Post Oscar Blog
This week we take a look at the Oscars and motion pictures in general including a review of the new Alice in Wonderland movie. I also talk about PCs and other stuff too.
Welcome to another week in Bogworld. Lots to talk about this week. Lets dive right in, shall we?
Alice In Wonderland
I was more than a little concerned that anything replacing Avatar would suffer by comparison. I had thoughts of a high school football team being asked to play a demonstration game against the Minnesota Vikings. How does anyone follow the biggest grossing movie of all time?
Well it turns out if you follow up with another good movie, everything will be ok. And Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is just that. A good movie. Perhaps it succeeds by being a visual spectacle of a slightly different nature. To follow Avatar, Alice needed to be visually amazing. Yet different enough to not draw too many comparisons.
Alice is different. Weird and whimsical. Its the kind of story line Tim Burton was born to work on. Lots and lots of bizarre characters. Off beat magical settings. An odd mix of dark comedy with classic fairy tale telling. Its the sort of thing Burton tried to force on his Batman movies, but here its welcome and works perfectly.
The characters in Alice are likable. Quirks and all. You’d think Johnny Depps whacked out weird Mad Hatter would upstage everyone but in fact its newcomer Mia Wasikowska who carries the whole movie. I fully expected the Alice character to be pushed to the back behind all the wild sets and talking animals and Depp’s Hatter. But no. She shines quietly through. Her growth from confused little girl to strong heroine through the course of the film is precisely what makes this movie really good.
Tim Burton did not shoot Alice with 3D cameras like Avatar was shot. Instead the movie was computer enhanced with 3D later. But don’t panic. This is not like the disappointing Superman Returns 3D process. This is a clever use of new software that is much better at post production application of 3D. In Alice its used quite cleverly. Not just to give us a sense of depth and the occasional object flying off the screen, but also to emphasize size. When Alice becomes big or small, the 3D effect really plays a nice role in the effect.
I really had my doubts anything could follow Avatar and be a satisfying experience. But hats off to Alice in Wonderland. It is worthy.
The Academy Awards-Before.
I thought it would be fun to post before and after thoughts of this years Oscars ceremony. Like most people I did not see every film being honored. But here are the movies I thought were the best of 2009...
AVATAR- Yeh yeh yeh. You’ve been hearing me rave about this movie for months now. Some people bash it because the story seemed unoriginal to them. Too close to Pocahantus or Dances with Wolves. That seems like sour grapes to me. Did the movie succeed in taking us on an exciting emotional ride? Yup it sure did. So many stories are close to other stories. We could spend hours debating the originality of them all. I still contend that Avatar needed a clean simple story to bring us through its amazing visuals. Its the entire package. The marriage of all the newest visual arts combined with the newest presentation systems that cleverly brought us, the audience, right into the adventure too is why Avatar deserves to be recognized for something a little more than just a movie.
HURT LOCKER- This amazing documentary style flick about a military demolitions team serving in Iraq kept the tension on the audience from the first scenes to the last. It not only put us right there next to the bomb wondering what wire to cut to be safe and what wire would suddenly end everyone’s lives. But it also took us into the psyche of the soldiers serving there right now. The constant paranoia of trying to figure out who is friend and who is foe. Great little movie.
UP- Talk about emotional rides. The first half hour of this Pixar/Disney masterpiece doesn’t have a single word of dialogue yet delivers years of touching emotional impact. I was overjoyed to see Pixar reset its sights on an adult audience. Cars was too cartoony kiddy for my liking. Pixar is at its best when it delivers stories that kids can watch but go so much deeper for older audiences too.
INGLORIOUS BASTARDS- Heres a movie getting a lot of acclaim and I just don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong. I like Quinten Tarrentino a lot. Big fan in fact. But this felt like a swing and a miss for me. The vignettes were mostly all really good. But this time the many really good pieces just did not fit together to make a complete puzzle for me. To me this was a movie with a lot of great moments that somehow failed to add up to be a good movie.
I think the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars are a toss up between Hurt Locker and Avatar.
The Academy Awards-After
i thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin did a nice job as hosts. I laughed out loud quite a lot at their jokes. Can’t say that always about Oscar hosts.
I thought it was a little odd and awkward having the Best Actor nominee’s friends give a testimonial moment as if they were somehow sponsoring them for something. It was a sort of weird moment. Followed only by the weirder hippy speech Jeff Bridges gave when he finally won the award.
For those of us who like movie technology I was pretty disappointed that they gave all of about 13 seconds for the technical achievement awards. Thanks Academy. Skip over the people who are responsible for bringing audiences back into theaters. Yes the movies have been great, but its the cherry on top provided by new film and presentation technology that is pulling people away from their video game consoles and getting them excited about movies again.
Really happy with the choice of Sandra Bullock. She was touching and funny with her speech.
Glad Hurt Locker won Best Picture and Best Director. Personally I think Avatar should have won Best Picture. Yes Hurt Locker is a really really good little movie. But Avatar quite literally changed film making forever. Thats why I still think Avatar deserved the big award.
I’m A PC?
While watching the Oscars there was a handful of those Windows 7 ads. They talk about how Microsoft is working so hard to make Windows simpler and safer. Then they end the ad with a line up of “normal people” proudly claiming “I’m a PC!”
