Out on Limbs

Every year, I like to do my best to predict the winners of the Academy Awards. The following are the nominees, my predictions, and eventually the results as well as my review on the results.

NOTE: How I'm going to go about the predictions is to make bold blind guesses at first, then watch all of the films I possibly can as quickly as possible and edit my predictions accordingly.

BEST PICTURE
NOMINEES: The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, War Horse

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment, as I've only seen one of them so far, is The Descendants.

RESULT: X

BEST ACTOR
NOMINEES: Demian Bichir (A Better Life), George Clooney (The Descendants), Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is George Clooney.

RESULT: X

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
NOMINEES: Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn), Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Nick Nolte (Warrior), Christopher Plummer (Beginners), Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Christopher Plummer.

RESULT: X

BEST ACTRESS
NOMINEES: Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs), Viola Davis (The Help), Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady), Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn)

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Michelle Williams.

RESULT: X

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
NOMINEES: Berenice Bejo (The Artist), Jessica Chastain (The Help), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs), Octavia Spencer (The Help)

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Octavia Spencer.

RESULT: X

BEST ANIMATED FILM
NOMINEES: A Cat in Paris, Chico and Rita, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, Rango

PREDICTION: Rango.

RESULT: X

BEST ART DIRECTION
NOMINEES: The Artist, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, War Horse

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Hugo.

RESULT: X

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
NOMINEES: The Artist, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, The Tree of Life, War Horse

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

RESULT: X

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
NOMINEES: Anonymous, The Artist, Hugo, Jane Eyre, W.E

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is The Artist

RESULT: X

BEST DIRECTOR
NOMINEES: Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), Alexander Payne (The Descendants), Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Martin Scorsese.

RESULT: X

BEST DOCUMENTARY
NOMINEES: Hell and Back Again, If a Tree Falls: A Short Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Pina, Undefeated

PREDICTION: I don't make predictions on this category because I never watch them.

RESULT: X

BEST DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
NOMINEES: The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement, God is the Bigger Elvis, Incident in New Baghdad, Saving Face, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

PREDICTION: I don't make predictions on this category because I never watch them.

RESULT: X

BEST FILM EDITING
NOMINEES: The Artist, The Descendants, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Moneyball

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

RESULT: X

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
NOMINEES: Bullhead, Footnote, In Darkness, Monsieur Lazhar, A Separation

PREDICTION: I have to go with A Separation. Normally I don't predict this category, but if they gave this a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay as well, I'd be foolish not to pick it as their future choice.

RESULT: X

BEST MAKEUP
NOMINEES: Albert Nobbs, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, The Iron Lady

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Albert Nobbs.

RESULT: X

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
NOMINEES: The Adventures of Tintin (John Williams), The Artist (Ludovic Bource), Hugo (Howard Shore), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias), War Horse (John Williams)

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is The Adventures of Tintin.

RESULT: X

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
NOMINEES: "Man or Muppet" by Bret McKenzie (The Muppets) or "Real in Rio" by Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown, and Siedah Garrett (Rio)

PREDICTION: Extremely surprised that there's only two nominations this year. That seems crazy.

RESULT: X

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
NOMINEES: Dimanche, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, La Luna, A Morning Stroll, Wild Life

PREDICTION: I don't make predictions on this category because I never watch them.

RESULT: X

BEST SHORT FILM
NOMINEES: Pentecost, Raju, The Shore, Time Freak, Tuba Atlantic

PREDICTION: I don't make predictions on this category because I never watch them.

RESULT: X

BEST SOUND EDITING
NOMINEES: Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, War Horse

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Hugo.

RESULT: X

BEST SOUND MIXING
NOMINEES: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Moneyball, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, War Horse

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Hugo.

RESULT: X

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
NOMINEES: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Hugo, Real Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Transformers: Dark of the Moon

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

RESULT: X

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
NOMINEES: The Artist, Bridesmaids, Margin Call, Midnight in Paris, A Separation

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is The Artist.

RESULT: X

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
NOMINEES: The Descendants, Hugo, The Ides of March, Moneyball, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

PREDICTION: Blind prediction at the moment is Moneyball.

