Self High-Five: Better Late Than Never

bill bodkin takes that and rewinds it back …

February has come and gone, and in my usual style, I am delivering my pop-culture musings and opinions a bit on the late side.

Pop-Break’s Absolutely Final Opinion Piece on the Oscars: I originally wanted to rant and rave about how every year everyone complains about how the Oscar telecast “was the worst on ever.” I’ll spare you my childish rage-fueled rant. Instead, I wanted to focus on the Best Picture race.

First and foremost, this year’s “Top 10” was exceedingly better than last year, and I believe the opinion I’m about to lay out is a much more informed one, since I have seen nine of the 10 nominees (127 Hours eluded me). So the burning question: Was The King’s Speech the best picture of the year.

My answer is … no.

Let me preface my answer by saying that I absolutely loved The King’s Speech. It brilliantly walks the line between light-hearted comedic romp and heart-string pulling drama. Colin Firth has dispelled any myths that he isn’t one of the best actors of our generation with his performance as “Bertie.” Geoffrey Rush, had it not been for Christian Bale’s career performance in The Fighter, would’ve walked away with Best Supporting Actor. The script for KS was dynamite, absolutely marvelous. This was a great film.

However, when I debated my best friend Victor Reyes about the merits of what makes a Best Picture while we ate Cinnabon in the mall back in 1998, he said, “Bill, it’s about the best overall production — not just great performance.” This was in response to, “Why did Titanic defeat LA Confidentialfor Best Picture, when LA Confidential had better acting?”

I don’t think the Academy listened to the words of my friend this year because as an overall production, as a complete film, I do not think The King’s Speech was good as The Social Network, Inception or Black Swan.

Okay, I understand, people didn’t “get” Inception. Yes, Ellen Page’s character was a little to “spell it out for everyone” in her dialogue. I know the film’s faults, but the epic scope, imagination and originality of this film far outweighed its weaknesses. It has resonance with an audience, even those who didn’t enjoy it. Inception in many ways is like the cerebral Titanic — it’s a home run in terms of production, but it’s a swing and a miss in the acting department, at least in the Academy’s eyes.

As for Black Swan, oh Aronofsky, what do you have to do to win Best Picture? The Wrestler was gritty and simply amazing, a departure from his intense acid-trips like Pi and Requiem For A Dream. Black Swan combined the grit and visceral physicality with his psychotic and psychedelic visions of all his films to create his best work yet. Black Swan soared over most of the top films of the year — however, I believe it lacked the swagger, the cache, the pedigree or what have you to win the Oscar.

So, with Inception lacking the acting chops and Black Swan lacking the swagger, the answer is simple on what film was the best picture of the year: The Social Network. Highly creative, highly topical, produced to the highest degree (yet no signs of the work put into it were overly apparent), brilliant performances from a young cast, a tremendous score, dazzling cinematography and boasting a script that would make Orson Welles weep for joy, The Social Network was simply the cat’s pajamas. It has everything a best picture needs and then some — it will resonate in the annals of cinema, it will be remembered for years to come, it was the best picture.

Movies: A Slow Month for Netflix

Red: I scratched my head at the end of last year when this Bruce Willis action-comedy was nominated for The Golden Globe for Best Comedy. However after viewing Red, I have to say the nomination was well-deserved. Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Red (an acronym for Retired and Extremely Dangerous) is a lighthearted, straightforward, suspend disbelief action romp. I was a little apprehensive about the movie because the only positive thing I ever heard was “well Helen Mirren shoots a big machine gun.” And that was it. Luckily, this film is a lot more than just this one scene. It’s actually a very good movie that accentuates the two best parts of its leading man, Bruce Willis — his ability to make any action sequence look real (and bloody painful) and funny. The entire film subscribes to Willis’ best qualities, making the action sequences legit and funny at the same time. It also never traipses too far into the overly serious or overly convoluted plot territories that films like these often do. It’s pretty much a Point A to Point B movie, which makes it the perfect type of escapist film to rent. And I gotta say watching Helen Mirren shoot a big machine gun was pretty awesome, too.

Monsters: Sometimes a great trailer doesn’t equal a great film. When I first saw the trailer for Monsters, it seemed like a riff off of District 9 — an alien invasion film produced like a documentary. Yet this time around the aliens are things that go bump in the night, only shadows of them are seen, kind of like Cloverfield. It had a very realistic and creepy vibe to it. I was hooked. Then I watched the entire film and realized why the aliens were in hiding, they were embarrassed to be a part of this movie. See, 90 percent of Monsters is actually improved conversations between a douchey photojournalist (Scoot McNairy) and a runaway-bride rich girl (Whitney Able) whom he’s escorting through dangerous alien-infested Mexican jungles at the behest of his boss, the girl’s father. There was literally no script to this film and the improv-ed dialogue is repetitive, uninspired and so annoying that you’ll end up routing for the aliens to kill these two. And then there’s the “unintentional” themes of how the U.S. is this horrible, violent and soulless country that has provoked the innocent aliens into becoming violent. Yes, about 50 percent of the dialogue is about how bad the country is. Really? So bad, that it allowed this garbage to hit movie theaters? Please. I say avoid this movie at all costs.

