve said before. The other 3 nominations are for production: Cinematography, Original Screenplay (Quentin Tarantino, who directed it as well), & Sound Editing.

        I’ve also seen Silver Linings Playbook, though I haven’t reviewed it. It got a total of 8 nominations, & half of them are for acting. It’s been a while (exactly how long, I’m not sure) since all 4 acting categories had nominees from the same movie. Which makes sense because it is an indie, so the budget for effects & whatnot wouldn’t be very high, especially after paying for the all-star cast (which paid off, Oscar-wise). David O. Russell is a double nominee for Director & Adapted Screenplay. This too deserves every nomination, and overall I really enjoyed the movie.

        Les Miserables & I go way back in the form of a play, but I’ve only seen the trailer to the movie. It seems well made, which probably accounts for the 5/8 nominations in production categories. Only Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway got acting nominations, & based on the trailer alone, she deserves all the wins she’s already gotten for this role. The filmmakers added a song, so this famous musical oddly has a nomination for Original Song, yet not for Adapted Screenplay. This is the first movie musical version of the book by the same name, though there are obviously Broadway musical versions, & a film version that isn’t a musical. As a musical, it makes sense that it is also nominated for Sound Mixing, & fun fact: all the nominees for Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, & Film Editing are in the Best Picture category.

        I know very little about Amour, which is nominated for Best Picture, & Best Foreign Language Film (Austria). I’m not sure how often that happens, but I do know that the woman in this film, Emmanuelle Riva, is nominated for Best Actress, making her the oldest nominee in history. Based solely on the trailer, I can’t even guess how well I think she did, & the film honestly seems rather boring, to me at least. Could have been a bad trailer, but it also could have been obscenely boring.

        Also making Oscar history is Quvenzhane Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild. She is the youngest nominee ever, & she also seems like she did a good job from the trailer. Whether she wins or not, she is so adorable. And her name is pronounced Kwah-VEN-jey-nay, and I’ve found that saying it slow a few times before tackling it all at once helps with the pronunciation. Also nominated for this is the writer/director Benh Zeitlin for Adapted Screenplay & Directing. I like when the writer is also the director because it seems like there would be less friction on set, which is good for a movie that has a little kid as the main character and it’s your first film.

        I don’t know much about Life of Pi but I can guess they had a lot of money to make this movie well. And they seemed to do a good job, based on the trailer & the fact that it has 11 nominations, but none for acting. Directing, Cinematography, Production Design, Adapted Screenplay, Visual Effects, Film Editing, and Sound Mixing were probably all earned because the CGI is realistic (except the glowing whale. Not really sure how that works in the movie, but whatever).

        I love most of the people in Lincoln, & what I’ve seen of him & heard about Daniel Day-Lewis in this role is really good, same with the other 2 people who got acting nominations for their parts (Sally Field & Tommy Lee Jones). We can all guess what it’s about, unless your American history teacher needs to be fired. This has the most nominations with 12, & you can see in the trailer that the people in charge of costumes & set deserve their nominations.

        Honestly, I didn’t think the trailer did the best job of explaining what Zero Dark Thirty was about exactly. I heard that it’s about catching Bin Laden, & that there is a controversial torture scene, but the trailer just shows that Jessica Chastain can convince her troops into something about Bin Laden. I heard she is amazing in this, & director Katherine Bigelow was snubbed like Ben Affleck, but other than that, I don’t really know (or care to know) more about this film.

        Speaking of Ben Affleck, Argo is the last Best Picture nominee, and the most heard about thing for this is probably that Ben Affleck is a good director. The trailer tells me it’s a true story, & that Bryan Cranston grew out his hair for this. What’s sad & funny is that Ben Affleck didn’t get any nominations, but people only care about directing. Alan Arkin got nominated for Best Supporting Actor, so at least someone got recognized for playing an actual person well. While I don’t have much of an interest in this movie (& I’m not in love with Ben Affleck like the rest of the world apparently is), I must give credit to the guts it must take to play an actual person. As an actor, you give a character a personality & can usually get creative with it, yet when it’s a true story, & you meet the person you are going to play (& essentially give a new personality to for the people who only see the movie & know nothing of the people it portrays), I imagine that would be one of the hardest & most nerve-wracking parts to play. So kudos to anyone (like all the actors in this) who braves that, in any film.

        Tangent aside, I think that everyone who was nominated probably deserves it, whether or not I like them or have seen the film. And I obviously don’t know who will win (so a lot of these are shots in the dark), but here are my guesses for some of the categories:

        Best Film Editing: I’ve only seen Silver Linings Playbook, but I don’t think that would win. I think that Life of Pi would take this one home, because as I said before, they put a lot of money into making this a well-made movie; & what with all the CGI & water scenes, for it to have that many nominations & such critical acclaim, it must have been well done, & have a clear plot-both qualities I credit to the editor, so it stands to reason that Life of Pi would have (& have to have) the best editing.

        Best Costume Design: I’ve seen Mirror Mirror & Snow White and the Huntsman, & both had quite elaborate costumes. But anyone with eyes & a basic knowledge for history can see that all 5 nominees did a great job, so this is close one. While they are all amazing, I think Snow White and the Huntsman will win. Colleen Atwood did the outfits & she’s won before, so she might have a better understanding of what the Academy looks for in the winner of this category. Plus, I read an article about her process for making costumes that people have to move around in while staying true to what people would wear at that time (see Chicago: a movie she dressed & won awards for).

        Best Visual Effects: Another close race & I’ve seen only 2 of the nominees, both of which had good effects. Like I said before Life of Pi was really well made, & that the tiger was sometimes CGI (plus I mentioned a glowing whale in the trailer that probably doesn’t exist in real life), yet quite life-like so they are probably the front runners. Although the Hulk transformations in The Avengers were really well done. But I still say Life of Pi should win.

        Best Production Design: While Lincoln & Les Miserables both had to create old buildings that had to be destroyed later during a war, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ought to win this, because it is creating a fictitious land where the laws of physics don’t apply as much in buildings, & I saw design pictures that seemed rather excellent.

        Best Director: I haven’t seen all of these movies, all of which are also nominated for best picture, but I think Lincoln will win, with a slight possibility of Life of Pi.

        Best Supporting Actress: While the Academy has a tendency to rally for crazy people in movies, I don’t think Jackie Weaver will win; I’m surprised she was nominated honestly. I think it will either be Sally Field (another crazy lady, though more noticeable. She’s also a real person, who the Academy also loves) or, more likely, Anne Hathaway will continue her winning streak.

        Best Supporting Actor: While Robert De Niro & Tommy Lee Jones are great actors, & Robert De Niro’s performance was amazing, Christoph Waltz will probably take home his 2^nd Oscar.

        Best Actor: This is a bit of a tough one. Most are great actors, in what I’ve seen them in. While I think that Bradley Cooper deserves it because he’s a good actor & was phenomenal in his movie, Daniel Day-Lewis will more than likely win. He is also talented & playing a real person (as I said, the Oscar voters love that) who died (something else the voters love), plus he’s on a winning streak, & that helps.

        Best Actress: I have heard that everyone of the nominees are exceedingly talented, so I wouldn’t be shocked if any won. But I think that Jennifer Lawrence will win this time.

        Best Picture: I think that Argo will take the prize. There is such buzz about it, & some statistics from somewhere say that the odds are really high it will win. Plus, like I said, the Academy loves true stories, & it’s been picking up awards everywhere, so it seems pretty popular with the type of people who vote for the winners.

        Well, it took longer than I expected, but there are my reviews & guesses for Oscar winners. What/who do you think will win?