The Screaming Viking

Results from the Oscars, if anyone cares…

BEST PICTURE
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

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

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo’nique, Precious

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Quentino Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Joel & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Peter Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy, Up

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci & Tony Roche, In The Loop
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Ajami, Israel
El Secretro de sus Ojo, Argentina
The Milk of Sorrow, Peru
Un Prophete, France
The White Ribbon, Germany

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Princess and the Frog
The Secrets of Kells
Up

ART DIRECTION
Avatar Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
Nine Art Direction: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
Sherlock Holmes Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
The Young Victoria Art Direction: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Maggie Gray

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar Mauro Fiore
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Bruno Delbonnel
The Hurt Locker Barry Ackroyd
Inglourious Basterds Robert Richardson
The White Ribbon Christian Berger

COSTUME DESIGN
Bright Star Janet Patterson
Coco before Chanel Catherine Leterrier
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Monique Prudhomme
Nine Colleen Atwood
The Young Victoria Sandy Powell

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Burma VJ Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
The Cove Nominees to be determined
Food, Inc. Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
Which Way Home Rebecca Cammisa

DOCUMENTARY SHORT
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
Music by Prudence Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
Rabbit à la Berlin Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

FILM EDITING
Avatar Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
District 9 Julian Clarke
The Hurt Locker Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
Inglourious Basterds Sally Menke
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire Joe Klotz

MAKEUP
Il Divo Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
Star Trek Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
The Young Victoria Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

ORIGINAL SCORE
Avatar James Horner
Fantastic Mr. Fox Alexandre Desplat
The Hurt Locker Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
Sherlock Holmes Hans Zimmer
Up Michael Giacchino

ORIGINAL SONG
Almost There from The Princess and the Frog Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
Down in New Orleans from The Princess and the Frog Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
Loin de Paname from Paris 36 Music by Reinhardt Wagner Lyric by Frank Thomas
Take It All from Nine Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart) from Crazy Heart Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

ANIMATED SHORT
French Roast Fabrice O. Joubert
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte) Javier Recio Gracia
Logorama Nicolas Schmerkin
A Matter of Loaf and Death Nick Park

LIVE ACTION SHORT
The Door Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
Instead of Abracadabra Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
Kavi Gregg Helvey
Miracle Fish Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
The New Tenants Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

SOUND EDITING
Avatar Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
The Hurt Locker Paul N.J. Ottosson
Inglourious Basterds Wylie Stateman
Star Trek Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
Up Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

SOUND MIXING
Avatar Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
The Hurt Locker Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
Inglourious Basterds Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
Star Trek Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson

VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
District 9 Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
Star Trek Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

I caught this flick a few weeks ago.  I had heard that it was pretty good and critics raved about Sandra Bullock, but I wasn’t sold.  I’ve seen her in several movies and I think she is a talented actress, but I really didn’t think she had the presence to control the screen and carry the show.  Looking over her movie credits on the imdb, the only movie on there I would classify as “must see” is “A time to kill”.  If you haven’t had a chance, see it.  It is a very good movie.  Anyhow, I didn’t have anything going on one evening after the kid went to bed and the wife was out…so I flipped it on.

The movie is based on a part of the book by the same name.  The part they focused on was the story of Michael Oher who is currently playing for the Baltimore Ravens.  The story was about Oher being a homeless teenager who the Tuohey’s (Bullock and Tim McGraw) took in.  Initially it started as a place to stay for the evening but it evolved into giving this guy a family.  I’m not going to go into the story any more than that…if you’re interested you can read up on it at the wiki.

I was really drawn into this movie from the beginning.  There was something about the kid being poor and trying to cope with life on his own at such a young age that grabbed a hold of me.  For whatever reason his struggle really came across the screen to me and I felt something for the character.  Bullock was O.K. and I didn’t even notice it was Tim McGraw playing her husband…I figured it was just some semi-unknown actor, but it was really the acting of Quinton Aaron (Oher) that made the movie.  I can’t really put in to words how the movie made a connection with me…for some reason it just did.

I wouldn’t call this a football movie, it was more a movie about the journey of this kid and how football helped bring him up from nothing.  The movie gave the impression that the Tuohey’s (who were/are quite rich) would have helped this boy even without his football prowess, in fact the flick indicated that they didn’t know he could/would play football.  The movie made it seem like he knew nothing about football prior to moving in with these folks.  I’m sure that was by design…Oher (the real one) has said the only part of the movie he disagreed with was how they made it seem like he’d never played football.  He has said he already had played a bit and knew how to play.  The reason I think this is a key point of the movie and it’s portrayal of the Tuohey’s is because of the NCAA investigation that came along with Oher’s college choice.

Oher chose to go to the University of Mississippi.  This is the alma mater of the Tuohey’s and they are “boosters” as far as the NCAA is concerned.  There was an investigation by the NCAA to see if the Tuohey’s violated any rules regarding Oher’s choice of college.  I had read all this before watching the movie.  The opinion I formed at that time was that it wasn’t that big of a deal and I didn’t think they really tampered with him at all.  After watching the movie, I’ve changed my mind a little bit simple because of the great lengths the flick went to make it seem like they didn’t do anything.  I think they probably did “tamper” with the situation…but in the end does it really matter?  They gave this boy the ability to go to college and make something out of a life that might not have turned in to anything…in the grand scheme of things if he went to the college they directed him towards I don’t have a problem with it.

Michael Oher’s story is full of inspiration and feel good emotions.  It’s “fun” to watch/read about a guy that comes from a situation like that and becomes successful/rich/better.  The movie is worth watching…but don’t get in to it expecting a great sports action flick.  It’s an emotional “tug at the heart” kind of movie.

