It's An Honor Just to be Nominated

Please forgive the extremely crude Photoshopping

Forget the Oscars. Who cares about the Golden Globes? For Hollywood's elite, there's only one true measure of greatness: Brian's Crimson Ticket Stub of Prestige, also known to industry insiders as the Stubbie.

And the Stubbie Goes to...

Best Comedy
The nominees:

• Juno
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• Tropic Thunder
• Ghost Town
• Role Models
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Juno. It was a very close race between Juno and Sarah Marshall, but Juno's pathos, wit and lack of Jonah Hill made it very appealing.


Best Action-Adventure
The nominees:

• Indiana Jones IV
  
• The Dark Knight
  
• Iron Man
  
• Eagle Eye
• Wanted
• Quantum of Solace.
  

And the Stubbie goes to... The Dark Knight. Honestly, there was no way I could not give the Stubbie to this masterpiece. Quantum of Solace and Wanted tie for runners up.


Best Drama
The nominees:

• Smart People
• Atonement
  
• Fireproof
  
• Australia
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Atonement! Even though the ending made me furious, I can't deny this is a great movie.


Best Musical
The nominees:

• Walk Hard
  
• Mamma Mia
  
• An American Carol

And the Stubbie goes to... bleh. They aren't worthy. We here at the Stubbies have standards.



Best Sequel
The nominees:

• Rambo
• Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
• Indiana Jones IV
• The Dark Knight
• Madagascar 2
• Quantum of Solace
• RocknRolla

And the Stubbie goes to... Indiana Jones IV! I know, I know. How can I possibly rank Indy and the Incredible Flying Fridge over The Dark Knight? Sure, TDK was a much better movie (and didn't have any prairie dogs) but Indy IV had a certain charm and despite popular opinion, I think it contiued the spirit of Dr. Jones as well as possibly could be expected.



Longest Movie
The nominees:

• Australia
• The Dark Knight
• Appaloosa
• Speed Racer
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Australia! It clocked in at a whopping 165 minutes.



Best Animated Feature
The nominees:

• Bee Movie
• Horton Hears a Who!
  
• Kung Fu Panda
• Bolt
  
• Speed Racer
• Madagascar 2
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Kung Fu Panda! Despite disliking it the first go 'round, its stock rose significantly when I was forced to see a second time in a group.



Best Movie That Is Pretty Good But I Don't Need To See It Again
The nominees:

• Australia
• Attonement
• Burn After Reading
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Australia! I'm sorry, Baz, but life is too short.


Best Movie that Should Have Sucked But Didn't
The nominees:

• Fireproof
  
• Marley and Me
• Get Smart
• Ghost Town
  
• Role Models
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Fireproof! Way to go, Kirk Cameron! It was a virtual dead heat for FP, Ghost Town and Role Models, but my expectations for FP were just so darn low, it's hard not to declare it the winner.


Movie I Should Have Walked Out of But Didn't
The nominees:

• Bee Movie
  
• Step Brothers
  
• Speed Racer
• Mamma Mia!
• Max Payne
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Mamma Mia! My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.


Best Movie That is Stupid But I Still Kinda Like It
The nominees:

• Marley & Me
• Eagle Eye
  
• The House Bunny
  

And the Stubbie goes to... The House Bunny! There's no denying that Anna Faris has talent.

Most Disappointing
The nominees:

• Walk Hard
  
• Speed Racer
• Step Brothers
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Step Brothers! I was embarrassed to be seen in the theater.


Best Surprise Ending
The nominees:

• Role Models
  
• Atonement
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Role Models! Yeah, Sarah Marshall's puppet rock opera was all sorts of awesome, but the epic and surprisingly warm ending to Role Models gives it the advantage.


Worst Surprise Ending
The nominees:

• Atonement
  
• Role Models
  
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Atonement! I almost let an expletive slip when the big twist hit.


What Were They Thinking?
The nominees:

• Hancock
  
• Max Payne
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Max Payne! I like Mark Wahlberg, but I have limits. He crossed them.


