A Sad Day for L.A. Moviegoers...

FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images

A few hours ago, I found out through the Hollywood Reporter that ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres will permanently shut their doors—as business was unable to recover due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All I can say is, this is hugely disappointing...to the point where I almost became a bit teary-eyed as I read various news articles about this. Between 2004 and 2010, I had a fun job at a market research company where I worked movie test and press screenings at the ArcLight in Hollywood and Pacific Theatres throughout Southern California. Also, I watched such films as Avatar, Zero Dark Thirty and two Star Wars films (Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens, to be specific) at the ArcLight as well. Not only that, but I visited the ArcLight on Sunset Boulevard numerous times over the past decade to see costumes and vehicles used in flicks like Ant-Man and the Wasp, Deadpool 2, The Force Awakens and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, respectively, inside its main theater lobby.

And now it's all gone.

It's just painful that more nails continue to be placed in the coffin in terms of my memories at places that I'll no longer work at that I do want to work in again. I could make this Blog entry extremely long to voice more of my disappointment at this breaking news, but I'll conclude this here. Another era that I cherished comes to an end.

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY - Movie Review

So last night, I went to my local AMC Theatre to watch an advance screening of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and needless to say, director Gareth Edwards indeed put the "war" back into Star Wars with this installment! The film started off pretty slow, but once it picked up, there was no slowing down as Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), Captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), K-2SO (voiced and motion-captured by Alan Tudyk) and their merry band of Rebels set out to find and retrieve the plans to the Empire's dreaded Death Star. Rogue One had amazing cinematography, visual effects (even though there's still work to be done to make CGI humans look convincing; more on that later), action pieces, acting and stirring music by Michael Giacchino! Disney is off to a great start in regards to expanding the Star Wars cinematic universe with this spin-off movie.



In regards to cinematography and visual effects, Rogue One looked beautiful. From the opening shot of Director Orson Krennic's (Ben Mendelsohn) shuttle flying over the ringed world of Lah'mu and landing on that planet to capture former Imperial scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) to the amazing space battle above Scarif and the ground war on the tropical planet's surface, director of photography Greig Fraser (who also worked on the 2012 Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark Thirty) did a tremendous job capturing the realistic, lived-in look of the original Star Wars trilogy...while at the same time adding the grittiness that Edwards wanted to make Rogue One a true war film. VFX-wise, Rogue One had amazing special effects—once again thanks to Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and other FX houses employed on this spin-off movie.



Edwards and his writing team were bold in giving considerable screen-time to Grand Moff Tarkin (played by the late Peter Cushing in 1977's A New Hope, and Guy Henry in this installment) and featuring Princess Leia (portrayed by Ingvild Deila in Rogue One). Story-wise, the inclusion of these characters was what made Rogue One a true prequel to the original Star Wars movie. Effects-wise, however, ILM did the best it could (which was still remarkable) in superimposing Cushing and Carrie Fisher's face onto those of Henry and Deila, respectively. Seeing Leia appear on screen was the biggest payoff of the movie (though she looked too happy considering the events that literally transpired a minute earlier), with Tarkin's action aboard the Death Star in the final minutes of Rogue One making the third act end in both a spectacular and tragic note. However, Disney still has ways to go before it's bold enough to put young, CGI versions of the Big Three (Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker) in a future 'Saga' or spin-off flick.



In terms of the action pieces, Edwards succeeded tremendously in creating amazing fight and battle scenes in Rogue One. From the skirmish on Jedha [including that cool fight scene between Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and the Stormtroopers] plus that Rebel aerial attack on Eadu, to the final battles above and on the surface of Scarif, Edwards indeed delivered on his promise to get down and dirty in regards to showing the Rebel Alliance fight valiantly to the death against the Empire. The climactic space battle, in particular, had very cool moments that I only experienced playing the classic X-Wing video game on my computer! Namely, a specially-made Corellian Corvette (a.k.a. the Blockade Runner being chased by Darth Vader's Star Destroyer at the beginning of A New Hope) being used to ram a disabled Star Destroyer and cause it to collide into another Imperial flagship above Scarif. So awesome! Though in X-Wing, the Corvette actually sliced into not one, but many Star Destroyers at that point in the game. Well, we don't always get what we want!



