What The FUCK Is Wrong With The Oscars?!

I can't even deal with the Oscars right now. But let's all stand in silence and briefly remember the movies that were either under-appreciated or totally ignored.

Movies That Were Shafted By The Oscars

* Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street - NO BEST DIRECTOR. WHAT THE FUCK? And Depp won't win. If he didn't win for fucking FINDING NEVERLAND which was as feel-good as he gets, he ain't winning for a flick about a crazy barber. Although if he does, I'll be happy for roughly two whole months. And imminently smug.

* Zodiac - One of the scariest movies I've ever seen, with a brilliant performance by Robert Downey Jr, and wonderful direction. And it got SHIT. OK? TRANSFORMERS got more nominations. Pause and ponder.

* The Bourne Ultimatum - Paul Greengrass should have won best director for UNITED 93, and I'd just like SOMEONE out there to acknowledge that a great action trilogy exists, and that none of its parts sucks. I'm not asking for Best Picture - it wasn't. Just, I don't know, some technical awards. SOMETHING?

* Enchanted - Amy Adams, MAN! She was amazing. And I didn't even hate that dude from GREY'S ANATOMY.

* The Simpsons Movie - I mean, SURF'S UP got nominated? NORBIT got a nomination?! GOLDEN COMPASS?! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

* Walk Hard The Dewey Cox Story - OK, I just wish they would have nominated one of his songs. The performance alone would have been worth it.

* Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix - Visual effects, anyone? ANYONE?

* 3:10 To Yuma - Best Western since BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. And that got awards! Big awards!

* Knocked Up - Just original screenplay. I think that's fair. I'm still annoyed THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN didn't get any nominations. Steve Carell was so good... moving on.

* Hot Fuzz - Because it was funny and awesome. That's why.

* Rescue Dawn - Steve Zahn was royally fucked for best supporting. I mean, royally. And Christian Bale made two great movies this year, and got JACK.

* Waitress - This one really upsets me. It was so beautiful and real and funny and sad. And the director will never make another movie. This one should have gotten some appreciation.

* A Mighty Heart - Angelina Jolie should win. End of story. Thank you. That is all.

EDIT: I am very freaked that as soon as I mentioned BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, the news came on that Heath Ledger had died. This happens to me a lot. But seriously, this is a really sad thing. He was young and a father and incredibly talented. And he didn't live that far from me. I'm not trying to co-opt his family's pain, or make this a tabloid thing. But someone I admired died, and for what it's worth I convey my deepest sympathies to his family.

moreless

Can You Have Writer's Block If You're Not A Real Writer?

And by real writer, I mean published. Successfully. Something you actually thought up and wrote, not ripped off of better authors. 

My writer's block is driving me to distraction. Even my usually vivid daydreams are faded and dull. My daydreams hold no interest for me. That is a bad sign. And every idea I think up has been done better. Like Joss Whedon. I want to be Joss Whedon. Or Charlie Kaufman. Or Tim Burton, even though he's a director. Or J.K. Rowling or Hunter S. Thompson or Warren Ellis. All my ideas sound stupid or trite. Or worse, chick-lit. 

Except for Jennifer Weiner, who is my guilty pleasure, I deplore chick-lit. It makes me actively angry. And I don't want my writing to be defined by my nether regions, or the fact that I think Johnny Depp is hot. Maybe if I ever get a good story idea again, I'll write under a pseudonym. 

You know which movie I wish I wrote? KISS KISS BANG BANG. I totally wish that was my idea. Something funny and genre-bending and exciting and under-appreciated. But at this point I'd settle for just being geisha girl to Hugh Laurie.

I've been working on my novel, which turned into chick lit somewhere on page 3. I think because it's a first-person female narrator, and I'm not Sylvia Plath. Do people count that as chick-lit? 

I don't mean books written by women. That would be idiotic. And self-defeating. I consider chick-lit to be books written about a female protagonist who's 'quirky' and 'original,' like fucking Meg Ryan in all those awful movies. And she ends up with the bad guy who turns out to be pretty nice, not the hot guy who turns out to be a shit, and everyone lives happily ever after. Shit. Shit, mine kind of goes that way. I FAIL AT LIFE! HURRAY!

