adults should know better...

one of the more depressing things about the internet is the free reign it gives to people's worst instincts, especially men.

there's an interesting article up on the av club site this week about overly distracting actors in movies. naturally, the nerds who congregate there were glad for an opportunity to let off steam about any number of supposedly insufferable performers. as expected, julia roberts came under heavy fire. disclaimer here: i like roberts a lot. whatever constitutes a "movie star", julia roberts has that quality in spades as far as i'm concerned. that doesn't necessarily mean i think she should be universally appealing. but the degree of invective the woman inspires in certain circles amazes me. i may not be the biggest audrey hepburn fan on the planet, yet i don't have trouble being objective and seeing what others might respond to with her. there's precious little of that on the av club site regarding anybody though and the stuff people casually write about roberts is just... weird.


*Rupert Giles

Somehow I totally missed Ocean's Eleven's release, and first caught it on TV, having heard nothing of the casting (I know, I must have been living in a freakin' cave), except Clooney & Pitt. When they waited by the grand stairs for Tess to descend, and the camera slowly panned up from her feet for the reveal, I was dumbstruck. Julia fucking Roberts?!? The ONLY WOMAN IN THE MOVIE, the glamorous prize, the object of studly men's fawning and drooling, and that's who they chose? I actually gasped out loud. Most overrated magazine-cover celebrity in history, with a bizarre giant mouth.

*Everybody here calls me Vicky

I used to find Julia Roberts charming until it became evident that the whole leaving-Keifer-at-the-altar thing wasn't just a product of youthful nerves and that she is in fact a megabitch who thinks the sun shines out of her ass.

I still think she's extraordinarily attractive, especially considering how horsey her features could be when taken separately (see Nancy Kerrigan for an example of those same features NOT working well), but the vulnerable, forehead-veiny thing she does so well can no longer fool me, and I wish people would stop inviting her to awards shows because she cannot shut the fuck up about herself.

how does one get to be an adult and write such craziness with such a disarming lack of self-consciousness? i'm not a particularly big nic cage fan, but other than casually tossing "i wish he'd go the fuck away" into a post where i was discussing him, i can't muster anything resembling the kind of personal animosity these julia roberts haters manage to tap into. cage's recent embarrassing problems with bankruptcy don't matter to me and even if i wanted to have a laugh at his expense, it'd be pretty hollow considering that the guy's comic book collection is worth more than i've earned in my entire life.

the posts above were pretty polite compared to this though:

*Unregistered Asshole #1446387

Julia Roberts was tolerable enough in "Pretty Woman," but after that her "shit don't stink" personna turned me off for good. I didn't care too much for Cameron Diaz back in the day, but the way Roberts' character sabotaged her in "My Best Friend's Wedding" made me like Diaz in that movie much more than her, because I know they wrote Roberts' role to fit her personality. Ashamed to admit, but I almost cheered to her character getting raped by her husband in "Sleeping With The Enemy." And how much more fun do you think "Conspiracy Theory" would have been if Mel Gibson had demanded a BJ from her?

note that homeboy has no problem with using mel "you should get raped by a pack of n*****s" gibson to help make his point about JR. how do adults reach a point where it makes sense to express sentiments like these in public? how do other adults tolerate such things? it's part of what makes the av club such a fascinating place. most of the people who post there are genuinely intelligent, yet many of them see the 'net as nothing more than a vehicle to express feelings otherwise unacceptable in the real world. i felt compelled to answer.

