Chris Rock defused the Oscars So White controversy with humor.
As an ugly person rights activist, I’m still waiting for an apology for the Oscars being So Pretty.
Big upset in the Best Supporting Actor category. Thought Sly was going to win that for sure.
Best Picture – Spotlight. Have not seen it yet.
Thoughts, 3.5 readers?
Sniff sniff.
Oh God. They finally made a movie about my life.
I mean, I’m not British and I wouldn’t set foot near a ski jump if you paid me but still…I am a nerd who knows the harsh oppression that nerds face when they seek to make their dreams come true.
SPOILERS!
BQB here with a review of Eddie the Eagle.
Michael “Eddie” Edwards had one dream growing up – to become an Olympian.
That’s a lofty goal for anyone but especially for him. He was in a leg brace for most of his early childhood and even had to stay at a hospital for a year.
As a youngster, he tries his hand at every sport only to fail miserably and end up with a box full of broken glasses.
Miraculously, he does make it onto the British downhill ski team only to be cut. Eddie is poor, unsophisticated and ultimately, the British Olympic Committee just doesn’t like him.
Speaking of poverty, he’s at odds with his Dad who wants him to quit skiing and get a job, preferably as a plasterer, as that’s what his father does for a living.
Eddie is about to pack it all in until he concocts an idea to become a ski jumper. Britain hasn’t had one since the 1920’s so all he has to do is land a good jump to qualify.
Easier said than done. After running off to a ski training facility in Germany, Eddie befriends former American ski jumper Bronson Peary. Perry is a down and out drunk, torn between a desire to find greatness again by becoming Eddie’s coach and not wanting to see Eddie die.
For, Bronson explains, even the most skilled and qualified jumpers wipe out and end up gruesomely mangled all the time.
In case you’re not convinced, you’ll see Eddie get knocked all over the slopes all throughout the film. It almost makes you wonder who thought ski jumping would be a good sport to begin with.
I don’t want to give too much more away. Like Rocky, Eddie competes. He tries. He gets in the game and his victory doesn’t come from gold (he comes nowhere close) but that he did so much better than expected, especially when no one expected anything from him.
If you’re not a ski jumper, that’s ok. This movie can be applied to any dream. On this blog, we talk about our writing aspirations, hopes, and dreams.
I can tell you I can relate to Eddie. Maybe not with the hurling myself into the air, but I know what it’s like to be told by family and friends to quit writing, to be told by experts it can’t be done, to wonder myself what other productive things I could be doing instead of gluing myself to my keyboard.
But we do what we do because we can’t stop ourselves.
Taron Egerton is a great Eddie just as Hugh Jackman is an excellent Bronson.
It is too bad this movie came out so early in the year. I see Oscar potential. I know it made me shed a tear or too.
Then again, the Oscars are So Pretty, and they probably wouldn’t want to promote a movie that gives nerds a crazy idea like they can be somebody.
STATUS: Shelf worthy.
I’d like to take a moment to remember actor George Gaynes, who died this week at 98, which surprised the crap out of me because I thought he was 102 back in the 1980s at the height of his fame.
His two main roles that I remember:
Yes. Punky Brewster. The best show ever about a poor elderly man who went to take his trash out one day, found a small girl living in the alley and decided to keep her…because it was the 1980s, simpler times when the automatic assumption was that the old man actually just cared about the kid and wanted to be there for her and wasn’t trying to keep her as a slave locked up in his basement or something.
Ahh how times have changed. Punky Brewster just wouldn’t fly as a TV show today. It was a good show. There was Brandon the dog. And her friend Cheri. And Cheri’s feisty grandmother. You know, Henry and Cheri’s grandmother really should have hooked up.
Anyway, you will be missed George Gaynes. The 1980s would not have been the same without you.
Oh my God. It’s so horrible. It’s on TV right now. I meant to watch it for a minute and ended up sucked in for the whole thing. I saw it when it came out but forgot how terrible it is.
Kinda makes me feel bad that it is a 10 year old movie now. Seems like it just came out.
God. It has all the feel of a cheesy old fashioned horror movie with people dying gratuitously and hilariously.
