Act Interested

The Academy Awards came and went last night.  Of course, I was watching the 3-plus hour broadcast.  What else was I going to do?  Watch Maryland lose a must-win game?

On Monday, the broadcast was almost universally panned for being completely uncompelling and unfunny.  I would agree that James Franco and Anne Hathaway were not the greatest hosts.  But really, what could they do?  Comparatively, they were worse than Billy Crystal and Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, but I tend to not really care so much about the hosting.  Though I must agree that when given an opening, neither host was particularly witty.  But the show is about the awards anyway, right?!

I missed the boat again on the AMC Oscar Showcase, which may be the greatest idea ever for a movie theater chain, leading up to the broadcast.  I was able to see 4 of the 10 nominated films though before Sunday night.  All of the movies I saw were really good movies, and I could see why most of them were nominated.  I agreed for the most part with the field of movies (except maybe Winter's Bone. Anyone heard of that?).  For my money, Inception was the best movie I saw in the last year.  It was super entertaining, the acting was good, and it made you think.  Perhaps it made you think a little too much, which is why it had no chance of winning.  I also saw True Grit, King's Speech, and The Social Network.  I really enjoyed them all. 

I was glad to see The Social Network win a few awards, especially for adapted screenplay.  Obviously, it struck a chord with me since everyone I know is addicted to Facebook.  So that was cool.  True Grit has a great story with some great acting and was not a typical, cookie-cutter Western.  There are a lot more layers to it than pointing a gun and shooting.  And the King's Speech was a great movie about a relatively unknown story about King George V (or VI, I can't remember).  This one also struck a chord with me since I had just been to England for my first international trip 7 months ago, and you know, I felt connected or something.

The issue is that all of these movies were good, and unfortunately there were no upsets at the Oscars.  Colin Firth won for King's Speech (he did deserve it).  He was like 1000 to one on Bodog to win.  All of the preshow winners pretty much ended up winning.  Which means if you pay attention to any of the pre-coverage, not much was left to the imagination.  Melissa Leo won Best Supporting Actress for The Fighter, but really I thought the 14-year-old girl from True Grit was good enough to win.  I realize I haven't seen The Fighter, but how awesome of an upset would that have been?  Also, to see Inception win Best Picture out of nowhere would have been great.  Or even The Fighter or something.  I'm not saying that the winners didn't deserve it.  But everyone loves an upset.  Like March Madness.  Everyone wants the 12 seed to beat the 5 seed.  Perhaps the Academy needs to watch more college hoops.  Create a little drama.  Shit, isn't that what these people are paid to do?

Until the Emmys...

Ah, Awards Season

Yes, I am gay for awards season.  I can't help it.  I suppose its just because I like being entertained so much, and I would say for the most part I have heard of the artists being nominated.  I realize that I missed the Golden Globes, but let's be honest, that's like a golf tournament in Dubai and the Grammys, Emmys and Oscars are the U.S. Open, the PGA, and the Masters.

The Grammys, I would argue, are the most wildly unpredictable compared to the other awards shows.  For some reason music and musical taste seem to vary in such a way that no one seems to agree on anything.  A lot of times I would be left asking, "Who the hell is that?" in response to the nominees.  In a lot of ways, the commercial success of music that helps drive the awards is not necessarily what a lot of general consumers consider worthy of winning an award since all kinds of crap gets played on the radio.  

The point is that the Grammy winners surprise (baffle) me more than almost any other awards show.  I was glad to see certain people win.  Keep in mind that I'm a sucker for pop-music-bubblegum-misery, so I was glad to see Train win for pop vocal and to see Eminem win for rap album and whatnot.  But let's be honest.  An awards show about music comes down to the musical performances themselves.  Some of note:

• 15 minutes of Aretha Franklin tribute singing at the top of the show is certainly overkill for a 20-something male 
• Eminem, Dr. Dre, and Rihanna were great.  People that don't even like their music may have even paid a little more attention during that set
• Bob Dylan sounded like shit.  I mean seriously its time to hang it up.  He sounded like he was singing from the grave.  Mumford and Sons was awesome though
• Cee-lo dressed as a rainbow chicken was by far the show-stopper.  I mean you can't make that up.  His back up dancers were muppets, and he had Gwyneth Paltrow singing along side him.   If that's not the most random pairing ever.  Please enjoy:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6-gc5rOqow
• Despite Katy Perry's subpar live vocals, she can do no wrong in my eyes

