It's an honor just to be nominated.

Or so they tell me. So I get my newest issue of Entertainment Weekly and it's their annual Academy Awards Issue. They go into each of the major awards and the nominees and give you all manner of info about them and so on and so on. I read some of it and skipped some of it based on the person or movie that was being talked about but what I didn't do was give half a squirt of piss about the Oscars at all. I don't really feel the Academy Awards can claim to have any sort of relevance anymore, if they ever could have made that claim. Allow me to explain. I promise to limit myself to just my absolute biggest gripes.

1. Rocky wins Best Picture.

I never did understand why everyone seems to love this movie. The depiction of boxing is so wildly unrealistic it borders on being a bad joke and anyone that thinks Stallone is anything other than a terrible actor should never be allowed to watch another movie. But even if you leave everything that is bad about the movie aside, here is a short list of films also released that year that the Academy thought were not as good as Rocky:

Taxi Driver - Clearly the movie that should have won. It's one of the greatest films of all time.

All The President's Men

Network

The Omen

Marathon Man

Hell, even such comedies or "genre flicks" as Murder By Death, Logan's Run, Assault on Precinct 13, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Silver Streak or The Bad News Bears are movies I would watch over Rocky any day.

2. Hitchcock and Scorsese never won for Best Director

How do you have an award specifically to reward great film direction and then never give it to either of the, arguably, best directors ever? The very idea is such complete nonsense that it makes my brain twist. I know that Scorsese can still win but the fact remains that he didn't win, multiple times, when he should have. The fact that Hitchcock never won (the lifetime achievement Oscar does NOT count) is a stain on the Academy that they can never wash off.

3. Around The World In 80 Days wins Best Picture

I figure this thing won because everybody and their mother was in it and everyone that was in it voted for it. It's not a good movie. It is, in fact, a bad movie and shouldn't even have been nominated. A short list of films from 1956 that the Academy thought were not as good as this pile of ick:

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Baby Doll

Giant

The Searchers

The King and I

The Ten Commandments

4. Titanic wins Best Picture

Really? Titanic? What the hell are you people smoking? Ignore for a moment that yes, Kate Winslet is very very good in it and did deserve her nomination for acting (she has been nominated for and won many acting awards so yeah, she's pretty good) and focus on the film itself. It isn't that good. It's average, at best. This got nominated and then won based solely on the fact that it shattered box office records (though it only did that if you don't adjust for inflation. If you adjust for inflation it comes in at #6 behind Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E. T. and The Ten Commandments) and that is a completely idiotic reason to give it the award. Movies from that year that are, apparently, worse than this not very good at all film:

As Good As It Gets - This should have won, hands down.

Good Will Hunting

L. A. Confidential

Amistad

Gattaca

Affliction

Waiting For Guffman

Boogie Nights

And if I stop to think about it probably 10 or 12 more from that year that I'd rather watch instead.

There are plenty more examples of the gross ignorance of the oh so important Academy but these are, for me, the worst. Come Oscar night I say skip the awards and celebrate good cinema by watching some. That's what I'll be doing.

Still dreaming...

Today is the day set aside to honor Martin Luther King Jr. I still remember when it was announced that Mr. King would be thus honored. I heard a lot of really ignorant things said then and every year I hear them again. Some people think that we have moved away from that kind of thing or have made huge steps in doing so. These people, I am afraid, are deluding themselves. I hear as much hate speech now as I ever did, all you have to do is listen. It hasn't gone away, it's just gotten less bold.

I hear it in the workplace, on the street, in stores, anywhere that people talk. Open your ears and you'll hear it too and it's important that you do hear it because ignoring it or thinking that it doesn't exist is an extremely dangerous thing. Just today I heard, in several places from people that thought they were free from intruding ears, people say things like how wrong it was that "the blacks have a holiday" and how having a day for MLK Jr. "makes the niggers cocky" and "It's not like he fucking did anything important" and how this was just one step in "the niggers taking over." From there it was a short trip for several of these groups going to their other obvious favorite targets of hatred including:

Hispanics, "They're everywhere like fucking roaches" despite the fact that whites remain the majority in this country.

Gays, "We should be allowed to fucking kill them" and "I don't want my kids to see that shit, it's wrong" though apparently subjecting these same kids to rampant bigotry everyday is fine.

Muslims, "They're all a bunch of terrorists" and "We should bomb the entire middle east back to the stone age."

And so on. You get the point I'm sure.

This is the 21st century and this kind of thing is still going strong. I don't know whether to be furious or to curl into a ball and weep. How does this kind of thing still exist? How does a level of pure willful ignorance so enormous manage to keep going? These people are insanely hate filled for the most idiotic reasons and for some reason they are exceedingly proud of their own race/whatever. Here's the thing kids, if you're proud of your race, what you're really proud of is the fact that your parents were smart enough to figure out how to fuck. Congratulations, your mother and father are as smart as dung beetles. Woohoo.

