Category Archives: Movies

Oscars Epic Fail

Hey 3.5 readers.  I went to bed assuming Best Picture would be given to La La Land and apparently the presenters thought that too.

Then I woke up this morning to hear there had been a flub.  Apparently, the envelopes got mixed up and La La Land had been announced for Best Picture and then after some scrambling around they announced there had been a mistake and that Moonlight had actually won.

That’s got to suck for the La La Land people to be told you won and then have your victory yanked away and it also has to suck for the Moonlight people to have their victory moment ruined.

Oh you wacky Hollywood types.

One thing we can always be sure of though is that ugly people will never win an Oscar.  Poor Michael Shannon was passed over due to his ugliness.  Such a shame because there is a lot of talent underneath all that ugly.  #OscarsSoPretty

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Michael Shannon Denied Best Supporting Actor Oscar

Boo!  An outrage to ugly people everywhere!  #OscarsSoPretty

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If you think the Oscars are too pretty…

…then tweet along with BQB on #OscarsSoPretty

Don’t forget to root for our fellow ugly person, Michael Shannon for Best Supporting Actor.

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RIP Bill Paxton

Hey 3.5 readers.

Sad news as actor Bill Paxton has died at 61 due to complications from surgery.  Off the top of my head, his most memorable credits include playing the dick older brother in Weird Science, that dick who pretends to be a spy in order to seduce Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies and that dick in Aliens who shouts, “Game over, man.”

Yes, he build a career on playing dicks but he wasn’t a dick in real life.

 

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BQB’s Annual #OscarsSoPretty Speech

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Noted Ugly Rights Advocate Bookshelf Q. Battler

Beauty.  They say it’s in the eye of the beholder but the eyes of the world will never behold the sight of an ugly man up on the big screen.  Buck tooth, speak the truth, bad skin, let them in, warts, schmorts, boils, schmoils, you’ve got a zit, who gives a shit?

Oh, I’m tired 3.5 readers.  I’m tired, tired, tired I say I am tired of the chains of oppression that have been cast upon my aesthetically challenged brothers and sisters.  Go tell it on the mountain for Jesus Christ is born and Jesus said unto all of us that he loves the little children, all the little children of the world, black and yellow, red or white, all are beautiful in his sight and he also thinks you’re beautiful if you’re ugly.

We didn’t choose to look like Plymouth Rock landed on our faces.  We were born looking like it landed on us!  We were just born that way.  Consult with Lady Gaga and she’ll tell you that we were born this way-ay, we were born this way-ay, we are on the right track baby and we were born this way-ay.

In a perfect world, the ugly man and the handsome man should be friends, neighbors, brothers.  But alas, this world is far, so very far from perfect and therefore, that vile demon known as anti-ugly prejudice rears its ugly head from time to time, looking to take a bite out of the hides of anyone looking to walk down the righteous path to a glorious future where the ugly and the pretty walk hand in hand on the road to tomorrow.

The statistics don’t lie, folks.  Praise be to the statisticians for they do not lie.  According to the Fake Institute for Bogus Research, 99.999% of all ugly people will experience some type of anti-ugly discrimination within their lifetime.  The other .001% were too ugly to be given the reporting form.  They tried to get one and the person handing out the form was all like, “Go away!  You’re too damn ugly!”

An ugly man can’t hail a cab because the cab drivers think the ugly man is some kind of hideous mutant.  An ugly man can’t get a job because the boss only wants to stare at pretty people all day.  An ugly man can’t rent an apartment because the landlord doesn’t want an ugly man living in his building, uglying up the place.  An ugly man can’t get served at a restaurant because none of the waitresses want to look at his ugly ass.  An ugly man can’t get a date because he’s just too damn ugly.

Did you know that the top one percent of the most handsome men in the world are pulling down 100% of the most beautiful babes?  That’s babe distributive inequality.  We need to convert to a communistic system whereby we redistribute the babes so that the ugly man gets a chance.

By the way, ugly sisters, know that by “ugly man” I incorporate you into this speech and besides, it’s technically accurate because you all look like men anyway.

But enough about the daily struggles of the ugly man.  Let’s talk about that bastion of anti-ugly discrimination known as the Academy Awards.