Acting-wise, Rogue One had tremendous performances that Star Wars fans wished were in the other prequel films more than a decade ago. Unsurprisingly, Oscar nominee Felicity Jones did a wonderful job portraying Jyn Erso...with one emotional moment being as she watches a hologram of her father Galen (who she hasn't seen in person for 15 years) on Jedha. Galen himself was portrayed as an honorable but tragic figure by Mikkelsen, with Valene Kane doing a nice job playing Lyra Erso, Galen's wife and Jyn's mother, in the brief but heartwarming moments that Lyra shared with her family. Diego Luna was commendable as the conflicted but heroic Captain Andor, though it's unfortunate that his scenes weren't exciting to watch till Jyn and K-2SO arrived on the spot. K-2SO himself is definitely one of the most memorable droids in the live-action Star Wars movies—thanks to the amazing motion capture performance by Alan Tudyk.



Wen Jiang and Donnie Yen were both great as the Guardians of the Whills...with Jiang playing the loyal Baze Malbus, who did everything he could to protect Chirrut Îmwe (who's blind) in the heat of battle. Riz Ahmed was terrific as Imperial pilot-turned-Rebel Bodhi Rook...though at the beginning of the film, I couldn't understand most of what Rook was saying as he spoke took fast due to his panic being captured by Saw Gerrera's (Forest Whitaker) forces on Jedha. Ditto with Whitaker, who seemed to over-dramatize his lines with Ahmed, but gave a more modest performance once Saw reunites with his long-lost friend, Jyn.



Finally, in regards to the main actors, Ben Mendelsohn gave an interesting performance as the conniving and narcissistic Director Krennic. If you read the Rogue One prequel novel Catalyst, you'll see that Mendelsohn's portrayal of Krennic was faithful to how this character was in the book. The fate that Krennic receives at the end of Rogue One was very deserving of this character. In terms of the other characters in this movie, it was great to see Jimmy Smits back as Bail Organa, and Genevieve O'Reilly's Mon Mothma finally on the big screen...after being relegated to the deleted scenes feature on the Revenge of the Sith DVD. Anthony Daniels was back as C-3PO (albeit briefly) while James Earl Jones returned as the voice of Darth Vader...who was truly memorable in the two major scenes that he had in Rogue One. One of those scenes, without giving anything away, was epic! Let's just say, Vader is still the angry person that he was in the third act of Revenge of the Sith—and his actions in the climax are things that you can replicate in the Star Wars: Battlefront video games! Rogue One definitely showed us why Vader is still the most iconic villain in the Star Wars universe.



And lastly, Michael Giacchino's music in Rogue One was amazing. Considering the fact that he only had four weeks to write and compose his score, Giacchino (who got to play a First Order Stormtrooper in The Force Awakens) did a fantastic job capturing the spirit of John Williams' music. Heck, I'm listening to the score on CD as I type this review (the music for Vader's final scene in the film, to be exact)! I couldn't get Jyn Erso' theme out of my head as I drove home from the theater last night...because of this amazing musical piece, and the memorable and tragic character that this piece honors in the movie. I read somewhere online that Felicity Jones actually has a clause in her contract to play Jyn one last time; here's hoping that she uses it! Rogue One was an outstanding flick— It took a while to get up to speed, but once it kicks into high gear, well, you have a flick that did a triumphant job expanding the Star Wars lore. Thanks to Rogue One, that galaxy far, far away just got bigger. Most notable line in the movie: "I'm one with the Force. The Force is with me." Carry on.

8 out of 10 stars.

RoboCop: Movie Review...

"I won't buy that for a dollar..." Such is Rick Mattox's (Jackie Earle Haley) updated take on the classic line from Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop. While there were no criminals who melted in acid or that other memorable quote "Can you fly, Bobby?" in this remake of the 1987 sci-fi satire, the new flick is still a decent one that provides an allegory on the use of unmanned drones here in the United States. Talk show host Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) actually has some pretty interesting lines about how Americans are resistant to robots being used on native soil to police this country (and potentially invading privacy rights), despite the fact that in real life (for folks who haven't been watching the news for the last ten years), drones are being used to lethal effect in other nations and dispatching terrorists (which may include those who were born here in the U.S.) left and right long before they put their attack plans into motion. But enough about the political undertones of RoboCop... Let's talk about the part-man, part-machine, all-cop himself.