I need to read more. I spent two or three months obsessively rereading the HARRY POTTER series, and I know I could never write anything like that. So I need to read more, and get more inspiration. I wish you could order it, like cigarettes or booze. This is just free-writing.

Random Movie Notes

* SECRET WINDOW is a bad movie, but Johnny Depp is so amazingly funny that it is entirely worthwhile. Like, just him farting around that cabin talking to himself is fucking hysterical. Also, he's real pretty. I'm on a bit of a Depp kick at the moment. It happens. And John Turturro is just always rad. It's a pointless piece of film but it's fun if you ignore the plot.

* SPIDER MAN 3 is also pointless crap, because it's a mess. But it has one good scene. I try to find one worthwhile thing in every movie. This one has several, but only one I actually want to mention. WARNING: SPOILER FOR SPIDER MAN 3. I think James Franco's death scene is fantastic. It's just so sad, and sweet, and surprisingly understated considering how much of the rest of the movie was about explosions and loud noises and grandiose gestures. It's just this very sad, quiet sort of scene, and he's wonderful in it. I'll miss him.

* In HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE, David Tennant is scary as everloving fuck. My friend put it quite succinctly: "He does a great job of going from a really elegant guy to totally fucking deranged in like two seconds." I'm paraphrasing, but it was a good line.

I need to read something good. But not tonight. Tonight I'm going to watch crappy movies and fuck around on the computer. Like a true writer. 

moreless

Galaxy Quest Quotes

Funniest movie in years. Total goodness, with ALAN RICKMAN, SAM ROCKWELL, TONY SHALOUB, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, and... it's just really fucking funny and smart, and if you ever liked STAR TREK, you are legally obligated to see this movie.

"What IS this thing? There's no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway!"
"Gwen —"
"No! I mean, we shouldn't have to do this! It makes no logical sense! Why is it here?!"
"Because it's on the television show."
"Well, forget it! I'm not doing it! This episode was BADLY WRITTEN!"

"It's a rock! It doesn't HAVE any vulnerable spots!"

"Guys, I was there. I was up there. Remember yesterday at the convention, those people dressed up like aliens? They WERE aliens! They were Termites, or-or Dalmatians... I can't really remember 'cause I was hung over. But what they built was extraordinary!"

"You broke the ship, you BROKE the bloody ship!"

"We have enjoyed preparing many of your esoteric dishes. Your Monte Cristo sandwich has become a favorite among the adventurous."

"Let's get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!"

"How did I come to this?"
"Not again."
"I played Richard the Third!"
"Five curtain calls."
"There were five curtain calls. I was an ACTOR once, damn it! Now look at me. Look at me! I can't go out there, and I won't say that STUPID line one more time. I can't and I won't!"

"You WILL go out there!"
"I won't. And nothing you can say will make me."
"The show must go on."
"...Damn you. Damn you! I won't say that stupid line one more time!"

"Whoever wrote this episode should DIE!"

"I changed my mind, I wanna go back."
"After all the fuss you made about getting left behind?"
"Yeah, but that's when I thought I was the crewman that stays on the ship and something is up there and it kills me. But now I'm thinking I'm the guy that gets killed by some monster five minutes after we land on the planet."
"You're not going to die on the planet, Guy."
"I'm not? Then what's my last name?"
"It's, um... um, um... I don't know."
"Nobody knows. You know why? Because my character isn't important enough for a last name... because I'm gonna die five minutes in."
"Guy, you HAVE a last name."
"DO I?! DO I?! For all you know, I'm 'Crewman Number Six!' Mommy! MOMMY!"
"Are we there yet?"

"Wait! Don't open that! It's an alien planet! Is there AIR? You don't know!"

"Look at that. Look. They look like little children."
"Could they be the miners?"
"Sure. I mean, they're like three years old."
"MINERS, not MINORS."
"You lost me."

"I don't like this. I don't like this at all."
"Oh, they are so cute!"
"Sure, they're cute NOW. But in a second they're gonna get mean, and they're gonna get ugly somehow, and there's gonna be a million more of them."

"Did you guys ever WATCH the show?"

"We'll need a signal. I'll cup my hands like this and go 'Caw! Caw!'"
"What are you, an infant?!"

Look around you. Can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?"