A buddy came to town this past weekend and wanted to check out Avatar.  I had been toying with seeing this flick since it’s release, but haven’t really found the motivation to plop down the 8.75 for a ticket, I was finally nudged over the edge.  I had read several reviews about this movie and knew what the basic plot outline was going to be.  I fully expected to hate this movie but I was pleasantly surprised.

The plot of this flick is really secondary to why most people get sucked in to it.  The CGI for this flick was by far the best I’ve seen on screen yet.  There were places where it looked a bit fake, but over all you were never sitting there thinking to yourself “bullshit”.  I do think it takes a certain level of “buying in” to the flick.  You have to accept that the animated world is not going to look “real”.  I found myself getting sucked in to the world.  There was just enough scientific babble about what was going on to make what you saw on the screen quite interesting.

As for the plot of the movie…bleh, you’ve seen it a hundred times.  There is an unlikely hero, an over zealous “bad guy” and the tree huggers.  The plot travels along exactly like you expect it would, and that really isn’t a weakness of the movie.  Because of the simple plot the viewer can let themselves get sucked in to the world and you don’t have to waste brain power trying to figure out what is going on.  You can just watch and think about some of the other aspects of the movie that are far more interesting.

Pandora (the planet) and it’s inhabitants interact in a very interesting way.  To me, that was the real story going on…the rest of it was just details that got in the way of fleshing out this inter-connectivity of the planet.  Several native religions focus on the interconnection between all life.  The idea that we are all tied together and share one “energy” as it were is a mainstay in a lot of tribal beliefs.  Cameron took this idea and expanded on it slightly for Pandora.  The idea of living things being connected was shown on the screen as a physical connection between the inhabitants and the animals “of burden”.  They jacked in via some fiber optic looking connection on their hair braid to the same type of connection coming from the animals head.  They did this on their horses, the dragon things they flew around on and at the end it was done on the panther looking thing.  They also used this interface to connect to a few trees that they claimed they could hear the voices of their ancestors from.  This was the basis of their belief that all things are connected.

To me, exploring that connection is what made the movie interesting.  The idea that everything on the planet functioned as part of a greater whole and from time to time they could all feel a common “enemy”, come together and over come that enemy…was just fascinating.  The rest of the story?  bleh, who cares.  Pick up any Cameron movie and you’ve seen it.

I am very curious to see how this flick compares to the book “call me joe”, a 1957 novella written by Poul Anderson.  The basis for that book was a paraplegic man (same as avatar) controls an “avatar” telepathically to explore a hostile planet, Jupiter.  The man looses a grip on what is real and who he really is and ends up inhabiting the avatar completely.

Joe is awakened in his den, when a pack of predators are attacking him. Using his great strength, and weapons made from sculpted ice, he kills the animals and, exultant, bays at the moon above him. A vital component shorts out, and “Joe” reverts to being a human, Ed Anglesey, wearing a special headset on a space station orbiting Jupiter. Anglesey furiously repairs the equipment to restore the connection.

It transpires that such equipment failures are happening more and more often. All technical attempts at repair have failed, and instead a psionics expert, Cornelius, is brought to the station to determine if Anglesey himself is the problem.

Anglesey uses a wheelchair and is bad-tempered. He dislikes all his colleagues and is disliked in return. He is allowed to stay on the station only because of his ability to establish a telepathic connection with and thereby control Joe, a creature designed to survive the hostile conditions on the Jovian surface. Cornelius conjectures that something in Anglesey’s mind rejects or fears Jupiter, and the resulting feedback keeps destroying the delicate equipment.

Eventually Cornelius is allowed to share a session with Anglesey during an important part of the mission. A set of autonomous female Jovians, similar to Joe but lacking a human controller such as Anglesey, has been launched from the satellite and will soon land on Jupiter. Joe, still controlled by Anglesey, is to be the leader, and father, of a new race that will live on the planet. During this session, Cornelius becomes aware of a third mind – that of Joe himself. Anglesey’s mind has been steadily transforming itself into Joe and shrinking in the process. Cornelius was looking at the problem from the wrong end – it was not Anglesey’s fear of going to Jupiter and becoming sublimated into Joe’s stronger character which was causing the blowouts, but his fear of leaving Jupiter and the freedom Joe’s whole and healthy, though non-human, body allows him. Anglesey’s existence is poor and constricted compared to Joe’s, and the environment has shaped a personality that no longer wants to be human.

Seeing himself from Cornelius’s perspective, Joe becomes fully self-aware. He ejects Cornelius from the loop and shuts down what is left of Anglesey.

Cornelius revives on the station next to the hollow shell of Anglesey’s body. Far from being dismayed, Cornelius realizes that this is the way of the future. From now on people with diseased bodies and even the aged can be recruited for the Jovian program if they have the necessary talents. Eventually they will leave their bodies behind and become Jovians in the flesh, functioning as the priesthood of the new race.

It seems very similar the ideas in Avatar.  And it’s worth noting that Cameron had to pay Harlan Ellison royalties and credit for ideas in Terminator that IMO were far more dissimilar than the ones between Avatar and Call me Joe.  We’ll see I guess.

I’m not sure how Avatar would stack up on DVD.  On my setup it would probably be piss poor, some some blue-ray HD setup?  Maybe pretty damn good…who knows.  I’d say it’s worth seeing in HD, but I really don’t know about SD.

There is a rumor from J.J. Abrams that the Gorn would be in Star Trek 2.  In the interview it looks like a tongue in cheek comment…but I think it’s actually a pretty good idea.  It reaches back to an episode in the original series, it’s not a race that has ever been done in any of the movies so the lore and characters would be pretty fresh to viewers…it’s a bit of a break from the Romulan/Klingon/Borg rut the series falls in to.  I think the costumes could be done pretty easily with today’s technology…

We’ll have to see how this one plays out.