In terms of the 'Tin Man' (a nickname given to RoboCop by Mattox), Joel Kinnaman did a commendable job playing Detective Alex Murphy and his eventual robotic self. Kinnaman looks just as imposing in the metal suit as Peter Weller did in the 1987 flick and 1990's RoboCop 2. With the rest of the cast, Abbie Cornish (of 2012's Seven Psychopaths) does a great job and looks beautiful as Murphy's wife Clara, Michael Keaton is devious (in a good way) as OmniCorp owner Raymond Sellars, Gary Oldman is channeling the conflicted heroism of Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight trilogy through Dr. Dennett Norton, Haley clearly had a lot of fun playing the humorous character Mattox, Liz Kline—played by Jennifer Ehle (of Zero Dark Thirty)—is just as delightfully shady as Keaton's Sellars, Jay Baruchel (of last year's This Is the End) is amusing as Tom Pope, and Samuel L. Jackson took his role as Novak in stride. One thing's for sure, director José Padilha put lots of effort into this movie having a stellar cast to make up for the absence of biting satire that the original film possessed.



Unlike the original RoboCop flick, this one went more global by having OmniCorp dispatch its army of ED-209s to places such as Afghanistan, and having Murphy (severely-maimed from a car-bomb explosion outside of his house) don his silver (and then the Dark Knight-ish black) armor at a remote facility in China. Speaking of the armor, one cool thing about this RoboCop movie over the first one is that we see what's underneath the metal. Like General Grievous from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, all that's left of Murphy are his head, lungs, heart(?) and right hand. Murphy apparently doesn't have the capacity to eat (since we don't see him eat baby food like Weller's version did in '87)...what with his digestive system being removed and all. But it was a nice touch by Padilha to use modern visual effects to allow the audience to view what was underneath the suit that allowed RoboCop to strike fear into the hearts and minds of criminals throughout the city of Detroit.



All-in-all, RoboCop was an entertaining film. It is understandable that CGI would be utilized to create scores of ED-209s that could move much more dynamically than the full-scale puppet used in the 1987 version, and that the 2014 RoboCop is much more agile and can leap over large walls in a single bound. Plus, he gets to drive through the streets of Detroit on a souped-up motorcycle that almost sounds like the Batpod from Christopher Nolan's last two Batman films. I would also have to give props to Padilha for briefly featuring Basil Poledouris' main music theme for the 1987 flick at the beginning and end credits of this movie. And last, but definitely not least, I have to give kudos to Padilha for allowing Murphy to regain the iconic silver suit near the end of this film. The black 'tactical' armor was cool...but nothing beats the silver covering that fans have come to know and love since its metallic feet first made those "wamp, wamp" sounds throughout the halls of that Detroit police station in 1987. That is all. "Thank you for your cooperation..."

The LEGO Movie...

Everything is awesome!!! Everything is cool when you're part of a team! That um, awesome song (by Tegan and Sara featuring The Lonely Island) is still stuck in my head after watching The LEGO Movie earlier today. Featuring the voices of an all-star cast that includes Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Alison Brie, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Jonah Hill and even Shaquille O'Neal, this flick does absolute justice to the classic toy blocks on which this film is based. The LEGO Movie conveys the theme that LEGOs are meant to be turned into any creation that a child can fathom in his or her mind...and that these creations aren't meant to stay permanent through the lack of vision and the reckless use of Krazy Glue. Bent on using the latter product to take the fun out of LEGOs is Will Ferrell, who plays the main animated villain Lord Business as well as the live-action Man Upstairs. Pratt (who played a Navy SEAL in Zero Dark Thirty and stars in NBC's Parks and Recreation) does a great job voicing the main protagonist named Emmet...an Average Joe who would save Legoland when he finally embraces his destiny of being the MasterBuilder.



Along with having really great animation (I couldn't help but feel nostalgic when classic LEGO sets—ranging from castle fortresses to spaceships—that I used to own and wanted to own when I was young were brought to life on the big screen), it was fun to see cameos by other brand characters that LEGO was able to build toys for over the last decade or so. Among them are Batman (voiced humorously by Will Arnett), Superman (Channing Tatum), Wonder Woman (voiced by The Avengers and How I Met Your Mother's Cobie Smulders), C-3PO (once again voiced by Anthony Daniels) and Lando Calrissian (voiced by Billy Dee Williams... One wonders if he'll reprise his role as live-action Lando in next year's Star Wars: Episode VII). It wasn't a surprise to see Batman, Superman and other Justice League members in The LEGO Movie—seeing as how this flick was produced by Warner Bros., which owns the rights to all DC Comics characters—but it was cool to see Star Wars references as well.



