my opinion matters

I will write more later, but I wanted to say that both Scandal and Grey's Anatomy were amazing this week. Like off the charts awesome. Especially Scandal - to the point that Cyrus and Sally both need to be nominated. Kerry Washington is great and all with her weird mouth acting, but Cyrus, Sally and Mellie have been AMAZING this season and deserve some recognition.

It's about that time of year when I need to start searching for and watching Oscar contenders. So far, there's been buzz, but I haven't been paying attention to it - nominations aren't out until January, but I needed to start compiling a list. Here's what I have so far: - Gravity. This is the film with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and they're lost in space, literally. When I saw previews I thought it just looked like Open Water  in space, which does NOT interest me at all. But alas, that's usually how it goes with at least half of the nominations. They are usually movies nobody really wants to watch, but they are probably fantastic. - 12 Years a Slave. This is one that I'm sure is amazing, but I don't know. I want to read the book first, but I imagine it will be depressing and I don't really like movies that bum you out from start to finish. Like whatever that one was a few years ago about the tsunami with Naomi Watts. I still haven't se...

By all accounts, I should love Glee . I love music, especially choir and show choir and acapella music, and I was actually in show choir in high school. I love musicals and get really excited when there's an episode of TV when the characters sing (i.e. Buffy and Grey's). But I don't like Glee.  In fact, I kind of hate it. I was super excited when it first came out because I thought this would be the perfect show for me, and for the first maybe three or four episodes, it was. And I have probably watched most of the episodes - I think I missed at least half of a season because all of a sudden there were a ton of new characters like Marlee and Unique and I still don't really know where they came from. And yes, I cried like a baby when they did the Finn tribute last week, but if tomorrow the show was canceled, I wouldn't  care. Because it's not realistic. They are always dressed in rididculous costumes you would NEVER be able to get or wear in a normal high school, ...

So, there's a line, right? There has to be. A line that if you cross it, you will be headline news for awhile and then people will decide you are ridiculous. It happened to Janet Jackson at the Superbowl - somehow Justin Timberlake came out of that clean - and it is happening to Miley Cyrus. I'm all for booty shaking, general nakedness, and sticking out your tongue all gross. But all three of those together was a creepy and cringe-worthy performance. And I like Miley Cyrus - and against my MUCH better judgement, I like that song. But wow... just... wow.

I consider myself a feminist. I am not going to go into a lengthy explanation of why, I just do. However, it seems as though I generally hate women on television. Not all of them, of course, but usually the ones who are the leads on a TV show. SVU, LOST, CSI, I could name a lot. I personally think it's because most of the women on TV are on shows like SVU  or something where they play detectives or police or FBI or whatever. And it's always a really attractive and skinny girl who is this huge badass on the force. I find it difficult to believe. There was this show on a few seasons ago that I'm sure got canceled called Alcatraz  that I watched because Jorge Garcia was on it and he is great, but the other lead on the show was a female FBI agent. She was fine, I guess, but I didn't buy it. She was really skinny and I couldn't picture her ever taking down a suspect, so how did she get so far in her career? I bought Ana Lucia as a cop on LOST , but she was awful. She was...

I am aware that not everyone shares my affinity for Star Trek. In 2009, a new film with a new cast was released that gave me hope about the future of the franchise, and I think the new changes have opened up the franchise to a new generation. Personally, I love The Next Generation. I think those seven years were television at its best, except for maybe the six years The West Wing was on the air (okay, the first four years at least). What is great about TNG is that it gives you hope for the future. I know that is SO not what you expected me to say, but it's the truth. I want nothing more than to have a replicator and to be able to transport anywhere --- wait. I have to interrupt my train of thought to point this out. I am currently watching an early season one episode of TNG, "The Last Outpost," and Data just said, "This shouldn't be." I know that production errors happen and they probably had yet to flesh out all of the eccentricities of Data's character...

I’ve been watching  Under the Dome  for a few weeks now, and it’s a good show – entertaining, creepy, good character  development. But my problem is –  why would you go to work? I mean, a giant dome drops over your entire town, and waitresses show up to work? Yeah right. You know there’s no way they’re getting paid, and for that matter, there’s no way people are paying for their food that day, because nobody really carries cash anymore, and when they do, it’s ones and fives, not fifties.  Especially not in a small town.   I could maybe understand doctors or nurses or police going to work, but  anything  in  the menial labor category? No way.  And if nothing electronic works in the town, how are people doing much of anything? I would think that means gas pumps don’t work anymore, but you  still see people driving around, even though they can’t get anywhere. I know that it’s a television show, and that’s usually the response I get...