Say it loud.  Say it proud.  The Oscars are too damn pretty.  Let me hear you say it.  Oh Lord, have mercy on all those pretty people for they know not what they do to the ugly.  The Oscars are too damn pretty.  Can you hear me Lord?  Can you hear this ugly man all the way down here hiding in his ugly cave?  Can you hear me all the way up there in heaven on your white, fluffy cloud?  Lord, I say it now and I’ll say it again.  The Oscars are too damn pretty.  #OscarsSoPretty

Praise be to Jesus.  Now there was a swarthy, handsome ass man but he never turned his nose up to an ugly member of his flock.  No sir.  You think Jesus looked the other way when the lepers came a-calling?  Was Jesus like, “No, I can’t help you ugly ass lepers?”  No.  Jesus washed the ugly ass feet of those ugly ass lepers.  That’s what he did.

And my friends, if Jesus, the sexiest savior ever, was able to turn the other cheek and wash the greasy, grimy, fungus encrusted feet of those ugly lepers, then surely, I say surely, those beautiful people in Hollywood should be able to throw some Oscar love the way of our ugly brother, Mr. Michael Shannon, for his turn as a crazy cop in Nocturnal Animals.

Yes, my hideous brothers and sisters, I dream of a day when an ugly actor is hired to play a pillar of the community but for now an ugly actor playing a crazy person will have to do.  That is our lot in life.  People see how ugly we are and they don’t assume that we just dipped our toe into the bad side of the gene pool.  No, they see our ugliness and they assume we are bad people due to how ugly we are, never taking a look as to how pretty we are on the inside.

Can I get an Amen?  Can I get a Hallelujah?  Can I get a garden salad, hold the dressing because Lord knows that fat is considered ugly and I wouldn’t want to offend the pretty people who have, for far too long run the world.

Pretty privilege is real, folks.  Pretty privilege is real.  If you are pretty, you have talent managers tripping over each other to give you a multi-million dollar movie deal.  If you are ugly, the best you can hope for is that a fast food joint will hire you to sit in the back and put together the happy meals but only if you put a bag over your face and promise not to scare the children like the bridge troll you are.

Hear us, Academy!  Hear us, and hear us well.  There are so many ugly people in the world. People who look like they got beaten with every inch of the ugly stick.  People who look like God took them out of the oven early, when there was still five minutes of baking left, and now they’re all gross and dumpy and lumpy and yet you know they still taste just as good as a fresh batch.

These ugly people are tired of going to the movies by themselves because no one will go with them on a date and seeing no one as ugly as they are on the screen.  Sure, maybe once in a blue moon, an ugly person will be given a part, but that part is usually based on a stereotypical view of an ugly person.

Ugly actors, those brave souls who ventured off to Hollywood in pursuit of an acting career, ignoring the advice of friends and family who told them they were too ugly to act, deserve better parts than, “mugger number five” or “homicidal madman pervert number four” or “bridge troll that kidnaps the princess and tries to eat her before he is saved by the prince.”

We want more ugly actors and actresses on the big screen and we want to see them playing big, beautiful, respectable parts.  We want to know that we are loved by Hollywood despite our wretched ugliness.  Most importantly, we want all the little ugly children of the world to be able to turn on the Oscars, see an ugly actor/actress take home a statue and say, “If that ugly person can make it, then an ugly little kid like me can make it too.”

Ugly brothers and sisters, cast off the paper bags that society has put over our ugly heads for far too long.  Shout it loud and proud, “We’re here.  We’re ugly.  Get used to it.”

In conclusion, #OscarsSoPretty.  Thank you for listening, my fellow ugly Americans, and now, please, put your paper bags back on because you’re all too ugly for me and I’m super duper double triple quadruple strength ugly.

Godspeed, Brother Shannon.  Oh how I will weep tears of everlasting joy upon seeing your ugly face on the screen with an Oscar in your hand.  Only then will I know that the cause of the put upon ugly man has been taken seriously by the pretty masses in our ugly lifetime.

 

 

 

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BQB’s Oscar Predictions – Best Picture

Hey 3.5 readers.

OK.  The coveted best picture award.  Who will win?

Let’s talk about Hollywood’s many problems this year.

First of all, if you love Donald Trump or if you hate Donald Trump, I feel like the whole “let’s make the awards shows super political” trend has been backfiring on Hollywood.  The average person goes to movies for entertainment purposes.  The average person turns on the Oscars for entertainment purposes.  The average person will make up their mind on politics based on their own beliefs, values, research, what have you.  There really won’t be any people saying, “Huh, that celebrity thinks this so I should think this.”

