The BMC Vault: Terry Boers goes to Olympics, angers animal-rights activists

Welcome to The BMC Vault, yet another tag recently created that will hopefully provide future excuses to post. Since so many online publications decide to be dicks and not leave some of their really great older stuff available for the sake of our posterity, I'm trying to lend a helping hand in the name of humanity. Requests for future installments can be sent here.

I know I'm becoming an old man because the only television show I watch every single week is This Week with [Person Replacing George Stephanopoulos]. During the week, I almost never watch anything on the tube, only exception being the game of one of my favorite teams or of some national significance.

Most of the days, I listen to AM sports talk radio—more specifically, Boers and Bernstein. Terry Boers is already an old man, but a far more entertaining and a far more accomplished one than I. Still, I took some comfort in his comments this past Friday in regards to the recent news bit regarding Tiger Woods and PETA. Unfortunately, I don't think a podcast of that particular clip is available at the moment, but Boers went on to describe his own experience in dealing with animal-rights activists after penning a column during his trip to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul where the former Sun-Times columnist was served dog while dining out.

Movie Review: Crazy Heart

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. THE DUDE ABIDES — You always love to see an under-appreciated old pro like Jeff Bridges get some long overdue recognition. As Bad Blake, the alcoholic country performer whose best days are behind him, Bridges sinks his teeth into the redemption role. Playing and singing all of the songs in Crazy Heart is almost certainly going to get Bridges an Oscar that many would say has probably been overdue anyway, but his performance here deserves to be celebrated for much more than just the impressive musical element. Indeed, the actor also nails every tiny detail in between the scenes showcasing his vocals or guitar, moments of both humor and human error that Bridges elevates from convention.
   
2. GIVE THAT CASTING DIRECTOR AN OSCAR TOO — It might sound odd to have Colin Farrell playing the part of Tommy Sweet, Bad's former protégé with whom there's a bitter relationship now that the young star has eclipsed his mentor. But as lukewarm as I was to using the Irishman at first, I came around by the film's end when it became clear that Farrell was indeed the right choice for a role that's supposed to be more of the trendy poseur to Bad's over-the-hill has-been. The dynamic between the two performers is made even better by writer/director Scott Cooper's decision to hint without fully disclosing specifics as to what caused the rift between Bad and Sweet. Maggie Gyllenhaal, bless her heart, lends her typically sweet touch to the role of a reporter who's also a single mom that in most lesser movies would have been a throwaway love interest.
   
3. IT FEELS LIKE FLYING MORE OFTEN THAN FALLING — Crazy Heart isn't going to surprise you, but it isn't going to bore you either. Even as we can anticipate what life's going to hand Bad next, we're still rooting for him every step along the way. The film's sentimental, but it's sincere too.
   

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. COUNTRY SONGS AND REDEMPTION TALES NEVER SEEM TO GET MADE WITHOUT CLICHÉS — Consider it this year's version of The Wrestler. Or Tender Mercies. Or ... you get the idea. (Robert Duvall actually makes an appearance here too, though he is not reprising Mac Sledge.)
   
2. EASY ON THE CONFLICT — Crazy Heart's so busy sketching out it's main character that you don't really notice that it never really spends much time constructing a plot. The movie relies on its performances to carry it through the third act developments that feel rather manufactured.
   
3. THIS IS ONLY GYLLENHAAL'S FIRST OSCAR NOMINATION? — Should have been at least two more that I can think of.
   

25 WORDS OR LESS:

Even when Crazy Heart feels like the country song you've heard before, Bridges' performance makes you want to listen one more time.

And then there were three

With football behind us, baseball still yet to come, the NHL on break and the Bulls not quite to their 60th game of the year yet, you might've noticed I've taken to putting up a lot more of my thoughts on the movies I've been seeing in preparation for this year's Oscars. For a while, I toyed with the idea of putting reviews up on my Tumblr, but now I'm starting to like the idea of putting them up here. (NOTE: If you hadn't caught on yet, the color of the text in that little "25 WORDS OR LESS" section is supposed to be my indication whether or not I recommend it [sorry, but no letter grades or star ratings], but basic rule of thumb here at BMC, more or less, is green = good/positive, red = bad/negative)

But I feel that I should mention that I do intend to make this a more frequent contribution to BMC—because we need something that's outside the sports world every once in a while. Another reason I'm choosing to put those "reviews" up here instead of over at excitablehonky is the timeliness issue. Obviously, I'm months behind here on seeing, well, all of these films. So if you're here looking for thoughts on new releases in theaters right now, I'd recommend coming back when it's on DVD.