*teadoust

isn't it great that roberts exists though? she gives you an outlet for your rather obvious misogyny. it's amazing that people like you can post offensive tripe like this on a regular basis and not feel embarrassed about it. that's why i find posting here so funny: in the av club court of public opinion, what you wrote is actually acceptable. fucking astonishing. if you had any common sense you'd contact the av club editors and ask them to delete your post for the offensive misogynist garbage it is. if they had an ounce of decency that's what they'd do without your even asking.

nobody will pay much attention to that. the offensive comment won't be deleted. and likely as not, somebody will come along later and call me "teadouche" for posting it.

gwyneth paltrow also comes under fire a lot on the av club boards. bet you didn't know that every day millions of people are FORCED to visit paltrow's lifestyle site "goop" did you? i didn't either, but it must be so because there's no reason for anyone to get upset about anything paltrow does when she isn't making movies, right? ok, if "goop" was devoted to disseminating white supremacist propaganda, or if there was evidence floating around that paltrow spent hours each day physically torturing her children i'd completely understand rejecting her as an actress. but she runs a goofy lifestyle website and says dopey things in interviews? those are deal-breakers for you? get a fucking life already, freak.

*Maliah

Ugh, I haven't been able to stand Gwyneth Paltrow since she was a whiny, self important reporter in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Remember that one? I remember seeing her in an interview saying that she was interested in the part (which was terrible) because it was closer to being an art film than to an action movie. She drives me nuts.

Although so does Katherine Heigle, so perhaps I just hate tall blondes with classically pretty features and annoying voices.

not so bad, right? don't worry, it gets worse.

*Annoying Tall Blondes? Big Surprise...

They both confuse my penis, because it would like to penetrate them both, but somehow my brain is capable of overpowering this natural urge by reminding me of the stupid shit that comes out of their mouths in real life.

Think somebody said it best on this site a while ago: if nothing intelligent is going to come OUT of your mouth...

Great tits, though. I'll give her that.

haha! i get it, bro! stuff a COCK in that mouth! FUCK YEAH!

crap like that is why so many people have an idea that the majority of men who post things on the internet are frustrated perpetual loners with serious issues regarding women and intimacy.

oh, i have referred to nic cage as "a fucking idiot" several times on the av club boards. however, cage is a man and i'm not being entirely serious when i call him names anyway, as opposed to the rather obvious hostility some of these people are expressing towards women. i understand that some may see me as a hypocrite though.

are you really upset about the oscar nominations? then you're an idiot. sorry.

blah blah blah, 'citizen kane'. understand? no? (sighing). ok, when they gave out academy awards honoring the best work done by the motion picture industry in 1941, orson welles' monumental and historic masterpiece 'citizen kane' was overlooked for best picture. in 1951 marlon brando was nominated for portraying stanley kowalski in 'a streetcar named desire' but did not win for one of the greatest performances any actor has ever given. and so on and so forth.

get it? the academy awards aren't about fairness or quality or merit. they're about popularity, industry politics and the perception of quality as it applies to (primarily) mainstream films. so relax. yes, sandra bullock got nominated for best actress. it doesn't mean anything. yes, 'avatar' was nominated for best picture. stop shrieking. yes, 'blind side', the sandra bullock vehicle about a sassy white lady who adopts a black kid and teaches us all a lesson about racism while he plays football, also got nominated for best picture. wha-at? hey, waitaminnit: that's fucked up. that movie really does sound like a piece of shit. we have to do something about this. call your congressman. let's have a march on hollywood or do sit-ins at theaters or something!

nah, i'm kidding. i love movies, but find it impossible to take the oscars seriously. not long ago, nic cage won for best actor. nic cage, for fuck's sake! i'm honestly surprised that previous winners didn't just throw their oscars out after that. i'm kidding again. sure, most sane people think nic cage is awful, but some people like the guy. and there's the crux: even if hollywood obliged you serious movie lovers by making more good movies, you'd still bitch and moan the day after the nominations were announced because something you thought was worthy got overlooked by those douchebag members of the academy. maybe some of you just like bitching and moaning? visiting some comment boards and chat sites after this year's nominations were announced, i had that thought. it was especially amazing to see the same folks who've been screaming about the awfulness of 'avatar' for 2 long months get a second wind and start screaming about how awful it is that 'avatar' got nominated for best picture. aren't you guys tired yet? it's only a movie. i saw it and found it fairly entertaining. was it 400 million dollars (the reported budget of 'avatar') worth of entertaining? i don't think so, but that's just my shitty opinion. nearly 2 billion dollars worth of paying customers pretty much squash any mild criticisms i may have about 'avatar's lack of originality. kids don't even know what the hell 'dances with wolves' is anyway. and they should get the hell off my lawn, now that i think of it.