RESULT: X

Current thoughts on the list of nominees? I'm not a big fan. Nearly every movie on this list is something I had zero interest of watching and now I have to sit through them. I'm surprised J. Edgar didn't get nominated for anything (even Leonardo DiCaprio). If The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo received as many nominations as it did, why no nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay or Best Director for David Fincher? Same goes for Steven Spielberg for War Horse? Also, no love for The Adventures of Tintin considering it's an animated film that got snubbed in the animated category AND it's a Spielberg vessel? Only one nomination for The Ides of March which did so well at the Golden Globes? Virtually nothing for Drive (though I did think it wasn't spectacular, but that doesn't mean I couldn't see the Academy giving it more nominations)? Lots of talk of Michael Fassbender in Shame but no representation here. Same goes for Charlize Theron in Young Adult and Albert Brooks in Drive. Kind of understandable that none of the major comic book films were nominated, as Green Lantern, Thor, X-Men: First Class, and Captain America didn't have particularly incredible special effects or anything, but one thing of note is how they transformed Chris Evans in Captain America - that is noteworthy, I think. No love for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides as well, which usually gets noticed for costumes, makeup, and other technical awards like that. Super 8 was completely ignored as well. Only two original song nominees? Wow. This is a weird Oscars this year.  

Christmas movies are a staple of the film industry. Every year, we see a few new ones try desperately to shove themselves into the pop culture consciousness, with only the rare examples actually becoming noteworthy enough for people to remember. Despite a bad track record, the thing that bothers me the most about Christmas movies isn't that they're just generally piss poor to watch, but that they all have one big glaring problem nobody seems to ever acknowledge...

SANTA.

Wait a second, Tony, how can Santa be the problem of a genre of film dedicated to the fictional character? That would be like saying the reason Ghost Rider sucked wasn't because of it's bad script or the cheesy jokes or the bad acting or the lackluster action or the (ok you get the point, Ghost Rider sucked), but because the Ghost Rider character was in it. Not exactly. The problem comes in when you look not at the essence of Santa Claus but the purpose of Santa Claus.

Backstory for those that may not know it: Santa Claus flies around the world in one night's time, sneaks into your house, gives you gifts if you've been good and coal if you've been bad, and that's about it, we don't need to get bogged down in the details. The character is of course a whimsical fantasy that only kids and severely damaged adults believe in, and this transitions to the films as well. Frequently, a Christmas movie will tackle the subject that adults need to be more childlike and stop working at their office job because their ties are strangling them and what we really need in the world is the innocence of youth and to cherish family (and blah blah blah), and it'll do this through a war of beliefs in Santa Claus. Someone doesn't believe, others try to convince them, we find out that Santa was real all along (despite how, you know, he isn't).

The problem comes into play when you look at the time frame before the film starts. Let's say our protagonist is Phil and he doesn't believe in Santa but his stepson (or his biological son that he shares custody with, there's usually some divorce angle thrown in there) does and he's trying to convince him that he's real. The kid's got all the excuses in the world - he's a kid. Kids are dumb. You could tell a young enough kid that if lemonade is made from lemons, orangeade from oranges, and limeade from limes, that Gatorade is made from squeezing the juice out of alligators, and they'll probably believe you. The kid doesn't know that Phil's been buying the gifts all the time.

But what about Phil? What the fuck does Phil think when his kid suddenly has gifts all these years that he never bought and never placed under the tree? Did Phil, every single year, just think to himself that he must have completely forgotten buying all those toys, wrapping them, putting them out there when he was decorating, and so forth? What about every other person in the world? All of those people have been getting gifts from Santa for years and it isn't common knowledge that Santa exists? EVERYBODY either thinks they've got amnesia and they never bring it up to anybody else they know, or they do and Phil has just been utterly oblivious to this fact of life for a few decades? That's beyond living under a rock.

The only way that this proof of Santa's existence doesn't become common knowledge is if there are no gifts every year that confuse the parents. If the parents never see any gifts that they didn't buy, then of course they would think Santa doesn't exist - because Santa never gives people any gifts to show any bit of existence. That's even more clear cut than the God/miracle thing as those are open to interpretation but you damn well know whether or not you had an extra physical item you unwrapped. Thus, if Santa isn't giving out any of these gifts, to anybody, ever...well, Santa's kind of a pointless douche, now isn't he? That would by default mean either everyone in the world was naughty and Santa figured "fuck it, no coal, that's too much work for negative reinforcement" or Santa just decided to be lazy and ignore all the good people.

