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?

APOCALYPTO... I saw Mel Gibson’s new bloody (not bloody new) film last night, and needless to say, it was, um, bloody. But actually pretty good. It had as much graphic violence as The Passion of The Christ, but this time, the violence was okay because the Maya people were actually that brutal (thank God I didn’t live during that time...and was an unlucky enemy warrior who was a heartbeat away from getting my heart ripped out as sacrifice to the gods). Admittedly though, throughout much of the movie, I was thinking what if a modern-day soldier (RE: Navy SEALs or any other Special Forces commandos) suddenly emerged out of nowhere to take on those Maya who invaded that village in the beginning? I wonder: Would only four SEAL commandos be able to wreak havoc on those temples ‘Jaguar Paw’ and his buddies were taken to? Just detonate a few well-placed satchel charges, make sure there’re enough ammo for the MP5s and grenade launchers, and BAM, modern-day (American) might defeats the primitive Indian. Like how I mention the most random and facetious things in my Blog? I have a sudden urge to buy the video game SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs for my Playstation 2 now.

More on SPIDER-MAN 3... Last night, FOX aired the ‘world broadcast premiere’ to 2004's Spider-Man 2, and during most of the commercials, showed brief clips from the newest trailer to next year’s third Webslinger installment. Right before the movie started, however, there was a promo to these sneak previews, and a quick shot of Venom from the film was shown for the first time! In the words of Eric Cartman from TV's South Park: "Kiiick. Ass! Kiiick. Ass!" Thanks to the folks at SuperHeroHype.com for providing a video that combines all clips from the sneak previews. Word.

SPIDER-MAN 3 Trailer... Check out the newest preview to the third Spidey flick on iFilm.com, and in front of the next Bond flick Casino Royale...which comes out this Friday. Hopefully, a downloadable version of the trailer will be made available online once Royale is released. By the way, there's no sign of Venom in this preview (except Topher Grace playing Eddie Brock...Venom's human alterego). Sam Raimi is trying to keep the character under wraps, eh? Hopefully, Venom will look awesome when we finally see him on the big screen next May. That is all.

"Kazakhstan is the greatest...country in the world..." So I saw Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan on Saturday, and what did I think? In the words of Mr. Sagdiyev himself (that’s Borat’s last name, in case you didn’t know yet): HIGH FIVE! The movie was hi-larious! From pointing out the town rapist in his home village at the beginning to trying to kidnap Pamela Anderson at the end, the movie was a non-stop crackup! Sacha Baron Cohen is one devoted comedian...considering he was willing to have a naked fat man (Azamat, Borat’s producer in the film) sit on his face and pretty much ‘69’ him during that hotel room wrestling scene, poking fun at his Jewish heritage (C’mon now... Who won’t admit they found guilty pleasure in laughing at him trying to pay off those two ‘Jewish cockroaches’ so they wouldn't kill him? Or videotape the Running of the Jews in his village? It’s good, satirical fun... Mel Gibson should be amused), commenting on the current US and A political climate ("We support your war...of terror. May George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq.") and even mingling with a couple of male participants at a gay pride parade. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprise if he brought "Not" jokes back into popularity again. And one phrase I’ve never heard of that I'll probably incorporate into my own screenplays is the term "Make romance explosion on her stomach." If you don’t know what that means... Well, you haven’t watch enough pornos then, haha.



All in all, Borat delivered. Though I don’t know about buying it on DVD since, once again, that now-infamous wrestling scene doesn’t lend itself to repeat viewings (unless you like fat and skinny, butt-naked Kazakh reporters). This is similar to what I said about the last Sacha Baron Cohen flick, Talladega Nights. Anyways... Since I (and millions of other people who contributed to the movie’s $26.5 million opening weekend) watched the film, does that mean Borat will no longer be execute? If so... HIGH FIVE!

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS: Blog #2... I saw the World War II epic today, and while it was not as intense as 1998's Saving Private Ryan, it was more moving and emotional. Like Private Ryan, Flags opens up with a modern-day sequence featuring a WWII veteran...who in the Clint Eastwood film recounts the significance of the flag raising photo shot in Iwo Jima. The battle scenes in Flags are just as realistic and gut-wrenching as those in the Steven Spielberg epic. But unlike Private Ryan, the modern-day scenes also take place during the movie...and they are actually pivotal to the story in Flags. The modern-day scenes at the beginning and end of Private Ryan, on the other hand, could've been deleted from that film...which would've probably made the '99 Best Picture nominee a much better movie. It's still a great film, though.



Proof that Flags of Our Fathers was emotional and moving was evident at the finale, when most of the theater audience remained still and silent during the end credits sequence. As the credits rolled, actual photos taken during the Battle of Iwo Jima came up on screen...and it was interesting to see how close Clint Eastwood came to re-creating certain events that took place in the 1945 Pacific conflict.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS... Clint Eastwood’s World War II epic about the famous photo taken in Iwo Jima comes out today. I’ll probably watch it sometime this weekend. Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige is also out in release. I’ll probably watch that too... Don’t know when, though. Definitely can’t wait for Borat to come out (it opens on November 3rd). That looks like a hilarious film. "I support your war...of terror." ‘Nuff said.

THE DEPARTED... So I saw the film yesterday, and there’s really one thing I need to point out: In the hands of a capable director like Martin Scorsese, violence rocks!! Yes, you heard right... It might be my dark, sadistic subconscience talking...but nothing gets the adrenaline pumpin' faster than having most of the main characters get blasted away at the en— Err, you can finish the sentence. Storywise, I’m well aware that Scorsese actually remade a little Hong Kong film known as Infernal Affairs, but since I didn’t see that movie, I’ll treat Departed as being completely original and kicking ass. Jack Nicholson, unsurprisingly, gave a great, wacky performance as mob boss Frank Castello (especially in that scene where he was giving that little imitation of a rat. Yes, the actual rodent). Matt Damon gave a good, straightforward performance as mob mole Colin Sullivan. Mark Wahlberg gave an amusing performance as trash-talking police investigator Dignam...and Leonardo DiCaprio gave a strong performance as Jack Dawso—err, Howard Hugh—I mean, police mole Billy Costigan. And Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin were okay, too. So that was Anthony Anderson. And I thought that was Maggie Gyllenhaal who played Madolyn. My bad. It was another lady named Vera Farmiga.



Now that I’m done listing the main cast, what else should I mention? I already pointed out the violence, and how it kicked ass, so I’ll switch to something else. One negative comment I have about the film is that the editing was very haphazard in many of the scenes. Apparently, the script supervisor was dozing off on set...since some of the actors' gestures were inconsistent with the shots that followed the previous ones. In one shot Leonardo Dicaprio will be staring straight ahead at a wall, in the shot after that his head is turned as he is conversing with Martin Sheen or making a move on Vera Farmiga’s character. To the film editor: It must’ve been fun working on the Avid for this film, eh? Anyways, that is the only nitpick I have. Don’t know if this film will be Oscar material for Scorsese, but we shall see...

THE SIMPSONS GAVE CREDIT TO THE PREQUELS??? OF COURSE NOT! But today's episode where Bart and Principal Skinner engage in a peanut and shrimp-toting stick fight featured the "Duel of the Fates" music theme from Star Wars Episodes' I and III (and that brief scene of Anakin riding that speeder bike across the Tatooine desert in Episode II). The question is... Will The Simpsons ever make a reference to Revenge of the Sith? And if it does... Will it be a positive reference? Or will Lenny and Carl engage in another mock-lightsaber fight talking about how Revenge of the Sith sucked more than Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace (Sith ruled, FYI!)? We shall see...