VoucherCodes Oscars Competition

Whassup ya'll! So last week I got this email from a guy from VoucherCodes who's running this Oscar competition and has put up some promo codes on Amazon that will help people purchase the nominated movies from this year's Oscars for a cheaper price.

And all I have to do is take a guess at which movies I think are going to win on March 7. The more I get right, the more money I win. Muahahahah. And you know me, I'll never pass up a chance to stock up on some DVD's since the DVDs we get here are complete crap.

So bear with me on this post people, it's more of something I'm doing for myself and the movies I pick here aren't necessarily the movies I want to see win, but the movies I think the Academy will pick. Wish me luck!

BEST PICTURE
•The Hurt Locker

BEST DIRECTOR
•Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
•Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
•Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
•Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
•Mo'Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
•Jason Reitman - Up in the Air

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
•Mark Boal - The Hurt Locker

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
•The White Ribbon

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
•Up

BEST ART DIRECTION
•Nine

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
•The Hurt Locker

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
•The Young Victoria

BEST FILM EDITING
•District 9

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
•The Cove

BEST MAKEUP
•Star Trek

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
•Up, Michael Giacchino

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
•The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart) from Crazy Heart

BEST SOUND MIXING
•Avatar

BEST SOUND EDITING
•Avatar

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
•Avatar

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
•China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
•Logorama

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
•Kavi

Now all of ya'll go to your respective houses of religion, get down on your knees, burn some josticks, pierce your mouth, meditate for 3 hours, break bread and drink wine and pray I'll beat the other guys in the competition!

Wallace and Gromit- A Matter of Loaf and Death: Review

Wallace and Gromit are back ya'll! And their nominated for Best Animated Short this time! 

So in this movie, Wallace and Gromit are bakers and have their very own bread delivery service. Although business is good, there is a murder mystery going on at the same time where all the famous bakers in London are being killed. And then in comes this lady, Piella who's a local beauty queen and she and Wallace hits things off with a nice little romance. But Gromit suspects something very fishy about Peilla and must uncover her secrets before it's too late.

It's nice seeing Wallace and Gromit back doing short films where they started out. To be honest I'm not so crazy about the last film they did which was really kinda meh. But in this movie though, they fit the same amount of story, comedy, action, characters and charm as The Curse of the Were-Rabbit into a cool 29 minutes.

And just like any Wallace and Gromit movie, Matter of Loaf and Death is one heck of a funny film. Whether it is the imaginative intricacies of the inventive devices in their house or the iconic facial expressions of it's clay face characters. And the writing of the film is charming and witty as always. Specially loved all the cheesy lovey dovey one-liners Wallace has in the movie which is so weird to hear him say.

Peter Sallis is wonderful as always playing the naive Wallace. I mean this guy has got to be the dumbest person alive if he has to depend on his dog to ave his ass every single time. Yet his character is such a lovable goofball of fun. And how fun was Sally Lindsay in this? Her character is such a funny psycho, i light up everytime she comes on screen. Plus she has a sexy Scottish accent. And I like how they took her real life big boobs and incorporated it into her character, Just a thought is all.

But with all these nice things to say about the film, there's just one thing that keeps me from supporting it at the Oscars. It's highly unoriginal story.

The plot is pretty much the same as any Wallace and Gromit movie. Wallace is stupid. Gromit is clever. Wallace gets himself attached to something with the bad guy and seems to be doing good at it. Gromit smells something fishy with the whole new thing Wallace has got going on. Gromit investigates and uncovers a diabolical plot that threatens Wallace's life. Gromit tries to smoke out the bad guy. Wallace doesn't believe Gromit and sends him away. The bad guy is about to kill Wallace. Gromit comes in and saves the day. Wallaca and Gromit are friends again.

The storyline of the film is so predictable. Which is something that I really can't stand about the Wallace and Gromit series, where they just take the same story and recycle it over and over again while framing the plot around a different scenario every time. For God sakes you're series is nearly 2 decades old. Do something new for crying out loud!

But with all this being said, there is still a good chance that this film could win the Oscar on the simplest of facts that this is a Wallace and Gromit movie. They have been around for a really long time, they pretty much pioneered the whole claymation and stop motion technique in animation and they haven't won an Oscar yet. So keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

RATING: 7/10

The Lady and the Reaper: Review

No seriously, what the hell is up with the Academy Awards and their totally weird fetish for animated shorts with really old grandma's in them? Hahahaha.

So The Lady and the Reaper is a Spanish animated film by Javier Recio García. And it is one of the 5 nominees for Best Animated Short and while I do support this movie being nominated, I'm sure as hell know that this film has no shot whatsoever from winning the Oscar.

Lady and the Reaper is about a sweet old lady is living alone in her farm, patiently waiting for her time to die so that she will be reunited with her late husband again. So finally one night the Reaper appears before her and invites her to crossover to the afterlife. But just as she's about to, she is resuscitated by an arrogant doctor. The movie then becomes more of a power struggle comedy between the Reaper and the doctor for the lady's life.