i'd like it if hollywood made better movies too. but there's no reason to believe that the large number of people who go to the movies on a regular basis are all that disappointed by what they're getting, so don't expect the producers in hollywood to go the "if we make better pictures, the audience will come" route anytime soon. commercial filmmaking produces a lot of crap, and for people who really love movies, a little bit of good stuff. that's how it's always been, really. film historians will tell you that back in the fabled old days they were making classic movies with the same dependable regularity that general motors was pumping out cars. but they really did have an assembly line for movies and a fair amount of the "product" from any of hollywood's so-called golden years has an oddly anonymous quality. the craftsmanship is exactly that: uninspired labor by people who were just doing their jobs. and there are a lot of horrible movies from "ye olden days of glory" too. they don't seem so gratingly awful to us because of the somewhat reliquary quality time has bestowed on them. i'm simply not among those who think that movies are really and truly worse now than they once were. studio moguls were selling something different once upon a time: a genteel america that was as much a product of their imagination as the films themselves. strip away the classy veneer of many old films and there's little worth half a damn left. that's my long-winded way of telling you to shut the fuck up about how great it once was and how 'avatar' would never have gotten nominated for best picture in 1939. build yourself a goddamned time machine and go marry 1939 if you like it so goddamned much.

much as i like complaining about the complaints other people make, i still have an objective interest in the academy awards. on the morning the nominations are announced i check to see who made the cut and who was excluded. and while i haven't been able to stomach the show itself in years, i always check first thing the next day to see who won. so i don't want to come off as "mister holier than thou" on the subject because the oscars do interest me. just not to the degree that i'd expend much energy debating their importance as a calculus of the real artistic merit or worth of any film. many cinephiles out there will make the point that they're only concerned about what gets nominated because they love movies and they hate to see mediocre or substandard work elevated by the academy, but i don't buy that argument, in spite of the intense sincerity with which it is often delivered. these are the same people who rant about the shitty taste and general stupidity of the lumpen masses so frequently that the obvious contempt they feel for those same lumpen masses is impossible to ignore. these people don't want "better movies for everyone", they simply want their own aesthetic preferences confirmed by the imprimaturs of the general public, the awards circuit and a consensus of the critical establishment. ie; a new status quo imposed on everyone just as arbitrarily as the old one, only this time following a set of guidelines they approve of. which is supposed to be ok, y'know?-because they have better taste than the rest of us. it doesn't make sense for them to get upset about what other people choose go to see or who and what wins at the oscars, yet they do it anyway, as it represents a real injustice in their minds when the things they love aren't embraced with the same intensity by the rest of the public. friggin' boneheads.

now a few words about the nominees:

best picture

avatar, blind side, district 9, an education, the hurt locker, inglourious basterds, precious, a serious man, up, up in the air

if i'm rooting for anything this year, i'd have to say it's for 'avatar' to win best picture because it'll really irritate a lot of stupid assholes. that's about what it boils down to for me. sure, i enjoyed 'up' and 'inglourious basterds' more than i enjoyed 'avatar', but there won't be a deluge of anguished posts online the day after the oscar show if those pictures win. i was underwhelmed by katherine bigelow's 'the hurt locker'. something just seemed to be missing. it strikes me as a sort of a tabula rasa of a war film, vague enough in its perspective so that the viewer can project whatever he or she wants onto it. the coen brothers' 'a serious man' was also a disappointment. have i been missing something with the coens? are they really still making movies populated with the same ugly and inhuman caricatures after so long? couldn't they have made 'a serious man' 20 years ago? lastly, 'up in the air' probably wouldn't have been great even if it had worked from start to finish, but jason reitman's film has the most egregious third-act flameout ever committed to celluloid. really, it's embarrassing to watch the wheels spin so conspicuously and fruitlessly in a movie. i have no interest in seeing 'the blind side' or 'precious' and 'district 9' and 'an education' are strictly rental items. eventually.