The entire theater experience vs. home viewing issue has been brought up a few times to me this Oscar season—most notably because of many friends' insistence that Avatar must be seen in IMAX 3-D Super-Mega-Hyper-Wacky-Outrageous-Giant-Boner-ifficVision (or whatever they call it). I still can't get over the idea that the movie's nearly three hours long, but then again, I made it through Titanic in the theater, so who am I to say?

But seriously, a moment to vent here: I prefer watching movies on DVD as opposed to going to the theater for multiple reasons. The cost is one issue. Neither the fat guy who chews his popcorn with his mouth open or the middle-age woman who has explain every joke to her husband at the theater are there to annoy me in my basement when watching a film on my DVD player. If a movie's too long, I can pause it and use the washroom without fear of missing anything. I can have a cigarette. Maybe two. If there's a date over, the movie sucks and we're horny, I don't have to worry about getting out of a theater and keeping her in the mood until we get back home.

In short, I become more and more convinced with each passing year that the "theater experience" that I'm told is so necessary for so many otherwise bad movies ("Yeah, but the special effects were good" automatically makes me even more cynical) is losing more and more of its appeal to me. As TVs and home audio systems continue to improve while the prices for both decline (I remember when a giant plasma screen in somebody's home was a sign of wealth, but now it seems everybody has one—except for me, of course), I don't see how the steadily increasing cost of seeing a movie in the theater really strikes me as the preferable option. Yeah, I guess if there's more people than just the lady and I, then the theater's the most logical choice.

But the girl I've been rolling with the past few weeks finally got me to move my living situation around and now that the TV and Bose system are in the real bedroom, I'm kind of enjoying the past few nights of getting almost an entirely new movie experience (NOTE: Not really anything new about said movie experience). Five of those seven films I've got checked off there were seen on DVD, while the other two have been seen in the theater. I'm making plans with one friend to see Avatar this weekend at the really ghetto-ass place next to where I used to work, and if we don't get shot there, then I imagine I'll be hoping to find Precious is still out there somewhere and saving The Blind Side for last (me thinks I might have seen one too many comments like this one, although I'm certainly not going to complain about Nine not being nominated).

And after that? Well, here's to hoping I just keep writing about whatever I'm seeing. Feel free to leave any recommendations in the comments and I'll let you know what I think.

Movie Review: A Single Man

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. COLIN FIRTH PROBABLY WOULD HAVE EARNED THAT BEST ACTOR NOMINATION JUST FOR ONE SCENE — Based on Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel, Firth plays George Falconer, a Los Angeles-area college English professor who is grieving the loss of Jim (Matthew Goode), his lover of 16 years. In the movie's most powerful scene, Firth unforgettably displays the sorrow he's forced to repress after learning of Jim's death and then being informed that services are "family only." There's an enormous amount of pain Firth manages to put into his two word response: "Of course."
   
2. JULIANNE MOORE, NATIONAL TREASURE — I'm not so sure how much I would've bought into a character like Charley, George's lush of a divorcee friend with whom he had a sexual past in his youth. But as Moore has had a habit of doing throughout her career, she makes even the least likable role somehow appealing. Thankfully it's her night of boozing with George and a careless comment that allows Firth to have another memorable display of emotion that the film had been needing pretty badly. I don't know when she's going to get her Oscar, but I feel comfortable saying it's overdue at this point.
   
3. THE THERE AND NOW — Not to be confused with Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man (review on that forthcoming), which is also set in the 1960s, I'd say Tom Ford's effort was more successful at recreating the time in which the film is set. Indeed, beyond the Cuban Missile Crisis dominating the news of the time in the film, that phone call and that night with Charley—who still seems to think things can, you know, "work" for her and George—effectively captures a time in America when very few even dared to imagine life outside the closet.
   

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. NOT TO SOUND TOO MUCH LIKE A FOX NEWS ANCHOR, BUT I DON'T CARE WHAT THE DIRECTOR SAYS; IT'S A FILM MADE BY THE GAY MAN, FOR THE GAY MAN — In addition to the Best Actor Firth received for the film at Venice, A Single Man also took home the Queer Lion. Still, Ford actually insists that despite him being a gay director funding a movie about a gay man based on a novel by a gay author that, of course, "this is not a gay film." It's just coincidence then that so many bare-ass shots found their way into the film as well as so many of the young men George run into throughout the movie resemble models in magazine ads. But ultimate shame falls on on Ford—presumably some time shortly after he sold the project to The Weinstein Company—for following the safer Oscar marketing route of publicly downplaying a rather obvious aspect of the film he'd probably accept praise for privately were it not for having to publicly pander to notoriously homophobic Academy voters.
   
