While hunting through movies to watch, I once again found myself sitting here, whining about how crappy summer movies are (for the most part), how crappy the stuff in the theater is compared to what is actually created, and how biased the Academy is when picking their Best Picture.

Take a look at the winners of the last 6 years:

2001 : A Beautiful Mind
2002 : Chicago
2003 : The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004 : Million Dollar Baby
2005 : Crash
2006 : The Departed

Of this list, the only worthy winner I even see is Million Dollar Baby (2004 was a good year : also Garden State, Sideways). So many better movies get looked over. So many great, great movies don't even make the list of nominees, much less win. And so many don't ever see the inside of a non-indy theater.

Without further complaining, I give you exceptional movies for each of these years, each of which, I believe, is better than their counterpart in the list above. None of these films saw a major release, or "box-office" numbers. A few fared better on DVD, thanks to smart film aficionados.

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Memento (2001)

This is probably the best known of this list, if only because of director Christopher Nolan's later successes with Batman Begins and The Prestige. Challenging and innovative, this is one of my two favorite films ever, the ending just as great as the puzzle as it unravels.

Whale Rider (2002)

Follows the story of 12 year-old Pai, part of a New Zealand tribe, and is both about her determination and the family bonds among three generations.

City of God (2003)

A brutal, yet equally brilliant movie about children who become young men in the gang-run streets of Rio De Janeiro. Virtually no experienced actors were involved. Voted one of the best films of all time by several media outlets.

Nobody Knows (2004)

Painfully beautiful film about a group of siblings abandoned in Tokyo by their mother. The cinematography and music perfectly fit each scene, somehow managing to float along and above the subject matter.

Junebug (2005)

I found this film hard to watch in parts. Film is about a country-born and bred man bringing home his artsy, British wife to the family. In showing these culturally incompatible characters clash, and interact, and somehow exist in a film, it was so different from the fake relationships you see in so many higher budget productions - and so much better written and acted.

Children of Men (2006)

OK, Little Miss Sunshine was definitely the best picture of 2006, but I liked this movie just as much and it deserved much more than it got. Anyhow, the bigger point is that MANY (and really, most) movies are better choices than The Remake (Departed). The source material (Infernal Affairs - 2002) was basically the same. What a complete joke. How do people justify this crap?

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If you have the time, please check out these movies (if you haven't seen them already). I think that they really show the diversity and excellence in filmmaking that you just don't see in typical Hollywood.

Although it took me entirely too long, the Contact Me now actually sends emails! It took me reinstalling Apache with SSL enabled, PHP using the correct SSL plugin, splicing GMailMaker into my PHP Blog code, but it was so worth it (not at all).

If only "Code Blue" wasn't the name of the first final project that I oversaw while working at Full Sail. Considering the resources in those earlier days, it was a pretty fun little game.

Back to the topic at hand, this has been a sad little series between the Pistons and Magic (best of 7, currently Pistons 3, Magic 0). The Magic are indeed Code Blue. After the first game, some people were saying how well the Magic were playing, making a late run and losing by 8 points. What a load of crap. With a veteran team like Detroit, they only play as hard as they need to in order to win. And trust me, it wasn't very hard.

Now every Magic fan, even the delusional ones who thought it would be close, can see the truth of the situation. And why the hell would I come dressed in blue to support a team that doesn't even put out a good effort most nights. Again, the NBA just has too many teams that mail it in. A team with the talent Orlando has but with a different attitude might even be up 2-1 right now, or at least only behind 2-1. But the Magic finished 40-42 for a reason, and that reason is, they aren't a good basketball team.

I think that Jameer Nelson is one major problem. He thinks he a great player. Occasionally plays well. Occasionally scores a lot of points (like last night in Game 3). Spends too much time sulking and as the supposed leader of the team, takes nights off from playing hard. With 3 minutes left in a 9 point game, walks the ball up the court, head down, not caring what happened, conceding defeat. The other younger players take note of this.

Dwight Howard has too many flaws in his game that need to be corrected before he can dominate in the playoffs. Turkoglu, too soft and very one dimensional. Battie, what happened to this guy? Completely invisible. Hill, the only guy who really has played to his potential, though he isn't great anymore. The other, younger players have no clue what they are doing.

I will backtrack and give credit if the Magic can even win one game. But that is unlikely, so this will be my last time talking about this team for quite a while.

A few things on my mind recently about various irrelevant topics. Oh, and yes, I type my blogs in pseudo-HTML.


Movies

I haven't seen anything to crack my list anytime recently, but one movie was/is pretty close:

• Casino Royale - 3.5/5 - The best Bond in a very very long time. It makes you wonder what the hell has been going on in this franchise. Better actors, better writing, more serious, and a ton of fun to watch. Chris Cornell's theme song is shallow but catchy.
• The Number 23 - 1/5 - Just hit your foot with a rubber mallet, and do that for a while, until you learn to enjoy it.
• Flightplan - 2/5 - A movie with a strong setup that falls completely off the rails with a preposterous second half. Don't waste any time here.
• 300 - 1.5/5 - I suppose you could spend your movie buck in worse places at the moment, but there's no plot, just waves of computerized deaths.
• Volver - 3/5 - High quality indy material, the good stuff. Subtitled Spanish language; Penelope Cruz, who has done a bunch of garbage (read Vanilla Sky) so far as I have seen, shows her chops in a good film. Kind of a ghost story but really about family.
• Little Miss Sunshine - 4/5 - I don't really have anything bad to say about this movie; it's exactly the kind of dark-humored, character-driven stuff I dig. Still, I haven't yet been tempted to watch it again - yet. This is absolutely a great, great movie, though, and certainly very close to my favorites if not among them.

I still have a lot of the so called Academy Award-types from the past year that I should watch, so I'll add more on this soon.


Mitch Hedburg

What can I say, I was hunting through some wiki and found some of his great one-liners. Enjoy.

• I met the girl who works at the Doubletree front desk; she gave me her phone number. It's zero. I tried to call her from here, some other woman answered. I said, "You sound older!"
• Mr. Pibb is a replica of Dr Pepper, but it's a bullshit replica, 'cause the dude didn't even get his degree. Why'd you have to drop out and start makin' pop so soon?
• I remixed a remix, it was back to normal.
• I was in a casino, I was standing by the door, and a security guard came over and said "You're gonna have to move. You're blocking the fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit... Unless you're a table.
• When you go to a restaurant on the weekends and it's busy so they start a waiting list, they say, "Dufrenes, party of two, table ready for Dufrenes, party of two." And if no one answers they'll say the name again: "Dufrenes, party of two." But then if no one answers, they'll move on to the next name. "Bush, party of three." Yeah, but what happened to the Dufrenes? No one seems to care. Who can eat at a time like this? People are missing. You people are selfish. The Dufrenes are in someone's trunk right now, with duct tape over their mouths. And they're hungry. That's a double whammy. We need help. "Bush, search party of three. You can eat once you find the Dufrenes."
• A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.
• I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one. So I got a cake.
• My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, but I said "No...but I want a regular banana later, so yeah."
• I was walking by a dry cleaner at three a.m., and it said "Sorry, we're closed." You don't have to be sorry. It's three a.m., and you're a dry cleaner. It would be ridiculous for me to expect you to be open. I'm not gonna walk by at ten and say, "Hey, I walked by at three, you guys were closed. Someone owes me an apology. This jacket would be halfway done!"
• I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

Take it from me, I love you!