How does a person hate another person because the skin they are wrapped in is a different color or because they have sex with people that the other person isn't attracted to or because they come from a place outside the imaginary line that someone drew around the landmass they live on? When I ask the bigots for clarification they get flustered and either backpedal away from their own bigotry or get defensive and spout even more stupid things that make zero sense.

When a man has this dream in his heart:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."

How can that man and his dream be so hated? How can there still be so much bigotry? How is it that it still exists at all? How can one look at another and hate them for reasons that don't even begin to make sense? I have a dream too. My dream is that one day not too very far in the future, our children or our children's children will look back on this time and be ashamed. Ashamed that their parents or their grandparents had so much ignorance in them. Ashamed that we were unwilling and unable to find joy in our differences and instead found hate.

My dream ends in the same place that Mr. King's does:

"And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Y'know what irritates me?

No, not everything...smartass. But some things are exceedingly annoying. I was reading a book review recently and in it the reviewer used an expression that makes me want to slap the stupid out of the person that uses it:

"Transcends the genre"

This is the kind of thing that idiotic snobs with their heads buried up their own asses say to make themselves feel better about enjoying something that is in a genre that they think is beneath them. They do it to make sure everyone knows that they think ill of the genre in question and to try and maintain the appropriate level of smug cockbitery (it's a word now, deal with it) but all they manage to do is look like what they are. Ignorant nitwits.

First off, whatever thing they are talking about doesn't transcend its genre, it's just a good example of its genre. Please look the word transcend up in the dictionary you pack of self fellating gotards. And hey, if you liked it that means that you like the genre in question and should climb down from your own self righteousness before it tips over and crushes you underneath it.

Second, the fact that you feel that you can't enjoy a piece of genre fiction without making excuses means you're a pathetic cretin who should do the world a favor and never interact with other carbon based life forms. The rest of us would appreciate not having to listen to your inane babbling anymore.

I don't want to sound all angry man ranting over here, I really don't, but along with the classics of literature and film I very much enjoy genre stuff and I despise the ever present tone of being talked down to for doing so. I like to remind these brain dead mouth breathers that things like 1984 or The Trial or Brave New World are science fiction and A Midsummer Night's Dream is pure fantasy at its finest or that Poe was a horror writer or maybe ask them how they can say they dislike genre stuff while claiming that It's A Wonferful Life is their favorite movie or that Hitchcock is their favorite director. Then I walk away while they say stupid things that I have no interest in hearing.

In short, I urge all people that engage in this type of snob behavior to either go jump off a tall building or just get over yourself. Either, or. Snob's choice.

Best of '06

It's just not a new year until some arrogant jerk tells you what the best this and that of the previous year was and totally doesn't include the stuff you thought was the best. My friends, I am that arrogant jerk. I give you my short, short lists of the best books, movies and music of '06. You're welcome.

Books

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Easily the best book of the year and one of the best I've ever read. The prose is stripped down to the bare bone in a way I've never seen before but it still manages to be absolutely beautiful. Books like this are an EVENT and should be treated as such.

The Last Witchfinder - James Morrow

I waited 7 years for this book. It was worth it. Morrow is my favorite living writer and this book reminded me why that is. While it is much different from his previous work it is every bit as good. I pray he doesn't make me wait 7 more years for the next one.

Against the Day - Thomas Pynchon

If you held a gun to my head and forced me to say who I thought the greatest writer in America is I would probably say Pynchon. This book is massive and that's a whole lotta lovin' for your brainmeats. A whole lotta strange, hilarious, brilliant and often surreal lovin'.

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman

The short form has always been his strength and these stories are strong indeed. Not the best writer in the world (though he isn't a bad one) but easily one of the very best storytellers and these stories shine.

World War Z - Max Brooks

Y'know what all the very best zombie stuff has in common when you get right down to it? They turn out not to be about the zombies at all. Don't get me wrong, I love a good zombie gorefest as much as the next guy but this isn't that. It's something much better than that. Don't let the surface subject matter fool you, though if you really are that type of genre snob then please me a favor and go play in traffic.

For this I will stop at the (more or less) top five to keep myself from going overboard and listing 50.

Movies

The Departed

Probably the best movie I saw all year and if Scorsese doesn't finally win an Oscar (for his sake, I stopped caring about them a long time ago) there is no justice in this world.

Little Miss Sunshine

Perfectly cast, perfectly acted. I loved everything about it. I'll accept the small amount of black comedy that comes out if what does come out is this damn good.