2. SHALLOW ON BOTH ENDS — As far as artistic flourishes go, too much is never enough for Ford. And even the slowest members of the audience aren't going to have too much trouble catching on to the metaphorical use of color and how the director uses it to hammer home those momentary glimpses of beauty George experiences over the course of his day. Truly a case where less could have been more, Ford goes over the top in his attempts to create beautiful imagery so often that I found myself beginning to crack up at moments I'm fairly sure were not intended to be humorous. George's relationship with a student named Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) struck me as not only a predictable element of erotic fantasy, but also achingly familiar.
   
3. ARE WE THERE YET? — I'd typically be attracted to movies that focus merely on limited time frames such as the single day a A Single Man is trying to cover (it involves the periodic flashback, obviously), but pick up the pace a bit. Aside from the two scenes I initially mentioned, the movie trudges through just about every other moment in a way I can only describe as frustratingly lethargic. The running time is around 100 minutes, but the film sure felt like it took more than two hours to arrive at its rather unsatisfying conclusion.
   

25 WORDS OR LESS:

Firth and Moore provide the most genuine moments of a movie otherwise awash in excessively attempted visual artistry.

My Mailman > Your Mailman

So dudes don't typically buy other dudes gifts—or at least that's how I've operated for most of the 31 years I've been alive. There were the occasional exceptions, like when you find certain things on clearance that are just too good to pass up.

Seeing as my now former employer gave me a good old-fashioned ass-raping by failing to include my tips on our final checks two days before Christmas, friends got nothing from me this past holiday season—although that didn't stop dear buddy B. Doggy from giving a fine winter cap just like the one pictured here.

"Are you going to wear it?" he originally asked, seemingly concerned about it. I assured him I was truly thankful for his gesture and now some two months later, I can't think of an occasion he HASN'T seen me wearing the gift. I couldn't find my old one at the time and it's still winter here in Chicago.

The cap serves both of what I believe are its two intended purposes: Keeping my ears warm and getting people to talk to me about the Blackhawks (which is preferable to talking about ... oh, just about everything else in my life). One person that the hat has most certainly had a visible effect on is our mailman.

He's deaf, so he has a bit of a speech impediment, but most days he comes up to the house and hands me the mail while I'm smoking, he'll point to the top of his head and say something along the lines of "Go Hawks!" Today, I was on the phone, so I figured he'd just hand me the mail and go about his way. I was talking with a friend about what was happening with work and how it was sounding like I was going to be fired—for watching a Blackhawks game, actually.

After handing me the mail, however, he began saying something which I didn't catch the first time because my friend on the phone was also talking. Any other person—especially in the middle of this employment situation—interrupting a phone call of mine would likely get an earful.

Of course, what really gets accomplished by yelling at a deaf person?

What's more, the guy was just asking about the hockey games. Yeah, I know, he was asking about Olympic hockey, and if you don't know how I feel about that whole two-week exercise in meaningless television, well here you go. Still, I told my friend on the phone to hold on for a second and I verified the times of the day's hockey games in the newspaper for the mailman, who smiled, thanked me and went along his way.

Then I apologized to my friend for placing him on hold and tried to remember where I left off. I'd probably been bitching about something with how the whole situation with work went down or maybe voicing concern about where the next paycheck would be coming from. In short, they were a lot like the concerns I've heard countless others have in this Great Recession.

I went to the end of the driveway and watched the mailman sorting through envelopes in the back of his truck, wondering how difficult it must be to drive if you're deaf and if it's like I remember Jake "The Snake" Roberts teaching me during his episode of blindness that the weakening of one sense makes the other four stronger. Or something like that.

But perhaps what registered with me the most was that our mailman obviously worked through his disability and hardly lets it get in his way. And then the next natural question I had to ask myself was, "So what's my excuse? What's holding me back?"

And the answer, of course, was nothing other than myself.

Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. THE FIRST SCENE OF THE FILM WAS THE BEST SCENE OF THE YEAR — At least that's what the Skandies voters said. I'm not sure I can argue either—although I've still got movies to get to. Still, if anything else at this point can give the outstanding more than 20-minute beginning to Basterds in which Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) is memorably introduced by calmly using a kitchen table interrogation to work a confession out of a farmer (Denis Menochet) hiding a Jewish family under his floorboards, it would probably be a later scene from this very film—an undercover tavern sequence with the Basterds, a unit of Jews under the command of Brad Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine and committed to scalping Nazis, immediately coming to mind. But the point here is that Quentin Tarantino crafts a number of scenes that seem to be him doing what he does best: getting lively dialogue while building suspense and always finding a satisfying payoff.
   
