Helping Josh Out

In order to give Josh a hand I’ve whipped up a couple of posts to help him out along the way. Okay, so far that’s not true. In fact, I’ve only written this, but really, I blame Josh.

The time I had scheduled to write before my fleeing departure from the US was interrupted when Josh came over on Saturday. I would have typed up a few posts for him, but instead we went out to lunch and ate tasty Vietnamese sandwiches and discussed some of the weaker years that the Simpsons had on the air. So now, because I do feel pity for Josh, I have to take time out of my vacation to get his back and help him out with a post here and there this week. Here we go:

As I didn’t have a computer handy yesterday to pull random stories from, instead I did it the old fashioned way, I picked up an actual paper magazine or two and flipped through them looking for things to rail on. You can tell how much I like the “hard news” topics essentially by my magazine selection, skipping over The Economist, The Nation, even the New Yorker I grabbed the latest of Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly. I even felt New York Magazine was a bit heavy.

We’ll start off with Entertainment Weekly. You may recall, a little while ago Josh saw American Gangster and said to pass on it. Even the critics are commenting that it is merely an OK movie: good, but nowhere near great (EW’s own critic gives it a “B”!), so, I have to ask why is Entertainment Weekly naming it as a possible Oscar contender (News & Notes… Maybe Josh will find the actual article and link to it, I am on vacation). Actually I don’t have to ask they tell you:

Present-day violence? No, Thanks. Period violence? No problem. That seems to be the lesson from American Gangster’s $43.6 million opening weekend, which finally invigorated this fall’s sluggish box office- and this season’s moribund Oscar race.

First off, since when is $43.6 million a big box office? I know I haven’t been following movie trends recently, but 43.6 makes it the 94th highest movie, placing it between Terminator 3 and The Mummy. To give you some perspective, American Pie 2, XXX, Tomb Raider, Rush Hour 2 and Scary Movie 3 all had better opening weekends and I am pretty sure when that happened no one mentioned anything about their Oscar chances.

They compare it to the violent gangster film that won last year, The Departed, and state that while it probably will get an Oscar nod, because of its mediocore reviews it might not win. When, may I ask, did the Oscars become all about the Benjamins?

Will someone from the Academy Awards please look for good, quality movies that deserve to, not only be nominated, but also win? Who cares if they raked in slightly more money then Hitch (#96), just make sure the films are actually good. In fairness, apparently Ruby Dee’s performance actually is Oscar worthy though, I’ll allow that one.

Good night from Solothurn (okay, it is only 10, but I am off to go drinking), let’s see where I write from next.

*Besides Entertainment Weekly (News & notes section, I also got info from Box Office Mojo)… I’ll allow Josh to add a picture, I am thinking something with an Oscar and money.