Now that the summer movie season is over, Dave and Jen wax poetic on the best of the year so far and try their hand at predicting this year's Oscar nominees.
Jen: You hate the Oscars, right?
Dave: They're as meaningful as the Teen Choice Awards. But I don't hate them. I like the ridiculosity. I like awards shows. But the Oscars get less and less fun
because the cheesy awards show stuff that used to make it fun to watch is being stripped away. Like, there are no more dumb song performances.
Jen: Agreed. I like the pageantry. As far as the Academy Awards go, I want to see Beyoncé singing medleys of all the Best Song nominees and dancers doing
interpretive numbers.
Dave: But you don't really get much interpretive dance any more. Or Rob Lowe singing with Snow White. No, the Oscars are like watching a reality show about
fake people with weird lips and foreheads. My favorite was from when I was a kid; I remember vividly when The Omen came out that the theme from it was nominated
for Best Song and it was called "Ave Satani," which is hilarious. And then they did this dance to it and it was like watching Monica Bellucci performing an
incantation in a pentagram in Sorcerer's Apprentice, people all wavy and evil and with flowing capes and whatever.
Jen: That must have made an impression on little Dave White. And with that ridiculous Oscar story as a jumping-off point, let's launch into our own mid-season
Oscar predictions! Speaking of Best Original Songs like "Ave Satani," I happen to think 2010 is a banner year for the category…
Dave: "Pimps Don't Cry" from The Other Guys is pretty great. I think you agree.
Jen: Usually we get stuck with these yuppie middle-aged songs from documentaries, written by musicians like Bono. But "Pimps Don't Cry," to me, is the first CLEAR front-runner of the 2010 Oscar race. And co-written by JON BRION! I want to see Eva Mendes and Cee-Lo perform it on stage at the Oscars.
Dave: My favorite song of the year so far is "Make It Don't Fake It" from Trash Humpers.
Jen: ALSO GOOD! And so catchy it'll haunt your parking lot-destroying, garbage bin-humping, baby doll-mangling dreams.
Dave: Trash Humpers is also my favorite movie of the year so far. Therefore I want it nominated for Best Picture. I would also nominate Toy Story 3 alongside Trash Humpers.
Jen: I would love to see Trash Humpers and Toy Story 3 go head to head in multiple categories: Best Song, Best Director, Best Picture. Forget Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker. Harmony Korine vs. Pixar will be the new divisive Oscar showdown that shows where you stand as a cinephile!
Dave: I love I Am Love so that one gets nominated too.
Jen: Tilda Swinton should get a nom, yes.
Dave: She's the best actress every year even if she isn't in a movie. So lucky us she's in one this year. I also liked Jennifer Lawrence from Winter's Bone.
Jen: And since Lawrence's next role is in an X-Men movie, she stands a good chance to inherit the Oscar curse if she wins! If we're talking Best Actress, I'd like to see Noomi Rapace nominated for the Millenium trilogy. That woman is GOOD. Fearless.
Dave: See, I think those Girl Who Dragoned the Tattoo Fires movies are entertaining, awesome movies but I wouldn't nominate them for best picture.
Jen: I get that, but Rapace's performance is better than 90% of the female performances we've seen this year. Completely Oscar nomination-worthy. Rapace is so good in the Girl with the Doodad Whatsit movies that I cannot picture any of these frail little Hollywood girls filling her shoes in the remake.
Dave: Okay she can be one of our Best Actress nominees, then. I do agree with you on that.
Jen: What about The Kids are All Right mommy lesbians? I feel like that movie is exactly what the Academy likes to embrace. Are you feeling Julianne Moore and/or Annette Bening for Best Actress?
Dave: Annette Bening. I like brittle and cold more than anything. And I liked when she sang the Joni Mitchell song.
Jen: Brittle and cold does make more of an impact compared to Moore's crunchy hippie shtick, although I can already picture Moore's sound-bite monologue about marriage being played on the screen as they announce her nomination for Best Actress and her competition looks bravely into the camera with their best "I'm honored just to be here" faces.
Dave: That whole "what is a marriage" speech is fine… I think that movie is funny and authentic and all, but it didn't convince me of anything new and it plays like a movie that's for people who need to be reminded that gay people are actual human beings.
Jen: Exactly why I think the Academy would embrace it!
Dave: Yes, the real Academy will eat it up. But we are the Awesome-cademy and we don't have to play by their rules, so I'm ignoring that movie.
Jen: In our Awesome-cademy, do we agree that a Best Supporting Actress nod goes to the middle girl in The Human Centipede?
Dave: YES. And I'm being serious. People laugh at me when I say this but I truly believe that she gave a really harrowing performance -- and it was all done with her face sewn to a Japanese guy's butt.
Jen: Has any other actor, male or female, ever had to perform under such severe constraints? Maybe Mathieu Almaric, blinking his way through The Diving Bell and the Butterfly…
Dave: Right. The animals in Milo and Otis that died, they had it worse. But otherwise, The Human Centipede girl kind of wins.
Jen: Oh! What about Inception? I say Best Director/Script/Score/Actress, for Marion Cotillard. Inception's got to win multiple awards. The score alone keeps me up at night.
Dave: Inception is fantastic. I'm not on anyone's backlash wagon.
Jen: Totes. I still wonder if any of this is real. Is this conversation real? Are you real?
Dave: You said totes. You're so young. Kids and their slangs are great…
Jen: Totes magotes! What other nominations do you propose?
Dave: P Diddy for Best Supporting Actor in Get Him to the Greek.
Jen: More specifically, P Diddy's floating Pac-man head for Best Supporting Actor! How about Best Director?
Dave: Nicole Holofcener, Please Give.
Jen: Nice one. A few more Best Song nominees: Pharrell Williams' hip-hop for kids theme song from Despicable Me, and that one Miley Cyrus ballad from The Last Song. Just because.
Dave: You're joking about that Miley Cyrus song. That movie, however, was hilarious.
Jen: I am joking. Kind of. Maybe. It got radio play! It may be the best known mainstream song from a major motion picture this year! Unless "Pimps Don't Cry" gets a foothold. That song is so good. It's up there for me as the Song of Summer 2010 with the "Bed Intruder" song by the Auto-tune the News guys. "Hide your kids, hide your wife…"
Dave: I agree about "Bed Intruder." Sadly, not in any movie though. Like maybe they could put it in one but it wouldn't be an original song and, therefore, would be disqualified. In other news, we've spent way too long talking about the Best Song category.
Jen: I think we've picked some winners here. And the real Oscar season hasn't even begun! We're so winning the Oscar pool this year! Go pimps and P Diddy and Trash Humpers!
Dave: Yes, we're winning the pool. The pool in Backwards Town.
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