2. IT'S THAT LAUGH-OUT-LOUD, FEEL-GOOD HOLOCAUST MOVIE YOU DIDN'T KNOW WAS MISSING FROM YOUR LIFE — Because Hitler dying in his bunker's so, you know, boring. Instead, Tarantino offers the twist of having a group of Jews kill him—where esle?—in a movie theater. And beyond that, Hitler's hardly the character that steals this show anyway. I haven't even mentioned the performances QT got out of both Mélanie Laurent and Diane Kruger, two more strong females that both had Oscar consideration (although the Up in the Air girls got both the supporting nods they were vying for).
   
3. I SEEM TO LIKE EVERYTHING TARANTINO DOES — Depending on how you classify the Kill Bill deal (I'm still waiting for both to be released in a single DVD package, although it appears a third is in the works), this is either Tarantino's sixth or seventh feature full-length film—and I've liked all of them. It's been nearly two decades since Reservoir Dogs came out and this guys still hasn't made anything I didn't enjoy.
   

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. I SEEM TO LIKE EVERYTHING TARANTINO DOES — It isn't to say I'm passionate about everything he's done anywhere near the level of craziness some of his fans have, but seriously, not one thumb down from me on anything he's directed. Does this make me a fanboy?
   
2. IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A HISTORY LESSON ... — But you're talking about World War II here, so you know how some people feel about that. Some people insinuated it was wrong to laugh along with Life is Beautiful, and of course there's going to be the usual guilt others may insist you feel for taking a little sadistic glee in watching Hostel director Eli Roth play the Jew from Boston who bashes Nazi brains in with a baseball bat.
   
3. ... BUT IT WON'T HURT BEING A FILM JUNKIE EITHER — Roth's role was something I was aware of going in, but Tarantino litters Basterds with references that I either missed or didn't find as profound as some fans have made them out to be. Take what you like (I still liked a lot, obviously) and leave the rest.
   

25 WORDS OR LESS:

Manages to simultaneously inspire Tarantino's most devout fans as well as enrage his most passionate detractors, myself closer to being among the former.

Just a thought (or two): On things like "just a thought (or two)," other tags

This is your song for this weekend. It might be the song for next weekend too, but we'll see. Don't think about it, just play it.

If you scroll on down past all those other wonderful sites I link to there on the right (Hello, new followers!), and the archives I only realized I can actually sift through a few months ago, you'll notice the collection of tags. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, but two near the top need to be cleaned up.

The first is "notable links," which was probably just created by me when I first began tagging posts more than a year into BMC's life and needed something to affix to the extremely short comments with hyperlinks that made up much of this site's inaugural year and was what I thought constituted blogging. These days, they've got an entire site for that kind of thing. But since then, most everything I post has "notable links" of some sort (they're notable ... aren't they?). So either that tag dies with this post, unless I think of a better way to employ it.

The other tag that has grown to encompass just about everything in it's vagueness is the one in the title of this here post, "just a thought (or two)." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

So that tag's going to be reviewed, possibly removed from a number of posts and from now on have its first letter capitalized and hopefully become an occasional feature here at BMC in which I can talk about a couple things on my mind in one post that are NOT me making predictions or posting reaction to those predictions. I mean, we'll have time for that too.

Oh, and whenever I do put up an edition of the new (!!!) "Just a thought," it will feature this picture of Jane Krakowski simply because I fucking love it. I love the way it looks on my Tumblr, I love the way it looks on the other Tumblrs that reblogged it, and of course I still really love that contribution of hers to Esquire. Love it, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!!

But I will not jack off to it.

No, but I will mention "JACKING OFF" on this blog, because ... well, apparently it gets me hits. Don't take my word for it though:


Yeah, so this post's the first one that comes up on a Google Image search for that top item there. Even though I didn't explicitly use that exact phrase, I'm debating changing the subhead for BMC to that now.

Or maybe I'll just make a tag for it. Bring on the traffic.

Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. IT REALLY IS THAT IRAQ WAR MOVIE YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR — In case you hadn't heard, non-documentary films about the ongoing conflict have been as well-received at the box office as Ishtar. Nothing released until Hurt Locker, however, had that on-the-ground immediacy of Kathryn Bigelow's feature. And Mark Boal's script places its characters—and its audience—into the daily routine of a bomb-disposal unit without the usual perceived political statement of a lesser war movie that probably kept asses out of the seats in the first place.
   