Which one is it - do all of the parents in the entire world always neglect and turn a blind eye to these magical gifts that continually show up every year in Santa Claus fashion that they then deny fitting the Santa Claus description, or is Santa not doing his job and therefore, these kids shouldn't be so excited about him existing in the first place because he's a dick?

See...this is why I watch Home Alone every year instead.

Not pictured: Tim Allen

Thanksgiving is one of my least favorites of the major holidays. Why is that, exactly?

1. The Meal
I know, you might be thinking I'm crazy, as it's so popular. However, I'm not a fan of it. I'd rather have chicken than turkey, I'd rather have a baked potato than mashed potatoes, I don't like sweet potatoes/yams, nor do I like cranberry sauce. Most people are such avid fans of it that they look forward even to the leftovers. I, on the other hand, would much rather order a pizza. I like to see other people enjoying the meal - and if you like the food, you LOVE Thanksgiving - but when the holiday pretty much revolves around this as the focal point, if you're not a fan of it, the holiday just tanks.

2. Pilgrims & Indians
I could not care less about this portion of history. Sure, it's important. I'm not arguing against that. I just find it incredibly uninteresting and I always have, even as a kid. Both pilgrims and Indians look like fools. Plus, it isn't as if the story ever changes. It's just the same thing: bunch of people got together, ate some shit out of a horn, then systematically turned on each other and basically made the Native Americans an endangered race and the pilgrims eventually went on to do nonsense like the Salem Witch Trials. Nice job, idiots. Maybe you'd be able to think more clearly if you didn't have goddamn belt buckles on your heads.

3. Transitional Holiday
Thanksgiving is basically overshadowed. People are just getting off from Halloween and so much of the decoration has the same kind of feel to it, plus the weather hasn't quite changed yet, so it's almost as if it's just an extension. Thanksgiving becomes the "other half" of Halloween that you don't see. Since Halloween has no built-in dinner with family and Thanksgiving has no fun activities, they're about 50/50 (except Halloween has the ceremonial eating of candy). But even more so, Thanksgiving is overshadowed by Christmas. Very soon after Halloween, stores are removing their costumes and decorations and replacing them with Christmas gear. They're also playing Christmas music on the radio. Within hours after Thanksgiving has ended, people are doing Christmas shopping with Black Friday. Basically, Thanksgiving doesn't have enough to stand on its own. It's just a stepping stone between two better holidays.

4. The Message
I previously wrote in an older entry about how hypocritical the holiday message is. Give thanks for what you have, then after you say grace, stuff your face like a glutton.

5. The Hand-Turkey Drawings

Pitiful. Now go eat your mascot.

Here's a hint: when you yell at the television screen, the people inside of it can't hear you.

They're not interacting live with everyone's living room.

Sports teams will not hear your advice.

"Watch out!" will fall on deaf ears while watching a horror film.

Do you yell at books when you're reading them too?

You're stupid.

I have never understood the reasoning behind tipping a percentage based on the bill. It makes no sense in my mind.

Before we get started, let me clarify one thing that people are automatically thinking. No, I'm not against tipping in general. We all know that if a server is being paid less than minimum wage because of some predetermined estimation of their tips, then they need tips to survive on. I'm perfectly fine with that...even though I think it makes more sense to just make it a minimum wage job standardized and not have to bother with the tips.

What confuses me, though, is this concept that I should automatically tip you a percentage of the bill that I have, as opposed to tipping for your service. Your job is to take my order, check if I need anything, and give me my food, correct? Thus, I'm paying you for that service, not for the quality of the food, the cooking of the food, or anything in relation to that. If you do shit service, why should you be compensated as if you did an average job just because I have a bigger bill? Equally, if you do really good service, why should you be penalized just because I have a smaller bill?