The thing is if all these people are demanding their operating system to be simpler and safer, doesn’t that really make them Macs?
Alice In Wonderland
I was more than a little concerned that anything replacing Avatar would suffer by comparison. I had thoughts of a high school football team being asked to play a demonstration game against the Minnesota Vikings. How does anyone follow the biggest grossing movie of all time?
Well it turns out if you follow up with another good movie, everything will be ok. And Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is just that. A good movie. Perhaps it succeeds by being a visual spectacle of a slightly different nature. To follow Avatar, Alice needed to be visually amazing. Yet different enough to not draw too many comparisons.
Alice is different. Weird and whimsical. Its the kind of story line Tim Burton was born to work on. Lots and lots of bizarre characters. Off beat magical settings. An odd mix of dark comedy with classic fairy tale telling. Its the sort of thing Burton tried to force on his Batman movies, but here its welcome and works perfectly.
The characters in Alice are likable. Quirks and all. You’d think Johnny Depps whacked out weird Mad Hatter would upstage everyone but in fact its newcomer Mia Wasikowska who carries the whole movie. I fully expected the Alice character to be pushed to the back behind all the wild sets and talking animals and Depp’s Hatter. But no. She shines quietly through. Her growth from confused little girl to strong heroine through the course of the film is precisely what makes this movie really good.
Tim Burton did not shoot Alice with 3D cameras like Avatar was shot. Instead the movie was computer enhanced with 3D later. But don’t panic. This is not like the disappointing Superman Returns 3D process. This is a clever use of new software that is much better at post production application of 3D. In Alice its used quite cleverly. Not just to give us a sense of depth and the occasional object flying off the screen, but also to emphasize size. When Alice becomes big or small, the 3D effect really plays a nice role in the effect.
I really had my doubts anything could follow Avatar and be a satisfying experience. But hats off to Alice in Wonderland. It is worthy.
The Academy Awards-Before.
I thought it would be fun to post before and after thoughts of this years Oscars ceremony. Like most people I did not see every film being honored. But here are the movies I thought were the best of 2009...
AVATAR- Yeh yeh yeh. You’ve been hearing me rave about this movie for months now. Some people bash it because the story seemed unoriginal to them. Too close to Pocahantus or Dances with Wolves. That seems like sour grapes to me. Did the movie succeed in taking us on an exciting emotional ride? Yup it sure did. So many stories are close to other stories. We could spend hours debating the originality of them all. I still contend that Avatar needed a clean simple story to bring us through its amazing visuals. Its the entire package. The marriage of all the newest visual arts combined with the newest presentation systems that cleverly brought us, the audience, right into the adventure too is why Avatar deserves to be recognized for something a little more than just a movie.
HURT LOCKER- This amazing documentary style flick about a military demolitions team serving in Iraq kept the tension on the audience from the first scenes to the last. It not only put us right there next to the bomb wondering what wire to cut to be safe and what wire would suddenly end everyone’s lives. But it also took us into the psyche of the soldiers serving there right now. The constant paranoia of trying to figure out who is friend and who is foe. Great little movie.
UP- Talk about emotional rides. The first half hour of this Pixar/Disney masterpiece doesn’t have a single word of dialogue yet delivers years of touching emotional impact. I was overjoyed to see Pixar reset its sights on an adult audience. Cars was too cartoony kiddy for my liking. Pixar is at its best when it delivers stories that kids can watch but go so much deeper for older audiences too.
INGLORIOUS BASTARDS- Heres a movie getting a lot of acclaim and I just don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong. I like Quinten Tarrentino a lot. Big fan in fact. But this felt like a swing and a miss for me. The vignettes were mostly all really good. But this time the many really good pieces just did not fit together to make a complete puzzle for me. To me this was a movie with a lot of great moments that somehow failed to add up to be a good movie.
I think the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars are a toss up between Hurt Locker and Avatar.
The Academy Awards-After
i thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin did a nice job as hosts. I laughed out loud quite a lot at their jokes. Can’t say that always about Oscar hosts.
I thought it was a little odd and awkward having the Best Actor nominee’s friends give a testimonial moment as if they were somehow sponsoring them for something. It was a sort of weird moment. Followed only by the weirder hippy speech Jeff Bridges gave when he finally won the award.
For those of us who like movie technology I was pretty disappointed that they gave all of about 13 seconds for the technical achievement awards. Thanks Academy. Skip over the people who are responsible for bringing audiences back into theaters. Yes the movies have been great, but its the cherry on top provided by new film and presentation technology that is pulling people away from their video game consoles and getting them excited about movies again.
Really happy with the choice of Sandra Bullock. She was touching and funny with her speech.
Glad Hurt Locker won Best Picture and Best Director. Personally I think Avatar should have won Best Picture. Yes Hurt Locker is a really really good little movie. But Avatar quite literally changed film making forever. Thats why I still think Avatar deserved the big award.
I’m A PC?
While watching the Oscars there was a handful of those Windows 7 ads. They talk about how Microsoft is working so hard to make Windows simpler and safer. Then they end the ad with a line up of “normal people” proudly claiming “I’m a PC!”
The thing is if all these people are demanding their operating system to be simpler and safer, doesn’t that really make them Macs?
Oscars, Alice in Wonderland
Category: Bog Blog
Posted by: joe
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