It's not easy being brown: January 2009

I live in a college town that happens to barely have over 100,000 people in the surrounding area. This isn’t a blog about how lame it is and how I wish I had moved to New York to find my soul. Logan is a quaint city that is in many ways quite perfect. I’m not the only one to say this as most of the people who go to Utah State agree that Logan really is small enough for you to appreciate a smallish town feeling and large enough so you aren’t hating life. Now this is quickly becoming a large town vs small town blog and this is not my intention I have very strong feelings and views either way but what I’m trying to say is that I’m a college student and I watch a ton of movies.

In reality I really hate that fact, I really wish I wasted all my time with a computer playing video games but I have somehow gone without a computer and I just barely got an Xbox 360 and well… I don’t really have the coin to waste on the games. Worse than that I also realize that it is in college that a vast majority of people watch horrible movies… Movies that should have never been made, and when I say movies that should have never been made I don’t mean movies that are so bad that they gain an intrinsic coolness, that is they are so bad that they are cool to some people who like to watch the worst movies ever made (these would be such titles as Battlefield Earth, Gigli, Cool as Ice [starring Vanilla Ice], and Caligula.)

(Sometimes you can be, "Too cool for School")

I mean these are movies that really should have never been made like they have no business ever being placed on earth they join in the ranks of things like Celine Dion, furby, Or that stupid paper clip help icon that used to be on all of Microsoft’s office products. These would be titles like, Monkey trouble anything that has National Lampoons on it that doesn’t star Chevy Chase, the deluge of titles that are just repeating the same old tired formula made with the scary movie titles, which was a copy of the hot shots movies, which was a copy of the naked gun movies, which was a copy of the Mel Brooks movies, and well anything starring Jason Biggs. The hardest thing is the realization that the latter two would not have been made were it not for the fact that people my age go and see enough of these movies so that they somehow make a profit

That being said I don’t go and see these movies, I like to think that I try hard to only see movies that are awesome, and if not it is only because it only cost a dollar to get into it. Sure every once in awhile a crappy movie will sneak into the mix (Don’t even ask about the Thanksgiving Alexander disaster of 2004)

(Sadly Angelina wasn't hot enough to save this movie.)

but overall I mostly see good movies but what are you supposed to do when there is absolutely nothing out there. I mean seriously… Nothing.

Last year I freaked out because everyone was talking up Juno so much and acting like it was going to be the movie of the year and blah blah blah, Diablo Cody’s better than sliced bread. I contended that although Juno was a great if not amazing movie it was just that. It did not move anybody and it did not make some new precedent for which all new movies up until that point would be judged… I said the same thing the previous year with Little Miss Sunshine. It was just a good movie and thus it didn’t deserve such a title. No country for old men won the oscar and all was right with the world (Kinda, I still don't think that movie was all that hot either) I looked forward to 2009 to see another list of great nominations that I agreed should make the list, But then the Oscar nominations for this year came out and the only thing that we know for a surety is that the ceremony this year will be in a phrase…

(A big crap Sandwich)

What happened to The Dark Night, or Wall-E? (Just to name a few.) Now I’m sure that the nominations were at least okay and I’m not saying that they don’t deserve to be nominated but it is a smack in the face reminding me of just how crummy a movie year we have actually had. For my money the winner should be Benjamin Button but that’s because it’s the only movie I have seen on the list. Unless you live in an art theatre or LA or NY or steal movies off the net there is no way you could have seen all of the nominees. Which for me begs the question is it really just that true that there was such a small amount of good movies released that they had to go the whole… You didn’t see it but trust us it was awesome route? I dare anyone who reads this to try and find 10 people in the general population who have even heard a plot summery of The Reader... let alone 10 people who have seen the movie. I dare you to try it, you know why because it can't be done... yet this movie is nominated for best picture by some act of fate!

Every November there is magic in the air I am happy because after a 3-month drought there are movies that I want to see. Sadly that isn’t exactly what happened this year. Everyone freaked about Twilight, Harry Potter was put on hold and I was forced to watch a Keanu Reeves movie… Yes it got so bad I got mildly excited to see a Keanu Reeves movie! (don't even get me started on HSM3 or Beverly Hills Chihuahua) There was literally nothing I wanted to watch until Christmas… Not December, literaly there was nothing to watch until December 25th. I just say this because I saw a television spot where people were talking about how the economy is affecting the ticket sales at the box office… I say get real man, how about Hollywood come out with a decent movie and than I’ll pay the five to ten bucks it costs to go see it. Let’s not forget that Gone With the Wind was released in the depression.

I guess the list of nominations could have been worse though...(Chevy Chase has deffinately seen better times not to mention Jon Voight who should be ashamed of himself he's got an oscar, although it probably is Jamie Pressly's best performance)