It also comes off as a bit disingenuous.  I mean, these people live lives the average person can’t possibly fathom.  They wear suits and gowns to an event that cost more than the average salaries of like 50 people combined and then they probably just throw those clothes away and never wear them again.

They live in fancy mansions, can buy whatever they want and get paid piles of money to play pretend all day.  Some do a better job of reaching out to those in need than others but all in all, I just don’t see any of these celebrities opening up one of the several homes they own to shelter poor people in need.  Hell, if they took like a one percent pay cut the people who fetch their coffee on set could probably earn a living wage.

All I’m saying is that it’s better to do than to say.  Celebrities say a lot.  They don’t do a lot and it’s ironic because they’re in a better position to do than anyone.

3.5 READERS: Do you have a point, BQB?

Yes.  Thank you, 3.5.

This year, the Best Picture Nominees are:

Arrival

Fences

Hacksaw Ridge

Hell or High Water

Hidden Figures

La La Land

Lion

Manchester by the Sea

Moonlight

WHO SHOULD WIN:  Though I haven’t seen it, my gut tells me any film but La La Land.  The plight of the forgotten, struggling people who keep working but never get ahead has been forefront on the public’s mind this past year.

Reflecting that mindset, you’ve got Fences, about a father who is poor and has been knocked around and yells at his son to stop dreaming about becoming a football player and get a regular, boring job and it becomes hard to tell whether the father is trying to give the kid tough love by telling him to stop chasing pie in the sky dreams and focus on reality or if the old man is so pissed off that he never made it that he feels inner jealousy at the idea of his son doing better than him.

You’ve got Hell or High Water, about two brothers cheated out of the family farm by a corrupt bank so they go on a bank robbery spree as an act of revenge against the bank that done them wrong.  The idea that people who depended on farms, factories, and other ever dwindling blue collar jobs are being forgotten is prevalent in the film.

In Manchester by the Sea, a troubled man has to raise his nephew when his brother dies.  Stepping up to do more when a relied upon family member dies is something the average people can relate to.

Moonlight – Cuban born drug dealer tries to be a part of his bullied son’s life.  A lot of people can relate to bullying, struggles with drugs and drug related crime, trying to make it as an immigrant and so on.

Hacksaw Ridge – Son tired of seeing his father beat his mother becomes so disgusted by violence that he refuses to carry a gun when he signs up to become a World War II army medic and overcomes threats of court martial and imprisonment due to his refusal to carry a weapon.  His abhorrence of violence drives him to become the best medic ever, single handedly saving tons of wounded men by dragging them down the side of Hacksaw Ridge on a rope while Japanese forces are in hot pursuit.

Hidden Figures – In the 1960s, black women overcome stereotypical views held by society about black people and women to become mathematicians, helping America win the space race.

Lion – An Indian kid gets so hopelessly lost that he is unable to find his family again.  He is adopted by an Australian couple, then years later, uses Google to locate his original family, thus highlighting how new forms of technology have helped people who in the past were not able to be helped.

La La Land – Gosling and Stone fall and love and sing and dance and shit.

WHAT WILL WIN: La La Land.  And, OK, I haven’t seen it.  Maybe it’s good.  But this is the problem.  Hollywood already gave the Oscar to a shitty love letter film to Hollywood’s greatness called Birdman in 2014, and that movie was truly a pile of crap.  It really was.

So I just think Hollywood is going to end up with a lot of egg on its face this year.  All the stars are going to rant and rave about how the government doesn’t do enough about poverty and how no one worries about poor struggling people and then all of the films about poor struggling people are going to get screwed over in honor of the film about two pretty people who have nothing better to do than fall in love and sing and dance and shit.

 

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2017 Oscar Nominated Movies that BQB Has Reviewed

Arrival 

Hacksaw Ridge 

Hell or High Water

Still need to see:

Fences

Hidden Figures

La La Land

Lion

Manchester by the Sea

Moonlight

 

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BQB’s Classic Movie Roundup – Coming to America (1988)

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Holy shit I’m so old.  I actually saw this movie as a little kid in the theater, 3.5 readers.

And now that I think of it, I probably should not have heard the phrase, “the royal penis is clean, your highness” as a kid, but oh well, I turned out fine.  I run a successful blog with 3.5 readers, after all.