Samuel L. Jackson is the hero and he probably just showed up and cashed the check and was like screw it I can yell at these f%&king snakes for awhile.
There’s a nerdy snake scientist who scoffs at everyone else’s lack of snake knowledge.
And they have to take pictures of the snakes and send them to the scientist so he can identify them and tell them what to do but they work extra hard to explain how one woman has a camera in her cell phone because not everyone had that 10 years ago.
Juliana Margulies is in it. I do miss her. Well, I guess she’s on the Good Wife TV show now but I don’t watch that. She used to be in movies all the time.
That guy who plays the sports dude on Anchorman (Ron Burgundy movies) plays the pilot.
Kenan Thompson has a big role on it. Yes, the goofy guy from Saturday Night Live.
So many CGI snakes. There’s a Snakes on a Plane music video during the ending credits. It’s a song about Snakes on a Plane.
Oh God it is so awful that it is good but it just goes to show that the idea in your head that seems so stupid might just be a winner.
Because honestly, if snakes were on a plane, I assume everyone would act as stupidly and horribly as everyone does in this movie.
Say it with me! “I’m tired of these mother%$king snakes on this mother%$king plane!”
Hey 3.5 Readers,
Valentine’s Day this year was the nerdiest Valentine’s Day in history.
First, Ghostbusters 2, released in 1989, predicted that the world would come to an end on February 14, 2016.
Or at least a guest on Peter Venkman’s TV show did:
More on that from NY Daily News and link to the clip.
Or just watch it here on Youtube in this video posted by ghostbusters.net
Remember, he had that lady on who said she was abducted by an alien and taken to his room at the Holiday Inn in Paramus, New Jersey? Or that it might have been a room on the space ship designed to look like a room at the Holiday Inn?
Oh those sneaky aliens.
I saw Ghostbusters 2 in the theater when I was a kid. I feel old as shit.
But wait, there’s more! Pris, one of the replicants Harrison Ford chases in Blade Runner was created on February 14, 2016. She was played by Darryl Hannah.
Daryl reminded the Internet here and then the Nerdosphere went haywire:
So…in conclusion…
Happy Birthday Pris. I’m glad the world didn’t come to an end so that you could be born, or I guess what’s it called when a replicant is born? Incepted. Today is Pris’ Inception Day. Happy Inception Day.
Now that you’ve been incepted, please don’t kill William Sanderson and please don’t try to strangle Harrison Ford to death with your legs.
What a nerdy Valentine’s Day. I’d like to thank the lonely nerds who spread word of these events for sticking true to their nerdyness and not spending the time on something crazy like, I don’t know, finding a date or something.
P.S. if that isn’t enough nerdy shit for you, The Walking Dead is back on the air and Deadpool tore it up at the box office.
If you were offered a procedure that would allow you to live forever but the catch is that you had to be hideously, wretchedly ugly, like barf enduringly ugly, would you do it?
I think I would. I mean you’d get to live forever. All the future you’d get to have seems like it would outweigh the ugliness. Plus, with all that time you could save a lot of money and become super rich and once you are rich people ignore the ugly.
Success comes if you are a) super attractive but if you can’t be super attractive then lots of money tends to convince people to overlook that. You can look like a total butt and people will like you if you’re loaded.
I should start another hashtag. #OscarsSoRich – Surely there’s a dirt poor actor who starred in an indie movie that’s being ignored.
Swears, gratuitous violence and naked chicks in a superhero movie!
Whodathunkit?!
BQB here with a review of DEADPOOL!
SPOILERS!
Oh my God. This movie was like a space shuttle launch. So much had to happen before it could finally happen.
And it’s here! It’s finally here! And it’s got sex, violence, ridiculous amounts of swearing. Filthy jokes galore. You get to see Morena Baccarin’s boobs for like a second (actually they might be stunt boobs – I can’t confirm.)
Come to think of it, that’s what surprised me the most. A Marvel movie with boobs. And not just Morena’s or her stunt boob double. More naked chicks. More boobs. And a cooter. That’s a scientific term. A cooter in a Marvel movie. Who knew it was possible?