2. AT LONG LAST, A DIRECTOR HAS FINALLY RECAPTURED THE GENUINE SUSPENSE OF THE OTHERWISE TIRED WIRE-CUTTING SCENARIO — Bigelow almost immediately plugs the viewer right into the danger of the duty at hand and incredibly manages to maintain a genuine sense of fear that I had almost forgotten was possible from one of the seemingly most exhausted forms of momentary danger in movies. In The Hurt Locker, instead of being exploited just for a cheap moment, the constant process of finding and deactivating an IED instead fills us with a sense of dread that carries throughout most of the film from the ground-level opening scene.
   
3. JEREMY RENNER IS READY FOR HIS CLOSEUP — I liked him enough for his terrific turn in Dahmer to actually buy it on DVD (try explaining that one when friends see it on the shelf ...), but Hurt Locker offers Renner a role that's certainly a little more, um, audience-friendly. Actually, one of the movie's most pleasant surprises is that the more recognizable members of the cast (Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, David Morse) get what essentially amount to cameos, while the cast of lesser-known talent including Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty get to steal the show. The focus on the chemistry of that trio adds more to feel of watching something more like real everyman American soldiers than just a group of actors.
   

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. BEND IT LIKE "BECKHAM" — It was inevitable, I suppose, that in attempting to develop Renner's Staff Sgt. William James, he's given a young Iraqi kid named "Beckham" to bond with. The young'un plays soccer and hawks bootlegged DVDs and ... well, I think you can guess where this is going to go.
   
2. CAMBRIDGE TO NOWHERE — Lt. Col. John Cambridge (Christian Carmago) is the therapist trying to get Geraghty's Spc. Owen Eldridge to stop thinking about dying even though James' style leads anyone to think he'll somehow get everybody involved killed. So when he passes on an invitation until the time is right, you can guess what he means.
   
3. HOME IS NOT WHERE THE HEART IS — I think it was the kite shot that felt like the warning, but when Hurt Locker follows James back to American soil to show the effect it's taking on his wife and home life the film feels like it's trying to resolve more than it can or should before the end.
   

25 WORDS OR LESS:

Makes the day-to-day defusing of roadside bombs unforgettably riveting and compelling, even if the film can't remove a few war movie clichés.

The Blackhawks' Third Quarter: Preparing for the Final Push

So yeah, the same thing that was of concern to me when I last talked about the Hawks is still of concern to me now, but nothing much more I can do now I suppose other than keep my fingers crossed and hope that everybody's healthy when I'm guessing that at least three of the guys the team sent over there are recovering from the Olympics final on a cross-country flight to resume the NHL season in Long Island.

But everybody's been saying the Blackhawks need this break—even though they've won their last four (last three all being shootouts). I'm sure most teams are appreciating the rest that their non-Olympians can get during this fortnight break, but you would have to think that our ongoing silly cries for a goaltending move (I thought we were over that!) before the trade deadline will almost certainly be resurrected as both Huet and Niemi adjust to having not played during the off-time. I guess I'll have to keep those fingers crossed for a few days after the Olympics about that as well, seeing as I'm more than content to play the hand the team's got right now and see how far it takes you when the playoffs start.

The move that the team did make in sending Cam Barker to Minnesota for Kim Johnsson and prospect Nick Leddy struck most fans I've talked to as well as most observers I follow as a definite win. As McClure over at Second City Hockey put it, "While Barker may turn out to be 'a thing,' it wasn't going to be here, and in return, the Hawks got real value for both this year's playoff push, and for the future."

Overall, I think the third quarter still went relatively well for Chicago. At 41-15-5, their 87 points is second to the Sharks, but they're 11 points ahead of No. 3 Vancouver in the conference and the closest team to them in the division is Nashville, 16 points back. So it would appear that there would have to be a truly epic collapse not to end up with one of those top two spots.

Looking back on that third quarter of season, the 5-3 performance over the eight-game road trip at the end of January certainly could have gone a lot worse. As big as the win over San Jose was, I actually think that it could be the game the Hawks pissed away to the Wild that they learn the most from heading into the post-season.

However, if one game really had that exciting atmosphere about it from last season's hella-fun playoff run, it had to be that shootout (yes, I know what I've said about those things) with Detroit:


Oh, and let's not forget VERSTEEG! mixing it up in that game, which was awesome too (although he's really been dogging it ever since, but ...).