The performances certainly command more attention than the awards themselves.  I mean, really, there's Song of the Year, Album of the Year, and Record of the Year.  I actually don't really know what the difference is between the three.  There are so many categories now the awards seem diluted.  Also, there is no way that just because Justin Bieber was nominated for Best New Artist you can convince me that he is new to the music business or the charts.  He's had singles out for years!  Now he's a 3D movie star.  How can he even qualify as a new artist?

So as it turns out, of all the awards shows, the actual awards at the Grammys take a back seat to Lady Gaga's womb, Rihanna's dress, and Muse's was-it-fake-or-not riot on stage.  Once the movies and TV shows are honored, I can make more sense of that.  I spend over half my life glued to moving pictures anyway.  Either way, it is an exciting time of year for someone who lives for the red carpet hoopla that surrounds celebrities.  It truly makes for great TV.

Also, something to ponder.  If an artist can sing but not dance, do they fail to be a pop star?  It would seem to me that all current pop stars can do both.  Can you have one without the other?  Hmmm.....

Fear and Loathing in D.C.

Welcome!  So this blog is simply to discuss sports and entertainment as I see it.  Basically, nothing of political, social, or cultural significance.  In a word: drivel.  But after all....we need useless chatter in our lives to balance the misery of the real world.  It will most likely end up being as random as the title.  Though I do get most of my vocabulary from movies, pop songs, or Seinfeld.

So on this Saturday in February, deep in the heart of college basketball season, a week after another irrelevant football season in D.C. came to an end, I had my fair share of local sporting events to watch.  All teams I follow, all teams I love.  As normalcy would have it, all teams are in the process of losing without as much as a glimmer of hope to win. 

It gets frustrating being a sports fan in this area and loving these teams.  Is anyone going to step up and prove that they are worth watching?  D.C. sports fans stress themselves out day in and day out trying to root for and appreciate these organizations/schools/players.  Moods are grimmer, outlooks are bleaker, and if not for hope (the eternal flame of hope!), TV ratings would be thinner.

The Capitals teased us last year with the most decorated season a D.C. sports team has had in a long time.  They were the highest goal-scoring, point-getting team in the league.  Then they cough up any shop at a championship trophy by failing miserably in the first round of the playoffs.

Last season, the Maryland Terrapins (my beloved...and frustrating) are co-regular season champions of the ACC and then get bounced in the second round of the NCAA tournament in the last second.

It's those kind of seasons that keep us coming back for more.  But upon the bloom of a new season, as expectations are high or simply a modicum of success is expected, we are let down.  The Capitals can't string wins together and are more up and down than a see-saw.  The Terps, well I'm sure I will be writing alot more about them later on.  They can't shoot, pass, play smart, grab a rebound or keep possession of the ball.  Bye-bye tournament hopes.

Look, I have said before that I know I should be happy with a team that is constantly a post-season contender, as the Capitals are.  And I know after what happened to them in the first round last year, the regular season really is essentially meaningless.  But it is hard to keep me watching each game as a die-hard fan only to watch them come up short more often than not. 

The Redskins have been bad for a long time so that's a whole other deep-seeded issue I need to deal with.  The poor play of the Caps and Terps cannot be condoned.  I am known to be a negative fan, and I can't deny.  But records and eyeballs don't lie.  Each team proves that they are underperfoming on a regular basis.  Every week of every season we go through it.  Here's looking forward to April when the Wizards and the Terps are no longer in the discussion, and the Caps are on their way to some other disappointing playoff display.

But hope springs eternal, right?  Maybe this is the year for the Caps.  Who wants to be a one seed anyway?  Perhaps the Terps win the ACC tournament.  Stranger things have happened, right?  It is possible...right?

Maybe I should just adopt Georgetown as my own.