Fifteen bucks richer.
On Friday, Marisa and I had dinner with my mom, who was in The WC while my sister was on a college overnight. By showing up before check-in time and asking for a room, my mom wound up with a three-room suite for no extra money, so after dinner we went back to her hotel and watched my Netflixed copy of Tadpole, which I had never seen before, on her room’s DVD player, and ate ice cream. Tadpole is a funny little movie. Critics compared it (for better and for worse) to Rushmore at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, I’d say it’s closer to Roger Dodger (which came out the year after).
The next day, we continued to brave the world of horror movies not screened for critics and saw Cursed (which, like Boogeyman, I then had the honor of reviewing). I honestly thought maybe it could be good, because I like all the Scream movies and who doesn’t like Christina Ricci? Anyway, it wasn’t, but nor was it so bad that it really makes sense to withhold it from critics. The reviews won’t be kind, but no worse than any number of critic-screened things. Oh well. One much-delayed Miramax/Ricci project down, one to go (Prozac Nation premieres on Starz in two weeks. Seriously!).
For the Oscars, we crossed the state line into Connecticut for the annual party at Bayard’s. The show was pretty good, way more fun than the Rings slog of last year. A true surprise/upset would’ve hit the spot, but at least the outcome of picture/director was, for me, not assured until the last minute (remember that Aviator had five techie awards going into the last hour). Chris Rock was funny-I actually cracked up a couple of times. I was thinking about it this morning, though, and I realized how few of the top-tier stars seemed to be there (or at least presenting): No Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman. They also lacked the funnier guys, like Jim Carrey or Jack Black or Will Ferrell. It was just a little more A-minus-list than usual. Also, none of the major acceptance speeches really rocked. Foxx and Freeman were both pretty good, but I think Blanchett and Hil-Swank were a little too poised/prepared. It’s probably hard to ignore your own buzz, though.
The changes to the show seemed to do the job of keeping it under the 200-minute mark, but really the first thing they should cut down is the best-song stuff. Wasn’t it just a medley a few years ago? Just get a couple of loose, fun performers to turn it into a medley.
This was the first year in a long time where just about all of the major winners deserved their awards on some level (yeah Charlie Kaufman!). Oh, my predictions: I won the no-money party pool, and tied for first in the office pool, set up by me. The other winner: one of my bosses. I can’t tell if this makes me look more or less like a douchebag (than if I won straight out). Maybe I should do a poll.
The next day, we continued to brave the world of horror movies not screened for critics and saw Cursed (which, like Boogeyman, I then had the honor of reviewing). I honestly thought maybe it could be good, because I like all the Scream movies and who doesn’t like Christina Ricci? Anyway, it wasn’t, but nor was it so bad that it really makes sense to withhold it from critics. The reviews won’t be kind, but no worse than any number of critic-screened things. Oh well. One much-delayed Miramax/Ricci project down, one to go (Prozac Nation premieres on Starz in two weeks. Seriously!).
For the Oscars, we crossed the state line into Connecticut for the annual party at Bayard’s. The show was pretty good, way more fun than the Rings slog of last year. A true surprise/upset would’ve hit the spot, but at least the outcome of picture/director was, for me, not assured until the last minute (remember that Aviator had five techie awards going into the last hour). Chris Rock was funny-I actually cracked up a couple of times. I was thinking about it this morning, though, and I realized how few of the top-tier stars seemed to be there (or at least presenting): No Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman. They also lacked the funnier guys, like Jim Carrey or Jack Black or Will Ferrell. It was just a little more A-minus-list than usual. Also, none of the major acceptance speeches really rocked. Foxx and Freeman were both pretty good, but I think Blanchett and Hil-Swank were a little too poised/prepared. It’s probably hard to ignore your own buzz, though.
The changes to the show seemed to do the job of keeping it under the 200-minute mark, but really the first thing they should cut down is the best-song stuff. Wasn’t it just a medley a few years ago? Just get a couple of loose, fun performers to turn it into a medley.
This was the first year in a long time where just about all of the major winners deserved their awards on some level (yeah Charlie Kaufman!). Oh, my predictions: I won the no-money party pool, and tied for first in the office pool, set up by me. The other winner: one of my bosses. I can’t tell if this makes me look more or less like a douchebag (than if I won straight out). Maybe I should do a poll.