While The LEGO Movie may not have been as moving (only slightly so) as such Pixar flicks as Up or WALL-E, it was still a great film for kids and adults alike. You would think that it would be a straightforward cartoon like the aforementioned Disney films and other movies such as Shrek or Despicable Me, but that live-action scene featuring Will Ferrell's Man Upstairs having a change of heart after seeing his son's imagination come into play was a nice touch. Considering how well-received this movie has been with the critics, and how big this film will do at the box office this weekend, it's pretty much a sure bet that The LEGO Movie will see a sequel. Assuming that the sequel strikes the right notes that its predecessor is doing, The LEGO Movie has a chance to spawn a series that will be as moving as say, Pixar's Toy Story franchise. Everything will be awesome if that was the case. Carry on.

Lone Survivor...

I watched Peter Berg's latest action flick starring Mark Wahlberg earlier today, and all I can say is, it was intense. Lone Survivor follows in the tradition of Zero Dark Thirty and 2001's Black Hawk Down in showing the triumphant and sometimes tragic exploits of U.S. Special Forces in a movie that was wide-released in early January. Survivor doesn't have any political undertones like those aforementioned films, but it does bring to mind the fact that American soldiers should no longer see combat in Afghanistan by the end of this year—when pretty much all of of the U.S. military will pull out of the Central Asian country after 13 years of fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Speaking of the Taliban, Survivor never mentions what happened to the chief warlord, Ahmad Shah, who was behind the June 2005 ambush that led to the deaths of three Navy SEALs and 16 fellow soldiers aboard a Chinook helicopter. (Upon doing some research online, Shah was killed in a shootout with Pakistani police in April of 2008.)



While the amount of casualties that the U.S. sustained on that single day in 2005 was one of the most horrific in the 12-plus-year Afghan war, the reason why Lone Survivor got made was obviously because of the heroism that the SEALs displayed during their ill-fated mission, Operation Red Wings. 19 American troops lost their lives during this sortie (which is eerily the same amount of casualties that U.S. Special Forces sustained in Mogadishu, Somalia during the events shown in Black Hawk Down)...but between 100-150 Afghan insurgents were casualties during this firefight. It's because of this that Berg fittingly began Lone Survivor with a montage of photos showing SEAL recruits going through 'Hell Week' as they trained to become some of the most disciplined and deadliest soldiers in the world; and why we shouldn't forget those brave men who gave their lives to serve this country on that fateful day. But since this is a movie review, I'd also like to point out that the action scenes were nicely done, and the location scouts did a great job finding places in New Mexico that closely emulated the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. I'm sure the scenery was enhanced by visual effects houses like Industrial Light & Magic—which worked on the movie and was most likely responsible for creating digital facsimiles of such assets as the AH-64 Apache choppers that would come to the rescue in Survivor's climax.



As the 2010 flick The Green Zone and even his 2012 sci-fi film Battleship have shown, Peter Berg loves portraying the U.S. military in an exciting light on the big screen, and Lone Survivor is no different. But it's also a tale about facing the ultimate cost of serving one's country. Whether it's fighting a rogue warlord in Afghanistan or eliminating Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan, the Navy SEALs should be commended for taking on the most dangerous assignments in the name of helping to make our country (and the world, if you want me to get overly dramatic) a safer place. That is all.

Captain Phillips: Movie Review

I watched Paul Greengrass' cinematic take on the 2009 hijacking of the U.S. cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama yesterday, and two things come to mind: God bless America...and Go Navy! Captain Phillips is the latest true-story flick to depict the heroism of U.S. Navy SEALS (right after last year's Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty) as they take on four Somali pirates who kidnapped Captain Richard Phillips and held him hostage aboard a hyperbaric lifeboat for several days. I don't know how much creative license Greengrass took to dramatize this ordeal (I never read in the newspaper that Phillips briefly escaped from the lifeboat and tried to swim towards the USS Bainbridge nearby...only for the pirates to recapture him from the water)...what I do know is that he got the one major detail of this event right. That one detail is the fact that three SEAL team snipers simultaneously fired their rifles and took out the pirates (three were left aboard the lifeboat while the fourth was lured aboard the Bainbridge by a fake deal made by Navy officers, and later arrested) just as they were about to harm Phillips. Even being towed by the Bainbridge, the lifeboat was still rocking drastically in the ocean—and for the snipers to nail their targets from the stern of the Navy destroyer hundreds of feet away was remarkable.