If you haven’t seen this yet, you have to.  I was running through the channels tonight and it came on and I was glued.  It’s got to be Eddie Murphy’s most memorable movie and even though it’s a comedy, I think the late 1980s Academy was in remiss for not giving it some Oscar love because it is as funny as it is touching.

Eddie Murphy plays Akeem, Prince of the fictional African nation, Zamunda.  His father, King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones) has arranged a marriage between Akeem and a fine ass babe that will do anything that Akeem wants, but Akeem is, you know, a deep thinker.  He wants a woman who will love him for his mind, not his money and better yet, a woman who he will actually be able to connect with and talk to, an intellectual type.

So, Akeem and his trusty manservant, Semmi (Arsenio Hall) shuffle off to Queens, New York, where those pose as a pair of fast food joint workers.  Akeem falls for the owner’s daughter, Lisa (Shari Headley), but he must juggle his dopey poor man act while fending off Lisa’s douchey rich boyfriend/Jheri curl empire heir (a young Eriq La Salle before he became a doctor on ER), dealing with Lisa’s disapproving father (John Amos) and taking down a stick-up man (a young Samuel L. Jackson, long before he got tired of these mother effing snakes on this mother effing plane).

I spent so much of my youth quoting lines from this movie.  Check it out, 3.5.  You won’t be sorry.

 

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Movie Review – Arrival (2016)

Aliens.  Self-indulgent, self-importantce.  So much violin music.  So, so much violin music.

BQB here with a review of the Oscar nominated, Arrival.

At the outset, it’s a great first contact film.  Alien vessels have appeared at different points around the world and linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and scientist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) have been selected to communicate with the aliens in one craft located in Montana.

A lot of issues that would be likely to occur in a first alien meeting are explored.  The aliens don’t understand the humans and vice versa.  There are concerns that the aliens might be up to no good.  People get scared of the aliens.  People worry about alien diseases.  People go nuts and cause chaos over alien fears and so on.

The film is clearly in love with itself as every moment is presented as very important, leading up to an ending that is pulled out of its own ass.  If you’re a prospective writer who has ever shelved an idea for being too far fetched, get ready to dust it off with the knowledge that this film was nominated for an Oscar for best picture.

And yet, I’m not ragging on it.  Since Interstellar, I have appreciated Hollywood’s newfound interest in exploring space in a serious manner, tackling conceivable issues that might arise as mankind seeks out answers regarding what lies beyond Earth.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Movie Review – John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Guns!  Knives!  Stylishly choreographed fight scenes!

VGRF here with a review of John Wick: Chapter 2.

Take a gold coin and an OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING.

You know, 3.5 readers, back when I was dating that poor excuse for a man, BQB, I went with him to see the first John Wick movie and was pleasantly surprised.  Isn’t it great when you go to a film, not expecting much, only to be blown away by it?

Keanu Reeves, one of the world’s most well-preserved fifty something year olds, reprises his role.  Without getting into the nitty gritty, Wick owes someone a favor and when that favor is called in, whoa nelly, look out when because the shit is going to hit the proverbial fan.

It’s an excellent sequel.  It doesn’t follow the usual sequel mistake of trying to be bigger or badder.  It just carries on the story with all the stylish mayhem this franchise has caused us to grow accustomed to.

From a writer’s standpoint, wannabe scribes can learn a lot.  “Show, don’t tell” is the name of the game when it comes to good writing and both films follow that rule to the letter.

Wick lives in a world where hitmen have rules.  They use gold coins as currency.  There are hotels around the world where they can stay, utilize certain services and enjoy safety from other hitmen while under the hotel’s protection.  Ian McShane plays Winston, one such hotel owner. We learn a bit more about the rules and the people behind them in this film.

As this film series has grown in popularity, it’s no surprise that more and more actors want a piece of the action.  Common, Ruby Rose (who is having a good start to her year if you were one of the 3.5 people who saw XXX: Return of Xander Cage), and Lawrence Fishburne all stop by to trade snide comments and the occasional bullet with Wick.

Keanu’s still got it after all these years.  Whenever he speaks, he still sounds like that California surfer dude we loved in the eighties.  Half the time when he shoots someone I expect him to say, “And I’m Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan.”  (Go rent Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, millennials).

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  A third is clearly on the way.  I love it when a first film surprises me and I also love it when the studio doesn’t screw up the inevitable cash grabbing sequel once the first film generates a fan base.  Worth a trip to the theater.

 

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