Make Mine Mike

I hesitated to do another post about pop culture – there’s more to Mikey than movie musings and celebrity sightings (though this week I did see Jean Reno (cool), Danny Bonaduce (creepy) and Weird Al Yankovic (weird)). But the Oscar nominations came out and I gotta say something.

Well, I actually don’t have that much to say, ‘cause I missed a lot of the nominated films. Haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain or Walk the Line or North Country or Capote. I still go to more movies than most, but it was much fewer than usual this year. I’d chalk it up to having a life, but, c’mon, who we kidding?

So for all I know, Jake and Heath and Charlize and Frances and Joaquin and Reese and Phillip Seymour all deserved their Oscar nods.

But William Hurt in A History of Violence? Are they kidding us?

This is a movie I did see. And Viggo (yeah, sure, I’m on a first name basis with all these people) was great. It was an interesting flick… the beginning seemed a little stylized at not being stylized (in other words, overly slow and seemingly “nice” before the problems started), but I enjoyed it.

Until Bill Hurt showed up. Then the movie turned into a comedy. I was disrupting the audience I was cracking up so hard at his schtick. What was he supposed to be? A tuff guy from Philly? Or a doofus with the worst accent and even worse facial hair. Ooh, Mr. Comatose with the chin whiskers is mad! I’m scared!

Really, you gotta see this film, just for the big finale w/Bill providing unintentional comic relief, kinda like Marlon Brando at the end of Apocalypse Now. But to get a nomination for such a performance? The Academy Awards are getting as frivolous as this blog. "The horror, the horror..."