The American: When actors “go against type,” it’s often a risky proposition. One of things that has made George Clooney one of the most popular and beloved actors of our generation is his swagger, his confidence, the way he can make any line of dialogue sound tremendously cool. In essence, he’s a talker. Whether it’s his smoother than velvet performance as Danny Ocean or the slow-burning intensity which scored him the Oscar for Syriana, Clooney is known for being a brilliant deliverer of dialogue. Sadly, he goes against “type” in The American. The majority of the film is steeped in silence — whether it be endless aerial shots of the beautiful Italian countryside or long, silent takes on the emotion etched on Clooney’s face, The American is a very quiet film. The silence in The American speaks volumes; see it amplifies all of the film’s faults — a lack of suspense, a lack of a developing storyline and when it does appear — poor dialogue. See, I know what Clooney and director Anton Corbijn were going for, they were trying to recreate those sprawling ’60s Hitchockian-inspired thrillers like Notorious. Or even Euro-thrillers like Day Of The Jackal. These films don’t move at a fast pace, but they unfold beautifully. The American unfolds rather sloppily and doesn’t use it’s greatest asset, the verbal acting skill of its star, to its advantage. Ultimately, instead of a classic throwback to the heyday of noirs and espionage thrillers, we’re left with a rather lackluster drama.

Music: Soulive — Rubber Soulive

One thing that this site has done for me in the 1.5 years we’ve been operation is that it has opened my eyes up to music again. Throughout college, I was highly in tune with the musical scene, but that’s when I had time to read every music magazine out there, download new bands for free and had expendable cash to go to shows. Now, being a pop-culture site, I have to reacquaint myself with the music scene. One of the bands that I discovered along the way was the absolutely amazing jazz/funk instrumental trio, Soulive. I recently interviewed their keyboardist Neal Evans, so I bought Rubber Soulive, their instrumental album of Beatles covers. Let me tell you this — this is an essential album to own. If you love The Beatles, jazz, funk, jam bands, metal, it doesn’t matter. This music hits you from all angles you feel the soul, the passion and the talent Soulive has. It’s just beyond. I highly recommend checking this band out, they’ll be doing five shows at The Brooklyn Bowl this week as part of their “Bowlive” series.

TV: Top Chef All-Stars
One of my favorite shows of all time has taken a bit of beating over the past year. The series stumbled out of the gate with its second season of Top Chef Masters — a series that lacked the celebrity firepower and charisma the first season had. Then the ratings for it’s Top Chef: DC series were down over previous years. That series also strayed away from the show’s conventional emphasis on food to emphasizing the backstabbing, bickering and shenanigans of the “cheftestants.” The franchise picked up some positive ground with its interesting Top Chef: Just Desserts series, but it’s really knocked it out of the park with Top Chef: All-Stars. Bringing back the most memorable (both good and infamous) chefs from the series entire run who missed out on winning the title of Top Chef.

I have to say it’s been a blessing for the show. At first, it seemed to smack of desperation; but ultimately this was the big “smooth over” that the series needed with disgruntled fans. The return of loveable chefs like Carla Hall, Fabio Viviani and Richard Blais, along with more humorous chefs like Mike Isabella and Spike Mendelsohn, has made the series much more fun. Add in the fact these chefs are all hungry to actually win the title of Top Chef and the fact they’re a million times more skilled than the weak chefs that appeared on the DC season, and you’ve got a much better product. Throw in the best food personality in history, Anthony Bourdain (sorry Adam Richman, you are a close second), as a judge. and you’re definitely going for the gold here.

Wednesday night, the final five will duke it out in one of my favorite series enders the show has come up with: Each chef must battle the winner of their respective season. If I had to predict a winner for this season it would be Antonia Lofaso from Top Chef: Season 4. She’s racked up a tremendous amount of wins and is always in the tops at judges’ table. While Richard Blais is my personal favorite to win, I still think Antonia squeezes out a victory.

Food: The Melting Pot
Oh, The Melting Pot. Simply one of the greatest restaurants in history. Why, you may ask? It’s simple — cheese and chocolate. See, one can’t live on bread alone, but cheese and chocolate is a whole other ballgame. My wife and I have been going to The Melting Pot since the infant stages of our relationship from our six month relationship to this February, our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple. Awwww. But in all seriousness, this fondue restaurant is aces. The quality of the food is of the utmost quality. All your “dippers,” whether it be fresh fruit, fresh veggies, a slice of cheesecake or Granny Smith apples, are fresher than a rude three year old. Dipping your dipper of choice into a piping heart, hardy melted cheese fondue is the perfect remedy to the chill that has been living in your bones this frigid winter. The perfect amounts of savory, the perfect amount of bitter … oh cheese, you are amazing. And for the chocolate, on the night in question my wife and I order the “Snickerdoodle” chocolate fondue. Not the most manly sounding fondue in the world, but the end result is sublime. As a die-hard peanut butter fan, mixing this salty (and chunky) piece of melted heaven into lavish milk chocolate makes you want to punch someone in the teeth, it’s so good.