The 50 cent tour if you’re not up to speed on Deadpool. Wade Wilson (aka Ryan Reynolds) a mercenary with a sense of humor, is diagnosed with cancer. His girlfriend, played by Morena, who is his match in the humor department (I hate to be cynical but only in the movies, either that or I’ve never met a woman with that kind of humor but I’m not sure she exists.)
So he volunteers for an experimental procedure and yadda yadda yadda…it does not work out as planned. A villain gets involved, X-Men Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead pitch in, shit goes down. It’s pretty epic.
I won’t spoil it anymore but on top of the firsts mentioned above (first R rated super hero movie, first Marvel movie with a cooter) it is, I think unless someone can correct me, the first movie of its kind to be crushing the box office on a Valentine’s Day Weekend.
What the shit. There weren’t any women who would have wanted to go see a movie like Deadpool with me on Valentine’s Day weekend back when I was a Funky Hunk, I’ll tell you that. And it wasn’t me. Well, it was but it was mostly because chicks just weren’t into those kinds of movies. Women have seriously mellowed out that some studio exec was convinced this would be a good Valentine’s weekend date movie and be correct.
Funny. Lots of action. Lots of heart. My one complaint is the best jokes were spoiled by the trailers but it’s still great.
Ryan Reynolds really shines in this. And as you know from my #OscarsSoPretty rants, you know I’m very biased against good looking people. Don’t get me started or I’ll rant all day about pretty person privilege, how the attractive have life handed to them on a silver platter, etc. etc.
RR shows he’s more than a handsome face. He’s got the charisma and sense of humor of a genuine ugly dude who needs to work for it and that’s a compliment straight from good ole BQB.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Come for the jokes. Stay for the cooter. Oh and stay for the credits. There’s another Deadpool movie on the way, though Deadpool told me not to tell you.
Hello 3.5 readers,
BQB here. I’m looking forward to the upcoming Deadpool movie. For those of you who have lives and like do things other than watch TV and movies, Deadpool is a different kind of super hero.
He’s the “Merc with a Mouth” meaning he spouts off terrible off-color jokes on a non-stop basis and swears constantly. He also engages in all sorts of awful violence.
And if you have a bizarre sense of humor, it’s all pretty funny. Watch out for this trailer though. It’s R rated so…as mentioned above, lots of gratuitous swearing and violence.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a nerd possessed of 3.5 readers must be in want of more readers.”
Pride. Prejudice. Zombies. Jane Austen’s classic literary masterpiece…and the evil undead.
BQB here with a view of PPZ.
Grr. Argh. Brains. Spoilers.
AN ADMISSION: I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice. I know. That’s a terrible thing for a magic bookshelf caretaker to say. But it’s true. I don’t know why. My English teacher made us read Wuthering Heights and maybe he thought that was enough depressed British people in love for one year.
So had I read it I probably would have gotten more of the jokes, but overall I really liked this movie.
Come to think of it, PPZ now counts as my first exposure to Pride and Prejudice and that’s probably going to be true for a lot of people. I know want to go back and read the original book. Hopefully, others feel the same way. So Seth Grahame-Smith did a good thing here.
I’ve always enjoyed Grahame-Smith’s work. He wrote Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in case you forgot. He really opened up the door to reimagine and reinvent history.
Some people are very literal. Put zombies in 1800’s England and some people might say, “there were no zombies in 1800’s England so this movie is historically inaccurate!”
True, but there are no zombies now!!! (That we know of.) So that means we can’t enjoy The Walking Dead. And we have no official confirmation of life on other planets. So crap, we should stop watching Star Wars, right?
Suspend disbelief and just enjoy it.
Several hilarious parts in this movie. I enjoyed the dainty debutantes discussing their Shaolin training, hiding knives in their garters and kicking zombie ass. Lena Headey made me keel over laughing as Lady Catherine de Bourgh (exceptionally wealthy British aristocrat/eye-patch sporting zombie killer extraordinaire.)
As my 3.5 readers might be aware, I’ve half-written a lot of stories built around one joke, attempting to extrapolate that joke into an entire novel.
Grahame-Smith does this. There’s the love. The passion. The old English speak. Oh, and there’s also zombies. There’s zombies in the middle of one of the greatest romantic tales ever written and our heroes must defeat them, while learning to love each other as well.
