MOOGIE WONDERLAND

Oscars are this Sunday. DVD Talk writers voted in a poll to pick the winners we'd vote for, and here was our consensus.

My personal votes were:
Best Picture: Up in the Air
Best Direction: Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, An Education
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Best Supporting Actress: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Best Animated Feature: Up

Up in the Air speaks to our times, while also being timeless. It is a movie that could only have been made in 2009, and was one of my favorites. My review, for those who missed it.

Art by Vera Brosgol, from Gallery Nucleus' Alice-themed show

NEW IN THEATRES...

* Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton's ego-driven "reimagining" of a classic that didn't need his help.

* The Ghost Writer. What's all the fuss about the new Roman Polanski? What's the hubbub, bub?

Portland folks: Don't forget that Fish Tank, the new film from Andrea Arnold, also opens this week at Cinema 21. Read my review from PIFF here.

THIS WEEK IN DVD REVIEWS...

* 44 Inch Chest, a talky British gangster drama that loses its way, squandering an amazing cast that features Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt, and the might Ian McShane.

* Eleven Minutes, a documentary about the (annoying) first winner of Project Runway.

* Gigante, an oddball subversion of the romance genre from Uruguay. Also coupled with the even better Danish short Dennis.

Art by Angie Wang, from Gallery Nucleus' Alice-themed show

I could have predicted that I was going to get some complaints about my Eleven Minutes review. It seemed like the type of thing where some fan would end up sending me grief. No surprise, then, that some guy calling himself (or herself) Cozimoto signed up for a DVD Talk forum account to write:

It seems you may be confusing your criticism of Jay for criticism of the film.

Jay's not a comic book character. He's flesh and blood with flaws and contradictions. The goal of a documentary is to show things for what they are, not always to tell you how to feel about them. Leave that to reality TV.

I immediately sent this to Chynna, and we laughed because she had also encountered a similar attitude in real life recently, getting some snotty attitude from a jagoff banker turning up his smug nose at her chosen profession. Why is that the default argument? "Oh, you work in comics." Yeah, genius, you got me. I'm totally busted. Sucks for me that I get to work in a field I love doing what I always dreamed about. Wish I had more time to sign on to message boards to call another person shallow in defense of a fashion designer popular for being on reality television and prove in the process that my reading skills are so poor that I missed the review actually addresses the very issue I'm complaining about. You're ankle deep in superiority, pal. Haw!

By the way, it turns out Jay McCarroll is currently on Celebrity Fit Club on VH-1, where I am sure they take him very seriously as a fashion designer.

Current Soundtrack: Spiritualized, Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space 3-disc Super Deluxe edition



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All text (c) 2010 Jamie S. Rich