Most Overrated
The nominees:

• Atonement
• Bee Movie
  
• Walk Hard
• Appaloosa
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Bee Movie! Why Jerry? Why? What did I ever do to you?


Best Special Effects
The nominees:

• Speed Racer
• Indy IV
• Wanted
• Dark Knight
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Wanted! Me likey curvy bullets



Best Costume Design (suggested by Kelly)
The nominees:

• Atonement
  
• Semi-Pro
• Australia
• Appaloosa
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Semi-Pro! You gotta love Will Ferrell in those short shorts.



Most Misguided Will Ferrel Vehicle
The nominees:

• Semi-Pro
  
• Step Brothers
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Step Brothers! Will and John C. Reilly should both be ashamed.


Best Movie to Knit To (ie: you don't have to pay that much attention to it) (suggested by Kelly)
The nominees are:

• Horton Hears a Who!
  
• Kung Fu Panda
• Tropic Thunder
• Madagascar 2

And the Stubbie goes to... Tropic Thunder! It's a movie full of great one-liners. You can tune in and out at will and I promise you'll land on a laugh.



Best Actor/Actress
The nominees are:

• Ellen Page, Juno
• Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
• Ed Harris, Appaloosa
• Nicole Kidman, Australia

And the Stubbie goes to... the late Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight! Ms. Page did a phenomenal job as Juno, but Mr. Ledger too it to a whole 'nother level.


Best Soundtrack
The nominees are:

• Mamma Mia
• Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
• How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
  

And the Stubbie goes to... How to Lose Friends! I know I'm supposed to pick Nick and Norah, but that's just how I roll.



Best Remake
The nominees are:

• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• Journey to the Center of Earth
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Journey to the Center of the Earth. Say what you will, I like Brenden Frasier.


Outstanding Achievement in a Cameo Appearence
The nominees are:

• Justin Long, Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Jason Schwartzman, Walk Hard
• Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder
• Thandie Newton, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
• Neil Patrick Harris, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

And the Stubbie goes to.... Justin Long, Paul Rudd, Jack Black and Jason Schartzman! This was probaly the toughest decision yet, but their turn as the fab four was by far the best part of Walk Hard.


Best Use of Seth Rogan
The nominees are:

• Pineapple Express
  
• Kung Fu Panda
  
• Horton Hears a Who!
• Step Brothers
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Pineapple Express! I didn't especially love the movie, but he was perfectly cast.


Worst Use of Seth Rogan
The nominees are:

• Pineapple Express
  
• Kung Fu Panda
  
• Horton Hears a Who!
• Step Brothers
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Horton Hears a Who! I don't get it. Why.



Best Use of Jonah Hill
The nominees:

• Walk Hard
  
• Horton Hears a Who
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Forgetting Sarah Marshall! Who knew he could be funny?


Worst Use of Jonah Hill
The nominees:

• Walk Hard
• Horton Hears a Who
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Walk Hard! Ugh.


Outstanding Achievement in the Casting of Paul Rudd
The nominees:

• Walk Hard
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• Role Models
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Role Models! Way to go, buddy!



Best Performance by a Rapper turned Actor
The nominees:

• Ludacris, Max Payne
• Ludacris, RocknRolla

And the Stubbie goes to... Ludacris, RocknRolla! Seriously, he's a decent actor.



Best Movie Based on a Book
The nominees are:

• Atonement
• Marley & Me
• Horton Hears a Who!
• An American Carol
• How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
• Journey to the Center of the Earth
  

And the Stubbie goes to... Atonement! Even though it's not my cup of tea, I must say it's a great translation of a great book.


Best Movie Based on True Story
The nominees are:

• The Express
• Marley & Me
• How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
  
• Expelled

And the Stubbie goes to... Marley & Me. Yeah. That's how much The Express annoyed me. I picked the dog movie.