"What was that?"
"Uh, nothing."
"I heard some squealing or something."
"No, everything is fine."
"But the animal is inside out."
"I heard that! It got turned inside out?"
"And it exploded."
"Did I just hear that the animal turned inside out and then EXPLODED?"
"Um... hold, please."

"I'm just a glorified extra, Fred. I'm a dead man anyway. If I gotta die I'd rather go out a hero than a coward."
"Guy — Guy, maybe you're the plucky comedy relief. You ever think about that?"
"Plucky?"
"Besides. Haha! I just had this really interesting idea...Yeah let's go."
"Are you stoned?"

"Enemy is matching velocity."
"The enemy is matching velocity."
"We heard it the first time."
"Gosh, I'm doing it. I'm repeating the darn computer!"

moreless

A Non-Specific Rant

Things That Make Me Happy Right Now

* Drinks with my friends tonight.

* Haven't seen a roach in almost a week.

* CLOVERFIELD is coming out on Friday!

* Job interview.

* HOUSE, MD

* Netflix

* I'm working on a novel.

Things That Make Me Unhappy Right Now

* Will probably see a roach in the next five minutes.

* Job interview is for an unpaid position.

* New episodes of HOUSE, MD don't come back on until the end of the month.

* My novel isn't very good.

* The movies I want to see aren't coming out for months on end.

* Still unemployed.

* Personal life both boring AND in shambles, which I didn't know was possible.

I swear, I don't intend for this blog to become an angsty Dashboard-Confessional LiveJournal I'm so emo I sit in the dark and cry exercise in bad writing. It's just been a shitty month.

Whichever horoscope-writer said this would be my best year ever was clearly drunk, or vindictive. They must be found, and forced to listen to me whine.

May your life not be driving you crazy.

- LV

moreless

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Quotes

For the record, I wish I had written this movie. I would sell my soul to have written this movie. If you haven't seen it, I hate you. And everybody you will ever meet secretly thinks you smell kind of funky. This is one of the best movies I've seen in the past ten years. Hands down.

"This is every shade of wrong."

"I tell him about destiny; he's shaking his head. About dreamgirls; he doesn't care. I mention the underwear thing? He has a fucking conniption. And you? How 'bout it, filmgoer? Have you solved the case of the - the dead people in L.A.? Times Square audiences, please don't shout at the screen, and stop picking at that, it'll just get worse."

"Don't worry, I saw Lord of the Rings. I'm not going to end this 17 times."

"It was the first time I felt how pitying someone and wanting to fuck them can get all tangled up in your head. Overwhelming sadness, meanwhile you got a Rodney. Is that sick? I think… yeah… I think that's sick."

"Doesn't that suck? I just hit you for no reason. I don't know why."

"Your mouth is a recommended place to put a sock."

"When in doubt, cut up a pig - that was the town's motto."

"Thanks for coming, please stay for the end credits, if you're wondering who the best boy is, it's somebody's nephew, um, don't forget to validate your parking, and to all you good people in the Midwest, sorry we said fuck so much."

"Why in pluperfect hell would you pee on a corpse?"

"So she comes to the door with nothing on but the radio. And she leads me inside and I sit down, right? Well, then she sits right on my lap and lights up a spliff."
"Really? That happened?"
"No. Idiot."

"I call it my 'faggot gun,' because it's only good for a couple of shots and then you have to drop it for something better."

"Look up idiot in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?"
"A picture of me?"
"No! The definition of the word 'idiot!' Which you fucking are!"

"He called her a... well, a bad word. Cunt."

"I shot him with a small revolver I keep near my balls."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"
"I don't think you'd know where to put food, if you didn't flap your mouth so much. Yes I think you're stupid."

"This isn't good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker. You're in serious trouble."

"Merry Christmas. Sorry I fucked you over."

"I swear to God, it's like somebody took America by the East Coast, and shook it, and all the normal girls managed to hang on."