Now if you saw the first 2 minutes of the film you're going to be thinking that this is a very dark animated drama about life and death and love. I thought that to and I was pretty down with that idea until the doctor comes in and the whole dynamics of the film switches from a slow serious style to a lighthearted whimsical pacing. And the moment it happened I was like, "Fuck it, I'm just gonna have me some mindless fun watching this!"

The remaining 6 minutes of the film is really really funny. You'll never think of the Reaper as something scary anymore cause the guy is juts one heck of a goofball in this. And whenever you do see a young doctor from now, you just want to punch that douches face off hahaha.

 And they did do some really creative funny ways to portray to final moment of an elderly person who's bordering between life and death.It was kind of like a Scooby Doo moments when the gang and the bad guy goes into the big chase scene around the haunted house and go through lotso doors and jokes like that? Well Lady and the Reaper takes that idea and perfects it with fantastic animation and a really funny score.

But similar to Granny O'Grimm, there really isn't much else to talk about in The Lady and the Reaper because it is what it is. A simple, funny animated short that doesn't go beyond anything else that just being pure entertainment. And while it did have me in stitches laughing the whole way through, it's not a movie I'm going to look back on and go, "Wow that was a really great Oscar nominee."

RATING: 7/10

French Roast: Review

Aight.. we got French Roast! This movie is one of the 5 nominees for Best Animated Short Film and it's pretty funny.

So French Roast is about this obnoxious rich bastard who's enjoying his morning french roast. I mean this guy is so pompous, he won't even give a homeless man a few coins. So he finishes his coffee and realizes he forgot to bring his wallet and since he's still too proud to ask anyone for help, he orders more and more french roast to try and buy some time. And things just get a little crazy after that which involves a psycho grandma bank robber.

I like those kind of short films that can still entertain and be funny with zero dialog. French Roast only relies on the actions of the characters and their charm plus a frucking hilarious soundtrack to carry itself through. This is slapstick comedy done right. Where you don't have characters over exaggerating their actions to make something funny.

The funny parts in this movie came from the subtle body languages and facial expressions the rich bastard makes when he's are trying to hide something. And we've all gone through something like this before, feeling extrodinarily paranoid when we know we did something wrong and how we feel like everything we do is being watched. It's just so fun watching someone being slowly tortured inside, especially when that son of a bitch deserved it.

And that granma... what the hell is up with the Academy and psychopathic grandmas this year. I mean she wasn't as all out. guns blazing crazy like Granny O'Grimm, she's actually kinda sweet in this movie. Again going back to what I said before, it's funny watching people trying to act all innocent when deep inside their crazy. Hahaha that, "Tsk tsk tsk," she gives the guy at the end made me go LOL.

And I also like that French Roast was all filmed in one take. Now, yes I know this is animated and it didn't really require any special effort in animating a movie in one take but I like the sense of real time with what they're doing.

Fun, quirky little animation. Not enough to beat the awesomeness of Logorama though.

RATING: 7/10

New Toy Story 3 Character Poster: Buttercup

Oh cuteness sial!

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty: Review

Hahaha this movie is funny, I kinda like i- wait what? This is nominated for an Oscar... Errr.. whaaa?

People I don't mean to be so mean to this movie, on it's own right it is a pretty decent animated short film but c'mon! It's almost as if the Academy had nothing else choose from so they simply slotted Granny O'Grimm into the nominations list.

So the movie is an Irish film directed by Nicky Phelan. It's about Granny O'Grimm.. an old lady that's really fucked up in the head who has some serious issues about growing old and jealousy towards people in their youth. She comes into her granddaughters bedroom and starts telling her little version of Sleeping Beauty. And it's really quite disturbing if you picture some old lady in real life who looks like O'Grimm telling it to her grand kids. Poor little girl.

Granny O'Grimm is a pretty okay short film but it's not something I would ever have expected to get nominated for an Oscar. This is something you'd more likely see as a Nickelodeon short in between show.. you know, like that Doodles show. And if you measure Granny O'Grimm to the likes of Logorama or last year's winner, The House of Small Cubes, this movie is thinly mediocre at best. There really isn't much to talk about in this cause it is pretty shallow as far as the story goes.

And Granny O'Grimm is one of the most annoying fucked up animated characters I've seen in short film. What is this woman's problem? Are old people really like that? Can't be what.. My grandma's a really nice lady. Here we have this old lady looking like she's the Wicked Witch of the West coming in to screw up a little girl's life. And the way she tells the story really gives me hints that this woman has murdered some poor innocent kids before this. Lady, you's got issues man.

But I did like the drawing style in the story sequence.  The color composition and the fine details in the background are really nice. It looks like something you would get if Picasso watched a few episodes of Courage the Cowardly Dog, got really really drunk and decided to draw an animated film.

RATING: 5/10