2008 By the Numbers

Movies Seen: 53 (45 + 8 repeats)
Average Score: 3.2/5
Different Venues: Nine, spread over three states
Buckets of popcorn: Two (I just don't buy popcorn at the movies)
Movies seen at the Drive-in: Two (Get Smart, Kung Fu Panda)
Money spent (approximate): $375
Time spent in theaters (not including trailers and credits): 95 hours and 11 minutes (or 49 minutes shy of four days, 1.1 percent of 2008).
Number of words used to review movies: 26,474
Celebrities met/interviewed/photographed: One (Ben Stein in Expelled)
Most movies seen in one day: Four (An American Carol, Momma Mia, Eagle Eye, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People)
12:01 a.m. premiers seen: Three (Iron Man, Indiana Jones IV, Quantum of Solace).

Marley & Me, 3/5

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Over the long Christmas holiday, I stumbled across this ridiculously cute puppy. Besides reminding my family of me sitting in the pew on Sunday morning, it rekindled some small desire in my heart to to get a dog.

Marley pooped all over that desire. I am now terrified at the idea of owning a dog.

Marley - as I'm sure you're aware - is the titular hound from the depths of hell in the latest man-and-his-dog movie, Marley & Me. Yeah, he's cute, but only for about two minutes. Then he instantly becomes an inexplicably destructive whirling dervish of a dog that utterly obliterates anything and everything. His resume includes digesting answering machines, diapers linoleum flooring and drywall. He makes Beethoven look like the obedience school apple-polishing valedictorian. Seriously, Job has nothing on John and Jen Grogan. It's not funny, it's terrifying.

And there's positively no reason for the Grogans (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) to love or even tolerate Marley's behavior. If he had pulled a Lassie and pulled her out of a burning building or maybe brought Wilson's character the morning paper even once, I could maybe see keeping him and putting up with his epic shenanigans, but Marley has absolutely zero redeeming qualities. He's supposed to die fighting a cougar, not go quietly into that good night because of a twisted stomach. All I can say in his defense is that he does not eat the Grogan children (although he does knock them down).

Surprisingly, I can offer more in defense of the movie as a whole. It look to be a trite, subpar holiday pablum, but it's a real movie, even if the the family's love for the Attila the Dog is inexplicable. I can honestly say I didn't hate it.

Owen Wilson wouldn't be my pick for a lead in a family comedy, but he's not horrible. However, he does have that stupid surfer haircut that doesn't change even through he supposedly ages 20 years on screen. His nose is overwhelming when you have to sit on the second row. He and Aniston (who also doesn't appear to age a day) are actually kinda funny as they try to navigate life, marriage and their careers as Miami journalists. Lucy Merriam, the actress who plays their four-year-old daughter is cute. She delivers an adorable eulogy.

Here's the weird thing: It's not really about the dog. It's mostly about how Grogan can't be satisfied with his amazingly high-paying job. He learns tolerance and life lessons (apparently) from Marley for the first two acts but the dog is missing from a large part of the final 40 minutes. I'm sure John Grogan is a nice guy, but I really don't care to see a movie about him whine about a cushy, high paying job at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and living in a nice home in Boca.

The movie is based on the best-selling non-fiction book of the same name, some of my gripes about the movie's faults can be explained by falling back on the it's-based-on-real-life defense. However, good books don't always make good movies without changes and embellishments, sometimes large ones (case in point, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). The story was too long, and Marley needs a hero moment. He had his chance when the Grogans' neighbor gets stabbed out of nowhere, but Marley just sits there chewing the curtains. The non-dog moments should have been tighter.

Still, the movie works because it's not a zany, slap stick, Jim Carey-type of movie. Like any good dog, it is earnest and that earns you lots of capital in my book. Maybe that's what the Grogans saw in Marley.

RocknRolla, 3.5/5

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

RocknRolla is the anti-Ocean’s 11. Yeah, they’re both tales of lawbreakers and ne’er do wells, but this merry band of thieves don’t dress well, aren’t charming, could use a good orthodontist and have absolutely zero sense of loyalty, humor or decency. There’s a better-than-even chance they will tie you to a chair and lower you into the Thames River to be eaten alive by giant crawfish, and they haven’t even decided to kill you yet.