"I want you to picture a bullet inside your head right now. Can you do that for me?"
"Fuck you. Anyway, that's ambiguous."
"Ambiguous. No, no, I don't think so."
"No, I think what he means is that when you say 'Picture it inside your head' okay is that that a bullet will be inside your head. Or picture it IN your head."
"Harry will you shut up?"
"Well he's got a point."
"Look, I don't know anything about a girl, seriously. I was bluffing."
"Oh okay, you know what? I think you are bluffing right now."
"Harry what are you doing?"
"Well what I am doing for the guy who likes to bluff, is I am playing a little game called 'Am I bluffing?' Where is she? Where the fuck is Harmony?"
"Harry."
"You want to play hard ball, I can do that. Where...is...the girl!"
[The gun unexpectedly fires into the gunman's head.]
"What did you just do!?"
"There was only one bullet in that right?"
"Yes, you put a live round into that gun."
"Well I didn't know I thought there was like an ...eight percent chance."
"Eight? Who taught you math?"

moreless

Pop Quiz, Hot Shots

Hello, total strangers! I have a question that I can't seem to answer, and maybe you can. So, let's give it a shot, shall we?

What should I do with the rest of my life?

I can't decide, and it's becoming a rather serious problem, seeing as I lack money, and skills.

I also keep changing my mind, which is both irritating and sad - a dangerous combination.

Sometimes I want to be a journalist, because I worship Hunter S. Thompson. Only thing is, I kind of doubt I have the personality for it.

Sometimes I want to be a filmmaker, or a screenwriter, or a producer. Then I remember I'm not very good at any of those things. And, despite what everyone likes to say, I am NOT a good writer. I am funny on occasion, and good at silly, glib sayings. That is it. I am not profound or deep. And ALL my ideas are total rip-offs of other, better ideas. Not subtle ones, either. As in, 'let's change the main character's names and create a character that's just like me, only better.'

What I would be ideal at is writing scripts for TV shows that are already in production. But that doesn't seem very likely.

Sometimes I consider Forensic Psychology, because I like both psychology and serial killers. But I have no background, and kind of doubt that it would be like all the cool TV shows.

A lot of the time (most of the time) I want to get paid to analyze and discuss movies, and interview the people I admire. But I also think that's sort of lame. I'm torn between wanting to create, and knowing my creations are really shitty.

I even consider teacher, even though I don't like people that much, but that would be just a placeholder. Ditto lawyer.

So the real problem here, kiddos, is that I have both too many and not enough options. I'm creative, but not creative enough. I seriously spent over an hour looking for the E-Mail addresses of Joss Whedon, Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris, and Tim Burton, so I could offer my services as a coffee bitch. Anything.

I am only 22, but I'm already 22. And I have no life experience, terrible ideas, and no real career options. So! Unless you want me to continue whining endlessly, offer some advice/suggestions. Because right now I want to jump into a time machine (like the TARDIS) and hop into a universe where I know what the fuck to do.

Time is a factor here, people.

Oh, and thank you for the birthday wishes, to those who sent them. I'd update more, but as you can see I'm having issues, and not particularly entertaining at this juncture.
- LV

PS If Hugh Laurie wants to just marry me, and let me do his laundry and stare adoringly at him, that would be a totally fine life plan for me.

moreless

The New Year Is Totally Unnecessary

But I got a new iPod, and a new computer, and am now spectacularly broke, so things are back to normal. And I'm back on the east coast, so all is well.

Saw WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY last night. It was funny and stupid and a lot of the jokes didn't work, but the music was surprisingly great, and John C. Reilly is fantastic [and I've liked him since before anyone, so BITE ME].

Also:
Jack White as Elvis
Justin Long as George Harrison
Paul Rudd as John Lennon
Jason Schwartzman as Ringo Starr
Jack Black as Paul McCartney
Jewel, Lyle Lovett, Jackson Browne, and Timbaland doing a tribute to Mr. Cox
Eddie FUCKING Vedder

That was worth the ticket price alone.

My birthday is in two days. I think that's why I want to set so many things on fire. Are CDs supposed to make grinding noises in the drive of your new computer? Very bad noise.

This is the first year I didn't make a list of resolutions. But I'll make one today, and we can all laugh at the false hopes for self-improvement. Trivia: who said it was like masturbation? Winner gets a prize.

Anyone see Obama PWN everyone last night? The man LOOKS like a President. And he gave a brilliant speech. But I wish politicians would be assholes to each others' faces. "My opponent fucks puppies." "My respected opponent pisses on the graves of orphans." It would be funny. And a lot more honest.

Hope the year hasn't kicked you too hard in the nuts yet.
- LV

moreless