Brik Hates the Academy Awards: 00s Edition

It’s no mystery that I hate the Academy Awards. Hollywood spends half the year binging on cocaine and hookers and the other half praising themselves for it. No other industry exerts so much energy and spends so much money on self-congratulatory masturbation than the film industry. These sick fucks have the cushiest, easiest jobs in the world, and they act like what they do is some kind of goddamn accomplishment. “LOL OH LOOK I JUST RECITED SOME LINES SOMEONE ELSE WROTE FOR ME AND SHED A TEAR AT THE SAME TIME! I’M A FUCKING ACTING GOD! QUICK SOMEBODY GIVE ME FIFTY AWARDS LOL!” In theory, I could get behind the awards if they actually awarded things that were deserving. You know, giving a Best Picture award to the best movie of the year. But the Academy rarely gives that award to the best movie of the year. Hell, they don’t even give it to the most popular movie of the year. Usually, they give it to whatever cool person produced the movie, or to the most obscure, independent, foreign piece of shit they can find. Typically, no one in the mainstream public will have even seen the winner. They’ve been pulling this shit for years. So, I decided to analyze the past years, offer my own nominees, and declare new winners. Best movie isn’t the one that makes you cry or makes you think. Best movie is the one that you want to revisit over and over again. A movie you watch once and never again isn’t good. It’s only good if you can’t help but watch it a million times. Rewatchability is the hallmark of something great.

This time around, I’ll be taking a look at the Best Picture winners from the 2000s.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Money

It’s a good sign when a film’s poster contains multiple characters that were not in the source material.

It’s no secret that I despised The Hobbit Part 1, and I wasn’t looking forward to watching Part 2. In fact, I waited until it aired on HBO, because there was no way in hell I was shelling out my hard earned cash on this travesty. And as impossible as it sounds, Part 2 is actually worse than Part 1. Somehow, Peter Jackson managed to pull it off.

To be fair, I will admit that the beginning of the movie was pretty good. The dwarves and Bilbo enter Mirkwood Forest, get lost, are waylaid by spiders, and eventually are rescued. This hewed fairly close to the source material, and ended up being the highlight of the movie. Similarly, the only good scene in Part 1 was the Riddles in the Dark scene, which again, was the only scene that stuck to the source material. Hey, Peterson Jackson, guess what? Following the source material for the whole fucking thing would have been a good idea.

The Hobbit: An Expected Cash Grab

It’s all about the Benjamins.

Peter Jackson can go suck a fuck. Yeah, that’s right, you heard me. I’m using Donnie Darko references over here. Jackson has become the George Lucas of Lord of the Rings. Lucas went back and filmed three shitty prequels to his revered Star Wars trilogy, and Jackson has made the exact same mistake with The Hobbit.

I’m not going to argue that The Hobbit as a film shouldn’t exist. In fact, it should. The 1937 book written by J.R.R. Tolkien is beloved by millions of people the world over. And since his later Lord of the Rings books were turned into films that became venerable smash-hits, it only makes sense that there should be a film of The Hobbit. Unforeseeable by anyone, the worst person for the job would be the same person who directed the Rings films.

Clearly, Peter Jackson caught lightning in a bottle when he directed the Rings films. He tried to recapture that magic from a decade ago, but failed miserably every step of the way. The tone of The Hobbit is vastly different from the later Rings books. It is lighter, faster-paced, and has more of a sense of wonder. Jackson, being a goddamn moron, tried to bend the material to fit into the exact same style of the Rings films. He tries to make it dark, somber, and epic all at the same time. For material that is inherently light and fun, this just doesn’t work. Scene after scene fails on almost every level. Technically, they look and sound great, but that’s about it. The writing doesn’t work, the acting is awkward, and you get a sense that nobody really knew what they hell they were doing when making this monstrosity.

Game of Thrones Seasons One and Two

That is what the show is called.

Game of Thrones Season 1

I thought Season 1 of Game of Thrones was really good. I enjoyed the fighting, the nudity, and the midget. Since the rest of the internet also liked Season 1, I will end my review here. There’s not much that I can add to the collective wisdom already out there on the subject. I will pose the rhetorical question, why does Sean Bean die in every role he gets? The world may never know.

I know, it totally sucks that you always get killed.

