lady liberty

When I was six year old, I went as the Statue of Liberty for Halloween. Swear to God and it was sweet! My mom made me a robe with stars on the bottom, then wrapped a flash light and a crown from Burger King in tin foil. Let it never be said that my mom rocked!

I bring this up because apparently they destroy the Statue of Liberty in the new movie Cloverfield. I say "apparently" because I've been warned by two people to not go see it. That being said, Maxim did a whole thing about five movies that manged the lovely lady. I would rather link you to the discussion on Oh No They Didn't because Maxim? Really? Exactly.

My favorite Statue movie moment is below. I mean, the Ghostbusters, pink slime, and the Statue of Liberty. What could be better?

the sci fi nerd in me is revealed

Entertainment Weekly did a list of the top 25 sci fi shows and movies of the past 25 years. I thought I would check ou the list and realized that I love about half of the stuff on it. Crazy! I mean, a 30-year-old woman should not be this in love with stuff on the list, right? But then, when some of you see the list, I think you would agree that it's hard to not love some of these things. Among the shows/movies:

-- Back to the Future -- I had such a crush on Michael J. Fox back in the '80s. Mmm...Alex P. Keaton. Plus, who didn't want a DeLorean after that movie? That car still looks damn cool all these years later.

-- ET -- Damn, did I love that movie! I remember my parents actually taking me to that one way back in the day. I'm going to have to put this movie on my Netflix list so I can see it again. After all, who doesn't love an alien that eats M&Ms and gets drunk?

-- The Matrix -- As the article mentions, the second and third movies in this trilogy were disappointing, but that first flim in 1999 was so amazing and proved to some nay-sayers out there why I loved Keanu Reeves so much.

-- Lost -- Can't wait for the new season to start. Of course, I always sit back at the end of every episode, bewildered, and say "What the fuck was that about?" But isn't that half the fun?

-- Firefly [tv] and Serenity [movie] -- This has become a recent love of mine and I can't wait for this writers' strike to be over so I can buy the DVDs for both the show and the movie. I decided to watch this show because I love Adam Baldwin on the show Chuck and he's also in this series. Between him and Nathan Fillion, there's plenty of eye candy for the ladies out there, but it really is a good show content-wise as well.

-- The X-Files -- Oh Mulder and Scully, how I love thee. To see I'm totally geeked for the new movie is an understatement. Plus, did you know they've released the entire series on DVD in one big box set? I saw it on sale at Costco and started salivating.

So fess up -- what are your favorite shows and movies on this list? And what do you think they ignored that you want on there?

rated s because it sucked

So the motion picture board watches movies and then decides what to rate them. The thing is sometimes they give a certain reason for the rating. Most times, this would be normal. But there are occasions when it's bizarre. Alien vs. Predator got a PG-13 for slime and Twister got a PG-13 for "intense depiction of very bad weather" [scary!]. I still sometimes movies need to be given a rating to warn people that the movie is crap and you shouldn't see it. Like Glitter or Gigli or something. Those movies need special ratings just for the scariness of them.

i give a damn

The American Film Institute tends to put out all these movie lists -- top 100 movies of all time, top villians of all time, etc. I found this YouTube video of the AFI 100 Greatest Movie Quotes and I have to say, it's pretty cool to watch. There's definitely some heavy representation of certain movies and certain actors. Marlon Brando shows up a few times, including twice in the top ten, and Casablanca and Gone With the Wind are well represented. And of course, there's some great lines in the montage. My favorites?

-- "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night."
-- "Rosebud."
-- "Here's looking at you, kid."
-- "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody."

And the best one is one that I thought rightfully ended up in the top spot. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Ah, Clark Gable. You were so awesome in that movie.

lloyd dobler kills people

Here's the new trailer for the movie War Inc starring John Cusack [yum!], Joan Cusack, Marisa Tomei and...Hilary Duff? As a Russian pop star? Um...OK.

By the way, in this movie, John once again plays an assasin just like he did in Grosse Pointe Blank. Great movie. I think that movie is ten years old. Ten years, man! TEN!

And if you love John [and who doesn't?], here is a video montage of all of his movies. Pretty cool!

pieces of flair

Ah, Office Space. You don't realize how real that movie is until you start working in The Real World. Then you realize how sad it all is. The PC Load Letter not working, having a boring boss, wanting to just knock down that last cubicle wall.

So to entertain some of you at work, I give you YouTube clips. First is Office Space Wars. It's what would happen if you put all the actors in Office Space in Jedi get-ups, gave Jar-Jar a red stapler, and made Darth Vader the new boss. "Yeah, Obi-Wan. I'm gonna need you to come in Sunday, too."

Then, of course, there is Office Space: The Thriller. Ack! That red stapler so wants to kill me.