Hard Candy

A small indie that was only out for a few weeks in not many places and that sucks. A big part of the problem with Hollywood was revealed in a doc on the DVD when the people behind it say that everyone they talked to at the major studios loved the script but wouldn't buy it to save their lives.

Brick

Also only out for a few weeks in a very small amount of theaters and damn did it deserve more. The premise might seem difficult to pull off with a straight face and the whole time I watched it I was waiting for it to wink at me and it didn't.

The Fountain

This was probably the most visually stunning movie I've seen in a long long time. I saw some critics complain that it didn't "succeed" on every level that it tried but perhaps they should have spent a little more time paying attention to what it did succeed at, being an incredible movie.

Borat

Seriously now, this thing was hysterical. At some points I stopped breathing. Sasha Cohen is absolutely fearless.

Honorable Mentions

Thank You For Smoking
The Prestige
Clerks 2
Slither
Casino Royale
Babel

Music

Wolfmother - Wolfmother

When I first heard them I thought they sounded like a mash up of Led Zep and Black Sabbath. The more I listen to it, the more I hear and the more I love it. This begs to be played often and at high volume.

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Freeform mind altering ear feast with all the trimmings. To even try to describe it and do it justice is pointless. Just go buy it and thank me later.

Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways

This album is a perfect example of exactly why Johnny will be missed. Rest in peace.

Tool - 10,000 Days

As good as Aenima? Hell no, but then few things are. I still find myself being fascinated by Maynard's total disregard for conventional lyrical rhythms and cadences. Anyway, yeah, it's awesome.

The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers

I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did. I thought it would be OK. Good for a listen every once in a while. Then it went and decided to be all...really good. Sometimes it's great to miss the mark a little.

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

See above. Much better than I expected and though every song isn't a clear winner, those that are are good enough to bring the thing as a whole up to a nice high level.

So there you have it, one arrogant jerk's look back at the year that was. Feel free to disagree but then, I won't care as you will clearly be wrong.

Happy New Year

So I decided to give this a try after I finally made it to being the last person without a blog, journal or myspace account. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, on to the post:

So it's January 1st 2007. Ah the first day of a new year. So full of possibilities and chances for fresh starts and new outlooks on life. For other people this is, not so much for me. Lemme 'splain.

So I'm at a social gathering to ring in the new year. It's a relatively small gathering and there are no people there that I hate so that's a good start. We sit, we joke, we laugh, at some point we played some poker, I won some money and all was well. Eventually there was a countdown, a small cheer and exchanges of good will and good wishes for the forthcoming year. More joking and laughing and a few hours later I decide to call it night. If only it were so simple.

Weighted down with my new winnings and carrying my collection of well wishes on my back I begin the short drive home. It was raining on and off all night and was back on during the trip. It's no more than 10 or 15 minutes from where I was to where I was going and my hopes were, well, not high but then not as low as usual so that was a small victory. With the windshield wipers keeping almost perfect time with the music and my new set of tires gripping the road, I'm enjoying the drive. Very few people on the road with me and I'm getting every light green. I do love green lights so very much.

"We'll not impede your progress," they say. "Off you go and Godspeed good traveller," I can almost hear them call when I go by. I don't like to think that they had malevolent intent on their minds. I want to believe that they were just being extra friendly to celebrate the new year in the only way they have. I really want to believe that.

As I come over the small rise to the last light before my turn onto my street I see that it too is green. "Come ahead then," it tells me. "You're almost there. Just through me and one minute more until you are home." I mentally call a greeting to this thoughtful director of traffic as I approach.

Who is this fellow staggering into the crosswalk, I think, right on the heels of this. Ah, never mind. He sees me and has stopped crossing against the light.

Scratch that. Here he comes...

BOOM

So, yeah, I hit him. Hit him good, too. It was kind of like shuffleboard except I didn't push a puck so much as ram a drunken moron and send him skidding down the wet road. He comes to a stop with his shirt and coat around his head and his goofy white butt sticking up in the air. My first thought was something like, "..." then a shake of the head and "...". Then, in a clear affront to logic and reason, the guy stands up. I look around and see another person already dialing a cell phone and this guy makes a beeline for that guy. I roll down the window and the guy on the phone tells me he's taking care of the calls (turns out he's an off duty detective and thank you for your help kind sir) and my human shuffleboard puck is trying to convince him not to do that. He wanders over to me and before I can say anything he asks me to just drive away. Over and over he tries to get me to leave the scene.

Anyway, long story short, the cops come, they quickly make sense of the situation, ask me if I want to file a report against the nitwit (I decline), load him into a squad car to get him home and send me on my way.

I really want to believe that this was not planned by evil traffic lights. I really do. I want to be friends with them. Then again, I wanted this new year not to suck. Such is life. Mine anyway.

Anyone know a good auto body shop that works cheap?