It’s late, and I didn’t win the pool in our annual Oscar party (this year’s winner: Kristin Dreyer Kramer of Nights and Weekends), so I’m understandably sore, and perhaps a bit drunk. Kidding about that last part (a better word would be tipsy), but yes, I am sore that I voted against my heart in every category and proved to be wrong on most of them. There will be a full recap tomorrow, but here are the big takeaways from the evening’s events.
There is nothing that Anne Hathaway can’t do
She can act, she can sing, she can do more accents than Meryl Streep, and she’s fucking gorgeous. We knew all of this already, of course, but seeing her do the Bahston accent in the opening sequence to the Oscars, plus seeing her pretend to be Russian and Texan in “Valentine’s Day” (to be honest, I can’t remember if she did a Russian voice; I tried to forget that movie as quickly as I could), proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is the official girl of our dreams.
You can’t shake Aaron Sorkin off with ‘wrap it up’ music
Dude just kept talking a good 45 seconds to a minute after the strings kicked in. Better yet, he didn’t even acknowledge them. Why dignify it? Awesome.
Maybe everything is better with Auto Tune
That musical sequence was the best joke of the evening, by a country mile. And in case any of you were wondering where they got the idea…
Melissa Leo is the Guns ‘n Roses of actresses
I was rooting for her to win – I guess my belief that she was an underdog was just that – but I have to say that I was hoping that she would give a better acceptance speech than that. She looked like a wide-eyed teenager. I bet Anna Paquin gave a more composed acceptance speech than that.
Funniest one-liner while watching the show
Jason Zingale, upon seeing Oprah Winfrey: “You get an Oscar, and you get an Oscar! And you get an Oscar!” We were laughing so hard that we didn’t have the heart to tell him that Oprah could have him killed for saying that.
If you play in a dead pool, you should probably have Kirk Douglas on your 2011 list
I don’t endorse dead pools, because that’s just a ghoulish thing to do, but damn, man, Kirk is in a bad way. Just sayin’.
More commentary tomorrow, but until then, let us just say: what the hell was up with Cate Blanchett’s dress? Did she lose a bet?
So you’re stuck spending some “quality time” with the family around the holidays, when you’d rather be at the bar around the corner with your friends, or even in jail, as long as no one from your family is in jail with you. Someone wants to watch a Christmas movie. Everybody starts chirping like newborn chicks. You reach for the knitting needles, praying that they’ll hit something vital in your skull before you’ve experienced any pain.
Put the needles down, friend. There are other options that are more enjoyable and less permanent than death’s sweet, sweet kiss. Here are five movies that get us through the holidays with murderous impulses held firmly in check. Merry Christmas, everyone. Pass the bourbon.
Die Hard
Admit it: you secretly fantasize about a gang of white-collar criminals hijacking your holiday party and killing the fast-talking weasel in sales who won’t shut the hell up. You’ve read the praise about “Die Hard” serving as the blueprint for every action movie made since – and it’s true, as the most popular studio sales pitch between 1989 and 1997 was “Die Hard on a ____” – but it is grossly overlooked as a holiday classic, and that is just wrong. It’s funnier than “Home Alone,” more heartwarming than “The Santa Clause,” and it has what all Christmas movies lack but some real-life families have: a body count. Bruce Willis has rarely been better, and Alan Rickman completely rewrote the rules on action movie villains. If you feel like going for camp value, watch the sequel, “Die Harder,” with the TV dub track. Yippie-ki-yay, Mister Falcon.
The Ref
The definitive dysfunctional family (which is really just a polite way of saying normal family these days) holiday movie. A cat burglar (Denis Leary) trying to lie low reluctantly kidnaps a couple (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) on the verge of divorce, just before the in-laws come over for Christmas dinner. Armed to the teeth with a before-they-were-stars cast (it also includes Christine Baranski, J.K. Simmons, and the great Raymond Barry) and directed by the gone-too-soon Ted Demme, “The Ref” is caustically funny, and one of the more quotable movies you’ll ever see. (The marriage counseling scene alone has a good dozen zingers.) Why did this movie fare so poorly at the box office? We’re guessing the release date may have played a part in it. Yep, they released it in March, just when the snow is thawing for good. Well played, Touchstone.