The Oscars are tonight and I am super excited! Unfortunately, it looks like most of the stuff I want to win... won't. Jennifer Lawrence, Argo, Anne Hathaway, and Robert DeNiro do not deserve to win, in my opinion. I think that Lincoln should absolutely clean up, but I realize that not everyone shares my opinion about stuff. They are wrong. :) Now that I have an awesome attached keyboard for my iPad, I will likely be live blogging during the show, which I will be watching from Oklahoma because I'm visiting my sister. Huzzah for Oscar season!!! Hope there are some fireworks, some surprises, and I hope Seth McFarlane isn't horrible. Here's hoping! Okay, so it didn't work. Nobody was streaming the show last night because the Academy of Arts and Sciences decided that nobody could watch it online. Whatever. So I read IMDB's live updates to see who won, and overall I am disappointed. Not only did John Williams get the shaft yet again, but the acting awards were to...

I love awards season, because it forces me to watch films I would never watch otherwise - and it turns out amazing because I get to see movies like Django Unchained , which is SO not my style but was absolutely great. Quentin Tarentino usually does, for lack of a betetr word, weird movies that I think are largely indulgent and appeal to an audience that... well I don't know who his audience is, but it isn't me. However, with this movie, he somehow made this western about slavery that was a comedy but a drama but also challenged your assumptions about what movie music should be like. The best word for it is innovative. Maybe some of the gambles turned out a little strange, like some of the music - but when there's a big shootout in a movie set before the Civil War and the music is hard rap, that's definitely something different but also something really cool. Overall, I think it worked - and a big part of that was the casting and the humor in the script. Speaking of ...

What a bizarre movie. Amazing, but bizarre. Basically, all that needs to be said is that it was Denzel Washington, and he is seriously incredible - and I'm thinking a lot of it has to do with film selection. He picks great scripts that highlight his strengths. And seeing Denzel Washington do cocaine and get completely drunk - and have it be believable - was great. The ending was... meh. It made me cry, but that's just because Denzel is great. I still cry at John Q. too, but they wrapped it up very quickly with too much morality at the end. I think I would have liked it better if he had lied at the end and blamed everything on the flight attendant. But, I suppose, it was all about how he was the last person to truly realize he needed help and blah blah blah. I'm just saying, it would have been cool to see a film with no moral at the end and see a guy get away with being completed wasted during a flight. The casting was great too - especially Don Cheadle and John Goodma...

While watching this film, I posted on Facebook that it was like 1865 West Wing . I stand by that statement. One rare and amazing thing about the film was the writing - it was poignant and mesmerizing without being overly convoluted. The costuming was brilliant but not over the top, and I like that it focused on the politics of the 13th amendment rather than specifically on Lincoln's life or the war. Overall, while I thought Daniel Day Lewis was great, he wasn't really a "lead actor" in my opinion. It was an ensemble cast, with Tommy Lee Jones shouldering most of the second half of the film. I am pleased he was nominated, and I hope he wins (so far). They are two actors that are very different (even though they both have three names) because Tommy Lee Jones always sort of seems like Tommy Lee Jones playing a part - whereas Daniel Day Lewis seemed like Lincoln. I believed it. It's a rare talent to make the viewers believe you really are the character you're play...

As usual, I have begun my yearly downloading-fest for Oscar season. The Globe nominations were just before Christmas, but I just started making my list today. I have already seen Lincoln and Flight , so those are two I can cross off my list. I will post probably a double review sometime today if I remember :). I am interested in Silver Linings Playbook and Argo and Zero Dark Thirty - mostly because of various reviews and actors.. I am not interested in Les Miserables and Life of Pi . If you are familiar with my movie tastes, I am not impressed with visual effects for the sake of visual effects, and I don't really like watching films that bum me out. I'm hoping Life of Pi is more like Castaway , except with a tiger instead of a volleyball. Anyway, keep checking back because I'll be watching and reviewing movies like crazy to get ready for the season!