A music video for the song "My Cubicle" with clips from Office Space. It's so sad. Get some Kleenex for this one.

And finally, why mess with perfection? The "beat the crap out of a fax machine" scene. Don't play this with your speakers on at work -- there's some bad language. You've been warned.

So on that note, look down and tell us all how many pieces of flair you're wearing.

the force is with her

Apparently, I missed some big Oscar news. George Lucas had a date. Yes, unbelievable! I know! But true.

The lovely lady is Mellody Hobson and based on her bio, I don't think those Star Wars geeks can hold a candle to her. She's the founder of an investment management firm in Chicago with assets of $21 billion. She's on the board for the Chicago Public Library and the Field Museum as well as corporations such as Starbucks, Estee Lauder, and Dreamworks [hmm...so Spielberg is now a matchmaker perhaps?]. In 2004, she was named one of the 50 Women to Watch by The Wall Street Journal.

So yeah, she's smart, she's hot, and I don't think she will be asking George any geektastic questions about Star Wars anytime soon.

ahhhhhhh!

NBC announced today that DirecTV customers can now subscribe to Chiller, a new station dedicated to horror movies. Um...yeah, I won't be subscribing to that anytime soon. No, thank you.

I love action movies and, ok, the occasional chick flick. But horror movies? No. No way. I've seen enough to know that I don't want to see anymore. For example, when I was in third grade, we watched Poltergeist at a friend's sleep over party -- and then they made me be the one that had to sleep next to the television that night. When I was six, I think I must have seen a clip or something from Jaws and from then on, I was always worried that a baby shark would squeeze out of the drain at the swimming pool and eat me alive. Eek! And does anyone remember the TV movie version of Stephen King's It? I had to stop watching because it was making me afraid of clowns and I actually wanted to continue to enjoy them.

So yeah, do with that information what you will. I'm erasing it from my memory.

pretty birthday

Ok, so it's late, but I have to get this in before the day is over. Apparently, it's Elizabeth Taylor's birthday today. She's gone a little nutty in the last few years and she's friends with Michael Jackson, but in her prime, she was smokin' hot!

the oscars aren't dead

They're merely departed. Ok, who else was so freaking excited that The Departed won best picture? I was so geeking out when they announced that. Yeah yeah yeah!!!!!

Other highlights:

-- Martin Scorsese winning best director. Not only was it cool, but you knew it was going to happen as soon as Coppola, Spielberg, and Lucas came out to present the Oscar. It was so awesome! You could tell he really is loved by the movie people and it's not some showy kiss ass thing.

-- Alan Arkin winning best supporting actor. If you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine, get your ass out there and find a way to watch it. Such a great movie and Alan did a great job.

-- Helen Mirren is hot. I mean, hot. I hope I look that good when I'm her age.

-- Loved the musical number about not getting nominated as a comedic actor. Will Farrell, Jack Black, and John C. O'Reilly were all great in that!

-- Speaking of singing numbers, who else loved the Dreamgirls performance? I'm sure one of those songs would have won an Oscar, but with three in the same category, they split the vote. That being said, Melissa Ethridge's song was great.

-- I saw Al Gore on The Daily Show when I went to a taping of the show years ago. He was hilarious and I remember Jon Stewart asked him "Why weren't you this funny during the campaign?" He brought the funny again last night and I loved his little thing when he was about to announce something and then the orchestra played him off.

-- Ellen's fangirl schtick where she gave Martin Scorsese a script and had her picture taken with Clint Eastwood.

Disappointments:

-- I was really pulling for Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg to win. Mark's performance was awesome in the movie. As for Leo, that guy deserves an Oscar win sooner or later. He may be a cute guy that all the 14-year-old girls love, but don't let that fool you. He really is an amazing talent.

-- My Tivo cut the show short because I only programmed it to add an hour. What the hell was up with that? Long show.

So go see The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine, and The Queen. You're welcome.

i don't know about this

There are rumors that Hollywood will be making a movie about Milli Vanilli. Yeah, the lip syncing Milli Vanilli. Apparently, the VH1 Behind the Music wasn't enough to whet our appetite.

Oh, but spoiler alert! This is how the movie ends. At least, how I assume it ends. From the article:

"[Writer and Director Jeff Nathanson] has secured the cooperation of Milli Vanilli alumnus Fabrice Morvan, who has been pursuing a comeback for years, as well as the estate of his colleague, Rob Pilatus, who died of a drug overdose in 1998."

You would have known this if you had seen the updated Behind the Music. Another spoiler alert? In Titanic, the ship sinks at the end.