Perhaps the genius of it is that in theory, the subject matter is nothing to be laughed at. But the actors play it all with such dead pan that there’s all this love and drama and intrigue and everyone’s very proper and British and…oh…there’s zombies!
SPOILER ALERT – I saw this movie with someone and we were a little confused by the ending. Love triumphs but…the zombie menace seems to be brushed off? Maybe we missed something.
This is one of those movies I’d have to watch again because there was definitely a lot of stuff I’d probably notice in a second sitting. And though I speak English, that old English does need to be deciphered.
I suppose it is a good thing this is being billed as a Valentine’s Day movie. I’m not sure women would have considered this a good date movie in the past. That it is thought of that way now means women as a whole are becoming much nerdier.
So there you go male nerds. You have more options.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
You are about to witness the strength of SPOILER knowledge.
Straight outta East Randomtown, crazy blogger named BQB.
I write all the time but only 3.5 people ever read me.
BQB here with a review of the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton.
Oh, just an FYI – this trailer has butts in it. In fact, this movie has a lot of butts in it because these guys partied hard. So don’t watch the trailer or the movie it if you don’t like or are offended by butts.
Rap. It’s been around since the 1970’s. But there was a time when the most controversial lyrics came from the Sugar Hill Gang complaining about having to pretend the food at your friend’s house is good even though it makes you want to reach for a bottle of Kaopectate.
That all changed in the mid 1980s when a group of friends got together to form NWA. If you’re not in the know, I’ll let you figure out what the N stands for on your own.
Our tale begins in 1986 with Dr. Dre getting lectured by his mother that he has to quit being a DJ and get a job to support his son. Meanwhile, O’Shea Jackson aka Ice Cube scribbles lyrics in a notebook on the school bus. Eric Wright aka Easy E starts out as a heavy duty gangster, participating in serious drug deals.
I’ll let you watch rather than spill the details, but long story short, these three (not to be rude but other than Dre, Easy E, Ice Cube and MC Ren I have a tendency to forget the names of the other NWA members) end up with some studio time. They encourage Easy E, who has never rapped before, to give his rendition of Ice Cube’s Boyz In Da Hood and the rest is history.
But their road to stardom is rocky. There’s the logistical problem. They’re openly swearing and talking about sex, drugs, and violence and that wasn’t exactly a surefire way to get what every aspiring musician needs – radio airplay.
Then there’s the political problems. They have a song called F$%k the Police which as you can imagine, doesn’t make the police very happy. On top of that, people aren’t happy about the idea of young people listening to music about sex, drugs, violence etc.
But somehow against all the odds they hit the big time. They find an unlikely ally in Jerry Heller, a music business manager who represented a lot of acts in the 1960s but didn’t inspire much confidence in the 1990s. The boys call him Mr. Furley (the bumbling old landlord from Three’s Company).
I won’t give too much away but suffice to say, disputes over money break the buddies apart. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube go out on their own. Fighting ensues, sometimes hilariously in the form of “diss songs” filled with lyrics in which NWA and Ice Cube trash each other, at other times tragically as violence ensues.
One criticism levied at the film by movie reviewers has been that the film might paint NWA in too good a light, that maybe they left some disturbing things on the cutting room floor, Dr. Dre’s physical attack on a female reporter, for example.
Then again, the film is pretty open about a lot of negative things, some of the most memorable:
Could troubling aspects of their past been left out? Maybe, but perhaps that was only because they only had two hours to fit in all the disturbing stuff they did put in.
It’s well produced, acted, directed, a good story worth a rental.
Are they heroes who promoted free speech or outlaws who cashed in on dirty lyrics, opening up the floodgates for artists to focus less on the art and more on being controversial?
You be the judge. I have mixed feelings. I don’t really want to “F$%k the Police.” But I also enjoy a good beat.
All I know is I’m getting old. Doesn’t seem like it was long ago that these guys and their proteges were on the radio all the time. Actors playing Snoop Dogg and Tupac stop by.
Millennials, you’ll know when you’re old when the Justin Bieber Story comes out.
Bookshelf Battle 