Just as remarkable as the real-life way that the Navy SEALs ended this crisis are the performances of Tom Hanks and the four actors who played the Somali pirates. Hanks' superb acting is to be expected, but the performance of newcomer Barkhad Abdi—who played pirate leader Muse—was memorable. I read online that Abdi mistimed his speaking cues when he acted with Hanks during that scene where the pirates stormed the ship's bridge (which is the first time the two actors met in-person when the movie was being shot... That was an intentional move on Greengrass' part to prevent the first-time Somali performers from being intimidated by Hanks during filming), but that confrontation came off very intense on the big screen. Abdi needs to bulk up if he wants to work in other Hollywood flicks where he won't play a "skinny rat" marauding the high seas, but as far as Captain Phillips is concerned, he was a shoo-in for this role. And don't be surprised if he gets a Best Supporting Actor nomination at an awards ceremony early next year.



Following on the heels of Gravity, Captain Phillips is another well-made flick that should make the 2014 awards season very interesting. From Best Adapted Screenplay (since the movie is based on a book written by Richard Phillips himself), a Best Actor nomination for Hanks, a potential Best Supporting Actor nom for Abdi to Best Film Editing and other nods in technical categories, Captain Phillips has the makings of a movie that should make the 86th Academy Awards next March worth watching. The Oscars will be even more fun to watch when you include Alfonso Cuarón's hit space disaster film in the equation. Either way, as long as both films receive the kudos that they deserve in late winter, everything is—as the pirate Muse would say—"gonna be all right." That is all.

Prisoners...

I saw the new suspense thriller featuring Hugh Jackman, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo and Jake Gyllenhaal today, and all I can say is—holy cow, that was one terrific movie. The last time I saw a thriller this moody and intense was when I watched The Place Beyond the Pines earlier this year. In that film, the story was very creative in comparing the so-different-and-yet-so-similar lives of a bank robber played by Ryan Gosling and the cop who pursued him, portrayed by Bradley Cooper. In Prisoners, you have a police detective (played by Gyllenhaal) pretty much going by the book in finding the missing daughters of Jackman and Howard...who, on the other hand, resort to tactics that would make the CIA operatives played by Jessica Chastain and Jason Clarke in Zero Dark Thirty cringe as they tried to make the purported kidnapper (played by Paul Dano) confess to the whereabouts of the abducted girls.



There are lots of twists and turns in Prisoners, with Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) questioning everyone—including the parents played by Jackman, Bello, Davis and Howard—who may have had any sort of involvement in the girls' kidnapping. Loki even interrogates a pastor, who (surprise, surprise) does have a skeleton in the closet (or in this case, a basement). The thing is, his secret isn't something that you would expect from the priest...only that it still involves the plight of young children gone astray. The mystery behind his daughter's disappearance is so severe that Keller Dover (Jackman) will resort to anything to get answers...from staking out Alex Jones' (Dano) house as he chokes/walks his dog at night to taking the prime suspect to an abandoned apartment building and, while employing all forms of torture on Jones, places him inside a makeshift wooden cell built by none other than Dover himself. The rage expressed by Dover as he questions Jones is so intense that Jackman is more intimidating playing this character than he was as Wolverine (in any of the X-Men films). And Gyllenhaal does a commendable job as Detective Loki; playing it cool as he goes about trying to solve the case but kicking ass and taking names when he needs to.



Not to spoil anything, but Prisoners does end in a happy ending...but also on a cautionary note as it shows the pitfalls (RE: dangers) that people face when they try to exact their own form of justice after a crime had been committed. Again, not to spoil anything, but the kidnapper is the one person you'd least expect in the movie. And once that perpetrator is revealed, blood will be spilled, and other innocent people besides the missing girls will be placed in harm's way even till the end credits roll. As mentioned at the start of this review, Prisoners is a terrific film, and the suspense doesn't let up at all in this well-made flick—not even in the very last shot of this movie. Watch Prisoners if you want to see how entertaining cinematic thrillers should be conceived. Carry on.

