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A Smug Film Bonus Post About the 2013 Oscars

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Cody’s Oscar Thoughts:

I hate the god damn Oscars. Basically, for all the same reasons everyone hates the Oscars, so I don’t need to get into all that here. However, I still watch every year, because the tree of disgust for Hollywood must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots. (I think Thomas Jefferson said that.)

Of what’s nominated, basically, Joaquin should win Best Actor (his acting in The Master is as good as acting can possibly get) Michael Haneke should win Best Director (I haven’t seen Amour yet, but the man can do no wrong, and fuck the Academy for snubbing The White Ribbon for Best Foreign Film a few years back) Amour should win Best Picture (because fuck you again) and Emmanuelle Riva should win best actress. (I’m sure she’s great in Amour. She’s a great actress. Léon Morin, Priest is like the greatest thing ever.)
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I Do Declare ‘Compliance’ To Be The Worst Movie of 2012

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Compliance (2012)
Written and Directed by Craig Zobel
90 min.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, I know, but when I see a title like Compliance, a red flag goes up in my head. It’s one thing to make a title short (Jaws is brilliant) but it’s another to give away the entire movie’s theme right off the bat. (Gee, I wonder what Shame is about. Perhaps it’s about doubt? No, that’s probably Doubt. What do you think the characters achieve in the movie Atonement? And so on.) When a writer/director/producer/studio chooses a title like Compliance, they’re announcing to the world that their movie is About Something That Should Be Taken Seriously, unlike those plebeian popcorn flicks with actually-great titles such as Drag Me To Hell or The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. As a result, I tend to avoid such seemingly one-note movies. But, I am also ever critical of my arbitrary biases, so I recently decided to test my hypothesis by Netflix-ing this one.
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‘Wanna Hang Out?’, or, Airheads is Better Than Dog Day Afternoon

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There’s an odd video on YouTube where Quentin Tarantino lists his 20 favorite movies that have come out since he became a director in 1992.  The video was made in 2009—making it a 17th year anniversary celebration of him being a director.  The arbitrariness of this echoes The Simpsons’ 138th episode spectacular (although that was a joke).

His list is surprising—in good ways and bad.  I love that he lists The Matrix and also makes a point to disregard the sequels “that serve only to tarnish the mythology of a badass movie”.  And with Jan de Bont’s Speed, he adds a clever caveat that we “forget everything that happens after the bus stops.”  But then, for some reason, he names Woody Allen’s Anything Else—one of his least significant movies.  (It’s also kind of a bummer since Allen’s best movie, Deconstructing Harry, came out in ’97—well within Tarantino’s arbitrary 17-year timespan.)
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Django Unchained: Tarantino’s Worst Since Pulp Fiction

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Django Unchained (2012)
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
165 min.

Warning: Very mild spoilers.

Look, I’m not saying that Django Unchained is a bad movie. Or that Pulp Fiction is either. They’re both good movies. Tarantino has never made a bad movie. The good parts of any one of his films always seem to outweigh the bad—the two with the strongest good-to-bad-part ratios being Inglourious Basterds and Jackie Brown. Those two are damn near perfect. All the others are either ‘very good’ (Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, From Dusk Till Dawn, True Romance) or just ‘good’ (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Death Proof, Django Unchained). And Death Proof is a bit more solid than Django in my opinion, therefore, Django is his worst since Pulp Fiction. (By the way, I should point out that yes, I’m fully aware that Tarantino wrote, but did not direct, From Dusk Till Dawn and True Romance. If I don’t mention that, some fanboy will point it out in the comments like he knows something I don’t or whatever. Well guess what, hypothetical fanboy? You know nothing I don’t. So you can take that hypothetical fact and shove it. Although, and I don’t wanna get off on a tangent here, but isn’t it weird how often people fall for that ‘Quentin Tarantino Presents’ thing? There are people in this world that legit think Tarantino was involved in the writing or directing or whatever of The Protector, Hostel, and others. Swear to god. I worked a video store, dude. I know things. And that’s honestly the tip of the iceberg as far as ‘weird things customers think’ goes. I’ll have to do an entry or entries about my video store days one of these days…)
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Netflix Quickies #1 (Sleepwalk With Me, Red Hook Summer, Cavegirl, Zeta One, Good Deeds)

Alright so whenever I go on Netflix Instant I just sorta pick random movies from my queue, try them for a few minutes, and then if I’m not feeling them moving on to another until I finally find one I don’t hate, and then I watch that one. This ‘Netflix Quickies’ thing is basically gonna be a series where I just talk about movies I decided not to watch after the first couple minutes and explain exactly what turned me off about them. Here goes:

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Sleepwalk With Me (2012)
Directed by Mike Birbiglia and Seth Barrish
Written by Mike Birbiglia, Joe Birbiglia, Ira Glass, and Seth Barrish
90 min. (gave up after 2 min.)
Continue reading Netflix Quickies #1 (Sleepwalk With Me, Red Hook Summer, Cavegirl, Zeta One, Good Deeds)