The bottom line here is that the Blackhawks are only one point behind their total from what they accumulated over the course of an entire season two years ago. And really, in truth, this last leg of the regular season is hopefully one last chance to get the necessary momentum to begin plowing over Western Conference opponents on the way to the Stanley Cup. Here's a breakdown of the team's performance by quarters from the message board:

While the offensive numbers are improvements over that second quarter, the penalty minutes and (dare I say it?) the goals against are concerns—but still small ones, I say. Of my four Bs (Braves, Bulls, Bears, and Blackhawks), it's the hockey team that's the only one I haven't seen win a World Championship in my lifetime. So forgive me for being anxious to get to the point where I can finally say that I've seen all four win it all. As we've been saying all year, "CUP OR BUST!"

Movie Review: Up in the Air

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. I CERTAINLY WON'T ACCUSE JASON REITMAN OF TAKING ON BORING SUBJECTS — It's easy to hate those privileged enough to be in the Lucky Sperm club, but with Up in the Air, Jason Reitman has proven to me that he's talented enough to get by on his own name and not his father's. He's began his career with a trifecta of issues confronting the main characters that have all certainly whetted my appetite: Thank You For Smoking offered us Aaron Eckhart lobbying for Big Tobacco; Juno had Ellen Page dealing with an unplanned pregnancy; and now Up in the Air presents George Clooney taking on the role of the corporate hitman, firing people across the country. In this day and age, I'll applaud the effort to take the road less traveled.
   
2. THE PERFORMANCES DESERVE ALL THAT PRAISE THEY'VE BEEN GETTING — It's hard to believe there was actually speculation at one time about George Clooney's career as a leading man. How long ago that does seem, now seeing as this New York Magazine article noted, he "has been elected the industry’s new class president." Indeed, it's hard to think of anybody else that could have played Ryan Bingham without coming off as unlikable—let alone anywhere near as casually charming as Clooney does it here. But casting's been a real strong point for Reitman in both of his previous efforts, and that's no different here as both Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick earned those Supporting Actress nods (although I'd say Farmiga has more of the scene-stealing stuff if you had to pick one or the other).
   
3. I'LL MEET THE "FILM FOR OUR TIMES" ARGUMENT HALFWAY ... — As it concerns the angle the story has on how social networking has affected how we conduct ourselves personally in all relationships of our daily life, then sure, I like that side of what the film's touching on. In addition to the sexting between Clooney and Farmiga, the plan dreamt up by Kendrick's Natalie to fire employees from a single location via teleconferencing software offered a fairly effective contrast to Bingham's approach involving more of what he calls "dignity" on both the professional and personal levels to make it really compelling had the idea played itself out more fully.
   

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. LIKE I SAID, HALFWAY ... — Since the movie is dealing with characters sending people to unemployment at a time when the country is dealing with the issue too, that parallel's pretty unavoidable. That segment of the audience might see similar pain or outrage in one of the voices that bookends the film, but the lasting impression is made by the stars—all three of whom have roles involving them seemingly getting through life with the comforts of expense accounts and only having to deal with creating the unemployed, never joining the unemployed. Forgive me for feeling as detached at times from the main characters as Bingham spends most of the movie being before, you know ...
   
2. BASICALLY THAT ENTIRE THIRD ACT — Unfortunately, while Reitman's topics of choice have thrilled me entering his three movies, all of them also seem to share some rather ho-hum resolutions. Up in the Air has that moment when you can begin to feel the shift, when that cynicism Bingham's been sporting so charmingly the first hour or so of the movie has eroded away and you suddenly realize that the real reason he's been keeping that other job giving self-help lectures was just to allow him to have a seemingly sensible podium to stand behind for that change-of-heart scene. While I imagine that others have Farmiga's Alex in mind when arguing to the contrary, I still feel that most every element involved in the narrative ultimately felt either quite predictable or certainly less than satisfying.
   
3. CONDESCENDING MUCH? — As I said, the movie begins and ends with a series of shots of actual, real-life people who'd lost their jobs recently. When the script needs professional actors for a little elaboration on those roles though, then it's time to call in one of those standbys for that sort of stuff. But it's been fairly well-publicized that Reitman sought out these newly unemployed folks to add into the film, as the book it was based on wasn't particularly audience-friendly fare after 9/11. While there's indeed a number of real-life victims of the Great Recession, Reitman's use of these people feels more like a gimmick. To some, it might be insignificant and even timely, but to me it felt forced and rather disingenuous.
   

25 WORDS OR LESS:

Confirms Clooney's status as a leading man with more than enough elements to entertain you although hardly enough to stay with you.