best actor

jeff bridges-crazy heart, george clooney-up in the air, colin firth-a single man, morgan freeman-invictus, jeremy renner-the hurt locker

i really have no horse in this race, though i'm guessing the oscar will go to jeff bridges for his performance as an aging country musician in 'crazy heart', another picture i hope not to see anytime soon. i'm pretty sure bridges has never won in the past and he seems well-liked and that's about all it really takes. however, if 'the hurt locker' turns out to be "the little war movie that could", bridges may go home empty-handed. actually, even if it loses best picture to 'avatar' academy voters may compensate 'the hurt locker' by giving its star jeremy renner the best actor award. other than those two guys, there's morgan freeman playing nelson mandela in clint eastwood's middlingly received (by both the public and critics, not a good sign) 'invictus'. oscars have gone to a few black men in the last several years and, depressing as it may be to consider, that'll likely have an adverse effect on freeman's chances, along with the fact that he already has a supporting actor oscar for eastwood's 'million dollar baby'. though it's possible academy voters won't even remember freeman's supporting actor oscar, since nobody really gives a flying damn about those anyway. none of that stuff matters as far as colin firth and george clooney are concerned. neither of them has the vaguest chance in hell of winning an oscar this go-round.

best actress

sandra bullock-blind side, helen mirren-the last station, carey mulligan-an education, gabourey sidibe-precious, meryl streep-julie and julia

it's possible that streep could win because she's been nominated without winning so many times in the last few years (her second and most recent oscar victory came for the 1983 film 'sophie's choice') that academy voters may decide she was somehow cheated and now's the time to make amends. gabourey sidibe for 'precious' is also a possibility, as not that many black women have been scooping up oscars since halle berry's freak win a few years ago. then there's the dreaded sandra bullock, known to all as a swell human being who donates loads of money to charitable causes and a total sweetheart to work with. yup, i wouldn't be at all surprised if bullock won. seriously. and nobody should be yelling or hissing as they read that! helen mirren (who just won a best actress oscar about 2 years ago) and carey mulligan (whose rather manly-sounding name will just confuse older academy voters anyway) can go play monopoly with firth and clooney on oscar night, 'cause the only thing they'd be doing at the show is clapping and smiling when other people win awards. which is ok for the most part, until that point in the evening when you find yourself clapping and smiling for some schmuck who's just won what you'd come to think of as your oscar. fuck that.

best supporting whatever

the best supporting actor oscar is a lock for christopher waltz as colonel landa in 'inglourious basterds' and i'd say there's a pretty good chance that mo'nique has BSA locked up for 'precious', but to paraphrase bill murray doing his oscar predictions on SNL's weekend update: who really gives a shit about supporting performers? after winning his oscar, chris waltz will make a couple more appearances as a villain (in movies NOT written by quentin tarantino) and suddenly everyone will notice what an irritating little kraut he is. will chubby black comedienne mo'nique get a lot of movie roles after winning her oscar? crystal ball says "not likely". a syndicated sit-com on one of those channels that cater to (or insult, depending on how you look at it) the black populace is what the future holds for mo'nique. and so it goes.

ooh, i hate it when people like things that I don't like!

tomorrow the second of the 'twilight' films will be released. it's called 'new moon' and i get the feeling that for every person looking forward to it, there are probably just as many people engaging in some form of pre-emptive vomiting over the film. i didn't see 'twilight', as it got mostly bad reviews. and i likely won't see 'new moon' either, even if it gets good reviews. mostly because i don't give much of a shit about 'twilight'.