Say I order a steak for $20 and a waiter brings out one plate. Another person, sitting at another table, orders a complicated but cheap breakfast for $10 that has 5 plates to it. Why should my waiter be paid more money than the other one for doing less work, just because my meal was more expensive? Would you pay a mechanic more money for labor if he spent 30 minutes installing a $2000 car part than if he spent 3 hours working on the car to fix something that only costs you $50? No!

I've never once gone out to eat at a restaurant and skipped out on tipping the waiter/waitress...even the ones that were complete assholes and didn't deserve anything. The lowest I've personally given was a dollar, and frankly, she didn't deserve that, considering she received a dollar from each person in my large group and treated us like a bitch the entire time. How does someone get offended when you order orange juice at 8 in the morning on a week day by saying "I'll have a large orange juice"? This same waitress flipped out at a friend of mine for asking if she needed any help with the distribution of the plates (of which there were many). The last thing she deserved was to get rewarded for my big breakfast.

So really, I'd like to hear a good argument for why I should pay more to a bad server just because I ordered a more expensive meal, and why I should pay less to a good server just because I ordered a glass of free water.

Violins are for the birds

Considering the date, I had a bit of a dilemma. How do I write something about September 11th and/or America that isn't patronizing and lame but also doesn't cross the line into rude and offensive? The last thing I would want to do is write some trite "remember 9/11" thing like everyone seems to do just because it's the popular thing as opposed to actually feeling something about it. On the other hand, despite how some people think otherwise, the purpose of Out on Limbs is NOT to piss you off - it's to make you think - so I wouldn't want to put something out there that would seem as if I'm making light of the attacks or that I'm insensitive to the lives that were lost. If I can't even write a post about how I'm not a fan of Elvis without people going psycho on me, I certainly can't talk about the struggling American spirit without people wrongly thinking I'm anti-USA. Eventually, a topic came to my mind that I think can work...

Why is it that nobody sings the National Anthem properly anymore?

Now, you might be able to argue that since each version of it is a cover, and you could technically do anything with YOUR cover of a song, that there’s no “proper” way to sing the National Anthem (or any song for that matter). I beg to differ, though, on the principle that with other songs, if you alter the lyrics, it’s acceptable, but if you were to change the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner, I’m sure there would be an outrage.

What bothers me is how everyone goes crazy with their rendition as if just to draw attention to themselves. The most important thing isn't that YOU are singing it, it's that you are singing the National Anthem, is it not? Otherwise, if the purpose was to get that specific singer and nothing else, then why would they always sing the National Anthem instead of just any kind of a song? I understand that if you're a singer, you want to show off your skills, but that in itself is questionable in my mind. Is it really showing off talent if you're doing those ridiculous trills and you sound like some wannabe diva that is trying too hard? Having a singer twist it all around for the sake of showing off is selfish and it removes integrity from the song because it means that they think it's more important for themselves to seem flamboyant than to present the song in its best way. You're not singing at an American Idol competition. [Sidebar: When is that fucking show going to end already?]

Some songs just are what they are, and if you do too much vibrato or screw with the tempo or anything, it just ruins it. If I want to hear Bohemian Rhapsody, I want to hear Bohemian Rhapsody, not a song that has a bunch of filler mumbling just to seem fancy. That's one of my criticisms of a lot of hip hop and rap music - that they add nonsense words and phrases into it for no reason. Can Pitbull go a full song without saying "dali"? Can someone sing the National Anthem where they just sing it as its written as opposed to throwing in a lot of pauses and trying their best to SHOUT the lyrics?

Agree or disagree? Are you a fan of all the extra stuff people throw into singing the Star Spangled Banner, or do you side with me in thinking they should stick to the formula?

The original lyrics as written by Francis Scott Key

Why is it that people are shy when it comes to someone seeing them in their underwear yet they have no problem with people seeing them in their bathing suit?  This is yet another example of something that people do that makes NO sense to me.

Take note that I'm not talking about the people that are embarrassed about their bodies and don't want people to see them in either...that makes sense. I'm also not talking about see-through lingerie (but you clearly did buy that for someone else to look at anyway), nor am I talking about you having holes or stains or just flat out ugly attire that you don't want people to see. What I am talking about is situations like this:

Thank you, Google Image Search, in more ways than one ;)