Better Off Dead
Up there with “Heathers” in the teenage suicide canon, “Better Off Dead” is one of the most diverse teen comedies of its time, combining clueless parents (love the scene where Kim Darby nearly kills John Cusack while vacuuming), animation, claymation, ski racing, exploding neighbors, the awkward first date, and a Japanese Howard Cosell impressionist. And it all takes place at Christmas, setting up the painful call when Cusack calls his ex-girlfriend Beth and learns that her new boyfriend bought her “a giant stuffed teddy bear, bigger than you.” Yes, Beth was a hottie, which explains why everyone from the mailman to Barney Rubble wanted to date her, but as longtime fans of “The Last American Virgin,” Cusack did well to bag the lovely Diane Franklin as a so-called consolation prize. Just make sure and pay that paper boy on time.
Go
Drug deals gone wrong. Actors forced into being informants. Cops selling Amway. (“It’s Confederate Products, it’s completely different.”) Threesomes. Vegas hotel rooms on fire. Strip clubs. A hit and run. Monologues about “Family Circus.” And tantra, baby! Whatever crazy things you’ve done in your life, chances are you’ve never had a night like the characters in “Go,” and if you did, it sure as hell didn’t happen on Christmas Eve. Even funnier, the characters don’t even think about the day’s events in terms of being something out of this world. Indeed, a few of them – including the one who just pawned over-the-counter drugs as ecstasy in a club in order to pay her rent – immediately starts planning ahead, wondering what they will do for New Year’s Eve. Whatever it is, it won’t be as wild as what takes place here. Doug Liman has gone on to make some big, successful movies, but this one remains his best, as far as we’re concerned. It has a hell of a soundtrack, too.
Night Shift
Hookers and Christmas, together at last. Hey, what better way to come up with a little extra scratch around the holidays than to serve as the pimp for the girl down the hall? (We readily admit, though, that the idea of Shelley Long as a prostitute is even funnier now than it was then.) The movie may have served as a springboard for director Ron Howard and Michael Keaton (not to mention a comeback vehicle for Henry Winkler), but take a closer look at the supporting cast. Shannen Doherty as a Bluebell (“Mugger!”), the late Vincent Schiavelli as a surly delivery guy, and don’t blink during the party scene or you’ll miss Kevin Costner walking behind Keaton when he balances a beer bottle on his forehead. It may seem tame by today’s standards, but hey, it’s Christmas; not a bad time to show a little propriety.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
For doing what we have all secretly wanted to do to rental car employees, or anyone else who fucks us at the drive-thru.
Trading Places Jamie Lee Curtis is in this movie. You may have heard about that. Sadly, YouTube hasn’t, so you’ll have to settle for this.
Batman Returns
All we want for Christmas is Selina Kyle. Me-ow!
The Long Kiss Goodnight
After extensive research, we have concluded that chefs most definitely do not do that.
Some might call it blasphemy, but there is something Zen in Eric Cartman’s obliviousness to Christmas. To most kids, Jesus doesn’t even factor into the equation – it’s just Christmas trees and pie. Cartman is at least aware of Jesus’ existence, because “Jesus is born, and so I get presents.” Now fall on your knees, and hear the angels’…something.
“Dirty Sanchez Nation” author Evan Marz acknowledges in the very beginning of his book that its sole reason for existing is for educational and offensive purposes only. He’s not suggesting that anyone do the things described here – he’s just compiling a a one-stop list of various acts of sexual depravity so that you’ll know what they mean when someone mentions them in conversation. And for that, we suppose that he should be thanked. God knows we learned a lot reading “Dirty Sanchez Nation”; as for the offensive part, well, that’s true, but not in the way that Marz might think.
Let’s put aside for a moment the commentary that comes with a book like this, that it is a symptom of just far pornography has crossed into mainstream pop culture, and whether that is a good thing. The real problem with “Dirty Sanchez Nation” is not the subject matter (though that is a problem) – it’s how the subject matter is handled. Simply put, Marz is an atrocious writer, both technically and creatively. When he’s not writing such grammatically plagued lines as these:
“Typically your so drunk you just keep eating.”