So in order to remind you of the whole having to return the best new artist Grammy, I give you this MP3:

Milli Vanilli - Blame It on the Rain

And if you want to know what Fab is up to, he has a Web site with his new single.

be deathly afraid

First, I don't like the title for the seventh Harry Potter. There, I said it. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows does not roll off my tongue the way I want it to. Hell, it doesn't roll off my tongue at all. I'm going to have to refer to it by an acronym like "Harry Potter and the DH" or something.

That being said, I'm excited about it's release on...July 21! It's official, people. Although the date annoys me, too. Why not July 7 [07/07/07] or July 31, Harry's birthday? These book people don't know how to properly sell a book. I mean, Book Seven on July 7th! How can you forget that?

And I have to go see the next Harry Potter movie on July 13 and then start the book a week later? Yes, July is Harry Potter month. That Harry Potter kid is getting so rich off of me.

Speaking of the Harry Potter kid, Daniel Radcliffe is starring in a play on London's West End soon [the British version of Broadway]. The promotional pictures recently sent out leave little to the imagination. As David said on Hogwarts Herald, "Daniel will be acting in the outfit God made him." That's one way of putting it.

crap i liked: robin hood: prince of thieves

This is what happens when your parents drop you off at the movie theater one summer with your friend without thinking. Don't let bad movies happen to your kids!

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves spawned all kinds of crap. First, it was Kevin Costner with an accent he couldn't figure out how to get right. Second, the theme song for the movie, although Bryan Adams did predict my current position. Everything I do with this blog, people, I do it for you. Or something.

The only redeeming thing about this movie was Alan Rickman and it pains me to say this, but even that doesn't totally fix this movie. I think I need to go see him play Snape in a Harry Potter movie just to help me cleanse the badness of Robin Hood from my brain.

And what's up with all the medieval crap I watched in the '90s? I swear I've only gone to two Renaissance fairs in the past 15 years.

actors awarding actors

Yeah, it's definitely one of those "scratch my back and I'll give you a SAG" kind of thing, but the Screen Actors Guild had their own awards show last night with a few surprises. First among them was the fact that Little Miss Sunshine won for best movie ensemble, beating out casts from The Departed and Dreamgirls among others. If you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine, you need to. That being said, I still don't think it has a chance at the Oscar this year, but that's just me.

On the other hand, a few shoe-ins were shoe-ins again last night. Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson won for their work in Dreamgirls and Helen Mirren won for The Queen. All deserved. And dare I say it, but Helen Mirren is pretty awesome.

On the TV side, well, all you have to know is The Office won for best comedy ensemble. That really is all that matters. If you're not watching The Office, something is seriously wrong with you. Watch it now if only because John Krasinski looks hot in a tux.

Little known fact: those SAG statues are 12 pounds. That's alot of pounds.

wikit: say anything

My friend Kropp made a reference the other day in a comment about the John Cusack movie High Fidelity. Great movie, but it reminded me of the best Cusack film of all time: Say Anything.

Oh, Say Anything. Many of us would have been much better off not seeing that movie. Instead, we all fell in love with Lloyd Dobler and wished we would be able to find a guy like that to marry. Unfortunately, Lloyd is not real. In fact, he's very unreal. This love for Lloyd is so crazy that Chuck Klosterman once lamented in his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs that no woman will ever be satisfied because of their Lloyd Dobler compex.

But really, how could you NOT love Lloyd Dobler? Yeah, he had no direction in life and yeah, it took him forever to finally ask out the girl of his dreams, but who wouldn't feel sorry for a guy so completely heartbroken when he gets dumped? Who doesn't want a guy wooing them with a boombox under her window? Because unless the guy is a creepy stalker, every girl wouldn't mind something like that and rarely, if ever, does it happen in real life.

Plus, I think this movie is quoted almost as much as Caddyshack. "I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen." Or "If you guys know so much about women, how come you're here at like Gas 'n Sip on a Saturday night, completely alone, drinking beers, no women anywhere?" Or what about Lloyd trying to explain to Diane's dad that he doesn't want to buy, sell, or repair anything for a living?

Little known fact: The band The Smithereens wrote a song called "A Girl Like You" for the movie. The movie's producers rejected it, saying the lyrics gave away too much of the plot. The band released it anyway on their own album and it was their first Top 40 hit. Here are the lyrics -- decide for yourself.

And of course, what would any Say Anything post be without this Peter Gabriel gem?

Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes

all hail the queen

In my bid to see as many Best Picture Oscar nominees as possible, I went and saw "The Queen" last night, which was actually pretty good. The story revolves around the death of Princess Diana and the way the monarchy reacted to it. That being said, I was quite surprised to realized that by the end, they had never used an actress for Diana, just news footage.

As for Helen Mirren, who plays the queen, her nomination for Best Actress is well deserved and I'm calling it now -- she's going to win it. So suck on that, Dame Judi Densh!