Captain Phillips... Check out the newest trailer for Paul Greengrass' upcoming film Captain Phillips...which is about the 2009 hijacking of the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. The reason why this movie is exciting enough for me to post screenshots from the preview is because of how the actual event ended: Like in Zero Dark Thirty, the heroism of U.S. Navy SEALs is on display when they are able to free Captain Richard Phillips from the marauders. In case you don't know how he was released from captivity, wait till the flick gets released in theaters nationwide (on October 11) to find out. It's pretty awesome how Phillips' liberation took place. One shot. One kill.

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White House Down... Overlooking the fact it's embarrassing that there are so many similarities between Roland Emmerich's latest film (which I saw earlier today) and last March's Olympus Has Fallen, White House Down still had its moments. Unlike Olympus, White House Down took its time to introduce us to several players in the movie...from Channing Tatum's would-be Secret Service agent John Cale to Jason Clarke's (of Zero Dark Thirty) disgruntled ex-Delta Forces soldier, Emil Stenz. Clearly, Jamie Foxx's portrayal as the leader of the free world, James Sawyer, was inspired by the mannerisms of President Obama, while Martin Walker—the traitorous security chief played by James Woods—actually had a more dramatic backstory than the turncoat played by Dylan McDermott in Olympus. Visual effects-wise, White House Down was superior to the Gerard Butler action flick...which is no surprise considering that Roland Emmerich directed a mega-blockbuster hit (Independence Day) that went on to win the Best Visual FX Oscar for 1996. Action and violence-wise, Olympus Has Fallen seemed much more realistic in the way rogue North Korean soldiers blasted their way into the White House...with Butler showing equal brutality as he saved the president and his son from the insurgents. Of course, Olympus is rated-R while White House Down is PG-13. But either way, here's hoping that we won't get any more movies depicting the destruction of America's most-heavily-guarded house (supposedly) for the foreseeable future. Now it's time for Emmerich to direct something that I really want to see at the cinemas...like 2015's Independence Day 2 (a.k.a. ID Forever Part I, I think).

James Gandolfini (1961-2013)... Rest In Peace, Mr. Gandolfini. I never saw the hit HBO TV show The Sopranos, but he was awesome in Tony Scott's 1995 flick Crimson Tide and last year's Best Picture nominee, Zero Dark Thirty. Gandolfini passed away today at the age of 51.

85th Annual Academy Awards... Ben Affleck received vindication tonight as his political thriller Argo took home the Oscar for Best Picture. Life of Pi's Ang Lee pulled off an upset on Steven Spielberg (Lincoln) and David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) by winning the trophy for Best Director, Quentin Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay for Django Unchained while Argo also got the nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. Catwoman—err, Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables, Christoph Waltz won another Best Supporting Actor trophy (as expected) for being in a Tarantino film (Django Unchained this year, Inglourious Basterds in 2010), Daniel Day-Lewis was crowned as Best Actor for his portrayal of the 16th U.S. president in Lincoln, and Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. I was rooting for Jessica Chastain to get props for her portrayal as Maya in Zero Dark Thirty...up until I watched Lawrence hold her own against the likes of Robert De Niro in Playbook. You still cool in my book, Jessica.



Anyways— With the dry recap of who took home the gold this year now out of the way, just thought I'd mention that the 85th Annual Academy Awards were quite—interesting. Seth MacFarlane didn't disappoint in delivering gasp-inducing jokes such as the one about John Wilkes Booth being "the only actor to get inside Lincoln's head" ("150 years...and it's still too soon?"), the fact that Django Unchained was considered a "date movie" for violence-prone music artists Chris Brown and Rihanna, and singing a song about all the actresses who went topless on-screen [looks like Naomi Watts and (I think) Charlize Theron weren't so amused when their names were mentioned in this music number]. On another amusing note, I found it hilarious that the cast of The Avengers (Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans and Samuel L. Jackson) was invited to present the award for Best Visual Effects...only to name Life of Pi as the winner and not Joss Whedon's hugely-successful comic book flick. Ditto with Norah Jones—who sang the Oscar-nominated tune for Seth MacFarlane's Ted (which Jones had a cameo in)...only to have the trophy (rightly) go to Adele for Skyfall (which had the rare accomplishment of sharing the Best Sound Editing award with Zero Dark Thirty). And lastly, imagine if the orchestra played the Jaws theme (to signify when a winner's speech went on one second too long during the ceremony) during Michelle Obama's presentation of Best Picture. Needless to say, the wrath of the White House against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would be much greater than the one heaped upon Zero Dark Thirty by Senator John McCain and his fellow congressmen. Then again, maybe not.