Final Thoughts on 2009 NFL Season

It's unfortunate that the final score won't really reflect what a terrific game it was, but hopefully this video's safe where you can watch the entire thing in 14 minutes. I was stepping outside and actually the rounded the corner when the bar erupted after that critical interception, and the Saints winning it really made me enjoy the game all that much more. It's satisfying to get another underdog that emerges successful on a big stage.

I realize now that this is going to be my 45th post this year about the 2009 NFL season, and that's pretty remarkable because that tag got applied to more posts in one year than the total number for how many times I've whined about jobs or girls as long as I've had this here blog up. So I'll take that as a good thing.

My regular season performance in predictions is best summed up in the final Power Rankings for the year (the same numbers that would've gone 8-3 in these playoffs, by the way), and I do indeed plan to have a post created better explaining that numbers process before next season begins. Again, all of my playoff picks were based on my gut for the most part, although you'd be forgiven for assuming I was trying to get as many wrong as possibly after missing my first six games.

And while this year's playoffs were my worst showing in as long as I've put picks up here on BMC, I'll obviously take being perfect in those last two weekends to not end up in the cellar. Only two other dudes went out on a limb with New Orleans and as a result, here's how everybody ended up (colors obviously reflective of winning/losing Super Bowl Pick):

Oscar Nominee Reaction: I foresee Netflix in my mailbox

Well, 37 out of 45 doesn't sound all that bad when you've added five more Best Picture nominees. Looking over my nominee predictions, I obviously underestimated The Blind Side (some pundits did call that, but I had my own doubts) in the Best Picture race and mentioned my skepticism about how A Serious Man had been received. While Star Trek was a popular bet among many of the other picks I had seen, I knew The Hangover was a gamble probably influenced somewhat by my anticipating the opportunity to use that particular nomination lecture others on how the Best Picture race has been diminished by adding more nominees.

But enough with that noise, I guess.

I now realize that I have a recurring habit of beginning my Oscar-related posts by talking about how much more up-to-date I was on the film industry and what had been released over the year. And seeing as this past year was the end of another decade's worth of films (most have called it "the Aughts," although I preferred the tag title of "the Zeroes"), I typically would have been greatly looking forward to composing a Best of the Decade list, much like my Best of the 1990s list I published somewhere on here and want to revise now just thinking about it.

The point is that I certainly have bought into the Oscar hype, and am already trying to finagle my way into catching all 10 nominated films before the telecast—for which my next concern will likely be finding a good party to attend. I've got plenty of theater gift certificates I've accumulated, although it's a damn shame most of them are for one of our distinctly ghetto theaters.

But beyond that, my living space these days is the cleanest it has been since I moved in—check that, it's even cleaner than when I moved in. And now with all that shit I had let take up space on my floors for so long finally gone, there's the temptation to really do some redecorating—although entertainment for myself and any guest usually relies on my DVD player. And while my collection remains fairly impressive in size and scope, they're all films I've already seen all the same and now the time seems more appropriate than ever to look into getting another online rental program.

I went through Blockbuster for a while, but dropped them a few years ago. In recent years, I've become a pretty big fan of Redbox, almost entirely because of my perceived convenience of knowing the disc has been returned safely and I can often get away with seeing a movie for only a buck.

But the problem with Redbox, of course, is that I'm at the mercy of what's available in the machine. And if my guest for the evening is standing beside me at the Redbox, then I'm really at the mercy of what sounds good to her unless there's something I really make an impassioned case for (which is not all that often).

It would be nice to have some say in the manner again. Something like a wish list, you know. Or a queue, I think they call it.

I have less than a month, but I'm hoping to have a little more personal opinion about the films and the performances when it comes time to post my predictions. Considering I've liked the three Best Picture nominees I have seen so far, I'm more optimistic than usual.

Super Bowl XLIV Pick: At least it sounds good

I did a bit of looking back before beginning this post, and it nearly led to me beginning a MySpace blog entry but then I came to my senses and remembered how aggravating that process could be. Previous Super Bowl picks made here on BMC have usually been kept brief because of the girl I was with at the time, but it'll nice being single again for the big game this year—although the last year that happened, I still did get a prediction of sorts out there and then I basically wasn't single again.

But anyway, there's a game once again this year and I'm genuinely pretty pumped up about watching it. While one team is certainly a favorite here, the fact that the two best teams from the entire year and the top seeds in their conferences are in the biggest game works out pretty well for the NFL.

Looking back on how both the Colts and the Saints did for me during the year in the Confidence Pools, you'll notice the teams finished right next to one another to round out my Top 10 point-earning squads on the year. Considering they were both undefeated for a majority of the season, it's hardly surprising they finished in that bracket.