The rest of the cast was pretty good as well. They didn't look exactly like their real-life counterparts, but close enough. And as for Will and Harry, I think I maybe saw those two actors in a scene here or there. It was much more about the queen, which I thought was pretty cool.

So yeah, go see it before they take it out of the movie theaters again. And yeah! The Departed is back in Bloomington! I so need to see that movie.

oscar the grouch

The Oscar nominations came out today with a few big surprises.

First, "Dreamgirls" was nominated for eight Oscars, making it the highest nominated. That being said, it is NOT up for Best Picture. Yeah, that's right. Best picture is not one of its potential wins. Quite a shocker.

So what happened? The Academy this year decided to nominate a few dark horses. First among them was "Little Miss Sunshine," which I can't say enough good things about. The movie was nominated for best picture as well as supporting nods for Alan Arkin and adorable Abigail Breslin. I'm sure she's not going to win this year -- she's up against Cate Blanchett and shoe-in Jennifer Hudson -- but she's still so good in that movie.

The Best Picture nominees are "The Departed," "Babel," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Queen." I've only seen one of these so far so I have to get on the train and start checking all of them out, starting with "The Queen" this week. I just hope they bring "The Departed" back and have some of the smaller films make their way to the middle of Indiana. And is anyone else surprised that "Letters From Iwo Jima" was nominated, but not its English companion "Flags of Our Fathers"?

I'm getting all kinds of excited for this year and will be pulling my tiara out for whatever local party I'm going to. YEAH!

Edited to add: Did anyone see the list for Original Song? Prince won the Golden Globe for that and didn't even get nominated for the Oscar. Meanwhile, there are three songs from Dreamgirls nominated, one from Cars, and apparently a song written specifically for Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Really? We'll see how this category shapes up. All five nominated songs are performed at the Oscars [it's the music portion of the movie awards show] so this should be quite interesting. At least there's no 3 6 Mafia this year.

And in the documentary category, Al Gore could win an Oscar and what's better: Being President of the United States or an Oscar winner? That being said, he's up against a movie called "Jesus Camp" so this could be quite the interesting category.

Full list of nominees is here.

beyonce and the supremes

So I headed out to see Dreamgirls earlier this week and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Beyonce can actually act and Jennifer Hudson was perfect for her role. And wow. Did not expect Eddie Murphy to be as good as he was. That was a pleasant surprise.

The movie won three Golden Globes for best drama, Eddie Murphy, and Jennifer Hudson. I think she probably won her Globe for her rendition of "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going". Yeah, the rest of her acting was ok, but if you saw her sing that song in the context of the movie, you would be blown away. Hell, you would be blown away hearing it without seeing the movie first, so I give you an MP3 to bask in the awesomeness of this performance.

Jennifer Hudson - And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going

Also, check out Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie, perform the song at the Tonys [via YouTube].

red carpet interviews

I love watching all the pre-show coverage before the Golden Globes or the Oscars to see what people are wearing or hope I catch a glimpse of one of my favorite actors or singers getting interviewed. But as I watched all the entertainment coverage on Monday, I realized that there are certain criteria to get a job being an red carpet interviewer. First, you have to look pretty. Second, you have to dress pretty. Third, you have to be a vapid idiot.

For example, let's say I'm given the chance to do a red carpet interview with Leonardo DiCaprio at the Golden Globes. Here are some things I would ask:

-- The Departed is your third movie with Martin Scorcese. Why do you like working with him so much?
-- How did you learn the accent you used in "Blood Diamond" and how long did it take you to get it right?

You know, things like that. Instead, these were the questions that Leo was asked.

-- Who are you wearing?
-- How long did it take you to get ready today?
-- Who is your date?

Really? That's all you can come up with? It gets worse when the different outfits make celebrities look stupid with hokey pokey garbage. These things would include:

-- The rotating platform that Entertainment Tonight made people stand on while being interviewed by Mary Hart.
-- The Glam Cam on E!. Make sure to stand still while we take a full body shot of your outfit as we zoom up your legs to your crotch, your cleavage, and finally, your face as an afterthought.
-- The Insider Confessional Cam! Confess your darkest secrets, Sheryl Crow, or you won't get free Moet champagne.
-- The Insider Two-Way Mirror. Because wouldn't it be embarassing if a celeb's dress was accidentally tucked into her underwear before she went it?
-- The E! Post-Show Interview Lounge with an open bar! It started lame and then the chick from E! put Helen Mirren's Golden Globes on some stupid stand that rotates around and accidentally dropped one. Yes, she dropped Helen Mirren's Golden Globe. Awkward.

So yeah, it's times like these when I'm glad I have a Tivo and a mute button. I will admit, I Tivoed all the shows mentioned above, but I was also admit that it only took me 20 minutes to get through three hours of that crap before deleting it forever.