Oscars 2012

Scott Hardie | January 25, 2012
Our annual contest has begun. Good luck!

Overall, these nominees represent another risk-averse year for Hollywood, where the gap between giant mediocre blockbusters and respectable but barely-seen art pictures grows ever wider. Albert Nobbs? A Separation? A Better Life? These titles are so far off the radar, they make The Iron Lady and My Week with Marilyn look mainstream.

Isn't it also time to retire some of these categories? If Rio and Kung Fu Panda 2 are among the front-runners for an Academy Award, it might be time to say that Best Original Song and Best Animated Feature don't actually have to be given out every single year.

Biggest surprise: Seeing that Sarah Palin movie up for an Oscar... then realizing it's a different Undefeated. :-)

Erik Bates | January 25, 2012
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Samir Mehta | January 25, 2012
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Steve West | January 25, 2012
Erik watches X!? That hasn't been nominated for an Oscar since Midnight Cowboy. I keep getting burned that the Best Director/Best Film seem to go hand in hand. There's a certain logic to it but still...

Erik Bates | January 30, 2012
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Steve West | January 30, 2012
Coooooollll.

Scott Hardie | January 30, 2012
I have X on DVD too, a real classic of the genre. Don Rickles is great in it.

Samir Mehta | January 30, 2012
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Scott Hardie | February 1, 2012
The snub that surprised me was Pixar in the animation category. I guess it had to happen sooner or later. It's easy to say that Pixar is not entitled to a nomination, and they should have to earn it like everybody else, but come on. Kung Fu Panda 2? Seriously? I know I said it above, but that animation category is really becoming an embarrassment.

This downward trend for Pixar may continue to a while. The trailer for Brave looks dangerously close to DreamWorks levels of dim-witted mediocrity. Their next title after that is the cringe-worthy (for me anyway) Monsters Inc 2. I hope they have something more ambitious in the works for 2014.

Samir Mehta | February 1, 2012
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Scott Hardie | February 1, 2012
I tried to watch Cars, but I couldn't sit through the whole thing, and fast-forwarded a lot of it. It was not even remotely interesting. I still reviewed what I had seen. At the time, it was a big disappointment, the first Pixar movie I had skipped since they started, but it just wasn't worth continuing. As Steve wrote of the sequel, I would have preferred sliding down a barbed-wire bannister into a pool of lemon juice. The two movies have their fans (my friend's kids can't get enough of it), but you're right; nobody who's not on its wavelength seems able to get into them.

I sat through all of Monsters Inc. once upon a time, but it was the first Pixar movie that I disliked, and I strongly disliked it. So cloying and melodramatic. It was pitched at the littler kids I guess, and maybe Cars was as well. I can't see little tykes enjoying Ratatouille or The Incredibles as much as older kids. At least Pixar has range.

Samir Mehta | February 1, 2012
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Scott Hardie | February 8, 2012
The best thing to come out of Monsters Inc. was the Laugh Floor at Disney World, with improv comics voicing the CGI monsters who interact with you. The show is funny, which is kind of what I had hoped the movie would be.

If Pixar announces Cars 3, I will really have to wonder if John Lasseter has lost his mind.

Samir Mehta | February 8, 2012
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Scott Hardie | February 9, 2012
More, I suppose. Four proper visits in the decade I've lived here, plus various brief stops at Downtown Disney (two of which were part of GooCon). But Disney World was an annual tradition when I was a kid, so it feels like less to me.

Being broke has kept us away recently, but that's really a convenient excuse. The "real" reason is my weight: I had to squeeze into rides a few years ago, and I'm even bigger now. It's become the Shame-Inducingest Place on Earth. I'm trying to turn it into a positive: This is probably a big enough topic to blog about it sometime, but if one of the reasons why I stay fat is that delicious food provides an intrinsic reward (happiness) while diet and exercise are only motivated by extrinsic rewards (shame, convenience) and intrinsic will always overpower extrinsic in the long run, then I need to find happiness-causing reasons to lose weight. Thus, thinking a lot about a trip to Disney World next winter (because winter is the time to go) could keep me motivated.

I wish I had kids to take to Disney World. It's fine going as a party of adults, but you miss out on a big part of the experience. I don't see nieces or nephews in my future, and I barely know my cousins' kids. Maybe I should become a Big Brother.

Have you (all of you) been? Do you go often?

Aaron Shurtleff | February 9, 2012
That GooCon trip was the closest I have ever been to any Disney related parks, and it will probably remain that way forever. Disney is not really my thing. Now Legoland Florida I hope to get to soon!!!!

Scott Hardie | February 14, 2012
I'd love to take GooCon into Disney World for a day if it were reasonable. The connection to Pirates of the Caribbean is obvious. Same goes for the entirety of the Hollywood Studios park. If I could get over the pronounced doubts that it would just be too nerdy, even for me, we could play "Goo World Tour" while actually walking around Epcot's international pavilions.

But the idea of doing this at all kind of blows up to big proportions the eternal logistical conflicts of GooCon: Spending time and money vs. conserving it, being in "Funeratic mode" vs. just hanging out, getting out somewhere during the day vs. not. We seem to have struck a good compromise with the single-afternoon field trip to some inexpensive local attraction. As much as I want to shake up some of the plan this year before the weekend becomes too routine and predictable, I don't think it would be wise to do away with the "field trip" as it is now.

If we do have another GooCon in Orlando, I think having a pirate dinner adventure is a definite.

Samir Mehta | February 14, 2012
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Scott Hardie | February 16, 2012
Yes, it's plenty fun for adults, too. I remember my first time re-entering as an adult, after a few years away. I didn't anticipate it, but the feeling of "magic" as you walk through the entry tunnel and into the park is palpable. It's like there's a different energy in the air, even though you only walked fifty feet.