The 79th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS... Congratulations to Martin Scorsese for finally winning the Big One (or Ones) by taking Best Director and Best Picture for The Departed. Great film, great film. I'm thinking about going to Best Buy tomorrow to replace my DVD copy of the Oscar-winner...since it freezes and becomes pixelated during the end credits. Not that I plan to watch the end credits again when I view the movie a second time. But I sure wouldn't mind having a clean copy of the film, eh? So where was I? Oh yea... American Idol was once again rendered irrelevant with Jennifer Hudson winning Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls, Eddie Murphy lost out to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine in the Best Supporting Actor category (because of Norbit?), and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest took home the Best Visual Effects Oscar (though that movie blew). Can't wait to see who gets nominated for Visual FX next year (since it's really the only other category I care about besides Best Picture...and Best Original Score if John Williams or Hans Zimmer is in the running. I dig their music)... Spider-Man 3 should be a shoe-in...and perhaps Transformers and 300 will get nominated as well. Or how 'bout Ghost Rider, which was once again No. 1 in the box office this weekend? Probably not likely with that one. We'll see.



UPDATE: Just checked online, and The Departed won for Best Editing?? If there was one flaw the film had, it was with that particular production aspect. Click here for more details.

"I feel a lot better now that I know I’m the Devil’s bounty hunter." Though much of the dialogue was laughable (the Nicholas Cage line quoted above is laughable, but in a good way), the villains were weak, and the actress (Raquel Alessi) who played the younger version of Eva Mendes’ character is a lot prettier than Eva Mendes herself (though she’s still bangin’), by God Ghost Rider himself kicked ass (along with that cowboy Rider with the awesome horse)...and the movie itself was still enjoyable. It was a lot more entertaining than Mark Steven Johnson’s (a film school alumnus who, like me, went to Cal State Long Beach. Go 49ers!) last comic book flick, Daredevil. Though if there’s one thing Ghost Rider lacked that Daredevil had, it was a cool hit song by Evanescence. Oh well. Darn the critics... I give this flick thumbs up.



I also watched the film Breach this weekend. Good movie...but um, the FBI did remember to retrieve the package that Robert Hanssen (played by Chris Cooper) left underneath that bridge after he was apprehended, right? Or was that part fictional? Of course the FBI picked up that package. If there’s one thing a U.S. government agency is best known for, it is its utmost competence. Just ask FEMA. ‘Nuff said.

UPDATE: Six years ago today, the real Robert Hanssen was apprehended in Foxstone Park in Virginia. Irony? Or did Universal intentionally release this film near the anniversary of his arrest?