“Just as you’re about to burst, pull out and shot your load into her…”
“For all the girl’s who want to…”
He’s spinning poetry like this:
“When you hit her in the shitter with the one-eyed critter…”
“Smacking someone in the face with your purple headed yogurt slinger.”
Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame. It reads as if he wrote the entire book in an hour, and didn’t ask anyone to copy edit it. (There’s hardly a comma in sight.) The organization of the chapters is also laughably bad, with several call backs coming before the setup, a cardinal sin of comedy. For example, why list a variation on Butterface before listing Butterface, or create a section called “Cumshot Surprises” and list Facial, the most basic move, last? Lists like this should go from the simplest moves to more complex (or in this case, sicker) stunts, yes? And really, he couldn’t look up the proper spelling of Sasquatch? (It’s spelled ‘Sausquash’ here, ugh.) We’re also convinced that there is no such thing as a Flaming Amazon, because no woman would ever let a guy set her pubes on fire.
And yet, these many things still aren’t the book’s biggest problem.
No, the biggest problem is the book’s tone, which is of the ultra-misogynist, ‘Bitches ain’t shit’ variety. Take, for example, his description of a Strawberry Shortcake, missing punctuation and all: “Smacking some dirty whore in the face after you just blew your man goo on it creating a red and white pastry treat look.” Some dirty whore? Is Marz that unaware of the deep-seated self-loathing in his words? Another move begins, “While getting head from some skank…” Yes, the 17 girls you bragged of fellating you freshman year in your bio must be very proud to know that you think they’re skanks. The big question, though is: if you had sexual relations with 17 different women in a year, guess what that makes you?
The line between sex and violence here is stretched to the limit, and while Marz didn’t invent this stuff, he’s selling several of them like they might be fun to do, despite how humiliating, irresponsible or harmful they might be to the other party. There is a way to mine comedy from this subject; unfortunately, Marz couldn’t be bothered to take the extra effort to find it, and chose the easier, ‘ha ha girls are all dumb sluts’ path instead. We’re not sure which is worse: his demeaning view of women, or his lazy, lowest-common-denominator approach to comedy. Look at those chapter titles: “Gay Shit”? “Ugly Bitches”? This book is aimed squarely at the douchebag crowd.
“Dirty Sanchez Nation” is informative but needlessly hostile, not to mention occasionally ridiculous (is there really a phrase for blowing snot in a girl’s vagina, as if anyone would ever do such a thing?). It’s a book for people who think that any woman willing to get naked in front of them should be punished for doing so. Case in point: Mudslide, where Marz actually suggests that guys laugh after they blast diarrhea in a woman’s face. To quote the Avalanches song “Frontier Psychiatrist,” that boy needs therapy.
We’ll leave you with this, a line from Marz’s (obnoxious) bio: “…he began his career in acting, playing minor roles in both soft and hardcore pornography before finding his true calling in writing.” True calling in writing? That might be the funniest thing here. (Flying Armbar Enterprises 2010)
This is money. “Entourage” is a huge hit with the BE staff, and the show has the best cheesesake ratio of any show on TV (new servings each week!), but in this clip made to promote the show’s syndication debut on Spike TV, the women strike back, lampooning how they worked tirelessly to land a job as an actress in Hollywood, only to be offered the role of stripper, hooker, escort or groupie. And worse, they have to blow Drama or Turtle? They don’t even get to maintain their dignity by being able to tell their friends that they got to do Vince? These women have our sympathy, and if they ever feel like crying on our shoulders, they’re welcome to stop by any time. Best line to the camera: “Sorry, Mom and Dad!”
Oh, and did we mention Gary Busey? Everything’s better with Gary Busey.
“Dirty Sanchez Nation” author Evan Marz acknowledges in the very beginning of his book that its sole reason for existing is for educational and offensive purposes only. He’s not suggesting that anyone do the things described here – he’s just compiling a a one-stop list of various acts of sexual depravity so that you’ll know what they mean when someone mentions them in conversation. And for that, we suppose that he should be thanked. God knows we learned a lot reading “Dirty Sanchez Nation”; as for the offensive part, well, that’s true, but not in the way that Marz might think.