Game of Thrones Season 2

Season 2 of Game of Thrones can suck my balls. The season suffered from slow pacing, lack of fighting, really confusing plot (or lack thereof), too many characters, and not enough nudity. Even more nudity wouldn’t have made up for all of the other problems, but it would have helped. I am so sick of people talking about how awesome Game of Thrones is, because either they haven’t seen Season 2, or they just weren’t watching it at all and were on bookface the entire time.

1) Slow Pacing

There was a shitload of talking this season. Not yelling, not fighting, just talking. I do that all the time with teh Brik, so when I watch TV I want to see something more exciting than talking, unless the conversation is interesting. I have ADD and this did not hold my attention for 10 episodes. 10 hours of television, that is all this show takes for a season, and it was about 9 hours too long. They should have cut out all of the talking, or at least run it at 3x speed. Early in the season I had reason to believe that all of this talking meant something, but by episode 2 I realized it was useless filler.

2) Lack of Fighting

I didn’t read the book series, but from what teh Brik told me, there are some pretty epic fight scenes in print. I never saw them on my TV. Did you?

This picture came up when I googled Game of Thrones.

3) Confusing Plot

I think the reason the plot was confusing was because there was so much meaningless conversation followed by so little fighting and the mysterious appearance of new characters that seemingly had no relation to any of the existing characters (see #4). Not to mention that the plots I cared about, involving Daenerys and Arya, got so little air time that it was very difficult for me to maintain interest. My confusion might have been my own fault, but instead of taking personal responsibility I choose to blame the writers.

4) Too Many Characters

Every episode some new asshole would appear and I would have to google who the fuck they were to try to figure out what was happening. If I wanted to do that, I would have just read the books first. I know there are a shit ton of characters in these books, but sometimes when you adapt for TV, you have to change things (OMFG!) to make them work better for television. Don’t punish me for being an average American who is incapable of picking up a book not printed in an extra large font.

If I had this, maybe I would have known who the fuck was on the screen.

5) Not Enough Nudity

I think if more sex scenes and nakedness had happened I wouldn’t have cared as much about #1-4. I can’t guarantee I’d rate the season highly but no one can complain about more nudity, even if it is gratuitous.

The only high point of Season 2 for me was Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister. His character had depth, humor, and enough screen time for me to give a fuck. If the entire show was just about him and they threw away the rest of the subplots I’d be happy. Or if he decapitated Joffrey, either way. I look forward to seeing Dinklage in something more deserving of his talents after he finishes his work in this series.

This is exactly how I feel.

In conclusion, Game of Thrones can fuck off. I really loved Season 1 but I really hated Season 2, and since 2 came after 1, I am left with a bad taste in my mouth. I would not cry if this show was cancelled.

Season One Verdict: Awesome

Season Two Verdict: Shitty

Average: Shitty

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises cast.

Since The Dark Knight Rises is a big fuckin’ deal, BrikHaus and Mrs. Brik have decided to do a tag-team review.

Mrs. Brik

I would like to preface this review by letting you know that I am not a particularly big fan of comic book movies. I only watch them if they look interesting (and they rarely do). I liked the first Iron Man. Lots of witty dialogue and ass-kicking, the story made sense, and it was paced well. Iron Man is an example of what Hollywood is almost never capable of doing: making a big-budget movie into something good. (I cannot, however, say the same thing for Iron Man 2.) The Hulk is an example of Hollywood at its worst. They made the same movie repeatedly and did a mediocre job of it each and every time.

Having said all that, Rises made all of my wildest dreams come true. 

Your Wedding Sucked

Wedding season is currently underway, and I thought I should make a public service announcement. I know that weddings are a weird topic for Awesomely Shitty, but I felt it was my duty to impart my invaluable words of wisdom onto you. I’ve attended a lot of weddings, including my own, which makes me practically an expert on the subject. So, if you’re planning on having your own, here’s a list of ways you can royally fuck up your wedding and piss off everyone.

1.) The ceremony is too long – A typical rookie mistake. Nobody wants to sit for more than 15-20 minutes watching the two of you stand motionless while some crusty old tool reads through a long-winded ceremony. The longer it goes, the more anxious people are going to be to leave, not to mention they’ll be furious. Of course you thought the 75 minute ceremony with Catholic Mass included was “beautiful.” But your 200 guests didn’t. They were hopelessly bored and contemplating suicide as a means of escape.