That’s not to say RocknRolla isn’t a fun, good movie; it mostly is. At least I think it is. I can’t be 100 percent sure since I only understood about 2/3 of writer/director Guy Ritchie’s (the former Mr. Madonna) cockney, fast-pace dialog. I’m not even sure I know what a rocknrolla is, and we’re given that answer at least twice, once over the opening credits.

I won’t even try to describe the marvelously labyrinthine plot, because to do so would require four more screenings and a team of court stenographers. Characters like Tank, Nurse, Fred the Head, One-Two, Mumbles, Handsome Bob, Johnny Quid, Waster and Councilor run around London generally scamming and scaring the pants off each other. There’s a basic frame set around a real estate deal gone bad, but with Guy Ritchie, the plots really aren’t what it’s all about. RocknRolla is pretty much the same plot as Snatch which is pretty much the same as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. They’re all more or less exercises in talking fast and finding creative ways to beat the crap out of people. It’s not a wholly bad formula really, and if you’re a Ritchie fan, go for it. I will say, however, that RocknRolla is the weakest of the three (Snatch being my personal favorite).

Even though I found it impossible to keep the characters straight, the acting corps is pretty strong. For the first time, I finally figured out why people like Thandie Newton and Jeremy Piven is, as always, awesome. Chris “Ludacris” Bridges makes an appearance as well, and does a fine job. I’m not sure when he decided to become an actor, but he’s doing an OK job at it.

The Day The Earth Stood Still, 3/5

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

For your information, aliens prefer to zip around town in reliable, fuel-efficient Honda Accords, discuss the end of the human race over a nice, hot Mickey D’s McCafe Latte, the US Government uses computers made by LG (they make computers now?) running Windows Vista and we had better start recycling and saving the whales, pronto.

Those are just some of the lessons we learn from The Day the Earth Stood Still, which, despite what you may have read on the blogs, is not a documentary on freeze tag. It also teaches us that Keanu Reeves might very well be an actual alien.

Dr. Pretty Brunette (I forget her real name, but she is played - rather blandly - by Jennifer Connelly) is an expert in astro-biology (huh?). When a huge alien sphere shows up in Central Park, who better to poke and prod mankind’s first-ever contact with extra-terrestrial life than someone who has supposedly been studying it for years? A trigger-happy army sniper accidentally wounds Klaatu (which sounds just slightly more alien than Keanu’s real name) which provokes his metal, cyclops-of-a bodyguard to have a laser-shooting conniption. Dr. PB calls for a medic to save Klaatu (is there an alien doctor in the house?) and he’s taken into custody. In a stunning reverse of clichés and alien stereotype, the Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates) wants to drug and probe him.

Dr. PB helps, sees something she likes in Klaatu’s eyes and helps him escape the evil military's clutches. She and her jerk of a step-son (Will Smith’s son, Jaden) ferry Klaatu around New England until he finds his under-over, alien contact, who of course has assumed the form of an old tiny Japanese man. He tells Klaatu, who of course knows Japanese (why wouldn’t he?), the terrible truth: Mankind is so destructive, they all must perish in order to save the rest of the Planet. Dang it, I KNEW we should have listened to Al Gore and bought hybrids!

The laser-riffic Cyclops dissolves into 7 bajillion titanium termites while Dr. PB takes Klaatu to the one person she hopes can convince him humans are worth saving: Monty Python’s own John Cleese, a brilliant, Bach-loving scientist who recently won the Nobel Prize for his work in – wait for it – altruistic biology. I think that means he buys toys for underprivileged DNA strands at Christmastime and serves homeless genomes turkey dinners at the local shelter at Thanksgiving.

Do they succeed in convincing him we can change? Does the Earth actually stand still? Will Congress pass an auto-maker bail-out package? You’ll have to pay your $8.50 to find out.

Jennifer Connelly, as I already mentioned, is pretty vanilla but does what she can with her remarkably flat character. Mr. Reeves seems to have been preparing his entire post-Excellent Adventure career to play an emotionless being from another world and here it works pretty well. John Cleese’s character is wholly unnecessary and Kathy Bates isn’t bad despite her ridiculous character. As for young Mr. Smith? I’m not much for slapping people, especially children, but he got on my last nerve.

