The 78th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS... Revenge of the Sith losing the Best Make-up category to (Chronic)les of Narnia was expected, Crash beating out Brokeback Mountain to win the ultimate trophy was not. However, Crash winning the Best Picture Oscar was not a surprise, considering it is an exceptional film. Also, unlike Brokeback, I actually watched the Paul Haggis film. On DVD, that is... Haha. On the television side of things, Prison Break returns to FOX on Monday, March 20th at 8:00 PM PST. Does that mean it airs right before 24?? Holy cow!! Now I know my Monday nights are definitely off-limits to doing other things! Mike Scofield rules!

78th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS... I was gonna write a long-ass Blog about the Oscars mostly to talk about Revenge of the Sith and its many technical nominations (heheh)...but since it got robbed of even the Best Visual FX Award (making this the only Star Wars film to not be nominated for visual effects), there's no need. Sith got nominated for Best Make-up, but the chances of it winning that are nil (considering The Chronicles of Narnia and Cinderella Man have also been thrown into the mix). We all know the cowboy "romance" film Brokeback Mountain is gonna win Best Picture, so let's cut the BS speculation crap on that one. But will Commodus- err, Joaquin Phoenix take home an Oscar for Walk the Line? We'll see. At least ILM got a nomination for War of the Worlds and John Williams got nominated for his score on Munich, but... Bah! No kudos to Rob Coleman and Company for kung-fu fighting Yoda this time around. But Sith did win the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture and Favorite Movie Drama, as well as the Teen Choice Award for, um, Choice Movie: Action/Adventure. But those awards are meaningless compared to the gold statuette designed by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons (I'm too lazy to elaborate). 'Kay, I'm out. I have better things to do with my time. Like pay off a bill that's due tomorrow.


BEST VISUAL FX... General Grievous and Company are out...


...the Tripod is in.

EDIT: Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) gets a Raspberry nomination for Worst Supporting Actor of 2005 (for the record, isn't he the LEAD actor in Sith? He obviously has more screentime than Ewan McGregor)... Razzies.com should be nominated for Worst Webpage of 2005. GOD, that site is slow. And don't tell me it's because a lot of people are actually visiting it.

Tristan & Isolde... What kind of friggin' title is that?? Oh wait, this story is based on an actual Arthurian legend. Whatever, the title still blows. 'Kay, move along... Move along...

2005 BOX OFFICE WRAP-UP... With all of its contenders for the box office crown either in release or now gone, ranging from this summer's War of the Worlds with $234 million to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia currently at $262 and $165 million each, respectively, it’s safe to say that this year was indeed the Year of the Sith. Revenge of the Sith made an overall $380.3 million at the domestic box office alone, with potential threat King Kong not being potential at all. In its 13th day of release, Kong has made $121 million in the domestic B.O., while Sith made $275 million within the same amount of days. Sith is currently #1 in opening day grosses, top 4 and 5-day grosses, and the fastest film to reach the $100 and $300 million marks, while King Kong is number one in the, um, err...let me check—nothing? Sorry, just expressing some pre-Academy Awards bias against Kong before it takes the Best Visual FX Oscar away from Sith this March, haha. Just kidding. I mentioned this to point out the fact that Sith is the fifth Star Wars film to be the box office king for the year it came out. Attack of the Clones is the only exception...with Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers both taking the spotlight away from it in 2002.



It’ll be interesting to see if Sith gets more Oscar nominations (in the technical categories such as Costume Design and Sound Editing, that is) than the two previous prequels. If not, then oh well. As long as it doesn’t get any Razzie nominations, that's for sure! And it doesn’t deserve any, unlike Clones and The Phantom Menace (Natalie Portman was the weakest link in Episode III, but not to the point where she deserves a Raspberry Award. Hmm... Actually, let me think about that). Other than that, bring on 2006!! There are absolutely NO films coming out next year that I am as eager to see as Sith, but whatever. Let’s see how much Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, The Da Vinci Code and X-Men 3 make in the box office... Don’t get me wrong, I definitely want to see those films. But it's not like I'm gonna buy their soundtracks or any related merchandise (Da Vinci Code action figures? Haha) before they come out. Anyway... I called Harry Potter Hairy Pothead on purpose. I’ve been doing that ever since The Sorceror’s Stoned came out in 2001. ‘Nuff said.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!! Hope you and yours are having a safe and tubular holiday... Tubular, haha... Yes, this is the same thing I typed for my Xmas entry last year...except for the ‘tubular’ part. Anyways, to bring up news that I was too lazy to type more than a week earlier, on December 14, I worked the very last taping of the TV sitcom, Yes, Dear (in case you don’t know yet, this is the CBS show’s final season). This was the first and last time I ever worked on that show. Oh well. The next day, I attended the annual Christmas party at Paramount Studios (where Yes, Dear was filmed). Par bought off Dreamworks just a few weeks ago...which obviously gives Par employees something to cheer about for the holidays, and hopefully next year’s holidays...when the studio store on the Par lot will presumably be able to sell Dreamworks DVD titles like Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan. Once again, I reiterate the word presumably. Oh, and Par is what Variety magazine calls Paramount in its articles (Variety calls TV shows "skeins", or something like that...the ABC channel the "Alphabet", NBC the "Peacock", filming a movie is "lensing" a movie, and film directors are called “helmers”...as in James Cameron was Titanic's helmer. Or I may be wrong. That's showbiz jargon for ya, haha).



