Movie Maven

Gah!!! Midterms! Deadlines! My laptop monitor's broken and I have three papers to write!! GAHHHHHHH!!!

Sorry folks, no Oscar coverage for a few days, until I can put my life back together. Read Salon and Newcritics (handily situated on the side blogroll for you.) Their coverage is better anyway.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go bang my head against a wall until the major ideals of late-nineteenth century Republicanism pop out. I know they're in there somewhere....

Movie Maven is exhausted.

Between the fucked-up crazy blonde-athon that's really starting to disgust me, the start of the Yuletide FAFSA and tax time, college midterms and Michelle Malkin's comedy, I am in desperate need of a vacation. Preferably somewhere without a computer, or TV or.... people. But no matter. I have blogs to write.

In honor of it being Oscar weekend here at Movie Maven, I have decided to, *sigh* make my predictions for the Academy Awards. The only problem is.... I haven't seen a lot of these films. Yes, I know, I need to be more on the ball, but come on. Does anyone really want to see The Queen? Like, pay ten dollars for it and everything? I know I will eventually, but apparently I'm content right now spending my hard-earned cash on Catch and Release, God help me.

So instead of making my predictions of who will win the Oscars this year, I'm going to make a list of the films I have seen at least 10 minutes of, which shouldn't win anything. I mean, EVER. The worst, flattest, most boring, mind-numbing, disgusting and nauseating films and performances of the year. You'll notice that many of the actors and actresses seen here are actually very good performers. they're just misguided. Don't be too hard on them.

So, my darlings, let me present you with the first annual Dubious Honor Awards- the DOOBIES!!

I'm sorry, the joke was right there.

Best Supporting Actor:
Woody Allen: Scoop
Why can't he just DIE already?! Return to form, my ass.

Jeff Bridges: Stick It
Oh, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. I am so sorry.

Timothy Olyphant: Catch and Release
Apparently after Deadwood got canceled, he lost his mind and decided to stalk Jennifer Garner.

Eugene Levy: American Pie 5: The Naked Mile
I don't know what Eugene Levy did in a past life to deserve these films, but the cosmic universe of karma is a cruel mistress.

Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Coolidge: For Your Consideration
I had to sneak For Your Consideration in somewhere, it was just too awful. Jennifer Coolidge just plucked the short straw.

Jacinda Barret: The Last Kiss
I had no idea that a woman screaming at her cheating man could be so boring.

Vanessa Lengies: Stick It
She made me want to pirouette to the door... and bang my head against it repeatedly.

Angelica Huston: Material Girls
Oh Angelica, Angelica, Angelica. I am so sorry.

Best Lead Actor:
Channing Tatum (aka The Chan-Man): Step Up
There aren't a lot of brains in that pretty little head of his. I'd still sleep with him, though.

Martin Lawrence: Big Momma's House 2
Stop it, Martin. Just, stop it. I mean it Martin. Knock it off, it's not funny! Mom, Martin Lawrence won't stop dressing up like fat black woman and he's bothering me!

Adam Campbell: Date Movie
I don't really remember which one Adam Campbell is. I just saw Date Movie on TV last night and hurled into my mozzarella sticks.

James Franco: Annapolis
Or Tristan +Isolde, it doesn't really matter which.

Best Lead Actress:
Allyson Hannigan: Date Movie
She was the fat one that got "pimped"- you know, like Pimp My Ride? There was a midget there. I have nothing else to say.

Scarlett Johannson: Scoop
She tried to do Woody Allen neurotic and just came off looking disarmingly slutty.

Sara Paxton: Aquamarine
I know, it's a kid's movie, I should lighten up. Then again, her blonde hair and perkiness almost blinded me. It was like looking at the sun for two hours with the Teletubbies going on in the background.

Hilary Duff: Material Girls
That brainwashing teenybopper got Angelica Huston to participate in this film. Show her no mercy.

Worst Film of the Year:
Date Movie
ugh
Step-Up
double ugh
Stick It
ughity-ugh ugh ugh
American Pie 5: The Naked Mile
Straight to video. No "ughs" can describe it.

"Why do we listen to Oscar when he has such crappy taste?"

Nevertheless, I'll be live-blogging the Oscars next week. There's nothing better than slogging back G and T's and making snide remarks about the endless blinding trail of Skeletors in Balenciaga gowns.

I'll see you there.

I’m intrigued by the media clusterfuck that’s surrounded Anna Nicole’s death.

Friends of mine have expressed derision of the media coverage surrounding her death. “People are dying in Iraq,” they say (or Haiti, or Darfur or any other number of hideous places strewn with bodies.) “And this is what people care about. It’s sickening. And indeed it is. It is a truly Western journalistic ideal to care more for the sexy death of a former porn star and meth freak more than, say, the UN’s fight to stop the spread of street gangs in Haiti. But one thing I’ve noticed about the media coverage is how full of contempt it is for Anna Nicole. The words “famous for being famous” crop up a lot, laughable at least for the irony that they’re denigrating the fame of a woman that they themselves helped to establish and hold in place.

Larry King’s interviewed her friends for God’s sake.

I myself could not help from making a bet with my boyfriend- that by next season, Law and Order will no doubt bear a “ripped from the headlines” about Anna Nicole.

I’m totally going to win, by the way. But I feel a bit guilty about poor Ms. Smith. The girl was so obviously miserable. Everyone who compared her to Marilyn Monroe was most correct, in that Monroe was also a mess of a person. And I always remember something Mother Maven usually says when someone of Anna Nicole’s caliber dies.

“Oh look at her.” she says. “She was just a baby once.”

Indeed she was. Her name was Vicki Lynn Hogan. She was born in Texas. She was undoubtedly a gorgeous little girl. I know next to nothing about her past, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her childhood was miserable. Would not be surprised if she lost her innocence in some irreparable way- a way that put her on the road to being a Playboy Bunny, a model, a porn star, and a reckless drug addict. But, at some point in her life, Vicki Lynn was a baby. A child. Someone who needed and deserved love. So perhaps that’s how I’ll remember her. She was a human being, not chum for the sharks. And if nothing else can be said about her, then man, she was a beautiful dame.