Top Five Thoughts On The Weekend!

Holy hell it's been a while since I blogged.  I probably should do a top five regarding reasons I haven't been blogging, but it would be a boring list consisting of excuses and general laziness.  So let's not bother.

Anyway, I won't bore you with NFL combine stuff, even though I have an unhealthy obsession with something so stupid. So let's get to even stupider things....

5 - The New Season Of The Amazing Race Started...and I hate most of the teams.


We are two episodes in and already two teams have quit challenges in favor of a six hour penalty, while another considered it before deciding not to be complete pussies and *gasp* trying it.  I'm sure teams taking penalties has happened a few times in the twenty-something seasons of the Race, but I only remember twice.  Regardless, it's unacceptable to me. You get chosen for a once in a lifetime experience and just bitch the entire time?  Nice.

They should let me run it already, even though I never once applied.  I'm still hoping a producer will come to my doorstep and beg me.  Is that too hard to ask?

4 - Lottery Tickets - Love Them.

California has recently introduced new scratch off tickets that offer a grand prize of 5k a week for the next 25 years, and for some reason, I've convinced myself that I actually have a chance of winning, so I've purchased too many and have won a total of four dollars.  Perhaps this is a sign of a gambling problem, but there is unexplainable excitement while actually scratching the ticket, and irreplaceable daydreams while walking back from the store with the tickets in hand.  Regardless of how minuscule the chances of victory are, there is something powerful about a simple piece of paper that holds the possibility of changing your life forever in a positive way, even if the thoughts are just some odd abstraction.

3 - Let's Get My Oscar Hate Out Of The Way!

Who was the biggest snub of the 2013 Oscars?  Humanity's collective dignity.  Once again! It never seems to win.  I know I've said this a thousand times, but the Academy Awards is everything I hate about humanity in one three hour nutshell.  We somehow how celebrate art, something subjective, beautiful, and multifaceted, by creating a competition like all of it exists in a quantifiable vacuum.  How you can compare great movies and performances and simplify them by boiling them down to basic terms like "best" is beyond me. And then, of course, accepting these dumb decisions as some kind of truth. 
Also, and this has bugged me for years, I find it laughable that we accept terms like "this film is gaining momentum" when discussing the chances of Oscar victories.  For something to have momentum, IT HAS TO BE MOVING.  Or, AT LEAST, changing.  These movies don't change, they don't get better, they aren't even touched.   It's all political.  I won't go so far as saying the dumb game is rigged, but I don't know another term for it.

But on the subject of judging movies...

2- The WORST movie of 2005 is...THE RING 2!

Great, Brett!  Thanks for declaring this eight years later. We can all sleep tonight.

It's actually shocking that I didn't see this movie sooner, considering the first installment of The Ring remains the only movie ever to scare the absolute bejeezus out of me.  But anyway, this was a real, rushed piece of shit.  It's kind of a weird phenomenon, but writers sometimes lose control of their own stories and are helpless while watching them spiral out of control, even though stories aren't living and breathing things. Normally, we can trash them or fix them, but when it comes to taking advantage of a sequel's potential, time isn't afforded.  And I couldn't help but feel that The Ring Two fell victim to this.  Poor choice begot poor choice until the string of dominoes led to Naomi Watts and a ghost racing to the top of a well to see who could close it first.  Yeah.

I can imagine the director finishing the final cut, shrugging, and saying, "eh, well that happened." 
1 - Why I Love Good Documentaries

Though I love all kinds of films, a well-told documentary has a high ceiling because they are grounded in the most truth (well we hope).  Some documentaries are either misleading or glorified, but there's a general understood contract between the filmmaker and the viewer that the movie is something real.

Anyway, I watched this year's Oscar winner (a theme!), Searching for Sugarman, this Friday and was blown away by the story to the point where I just wanted to open my wallet and throw money at the subject of the film, the forgotten folk singer named Rodriguez.  I'm not sure why my first reaction to people who are the victim of injustice, poor circumstance, or bad luck is to toss money at them, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I did. Take it!  Just take my money. Here, take more money! Regardless, Searching for Sugarman, without giving anything away, is the kind of amazing story that is guaranteed never to happen again because the issue could easily be solved with a Google search (damn internet, you struck again), but it's an emotional and somewhat shocking film.  Anyway, go see it.  It's on video, or whatever we are calling that these days.

Hopefully I'll blog later this week!

Have a good one.