This week, I watched Munich, King Kong and Fun With Dick and Jane—all in that particular order. I’m too lazy to write full reviews on them, so I’ll just say Munich was serious, King Kong was less serious, and Fun wasn't serious at all (well obviously). Going back to King Kong, the special effects were a lot better than I thought (I still say WETA isn’t up there with ILM yet). In fact, I think King Kong might take next spring’s Best Visual FX Oscar...even though I’m rooting for Revenge of the Sith to do that. Kong should also be nominated for Best Make-up, since the face prosthetics on those Skull Island natives looked pretty freaky. Naomi Watts, unsurprisingly, looked hot in this pic, though I think, um, helmer Peter Jackson could’ve deleted some of her close-ups at the end. It was a tad bit too many. Her character has feelings for Kong, we get the picture!! Though Watts is pretty darn talented— She juggles, and she does somersaults! Haha. Up next, I want to see Syriana and Memoirs of a Geisha. C’mon now, gotta show that Asian pride!! Oh, and the cinematography on Geisha looks great...from what I saw in the trailers.

Peter Jackson's KING KONG... Don't know how good the movie is gonna be (since I haven't read up on any of the reviews yet), though visually it looks like a cross between Jurassic Park and Titanic (don't get me wrong I like Park. And, um—cough, cough—Titanic), but the posters sure are awesome. I think these two are the best ones:





EDIT: King Kong is currently at 95% on RottenTomatoes.com. As usual, Slant Magazine is the lone dissenter in giving the film a negative review.

Pat Morita: 1932-2005... Rest in peace, Mr. Miyagi. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off...



EDIT: FOX aired Star Wars: Attack of the Clones tonight... If there's one good thing about showing this movie (or any other film) on TV, it's that most of the bad and/or unnecessary parts are edited out to compress the running time. In Clones' case: much of the romance scenes. And if there's one good thing about the Pan and Scan format, the actors' faces are magnified to fit the TV screen. Let's hear it for Natalie Portman's close-ups! She is such a babe. I still say she's the weakest link overall in the Star Wars prequels, but she's a babe.

I WATCHED Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Jarhead today. Potter didn't get really interesting till that Dark Lord of the Sith, I mean, Lord Voldemort, was resurrected near the end of the movie...not to spoil anything for you. In all honesty, the movie lagged. And there were a couple of times where the dialogue was pretty unintelligible...either due to the characters speaking too fast, or those darn British accents (no offense). And why didn't John Williams conduct the music for this one? Whatever. Prisoner of Azkaban was, um, better.

I also saw Jarhead today...which was okay if you want a film that'll, unsurprisingly, inspire you to join the Marines (much as how Get Rich or Die Tryin', which I saw for free at Paramount Studios last week, shamelessly inspires you to move to the hood and become a gangsta'). Actually, I thought the film was good. Although, too much testosterone and the lack of female nudity obviously prevents me from wanting to watch this film again, haha. C'mon now, Sam Mendes should've taken more creative license... Have the Marines watch Debbie Does Dallas while they were waiting for Desert Storm to begin or somethin'. 'Nuff said.

Don't forget to pick up a copy of the Revenge of the Sith DVD today. Hey... If I can plug in an ad for the Batman Begins DVD in my Blogspot (see my 10/14/05 entry for details), I can certainly plug in an ad for Episode III here.

It was either plugging in another shameless advertisement about a film in my journal entry or posting a long-ass blog about how much I hate MySpace and Friendster.com (speaking of which, I think I'll log into them after I finish typing this. NOT! And I'm well aware that I posted a link to my MySpace profile in my Favorites section above), so I chose making the shameless plug instead. Don't forget to pick up the Batman Begins DVD when it gets released in stores next Tuesday. The film made over $205 million in the domestic box office so far, so there has to be a sequel (as long as it's still directed by Chris Nolan, that is). Warner Bros made Scooby Doo 2, for cryin' out loud. Of course— it went straight to DVD.