But a closer look at those numbers shows that the only way both teams earned me points this year was with victories. I never once correctly predicted a loss for either of these clubs, even if both of the records I ended up having predicted for Indianapolis and New Orleans were exactly right.

So, it sounds like I'm kinda fucked either way here. Which goes back to the girl thing, I guess. Or maybe I should just get on to how everybody else is doing—in these playoffs, I mean:

Oscar Nominee Picks: The End of an Era

So if I haven't bemoaned how I used to wake at the crack of dawn to watch the Oscar nominations gets announced live, I'll end it there and just say I'll probably sleep in tomorrow. Like I did last year.

I will be interested to see how the nominees are presented, however, now that there will be 10 films in the Best Picture category. Does that mean there will be 10 screens behind the presenters tomorrow morning? Or will it be the traditional five and too bad if you wanted to see all 10 listed at once?

All of this is rather insignificant stuff, of course, because as best I can tell, the race is already more or less between two films (Avatar and The Hurt Locker). But I think the decision to expand the number of films nominated for Best Picture ultimately stands to take away from what it meant to be a nominee when there were only five. Of course, I'm probably the guy who's always anti-expansion about many things (I still like to romanticize the days when only four teams made baseball's post-season), but I mean, really, we're talking about films like The Hangover and Star Trek as factoring into the Best Picture race. Um ... what? Is that a sign of a slow year? Sure, both amusing, entertaining films—and oh, those box office results don't hurt either—but my guess is that when some chick is trying to get me to see any new release after 2010 and uses the "it was nominated for Best Picture" on me, I'll probably just respond with something along the lines of, "Isn't everything nowaday?"

Call me a snob. Who knows, maybe I'll be back here next month making a case for Hangover or Star Trek, but from what I've seen so far, my vote actually at this point would be Inglourious Basterds.

Anyway, I've been doing a little studying for the past couple days and I'm sure my picks for the traditional "Big Eight" won't be all that different than what everybody else has (it's usually just one spot in each category):

BEST PICTURE
Avatar
District 9
An Education
The Hangover
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Star Trek
Up
Up in the Air

Like I said, Avatar and The Hurt Locker are front-runners right now, although Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air and Precious also seem like the natural nominees. I wonder if the inclusion of Up ultimately spells the end for the Best Animated Feature category as the winner will presumably be nominated for Best Picture every year ... but I'm getting ahead of myself. An Education boasts strength from a SAG award and the largest block of the Academy.

District 9 boasts a strong following as well, and my final two spots go to the two aforementioned films, The Hangover and Star Trek, which are actually have probably the longest odds of any of the 10 films I'm guessing.

A Serious Man seemed to get too much of a love it/hate it reaction, and Nine seems to have been widely panned. The film that will come back to haunt me will be Invictus, although The Messenger or A Single Man could be spoilers too.

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

As Tom O'Neil put it, "These seem to be set in stone." The spoiler would be District 9's Neill Blomkamp with Daniels presumably most at risk.

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Again, basically the same five everybody else has although I'm more worried about Ben Foster bumping out Renner than Viggo Mortensen.

BEST ACTRESS
Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gaborey Sibide, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Helen Mirren is the safer bet, I suppose, but I think Emily Blunt nudges her out.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christian McKay, Me and Orson Welles
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

McKay is really the pick here that I'm out on a limb with, incredibly likely to be displaced by either Matt Damon, Alfred Molina, Anthony Mackie or even one of the show's hosts, Alec Baldwin.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds
Mo'Nique, Precious
Samantha Morton, The Messenger

Honestly the shakiest of any category so far, thanks largely to my assumption that Laurent gets put here by the Academy instead of the lead role she was given by the SAG. Then there's her co-star Diane Kruger, who actually was nominated in this category for those SAG Awards. Julianne Moore is certainly voter-friendly, and Emma Thompson or Penelope Cruz would allow the Academy to throw in a former winner if they're in that mood.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Peter Docter & Bob Peterson, Up
Scott Neustatder & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

(500) Days of Summer is most at risk here, depending on if the Academy wants to finally give James Cameron a screenplay nod with Avatar. The Hangover also wouldn't be a total surprise here and I actually wanted to pick that before settling on Summer.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchel, District 9
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Tom Ford, A Single Man
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Ford's addaptation is my dark horse pick here, with the writers behind Fantastic Mr. Fox, Julie & Julia, Invictus and The Road all being just as likely possibilities.

UPDATE: I lied. I was up early and watched the nominations live on the web. More thoughts later.