I presume the story is a fairly faithful re-imagining of the original 1951 sci-fi classic (I haven’t seen it), but I came away wanting a little more. Whereas the original served as a precautionary tale against nuclear proliferation, this reiteration is concerned with global warming, I guess. It’s not a bad story, but it’s a vague story that suffers from pacing errors. The Day the Earth Stood Still could have been much tighter, more exhilarating and much more direct in its criticisms (if it actually has any).

Final thought: Someone should take scenes of people "standing still" and make a killer music video to The J. Geils Band's Freeze Frame!

Australia, 4/5

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

WARNING: Insensitive and inappropriate racial humor ahead.

Unless I decide to go back to the Sleep Study Center and hook myself up to 30 or 40 electrodes, there's no real scientific way to measure how well my CPAP machine is working. At least, there wasn't until tonight. I'm no board-certified sleep pathologist, but tonight I unequivocally proved that I am indeed sleeping better and have more energy. Ladies and gentlemen, I stayed awake and alert through all three hours of Australia.

Australia is Baz Luhrmann's sweeping, over-the-top, 180-minute celluloid love letter to his homeland and it certainly is epic. A little too epic, perhaps.

Set in the days leading up to WWII, Nullah, a 9-year-old "Creamy" (the wince-inducing slang for half whites, half Aborigine children) narrates the story of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman). She is a proper English housewife who comes to Far Away Downs, a HUGE cattle ranch owned by her philandering husband but just as she arrives, he is killed by the Magic Negro, King George. Lady Ashley hires a cattle drover named - wait for it - Drover (Hugh Jackman) to help herd her cattle and outrace competing ranchers to Darwin in time to meet snag a lucrative Army contract. Those brave Australian soldiers have to have good, Aussie beef if they're going to fight against those murderous Japs, don't they? Boy, I'm just getting all the racial slurs in today, aren't I?. Are there any Jews in the house? Do we have any Guidos in the audience tonight?

Lady Ashley and Drover fall in love and she more or less ends up adopting the orphaned Nullah. Things happen and events occur. A lovable drunk gets tramped by a CGI stampede. Nullah develops an affinity for the movie The Wizard of Oz and learns to play the harmonica and hypnotize cattle. Ninety minutes in, the story ends. Then it picks back up again and barrels on for another 90 minutes as callous missionaries kidnap Nullah and take him to an island to "breed the Black out of him." Drover and Lady Ashley have a tiff, and those murderous Japs attack the Australia's Northern Territory. Throughout both "acts," King George is stealthily shadowing the main characters. It's very White of me to say so, but I wanted to tell him to take a bath. Oh, the hegemony!

If you're exhausted reading all that, trying staying awake through it.

I'm not saying it's a bad movie - it's actually pretty good - but there can be no doubt it suffers from its length. There's a good movie in here. Actually there's two, and that's the problem. I supposed true epics like The Odyssey, The Illiad, The Aeneid or even Gone With the Wind don't exactly fallow the exposition-escalation-climax-denouement pattern, but it's exceptionally hard to make a good movie doing anything but that.

From Lurhmann, the man behind such stylish movies like Moulin Rouge!, Romeo+Juliet and this timeless masterpiece, I wanted something with a little more style and flash. We get some good opening credits and the "animation" tracing Lady Ashley's journey down under is cool, but mostly we get a straight drama. Like I said, it's not bad, but it could have been great.

I did enjoy the bits of Aborigine mysticism and especially the Australia/native jargon used by Nullah. He can make himself "invisible" at times and can do other "magic."I'm generally not a fan of animism, it was at least interesting. Some have criticized the movie as being condescending to Aborigines, but come on, it's a movie.

Brandon Walters, who plays Nullah, is very, every good and Hugh Jackman is pretty darn watchable, even if he does make me feel woefully inadequate. As for Nicole Kidman, well she did OK, but she left me with this one lingering question as I left the theater: Where did she find a botox clinic in the Outback?

Ooh! I almost forgot: There's a Chinese cook named Sing Song. I bet he knows karate and has a severe overbite. They all look alike, you know [sound of a gong].