My Breakfast With Fred

For those of you who were not lucky enough to attend yesterday’s red carpet premiere of “My Breakfast with Fred” I wanted to formally announce that the long awaited release is now active on YouTube (and right here on Nobody Likes A Jerk).

Sit back and enjoy!

"Best Pull Quote of the Year"

Yikes, I almost screwed up big time today! Bloggerman was all set to rip the movie studios for not only producing a steady stream of pure garbage for the summer movie season (yes, they are making another Incredible Hulk movie) but for further insulting the viewing public by hyping their movie trailers with false praise from websites and magazines that don’t really exist.

Sony Pictures was sued for this exact kind of behavior a few years ago. They “invented” a reviewer and attributed to him quotes for their pile of crap on celluloid. The kicker here is that they identified him as a reporter for a REAL paper in Connecticut. A full review of the settlement (it never actually went to court) is here.

Another of the frequently attributed publications is called Dark Horizons. This had to be a fake as they always seem to have something nice to say about everything coming out of Hollywood. After being forced to absorb thousands of movie promos for the “official start of summer” this past weekend I decided to investigate.

Well was I surprised not only to find that Dark Horizons is real but that it also has some fairly worded rants against the movie droppings at the top of the dung heap. For example they roundly panned "What Happens in Vegas" the flop with the flops (Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz) and others. In fact I recommend reading their “Worst of 2007” list if you (like I used to) think they gave everything glowing words.

I still am of the belief that the studios have publications (and websites) that might be tangible firmly in their pocket and have the ability to manipulate at the very least a good “pull quote” for their next abomination with some big named stars. I also plan on catching them in the act and taking a small piece of the “action.

A few thoughts about that tall gold guy

Only a few quick thoughts on last night’s Oscars:

1. Don’t give the best actress award to a movie that nobody has seen. I’m blown away that they would let the award be given to Marion Cotillard for her performance in “La Vie en Rose.” Not only have I never heard of the movie but I can guarantee that at least 90% of the voters hadn’t heard of it either. Once again the best acting performance went right by the “professionals” and didn’t garner an award. Ellen Page for her role in “Juno” was hands down the best and she didn’t need to over dramatize her role to make it work…hint to Cate Blanchet.

2. If you are going to go to the Oscars, at least have somebody look at you before you leave the house. These “stars” have no sense of fashion or even common sense. Although I didn’t watch any of the red carpet specials I did catch this fancy number from Tilda Swinton.

Sweetie…um…either no arms or two arms of fabric ok? If she was going for the androgynous david bowie-esq look, she certainly achieved!

3. Let the technical people speak. When the award winners for technical achievements (sound editing, writing, etc) are called, they a) usually are more then one person winning and b) get less time then the actors to speak. Actors seem to go on and on while the music comes up 5 seconds into the first technical person speaking. The rest of the “team” doesn’t get to say anything. I’d remind the “stars” that without the technical team, you wouldn’t even be up for nomination. Don’t believe me? How about that the sound team on the “Bourne Ultimatum” won 2 awards while the actors weren’t even nominated? Even a stinker like “Transformers” got technical nominations.

4. When you do the video montage showing all previous years’ Best Picture award winners, go right into presenting the Best Picture award. Don’t (as was done last night) go into honoring the best sound mixing or song or whatever unrelated award.

5. Finally, I thought Jon Steward did an “OK” job last night. He was never 100% on, but he certainly did his best to save a really poorly executed (both written and technical) telecast.