i visit the onion av club site a lot. and this week as part of their jokingly titled "i watched this on purpose" series, the subject was the first 'twilight' film. the result was about as snarky as you would imagine, though the writer, an adult male, deserves some credit for realizing that 'twilight' wasn't exactly conceived for his demographic. unfortunately, the legion of numbskulls who posted on the comment boards to pillory anybody stupid enough to actually enjoy 'twilight' were unable to assume even that small amount of empathy. when "this sucks and aren't we all so clever for not liking it" circle-jerks break out, i get depressed. why do intelligent people need that sort of thing? yup, 'twilight', a bizarre modern gothic/vampire romance series cooked up by a mormon writer named stephanie meyer, sounds ridiculous. so what? why does any ostensibly secure adult care what other people enjoy?

because looking down on others is one of the best ways to feel better about yourself. what's more ego-boosting than pinpointing an entire subset of the population and defining them as being clearly and fundamentally stupider than you? and if you can find a group of like-minded smarties whose points of view are congruent with yours, so much the better! it'd be saddening to encounter this stuff if these people weren't so unbearably smug about themselves. as it is, i have considerably more contempt for people who hate (supposedly) stupid crap than i do for the (supposedly) contemptible masses who lap it up.

more often than not, crazes like 'twilight' are ephemeral in society. of course, the books may have a lasting entertainment value for teenagers reading them today but 'twilight' isn't likely to affect how someone chooses to live their life in any significant way. most teenage girls will outgrow it. and the small number who don't leave it behind as they move into adulthood are likely the sort of needy types who, one way or another, would have found something else to lose themselves in anyhow. the specifics of what these people like are, by and large, unimportant.

what's comical about film nerds laughing at the stupidity of 'twilight' fans is obvious: they're no better. the only difference (which is ultimately negligible) is this: many film nerds believe the things they obsess over are genuinely worth obsessing over. it simply boils down to a matter of whether or not one has good taste! the nerve of other people, getting wrapped up in something that film nerds don't approve of! it's a false dichotomy but you can't point that out to hyper-critical film nerds, because they either believe that it's ok to be obsessive about certain things (as long as those things are, in their opinion, worth obsessing over), or they simply won't acknowledge on any level that they are just as obsessive themselves.

the comment boards of sites that attract film nerds are hilarious and pathetic. these people are not paid film critics, yet they consider themselves obligated to see nearly every film that gets released. and in taking on film critic-like duties, they have somehow assumed a stunning sense of outrage regarding which films fail or succeed. it's truly bizarre to read comments from people who honestly think that michael bay's continuing success is a gross injustice, as opposed to, let's say homelessness, which they don't seem to give a shit about. of course, it's a lot easier to fulminate about something trivial than it is about something important. because yowling over the undeserving fame of some douchebag director doesn't leave one in the awkward position of having to back up the complaint with real action. though doing so would mean that you couldn't gripe about how bad it is, you could simply avoid the guy's next movie! complain about the problem of homelessness and you've got a problem yourself: there are things you could do to help, so why the fuck aren't you doing them?

film critics have a tough job, as i see it. they have to watch a lot of crappy movies and then, unlike the rest of us, feign at least some degree of objectivity and review what they've endured. but like most of us, they aren't really objective. as we progress through life, our experiences (and the things we learn from them) create a personalized sort of prism through which we view everything. the problem is that few of us realize that our own responses are rarely, if ever, objective in any true sense. that's why film reviews should generally be taken with a grain of salt. ideally, one could take the opinions of film nerds who get so much pleasure out of hating things the same way. but there is something about the braying, strident obnoxiousness of these people that i find repellently fascinating. the surety with which they hand down their pronunciations on everyone else's unworthiness is astonishing.

yup, people who line up to see the new 'twilight' movie are dopes, but most of them are teenagers, a group predisposed to engage in dopey activities. that's more than can be said for adults who actually waste hours of their lives obsessing over what other people like and getting angry about it.

by the way, werner herzog's remake of 'bad lieutenant' (starring that atrocious ham, nicholas cage) also opens tomorrow. it looks like a deliberately campy, steaming pile of shit. anybody who goes to see it is an idiot. but i'm not being judgmental when i say that, merely making an objective observation. haha.