2.) The ceremony is too short – I know it seems impossible for the ceremony to be too short, but the last wedding I went to had a ceremony which clocked in at 5 minutes. At any wedding, the ceremony is the main event. The reception is the celebration of that. Obviously, the reception is the fun part with drunken debauchery and horny bridesmaids, but that doesn’t mean you should have the ceremony take two seconds. Put some goddamn thought into the readings, music, and vows to make it worthwhile. Otherwise, you might as well get married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas.

3.) Somebody read 1 Corinthians – You know the one, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is cliche, love is etc.” Every wedding I have been to except for two (mine skipped it) had this. It is the most overused piece of shit reading. Maybe the sentiment is nice, but it’s hard to like it when you hear it all the fucking time. Love is great and all, but considering 50% of marriages end in divorce, is love really something we want to hear about at a wedding?

Facebook Movie – The Social Network – dismissive wanking motion

I recently had the (dis)pleasure of watching the critically jizzed upon film, The Social Network. Essentially, it’s just The Facebook Movie, or perhaps more accurately, The Thefacebook Movie, although it should really be called, Filling Two Hours with Mark Zuckberg’s Passive-Aggressive Bullshit. Seriously, what the fuck was this movie supposed to be about?

I guess it’s supposed to tell the story of the founding of internet juggernaut Facebook. But it’s not really about that. Actually, very little time is spent on Facebook itself. Half the movie is spent watching Zuckerberg obsess about how to create/improve his website, and the other half is spent in depositions as Zuckerberg defends himself against two simultaneous lawsuits. Obviously, you can’t make a movie about the actual Facebook webpage, but there could have been a more interesting angle for the filmmakers to take. Actually, either angle alone would have been fine, they should have just picked one or the other and gone with that, instead of taking this schizophrenic approach, trying to cram both stories into a two hour running time. Neither version works nearly as well as it could.

I appreciate that Zuckerberg is not a hero in this movie. It is a rare thing for a Hollywood movie to actually have a morally ambiguous, or perhaps villainous, central character. They could have gone the cliche route and have the movie be about cuddly Zuckerberg’s triumph against adversity to become a multi-billionaire. But they didn’t, so at least they succeeded in that aspect. Unfortunately, they still managed to drop the ball, because, let’s face it, most Hollywood screenwriters are idiots.

Zuckerberg’s personality is given to us at face value. He passive-aggressively interacts with people, he shadily sides with Napster Dude to cockblock his former business partner Eduardo, and he speaks like an abrasive jerk to people he feels are beneath him (i.e. everyone). Zuckerberg’s motivations are left completely up to the imagination of the viewers. A more in-depth look at his psyche is not offered up. Most likely this is because the writer exhausted all of his creative juices dreaming up ridiculous scenes where computer programmers do shots while having underground coding competitions. God forbid they try to actually EXPLORE the main character’s motivations and social failings. Does he have Asperberger’s? Was he abused as a child? Is he stuck in a bi-curious phase? We’ll never know. The way things are presented, we are expected to accept that Zuckerberg’s character is a total douche just because he is a total douche (maybe that works in real life, but not in movies). That’s weak ass writing. I would expect nothing less from Hollywood assholes.

4 Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse: Part 3 – JAWSBUPS

 

The Four Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse

For a long time I’ve been carefully watching for the end of the world. According to the Bible (the world’s most accurate and consistent book), the world will end in a fiery shit storm, ushered in by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Well, that time is here, albeit not in a form that anyone expected. In fact, all the pestilence, war, famine, and death are not coming literally, but figuratively in the world of cinema.

Horseman numero tres is none other than JAWSBUPS. Wait a second. Who the fuck is JAWSBUPS? Well, it actually isn’t a single director. It is an amalgamation of three small time, but horribly inept directors. Alone each of them is relatively harmless, but put together they combine to become the Voltron of shitty movies. JAWSBUPS breaks down to the original initials J.S., P.W.S.A., and U.B. Those initials stand for Joel Schumacher, Paul W. S. Anderson, and Uwe Boll.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “BUT BRIK THOSE GUYS HAVE MADE SUM GOOD MOVIES YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKIN ABOUT LOL!” You may feel like they have made some good movies, but you’d be wrong. Your memory is playing tricks on you. Let’s take a closer look at their combined efforts: