Film, TV, Entertainment

My War With DirecTV

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

My relationship with DirecTV is easily the most complicated relationship I have with any person, place or thing in my life.

There’s the normal love-hate feelings that everyone probably has with their satellite or cable provider. I love that I have access to every TV channel ever invented, and I especially love the option to watch every Boston sporting event on TV when I’m 3,000 miles away (thanks to NFL Sunday Ticket, NHL Center Ice, MLB whatever it’s called).

But I fucking hate when I accidentally do the math on how much money I’ve paid them over the nearly seven years I’ve been a customer (modest estimates put the total at around $11,000).

But the more complex part of my ongoing fling with DirecTV is the yearly dance we do when I call and threaten to leave them if they don’t give me crazy discounts to show their appreciation for my blind loyalty.

[Editor’s Note: If you are in good enough shape financially and hate the thought of dealing with customer service calls, trying to negotiate with large companies, and trying to “pull a fast one” on someone in general, the rest of this article may be useless as you’d never waste your time going through this process. And that’s perfectly fine. Good for you. But an extra $60 a month for me is the difference between getting to use the electricity in my apartment or making due with the leftover stubs of old candles to light the place.]

Just a few years ago I didn’t actually know these conversations even existed. I always assumed that the price of a service was the price of a service, end of story. But then people started telling me that if you call and pretend like you’re going to switch to cable, DirecTV might throw in some free programming or give you a loyalty discount. I even have friends who claim they call their credit card companies every six months and chastise them for their awful rates or rewards programs, and in return they walk away with some extra perks.

Brilliant, right? And if you don’t have the balls to scream at these faceless customer service reps in order to get these bonuses, then you’re an even bigger wuss than I am.

So about 15 months ago I finally put this theory to the test when I called DirecTV to complain about my monthly bill being way too expensive (I was probably paying $125ish a month for their “Choice Xtra Package” and HBO/Cinemax access). Well wouldn’t you know it? After initially resisting my advances, the customer service rep spoke with a manager who “found” a customer loyalty discount of $10 off per month for the next 10 months. And then they “found” a promo that would give me HBO/Cinemax for free over those same 10 months. And then, by the grace of god they “realized” they could offer me the NFL Sunday Ticket package (typically like $300 a year) at no cost, but just for this one time.

Based on one simple phone call, my 2012 DirecTV bill was reduced by about $650 (with the savings funneled directly into my sports gambling account).

So fast forward 10 months and now it’s the spring of 2013. I get my monthly bill and sure enough the promos have ended. I’m paying full price again for everything. Not cool.

But fine, let’s go through this whole charade again.

Except this time when I call, they don’t fall all over themselves trying to keep me as a customer. They tell me that my previous discounts were one-timers and not available to be renewed. They tell me the only promo available is three months free of Starz. I don’t want fucking Starz, I want a monthly bill under $100.

They call my bluff, and I’m stuck with nothing (wasn’t even smart enough to say yes to the free Starz offer).

[Quick note for the uninformed: DirecTV is the only satellite or cable package that has the full NFL Sunday Ticket. This is how they’re holding me hostage. The moment the NFL decides to end its deal with the devil I’ll be jumping ship to a different service.] 

And now we get to the present with this overly-detailed story. Football season is rapidly approaching. As I mentioned, the NFL package was free for me last year. Prior to that I lived with other guys who would split the cost with me, so I was never paying more than $100 for access to all the games. Now I’m faced for the first time with having to shell out $300 on my own for football. FUUUUUUCK.

I’m basically screwed, but then the epiphany happens…

I’m constantly getting these taunting offers in the mail from DirecTV:

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But of course it’s for new customers only. Apparently new customers can get access to all of DirecTV’s products and some stuff that hasn’t even been invented yet for like $7 a month. Don’t give the guy who’s paid you $11K a deal, but give all the new people the “super duper package with a free blow job” deal.

Anyway, that’s when it hits me. Why wouldn’t I cancel my DirecTV account entirely and have my girlfriend, who has never been a customer, set up a brand new account in our apartment? It’s the simplest, yet most brilliant idea I’ve ever had.

For the next 12 months, our bill goes from $112 to $60, we get all the channels we’re used to getting plus more (Showtime, HBO and Max for free), and they’re giving us the NFL Sunday Ticket add-on at no cost.

Sure, we have to pay about $75 for a one-time installation fee since someone needs to come to our apartment to make the switch, but we’re saving $745 over the next year (over $1,000 in savings if you include the free NFL package).

All-time no-brainer, right?

So why wouldn’t DirecTV just hook me up when I called them one last time and carefully explained exactly what I was plotting? I don’t know, and I no longer care. They called my bluff again, but this time I was holding the better hand. I win, they lose. They fucking suck, I fucking rock.

And I just created the blueprint for everyone who shares an apartment to screw over DirecTV.

Now I understand what “laughing all the way to the bank” means.

DirectTV fuck you

Comparing The Dramatic Payoffs of Two TV Shows That Don’t Belong In The Same Sentence

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

ted mosby vs walter white 1

SPOILER ALERT!

(Though I doubt there’s anybody out there who plans to watch Breaking Bad and hasn’t caught up yet. That would just be stupid.)

This could be the most unnecessary commentary in the history of the written word.

When the epic confrontation in the garage happened on Breaking Bad this past Sunday, I was so pissed. Not because I was unhappy with what I was seeing, but because it immediately made me think of a significantly inferior show, How I Met Your Mother.

Let me explain.

When Breaking Bad took less than one full episode to go from Hank’s realization regarding Walter White as Heisenberg to the two men coming face-to-face in an incredible showdown, it was one of the most surprising decisions in the history of television for multiple reasons. Think about how many shows, both past and present, would string the audience along for a handful of episodes (or perhaps an entire season) before finally allowing that one-on-one sniff-out in Hank’s garage to happen.

We’re talking about a show with the highest of high stakes—a meth kingpin who happens to be dying from cancer, a man who has killed countless people and destroyed even more lives, a man on the verge of being found out by his DEA Agent brother-in-law—and they gave us the biggest payoff in the history of the show less than one episode after they put the setup in place.

About three months ago I informed my girlfriend that I would not be watching the ninth and (thank god) final season of How I Met Your Mother this fall. There’s really nothing redeeming about it at this point, and it’s been that way for a while. I was holding on because, hey, we needed to find out who this mother was. The person the entire show was building up to for 184 episodes. And when they finally revealed her for all of six seconds last May, no one gave a shit because she was a brand new character that had no effect on the main character’s life up to that point.

So to recap, a show with the highest stakes possible took less than one episode to go from setup to payoff on the biggest confrontation in its history.

And a show about a whiny douche living in New York whose only problem is not being able to find his fairy tale love-at-first-sight future wife has taken eight years to go from setup to payoff, and it was the least impactful reveal in TV history.

Hey it could be worse. You could invest five years in Lost and end up getting no legitimate answers from the creators after wasting those 100+ hours of your life.

(I could write about 25,000 words criticizing How I Met Your Mother, like how the main character is the worst of the five regular actors on the show, and how he must be so bad that they completely stopped creating major story lines for him years ago, and how it’s morphed into a story about Barney and Robin, and how they forget to have any storylines revolving around Ted’s love life (presumably what the entire show is supposed to hinge on) for handfuls of episodes at a time. Awful, awful show. But that’s another blog for another day.)

I just wanted to put this in writing so the five people still watching HIMYM could maybe understand why the rest of us quit on this show a while ago. Nobody can pretend to care about Ted Mosby’s search because no one gives a shit if he succeeds or not. I think it’s insane for a dopey sitcom to treat its future revelations the same way dramas with life-or-death stakes do.

I know it’s pretty ridiculous to even compare these two shows. It would be like someone watching the Little League World Series and complaining that those pitchers don’t throw nearly as hard or precise as Matt Harvey, Felix Hernandez and the rest of the major league pitchers. But the contrast in the way the shows decided to deal with their “big reveals” was just striking to me.

And finally, if you’re someone who has watched both Breaking Bad and HIMYM in the past, there’s this legitimately funny seven seconds on YouTube:

Elysium: A Solid Movie Starring Matt Damon (aka The Director’s 2nd Choice Behind…Eminem??)

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

I went to see the sci-fi action movie Elysium on its first day in the theaters for three main reasons:

  1. Matt Damon in a starring role gives any movie a ton of credibility. I know his filmography isn’t mistake-free (Adjustment Bureau was terrible, can’t imagine We Bought a Zoo was very good), but over the course of his 20-year career he’s earned the benefit of the doubt on most projects he chooses (especially when it comes to action roles).
  2. The concept. From the trailers on TV I gathered the film was about a future where the most elite humans have left an uninhabitable Earth to live the utopian life on a space station while the rest of mankind is trying to survive on the ravaged planet. And of course a group of those Earth-dwellers would be plotting their way onto that paradise floating in the sky.
  3. Neil Blomkamp, the director and co-writer of the movie, has made only one other well-known film, District 9. If you enjoyed that flick as much as I did, you probably agree that any other project he’s involved in is worth seeing.

elysium 1

 

I assumed Elysium would be a can’t-miss hit for Sony because it just seemed like the obvious choice for “best action film of the summer.”

And when I showed up for the 10:45 a.m. playing of Elysium at my hole-in-the-wall Culver City theater, I was certain the movie would be all the talk after the weekend. Typically when I go to a weekday movie at this theater, there are anywhere between zero and five other people in attendance (even for the most-hyped of movies). When I walked in on Friday, there were at least 30 people. That’s a 600% increase. How could this film not knock it out of the park?

But then I read about their underachieving opening weekend. 

I’m wondering if the stench of two disappointing movies from earlier in the summer that also featured a destroyed planet Earth have made people wary of this latest installment. The two in question would be Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise, and After Earth, starring the entire Will Smith family.

If that’s your reason for staying away from Elysium, I’m urging you to reconsider. It doesn’t come close to getting a 10 out of 10 in my official watchability scale (see below), but it’s a fun movie with a ton of great action.

If the “sci-fi” tag typically keeps you away from a movie, I can tell you it’s only sci-fi in the most technical sense that it takes place in the future and there are certain scientific truths that don’t yet exist in our world. It’s not a movie about aliens, zombies or ghosts.

It’s really a story about people trying to secure or elevate their social status in a world where that status could mean the difference between life and death.

Max Da Costa (played by Damon) always wanted to get up to Elysium (the space station), but as an adult he’ll settle for being a working-class citizen rather than the ex-con-on-probation status that we see him in at the start of the movie.

Secretary of Defense Delacourt (played by Jodie Foster), already a high-ranking citizen on Elysium has even grander aspirations.

Even the character Spider, a smuggler on Earth, who knows he’s doomed to live out his life on the self-destructing planet aspires to be among the most elite non-Elysium dwellers.

It’s all about status until certain people start to get sick, and then it becomes all about getting to Elysium where their magical medical pods can cure anything, including natural aging.

The movie has a few good twists so that by the end you’re not so concerned with whether Damon’s character will make it up to Elysium, but rather if he’ll stick with his goal of saving himself, or if he’ll do what needs to be done to change the course of human history.

The biggest criticism I had after walking out of the theater is that many details and backstory were skimmed over in exchange for more time with the action. We never really learn any character’s motivation for doing what they do except for Damon’s. We never get any insight into how the elite make their paradise run so perfectly. 

With the movie coming in at one hour and 45 minutes, I actually wouldn’t have minded them stretching it to the full two hours if they would have used that time for backstory and subplots.

You should see this movie if: You enjoy a ton of action, especially chase scenes and one-on-one combat. You enjoy all things Matt Damon. You enjoy films with not-so-subtle social messages (just like District 9). The underdog stories always fascinate you. You want to see the best action movie of the summer.

You should not see this movie if: Your least favorite movie genres are sci-fi and action. You can’t enjoy a movie unless there is explanation and backstory for everything. You dislike violence. You piss yourself at the sight of a little gore. You like deeply developed characters and lots of subplot.

On the Ross Watchability Scale (RWS), I give it a 7 out of 10. If you haven’t been keeping up with my summer movie reviews (which you can find HERE), this means I’m ranking Elysium slightly ahead of World War Z (6.5 out of 10), but behind Star Trek Into Darkness (7.5 out of 10) and Fruitvale Station (8.5 out of 10).

I was going to end this post by saying I will continue to see any movie that Neil Blomkamp makes because they are fun, action-packed films…But then as I was fact-checking some information about Elysium, I saw this on Wikipedia: “The main role was offered to rapper Eminem, but he wanted the film to be shot in Detroit. That was not an option for the two studios, so Blomkamp moved on to Damon as his next choice.”

There are so many things wrong with that statement, but mostly the fact that Eminem was the choice to play a lead role in a $115 million film over Matt Damon. Now I have to question everything Neil Blomkamp does for the rest of his life.

Fruitvale Station: A Fantastic Movie That You’ll Never Watch Twice

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Editor’s Note: In my ongoing attempt at bringing my readers something other than sports blogs, here is my third movie review of the summer. It’s incredible how at-home you can feel on a Tuesday afternoon in an empty movie theater. Like I’m just watching a show in my living room, hand down my pants and all. If you didn’t read my other movie reviews from earlier in the summer, check them out HERE and HERE. Enjoy]

If you haven’t heard much buzz over Fruitvale Station, that’ll probably be changing soon. Though it came out on July 4th, it only got released nationwide about a week ago. And come award season, you’ll be hearing all about this film and its lead actor, Michael B. Jordan.

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The film is based on a true story about the last day of Oscar Grant’s life leading up to his savage murder by a Bay Area Transit Police Officer on New Year’s Day 2009.

The murder and the subsequent trial of BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle became a national topic not unlike the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case.

I’m not one to traditionally seek out politically-charged movies where race is at the center of a tragedy, but this all happened in my backyard as I was living in San Francisco at the time. I’ve gotten off the BART train at the exact station where Grant was shot (Fruitvale) a handful of times. It also turns out that a friend of a friend edited this entire movie, and I heard some Oscar buzz rumblings before the movie was even released. All of that plus my appreciation for all things Michael B. Jordan made it a must-see.

Jordan has been on a nice career path over the past 12 years (I say if he wins an Oscar he gets to drop the “B” and just go by Michael Jordan): He played Wallace on The Wire, a small but impactful role; then came the hotshot high school quarterback role of Vince Howard onFriday Night Lights; he followed that up with his first major movie role as a teenager with superpowers in Chronicle (I hated it, but plenty of people enjoyed it); and finally the lead role in Fruitvale Station. There’s also a rumor out there that he’ll play the lead role of Apollo Creed’s grandson in a Sylvester Stallone-produced spin-off of Rocky.

Needless to say, the guy can act. I can’t see his career not taking off on an even grander trajectory after his turn as Oscar Grant.

It’s a tough movie to get excited for because you know the ending ahead of time, and it’s a terrible, gut-wrenching ending. This innocent man is going to die. And that’s why I said it’s a fantastic movie that you’ll never watch twice. It’s not a comedy where you can pick up more humor the more you watch it, or an action movie where you want to see a crazy chase scene a second time.

You’re literally watching the final 24 hours of a young man’s life, hoping that somehow the ending is different than what you saw on the news in January 2009.

When I say innocent, certainly I don’t mean that Oscar Grant was a saint. He had spent time in prison, he was trying to quit dealing drugs to make sure he’d be around for his daughter and girlfriend, but early on in the movie we see that he just got fired from his grocery store job for constantly being late. 

And that’s pretty much what we get to see Grant go through on the final day of 2008: he knows what’s important to him now, and he’s trying to get his life on track to provide for his family, but he keeps getting in his own way.

It’s a simple story all the way up until the fateful BART ride home to the East Bay after Grant and friends watch fireworks in San Francisco. That’s when things get complicated, inexplicable and tragic. 

If you saw the movie Argo, you remember that final 10 minutes when they were going to the airport to make their great escape. You were probably sweating from the suspense even though you knew the outcome ahead of time.

It’s the same way in this movie once the cops show up to Fruitvale station and all hell breaks loose. You want to jump through the movie screen and tell the cops they’re overreacting, and that the guys they’re holding aren’t the ones who started the fight.

But it’s a pointless struggle as we watch the inevitable happen.

You should see this movie if: You enjoy movies based on true stories, even if it’s a sad story. You enjoy thought-provoking, authentic-feeling movies. You know of the Oscar Grant shooting vaguely, and you want more details. You want to knock one of the Academy Awards contenders off your must-watch list before the January/February scramble where you try to cram all the nominees into your viewing schedule. You’re a fan of brevity…this movie clocked in at 85 minutes long (I waste more time nightly watching Kardashians, Houswives or one of the 35 wedding shows that my girlfriend watches on an endless loop).

You should not see this movie if: Either by being a blatant racist or just an old person, you assume young black men are up to no good and you were OK with seeing the BART Police Officer get off with only involuntary manslaughter. You support George Zimmerman. Hearing someone call San Francisco “Frisco” will make you want to strangle that person (Oscar’s girlfriend keeps referring to the city as “Frisco,” which no one really says, right?). You only enjoy movies that take place in fairy tale worlds where everyone eventually gets what they want. You don’t enjoy heavy content in your movies. You want to walk out of the theater smiling and feeling good. You’re a mother who won’t be able to hold it together as you watch another mother lose her son.

On the Ross Watchability Scale, I give it a 8.5 out of 10. 

Like I already said, I can’t imagine Fruitvale Station is a movie you’re going to want to watch over and over, but everyone should see it once…for the story itself and the brilliance of Michael B. Jordan.

Screw Camp, Summer’s All About Getting Drunk & Ending Up In Jail (Reviewing 5 Summer TV Shows)

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

summer tv graphic

For a TV addict like myself, there has been one date circled on the calendar since the all the good shows ended in late May: August 11th. If that date means nothing to you, you’re probably not a Breaking Bad fan. To that I say, “Shame on you and what the hell are you waiting for?”

Walter White’s eight-episode swan song to finish off one of the best TV series of all time is the only legitimate entertainment on the small screen we could truly count on going into the summer months. Summer is usually the only time when I get sucked into shows that are really bad but seem acceptable because of the lack of legitimately entertaining TV.

Right now my DVR is littered with reality (American Ninja Warrior, MasterChef, What Would You Do?) and the least realistic show I’ve ever seen (Newsroom). If any of these programs were on in the fall, they wouldn’t make the cut for me.

The best thing I could probably do to get over this TV-related depression is to stay far away from the actual television. Spend my summer downtime reading books, going on scenic hikes, taking vacations or reconnecting with friends who I never see because you don’t see your friends in LA if they don’t live within a one-mile radius of your apartment.

But apparently I love TV too much and/or I have more free time than I know what to do with. So for the past four weeks I’ve been searching for new shows that would prove the summertime doesn’t have to be a TV-free zone.

Here’s my take on five shows that premiered over the past month (ranked worst to first).

[Side Note: Before you read my reviews, it’s probably a good idea to know what kind of tastes I have in television shows. I’m much more of a comedy/sitcom person than I am a drama person. For a one-hour drama to stick with me, it has to show early on that it might someday reach the level of shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad, Weeds or Lost. I’m not screwing around with hour-long TV shows. Either you’ve got potential to be an all-timer, or I’m not staying tuned. With sitcoms I’m more forgiving because the time and emotional investment is so much less than the dramas. I’m a self-admitted sitcom snob, which means I love shows like Arrested Development, Parks & Recreation and Veep, and I hate shows with a laugh track (the one exception is Big Bang Theory, a show that I was late to come around on, but now I’ll fight you over if you lump it in with “all those other bad CBS sitcoms”).]

#5. Camp

TV schedule: Wednesdays on NBC at 10 p.m.

Where you can catch up: NBC.com

There’s a decent chance I was never the intended audience for this show. After all, it’s based around a group of teenage campers and counselors at a lakeside summer camp. But it airs at 10 p.m. so you’d think it was made for adults. And I’m willing to give a chance to any show that has hints of the movie Wet Hot American Summer in it. But after a strong opening scene in the pilot where an unsuspecting camper gets a fish hook to the nose, Camp quickly devolved into an after school special. It’s being described as a dramedy, and unfortunately it’s the drama part that makes it intolerable. On the surface level it feels like a comedy, and there are certainly funny parts, but then we quickly learn about one camper’s battle with leukemia, and one counselor’s dilemma between leaving for Stanford law school or sticking around to help his gambling addict mother get her life together.

If it was a pure sitcom, I’d give it more time. But it’s the dramatic cliches that made it the summer show I permanently deleted from my DVR the quickest.

#4. Under The Dome

TV schedule: Mondays on CBS at 10 p.m.

Where you can catch up: All episodes are on Amazon Prime Instant Video, and CBS.com has the two most recent episodes

I’m out on this show. I gave it four episodes because I really wanted to like it. The pilot was impressive enough that I was telling people it might be the closest thing to Lost since Lost. Initially it seemed to have the elements that made the ABC island drama such an addicting show: a mysterious “something” forcing a group of people together (the island/the dome), characters presenting themselves as different people than their backstories suggested, everyone trying to figure out what logical reason there is for them to be in the situation they’re now in.

But then a few episodes passed, and it was like the entire town of Chester’s Mill no longer cared about the dome. Everyone was so wrapped up in the soap opera-like dramas of their fellow townspeople that the real main character, the dome, became just a background image. What pulled us in during the first season of Lost was not just that these were interesting characters with checkered pasts, but that they desperately needed to get off the island, and they were always in search of answers about the mystery surrounding them.

How am I supposed to be invested in these characters escaping the dome when they don’t seem invested in it? A typical episode has the town’s leaders (police, city council member, priest) running around trying to stop something bad from happening inside the dome (police officer going AWOL, outbreak of meningitis), but never do we see anyone spending time trying to get out of the dome or make contact with the outside world.

Rather than capture the magic of Lost’s season one, Under The Dome seems to have fast forwarded to Lost’s season three. And anyone who was a fan of that show knows this is bad news for the longterm prospects of the Dome.

#3. The Bridge

TV schedule: Wednesdays on FX at 10 p.m.

Where you can catch up: fxnetworks.com

After a disappointing pilot (not nearly as bad as it was described by one of my friends on twitter: “about as awful of a pilot as I’ve seen”), the second episode was much better. Really this show is no different than any other crime show where the authorities are chasing a serial killer. The big gimmick that was supposed to create some buzz is the fact that the first body was found right on the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. This means the “by the books” American detective must team up with the “shoot from the hip” Mexican detective. Classic odd couple police procedural.

If you are into the CSI’s, Law & Orders and the other typical police shows, you’ll probably enjoy The Bridge. If you usually aren’t entertained by that format, don’t waste your time. There’s nothing so special about this show that you should give it a chance if it’s just not your style.

#2. Drunk History

TV schedule: Tuesdays on Comedy Central at 10 p.m.

Where you can catch up: comedycentral.com

Here’s how I would describe Drunk History in as few words as possible: Each episode contains three seven-minute skits where well-known comedians and actors try to act out a historic event as told by a ridiculously drunk person.

I shouldn’t have to say anything more for you to run over to your DVR right now and set up a season pass. It’s fulfilling my always-lofty expectations for a comedy, and even the less interesting skits will still cause you to laugh.

Maybe it’s not a great thing to be glorifying the act of getting so drunk that you can hardly form complete sentences, but that’s something for concerned parents to worry about, not me.

Do yourself a favor and start watching this show ASAP. It’s about the only comedic effort worth watching this summer.

#1. Orange Is The New Black

TV schedule: Netflix Instant, all 13 episodes available

Where you can catch up: Netflix, dummy

OK, Netflix, I’m in. You got me.

Between the Arrested Development reboot, early returns on Orange Is The New Black and what I hear about House of Cards, it seems like Netflix is taking over the TV world.

In what has become a staple of shows produced for Netflix, all 13 episodes of Orange were released on July 11th. Even though I’ve only seen the first two, it’s a matter of days before I plow through the other 11. This show is that good.

I guess you’d call it a drama, since the subject matter revolves around a woman sent to prison for being part of a drug ring and the people she comes into contact with at the prison. But similar to a show like Weeds, Orange gets a ton of humorous mileage out of the fact that this middle class woman is suddenly thrust into an unknown and dangerous world. And it makes perfect sense that Orange would share many traits with Weeds since both shows were created by the same woman, Jenji Kohan.

Other than the Weeds similarities, Orange should also play well with fans of the Lost format. Just like we slowly learned about Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest of the island gang through flashbacks, we’re getting the background on the Orange main characters through that same device.

At least through the first two episodes, both the dramatic plot lines and the lighter comedic moments play very well together.

It’s doubtful you’ll see another blog from me until I devour the rest of this terrific new show.

So there you have it. Skip the cheesy summer camp and dome experiences, get on board with buddy cop experience only if you like seeing the same crime show format over and over again, and make a date with Drunk History and Orange Is The New Black.

At least until August 11th, that’s about all we’ve got.

Summer Movie Review: World War Z…Brad Pitt’s Magical Scarf & A Plaxico-Like Shooting

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

[Editor’s Note: With my blog exploding in popularity across the globe, it shouldn’t be a surprise that other bloggers are trying to snatch me up. Starting today, I’ll be lending my genius creative services to the Baltimore-based sports & pop culture website I Hate JJ Redick. Specifically I’ll be doing movie and TV reviews for them as well as some football posts. Apparently they were willing to accept me regardless of my palpable hate for the Baltimore Ravens. Any time I do a blog post for them, I’ll be sure to post it on my own website too. That way no one misses my stuff while ensuring I don’t have to put in any extra work.]

World War Z has been in the theaters for three weekends, but you’ve had no urge to see it, right? I get where you’re coming from. On the one hand, it’s already the most successful movie of all time in its genre, and it stars an up-and-comer named Brad Pitt. But on the other hand, it’s a zombie film coming out at a time when we’re starting to get a little worn out from all the zombies invading our movie and TV screens. WWZ also did little to differentiate itself in the pre-release marketing from the somewhat tired plot of “normal guy suddenly becomes the only person who can save mankind from certain extermination.”

I finally dragged myself to see it the other day (movie-going is a key procrastination tool for the semi-employed writer), and I gotta admit, my low expectations were exceeded by a long shot.

The movie’s main question isn’t so much about whether the undead will take over the world, but rather how Brad Pitt will eventually find a cure for or put a stop to the madness…because you just know he’ll figure it out eventually. And the movie’s writers were kind enough to tell the audience in the beginning that we should be looking for clues along with Pitt to figure out the zombies’ weakness. So it’s a fun little scavenger hunt to see if you can come up with the solution before the protagonist does.

You should see this movie if: You’re OK with Brad Pitt dominating a zombie movie (the zombies just aren’t given that much screen time); you enjoy a traditional hero movie where the main character does everything perfectly: he’s the best fighter, the bravest man, the greatest husband and father, and of course he’s the smartest guy involved; you want to see the most absurd example of someone shooting himself since Plaxico Burress’s waistband let him down in November 2008.

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You should NOT see this movie if: You’re going to be bothered by the fact that Brad Pitt’s scarf stays perfectly slung around his neck while he spends the entire movie fighting off zombies (after much consideration, I think it’s an infinity scarf, so it’s not that impressive after all); you’re one of those people who spazzes and jumps out of your seat every time a character (or zombie) pops up on the screen unexpectedly; you’re a zombie snob who can’t enjoy the movie unless the zombies function exactly how you believe real zombies would act.

On the Ross Watchability Scale (RWS), I give World War Z a 6.5 out of 10.

And if sequels are your thing, well I have a feeling we’re only two years away from seeing the trailers for World War Z2? The Second World War Z? World War Z+1? Based on the way this movie ends, there will definitely be at least one sequel.

There’s a lot more story to tell, and depending on your love or hate for zombie movies with a perfect hero, that could be a good or bad thing.

Get Your Summer Movie Experience Started Off Right (Skip The Magic, Go For The Raunchy Apocalypse)

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

This-Is-The-End

It’s officially the first day of Summer, and that means movie theater overload is upon us. We’ve made it through the dark days of March and April (where you were ultimately choosing between The Incredible Burt Wonderstone or Jurassic Park 3D if you really needed to get to the theater), and we’re suddenly nipples deep in potentially solid movies. If you decide to head to the theaters this weekend, you’ll have to choose one film to see among the following: World War Z, Man of Steel, This Is The End, The Bling Ring, Now You See Me, Star Trek Into Darkness, Fast & Furious 6, or Monsters University. All of them could be great, depending on your personal preferences.

If you’re planning to go see a movie this weekend, and you’re thinking this blog is going to give you reviews for all eight of those movies I just listed, well I’m sorry to say you’re about to be 62.5% disappointed. I’ve only seen three of the eight.

But if this blog post helps even one person pick the right film among the few that I’ve seen, then I guess I’m doing my job. And of course, you can find professional reviews from professional critics all over the internet. I’m not trying to replicate the type of review you’d read from a reputable critic. I’ll just cut through the bullshit and give you the bottom line on these motion pictures.

  1. Star Trek Into Darkness: The first thing you need to know about this movie is that you don’t need to know anything about Star Trek’s lengthy film and TV history to enjoy it. You don’t even need to have seen the 2009 first installment of these new Star Treks to understand this one. You should see this movie if: You enjoy sci-fi movies that are grounded in reality almost enough to not be considered sci-fi; you like a movie that’s about 85% action, 12% comedy and 3% romance; you think Chris Pine is so hot that you’d sit through a two-hour movie about space exploration and alien planets just to watch him on a giant movie screen (Chris Pine is available in 3D for this film). You should NOT see this movie if: Thinking of Star Trek immediately makes you yawn or have a glazed over look in your eyes; you think Star Trek and Star Wars are the same thing and you’d end up spending the whole movie whispering to your boyfriend about when he thinks Darth Vader’s going to make his first appearance; you hate awesome action movies. On the Ross Watchability Scale (RWS), I give it a 7.5 out of 10.
  2. Now You See Me: Based on the trailers for this movie, my expectation was for it to be an intellectually stimulating heist story with the unique twist that the criminals are these great illusionists with a ton of tricks up their sleeves. Unfortunately my expectations were aimed way too high on this one. The opening 15-20 minutes is solid as you get sucked into these magicians’ worlds and their first great robbery together. But the rest of the movie is an extremely lame chase between the bumbling FBI agents and the magicians who continue to perform in public even though the FBI is after them (the FBI literally stands by and watches these performances at times, making you wonder if there’s an unknown law that states people can’t be arrested while performing magic). Just because they threw together a movie with six or seven well-known actors doesn’t mean it’s going to be a well-acted movie. It’s not, and the lame, overly complex plot doesn’t make up for the awful acting. You should see this movie if: You’ve always wanted to watch a film that’s more confusing and less interesting than Ocean’s 11; you are obsessed with magicians; you enjoy watching Mark Ruffalo look like the world’s worst Cop; you enjoy the “Shyamalan twists” at the end of a movie no matter how little sense they make. You should NOT see this movie if: You enjoy good movies only; you don’t want to spend a whole movie-going experience thinking about how old and tired Morgan Freeman looks; you like to spend your money wisely. On the RWS, I give it a 2.5 out of 10.
  3. This Is The End: I don’t know if this movie looks stupid or brilliant to the average person. When I walked out of the theater last night, I was leaning much more towards the brilliant side. And I still am today, but the one caveat to this movie’s brilliance is that it might only be good to people who are familiar with these actors. Not like you need to have met these actors in real life, but you’ll probably enjoy this movie the most if you’re familiar with their previous work and the type of personalities they have. In case you don’t know, this film stars Seth Rogen, James Franco and many of their friends playing exaggerated versions of themselves during a sudden apocalypse. At times it almost feels like one big inside joke that you’ll only understand if you have a general sense of how the public perceives these actors. For example, if you don’t know going into the movie that Michael Cera always plays characters who are soft-spoken, sweet, a little dorky and mostly awkward, then it probably won’t be as funny when you see him snorting coke and being an asshole to everyone at the party that gets this movie started. You should see this movie if: You were a fan of movies like Superbad, Knocked Up, Pineapple Express and I Love You Man; you live for raunchy sex & toilet humor as well as alcohol & drug humor; you have the ability to enjoy a movie for its amazing humor no matter how nonsensical and far-fetched the plot is (that really shouldn’t be too hard). You should NOT see this movie if: You’re uncomfortable with the words fuck, cum, jizz, or the C-word; you have absolutely no interest in seeing actors play themselves and make fun of each other for 90 minutes nonstop; you aren’t OK with seeing several gigantic (fake) penises on a movie screen. On the RWS, I give it a 8.5 out of 10.

So to recap, we’re working with one solid sci-fi/action movie, one incredible comedy and one gigantic flop. You’re free to make your own choices when you head to the theater this weekend, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re stuck watching magicians and FBI agents running in circles while you hear people in the next theater over laughing hysterically at yet another amazing semen joke.

Prepare to Be Jealous of All the Celebrity Sightings From My First Year in LA

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

As with all things at the ol’ blogging headquarters lately, the “I’ve been living in LA for one year” blog is going to be late, probably by a year or so. June 1st was officially the one-year anniversary of me executing my half-assed scheme of coming to LA, getting hired to write for TV immediately, and then drowning in money for the rest of my life. That flawless-sounding plan hasn’t gone exactly how I expected. But soon enough all the pieces will fall into place. Until then, I guess I’m stuck blogging for free for all you freeloading blog readers.

Since I don’t have time for a full recap of the first 365 glorious days of my new life, I figured you’d at least want to know about all the amazing celebrity sightings my girlfriend and I have experienced over that time.

After all, it seems like you’d have to be a complete loser not to constantly be seeing celebrities all around this area.

Let’s run through this murderer’s row of incredible celebrity sightings:

1). Will Arnett

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Yes, Will Arnett is the closest thing we’ve seen to an A-list actor since we arrived in LA. Which is to say we haven’t come close to seeing a true A-list actor yet. But for fans of Arrested Development, Blades of Glory and Up All Night (not sure any fans of that show actually exist), this is a big score. We saw Will while hiking with our dog one day. Usually our dog has to stop and play with every other dog she sees on the trails, but for some reason she completely ignored Will’s dog…the one time we wanted her to go after another dog so he would have to stop and talk to us. I was ready to start pitching TV pilots with great characters for him to play, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Apparently Will has a role in the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot so his star is certainly on the rise.

2). Ian Gomez

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You know it’s a pathetic list when the #2 person on it is someone Julie and I couldn’t even name when we saw him multiple times at our favorite sports bar in Culver City. It took Julie hours of collaboration via text message with a friend of hers for us to finally figure out who the hell we were staring at. He’s this high on the list because he’s a regular on Cougar Town. Just the fact that he’s on a current TV show puts him ahead of most of the others on this list. He’s mainly a TV actor who started out way back in the 90’s on shows like Murphy Brown and Melrose Place. He’s credited with appearing in over 70 shows or films, but Cougar Town seems to be his first extended run of success on a single show.

3). Blake Anderson

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My personal favorite on this list. I’m not sure if it counts as a true sighting because I actually met him on the set of Workaholics when a friend of a friend brought me along to watch them tape an episode. So it wasn’t a random spotting around the city or anything. But we’ll count it. Besides, I got to shake his hand and tell him I’m a comedy writer. I missed a huge opportunity though by not making a joke during the 17 seconds we talked. A perfect joke there could have had me set for life as one of his writing partners. If you haven’t watched Workaholics and you’re not adverse to raunchy college stoner humor, you should give it a try on Netflix Instant immediately. The only reason I ranked him below Mr. Gomez is because Blake doesn’t have the longevity in acting that baldy has. But Blake’s star is on the rise big time, as any Arrested Development fans should remember seeing him and his Workaholic co-stars in episode 1 of the new season.

4). Gilles Marini

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Oh, you’ve never heard of him either? I would have never spotted this “celebrity” on my own. We were hiking in Runyon Canyon one day, a place known for its celebrity sightings, and Julie is 98% sure we walked right by him. She didn’t know his actual name either, just that he was the hot neighbor from Sex and the City, the Movie. According to IMDB, that really is all he’s known for. It looks like he’s appeared in some  well-known TV shows like Modern Family, Castle and Brothers & Sisters.

5). Kerr Smith

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Ten years ago, Mr. Smith might have been #1 on this list because his role as Jack McPhee on Dawson’s Creek would have been relevant back then. Another Julie sighting that might have gone unnoticed by me. We were at a Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica for Cinco de Mayo when she spotted him with a group of friends. We both decided that he must have given up acting in 2003 when Dawson’s ended, but to my surprise it looks as if he’s appeared in many TV shows and films since then. To me, he’ll always be the gay guy from Dawson’s Creek whose name I never bothered to remember.

6). Brian Wilson

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Only at #6, and already we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. Maybe he should be higher on my list because his ridiculous beard coupled with the San Francisco Giants’ 2010 World Series run made him somewhat famous, but currently he’s not on a baseball team and has disappeared from the limelight entirely. So we’re sticking him at the (near) bottom. Another spotting from a Runyon Canyon hike. He was jogging and still had the long beard. Obviously that made him unmistakable. He was also wearing a lot of spandex at the time, in case that’s the type of detail that interests you.

7). Benjamin Patton

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Who the fuck is Ben Patton, right? Anyone who doesn’t have their own Wikipedia page can’t possibly be a celebrity, right? Well I present to you the 7th most exciting celebrity we’ve seen in LA: a reality show contestant whose 15 minutes of fame really did last about 15 minutes. Ready For Love, an NBC matchmaking reality show executive produced by Eva Longoria lasted all of a few episodes before it was cancelled. Since we had an actual connection to one of the contestants, we taped the show, and I can promise you it was horrific. Last July we went to a winery in Malibu and were pleasantly surprised to see that they were taping an episode of this show only a few feet away from our table. We were nearly kicked out for stalking all the people involved with the show, but not before we got to see some of the women that were vying for Ben’s affection start fighting with each other because they were so drunk off the unlimited supply of wine (not physically fighting, more like yelling at each other and crying to the producers behind each other’s backs).

So there you have it. Potentially the worst celebrity sightings list in the history of celebrities. At least we get to hear all the time about our luckier friends bumping into a Kardashian or an Oprah around town. Maybe in year two Julie and I will finally graduate from C-list sightings to B-list sightings? Fingers crossed.

Public Service Announcement: Rooting For the “Hangover” Characters To Die In A Nuclear Blast

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

It’s easy to tell when I’m no longer entertained by a TV show or movie. Anyone who’s been around me enough knows that when I’m sick of something that we’re watching, I start rooting for all the main characters to suffer horrible deaths. It’s especially telling when I’m watching a comedy—a genre where there is typically no violence or serious plot lines like death—and I start hoping that one character’s going to pull a gun on another and shoot him in the head. It’s my way of saying “Can this please end as quickly as possible?”

The following is more of a Public Service Announcement than an actual blog post.

While watching The Hangover Part III last weekend, I wasn’t just rooting for all the characters to shoot each other. I was rooting for a random nuclear bomb to fall from the sky and land in Ed Helms’ skull. It was THE WORST COMEDY I’VE EVER SEEN. And I’ve seen Little Nicky, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Evan Almighty, Caddyshack II, The Cat In The Hat (Mike Myers version) and even The Hangover Part II.

My apologies to Ed Helms because his character wasn’t the only insufferable one in this movie. Bradley Cooper and Ken Jeong’s characters were also pathetic and uninspiring. Ed Helms just happens to be who I pictured when I decided I wanted a bomb to come crashing down and split one of the characters’ skulls open (right before detonating and wiping out the rest of the characters obviously).

What set it apart from all the other gigantic comedic failures I mentioned above? The fact that it wasn’t even a comedy. It didn’t even try to be a comedy. It tried to be an action/adventure movie with Zach Galifianakis wandering through each scene trying to say or do something inappropriate. Not one other character in the movie said or did a funny thing the entire time. I realize the first Hangover installment was such a hit partly because of the unexpected genius of Galifianakis, but you can’t just recycle the same setups and punchlines that surprised us in the original.

And if you’ve decided to screw us by becoming an action movie, then we’re going to pay more attention to the plot and the realness of the whole thing. For instance, it’s tough for me to buy that this group of adults is trapped inside the basement of a house with no way out when one of them is holding a giant sledge hammer and all that stands in his way is a standard wooden door. Interestingly enough, these same characters think up and execute a crazy scheme later in the movie when they tie a bunch of bed sheets together and repel down the side of the Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas…but they can’t figure out that the sledge hammer lying right next to them might be able to bust through a door?

If this was a comedy, we would ignore that type of ridiculousness. But since the creators of this movie decided to jump into a whole new genre, we can’t help but pay attention to the details.

How many more ways can I say this movie was horrific?

The actors weren’t terrible; the material they had to work with was terrible.

There were a couple funny parts, but they were all delivered to us in the trailers and previews. Galifianakis driving around with a pet giraffe and later singing with the “voice of an angel” at his dad’s funeral could have been a couple very funny, unexpected moments in the movie. But we already saw those clips over and over during the months leading up to the movie’s release.

I saw this movie for $5.50 (apparently the going rate for a matinee movie in Fitchburg, Massachusetts), and I still felt ripped off at the end.

Do yourself a favor: Save your money now and spend it on a comedy that might actually make you laugh later on in the summer, like Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups 2. I guarantee Sandler’s awful comedies will at least be comedies.

Shedding Some Light On Those Ridiculous Shows Your Wife or Girlfriend is Watching

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Sometimes when your only friend is a woman, no matter how hard you try, you’re accidentally exposed to the girly things in life. For example, I never would have even considered the doomed-from-the-start idea of reading and blogging about Fifty Shades of Grey if I wasn’t living with someone who already owned the books.

When we lived in San Francisco, it was easy to ignore all the pointless TV shows my girlfriend watches because  A). we didn’t live together, and B). when she was at my apartment, it was understood that I’d be watching sports on the living room TV and she’d be relegated to the bedroom TV to watch her stuff. But now that we live in a one-TV apartment, the content of these shows has been slowly seeping into my brain. I feel violated by it, but there’s really nothing I can do…800 square feet doesn’t allow for a lot of isolation.

In nine short months of living together, I’ve gone from not knowing whether it was called Sex in the City or Sex and the City to being able to quote lines from about 60% of the SATC episodes. There’s no hope for me at this point.

But even a guy with no exposure to the female world knows that Sex and the City is about four way-past-their-prime women passing around STDs in New York. That one’s easy. But what about all of those mysterious reality shows that your wife is watching? You know, the ones that seem so pointless because they’re reality shows without an actual competition involved (the only kind of reality TV men watch I’m pretty sure). The ones you’d never have to subconsciously pay attention to if your cable provider would just go along with your pleas to eliminate Bravo and E! from their services.

Considering I’ve been exposed to these shows for nine months and still don’t always know what the fuck is going on in each of them, I’m assuming there are plenty of other men out there who are equally stupefied by Say Yes To the Dress Bridesmaids Edition and Kourtney and Kim and Khloe and Kris Take New York.

Well prepare to be confused no longer. I may not know all the nuances of these shows, but I do think I have a basic understanding of the premise/their reason for existing. Here are spot-on descriptions of the four TV shows I’m exposed to most often:

Keeping Up With The Kardashians/Kourtney and Kim Do New York: I know a lot about the Kardashians actually (doesn’t everyone?). Kim did the sex tape, Bruce did the Olympics, the rest of them ride coattails. The three main girls have a store named “Dash” because “dash” is in their last name. I assume Khloe runs the store because she seems to be the only one with a brain. She’s married to Lamar Odom. He’s retired from basketball I think. Khloe and Lamar are the only two who associate with the Black Sheep Brother, Robbie. Every now and then the two younger sisters (twins?), who also have names that begin with “K”, make an appearance, but they’re boring because they’re not old enough to do photo shoots or make sex tapes. I’ve also been noticing more air time for this weird male friend of Kim’s. Don’t know his name, but he’s either gay or secretly wants to bang Kim. But he’s fully in the friend zone so that’ll probably never happen. Then there’s Scott (or “Lord Disick” as his friends call him). He’s the best. He’s a star. If E! did a spinoff just about him, I’d watch every episode. I have no idea if he or his family were rich before he was part of the Klan, but he’s set for life now. No matter how him and Kourtney end up, this guy should be the envy of all men. From what I can tell, he doesn’t have a job, his girl Kourtney doesn’t even expect him to raise their kids, so he spends every waking hour either partying, meeting other famous people or driving race cars. I’m assuming Kourtney and Kim “do New York” because the family wants to be on TV as much as possible, but no network would ever let a single show run 52 weeks a year.

Real Housewives of (fill in the blank): I always assumed the housewives were wives of famous people. I never bothered to verify whether that’s true or not. I assume the show is “a day in the life” of these rich, over-the-hillish women and what uninspiring things they get up to in their city. But I feel like every time my girlfriend’s watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, they’re actually in Paris in that episode. And Real Housewives of Atlanta was taking place in Barbados or some other tropical island the one time I paid attention. So I wonder if the (fill in the blank) part is even relevant since they’re never in that city. The housewives are predominantly blonde, full of plastic surgery and definitely on the wrong side of 40 (except for the Atlanta show…those women are all black). A typical episode goes like this: All of the women except one who isn’t there at the time start gossiping about that missing person. Then they’ll all get together at one of their houses for a party, and someone will spill the beans to the woman who was missing before that everyone’s talking about her because she ruined so-and-so’s marriage. The singled-out girl will start to confront everyone else, and eventually a few of the women’s husbands get involved. The word bitch is tossed around like it’s the last day in history anyone will be able to use that word. And then all of the sudden we’re watching a reunion show where the flamboyant host is showing the women these uncomfortable scenes from the season and all the women claim to be good friends again. There are a ton of reunion shows for the Real Housewives franchise for some reason.

Four Weddings: Four soon-to-be-married women who can’t afford a honeymoon compete to have the best wedding of the group to try to win a honeymoon. The judges are the girls themselves, which seems like the dictionary definition of “conflict of interest.” So it’s like a regular wedding’s happening, with the bride, groom, all their friends and family, and then this random table of three women with a ton of cameras and lights on them. And their whole purpose is to find problems with the wedding they’re at. Sounds like a fun time for everyone. So the girls in the wedding competition do this whole thing where they’re all complimentary around each other and say things like, “Oh I like the way she decorated the banquet hall, such a great use of the natural ambience.” But when they’re talking to the camera one-on-one they say, “I just do not understand having your wedding in a banquet hall. No amount of decorating can make a banquet hall look nice. I’m giving Tammy a three out of 10 for her venue choice.” And then the girls give scores for venue, food, efficiency and dress. And then the winner gets to ride off into the honeymoon-winning sunset with her husband as the other three girls sulk back to their miserable existence.

Say Yes To The Dress: Brides who go to a wedding dress expert looking for the perfect dress. But not perfect in the way you’re thinking. Perfect in that it pleases the bride, her parents, her brothers, all of her bridesmaids, and even her weird male lifelong friend. You can imagine how well that works. And the people who run the dress shop are constantly pissed off at the brides for wanting to find the perfect dress. What, are they supposed to shop for their wedding dress the way I shop for shoes? Walk in store, close eyes, spin in circle, buy the exact pair you’re pointing at when you open your eyes. And then, when the bride still isn’t making a decision, the owner says “It’s time to jack…her…up!!” I always expect something negative to happen when she says she’s gonna jack someone up. Like she’s gonna yell and belittle them, or tell them she doesn’t want them as a customer, something. But it turns out “jack her up” means “spoil this fatso by dressing her up in jewelry, tiaras and other accessories to make her look extra special.” I don’t understand any of this.

Having all of this knowledge in my brain about these shows feels as useless as when you accidentally memorize the lyrics to bad songs. I’m not mad at my girlfriend for any of this because I know I’ll get my payback on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays starting in September.

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Movies: Handicapping the Oscars & Your Guide to the Best Movies of 2012

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

It’s February 15th and that means The 2013 Oscars are looming. It’s that time of year when all you people who didn’t see a single movie in the last 12 months—because you were too busy holding down a job, raising your kids, spending your time and money on something more fulfilling than “sitting in a theater while consuming 4,700 calories of grease, butter and sugar”—start scrambling to watch as many Oscar-nominated films as possible.

If you’re someone who thinks “Life of Pi” is a movie about the mathematician who came up with that confusing 3.14 number, or you think “Amour” is a romantic comedy about a man and a woman falling in love at a yard sale where they both tried to buy an antique piece of furniture, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

With so many different films and actors nominated it’s impractical to try to see it all. So which movies do you prioritize? Lucky for you this article includes a worst-to-best ranking of the 19 movies I saw in 2012. I have great taste in movies so just follow my list blindly and you won’t be disappointed.

But Oscar season isn’t just about seeing as many good movies as possible. It’s about predicting who will win each major award even though none of us know the first thing about acting, directing, adapting or costume designing. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun to argue with a friend that “Tommy Lee Jones should never win any award because he’s such an asshole in real life.”

For the readers who are gamblers at heart, you’ll be happy to know that many betting websites allow you to bet on who will win each of the major Oscar awards. So of course in this article I’ll provide you the odds of the favorite in each category as well as a long shot that I like.

So let’s rip through the important Oscar categories real quick so you know what films to see in the next nine days, either by going to the movie theater or re-organizing your Netflix queue. I’ll make some very subjective comments next to the movies I’ve seen, and perhaps next to some of the movies I haven’t seen. (Disclaimer: I haven’t seen all the movies that are relevant to the Oscars. I’ve only seen the ones I thought I might actually enjoy.)

BEST PICTURE

  • Amour: I haven’t seen it. When “elderly” and “love story” are used in a movie’s synopsis, you can just about guarantee that I’ll never watch it.
  • Argo: A great movie where the story is a lot more memorable than the acting. Awesome job mixing in some light, humorous moments in an otherwise very serious plot. If there was a “fan favorite” Oscar award, this would probably win (or be a close runner-up to “Silver Linings Playbook”).
  • Beasts of the Southern Wild: This movie arrived via Netflix over a week ago and it’s been sitting on my coffee table gathering dust ever since. I just don’t think I’m going to like it very much. I hear the little girl who’s nominated for Best Actress is incredible, but I don’t typically watch movies for just one individual acting performance.
  • Django Unchained: During the first 30 minutes of this movie, I was worried it was going to be one of Quentin Tarantino’s worst films. It turned out to be one of his best. There’s no other way to describe it other than to say “it was just a fun movie to watch.” Such an enjoyable movie with some awesome acting performances (which we’ll talk about it in a minute). I’m rooting for this one to win even though I know it won’t.
  • Les Miserables: I can’t even correctly pronounce this movie’s name, and I heard a crazy rumor that it’s a musical. I doubt I’ll ever see it.
  • Life of Pi: Another movie I haven’t seen, mostly because in the previews the tiger on the raft didn’t look real enough to me.
  • Lincoln: I heard that the Academy would only allow one Lincoln film into the Best Picture category this year, and Spielberg’s “Lincoln” only narrowly beat out “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” All jokes aside, this movie was surprisingly great. I say surprisingly because it’s essentially 150 minutes of 19th century politicians blathering on about amendments and slavery. The fact that this film held my attention should automatically put it in the lead for Best Picture.
  • Silver Linings Playbook: Loved it. It might be the movie I re-watch the most out of all the Best Picture nominations. But it’s pretty much a romantic comedy (even if it is a well-disguised romantic comedy). I don’t want “Silver Linings” to win and set the precedent that if all of Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson’s future movies just include a few more plot twists, they’ll suddenly be Oscar worthy.
  • Zero Dark Thirty: Better than “The Hurt Locker,” which was Kathryn Bigelow’s previous movie that won Best Picture. But up against much tougher competition than “Locker” faced in 2010. Best edge-of-your-seat, hold-your-breath story of all the nominees. And c’mon, it ends with the killing of bin Laden.

Odds-on favorite to win according to gambling sites: Argo (1/5 odds)

Long shot that I might put a bet on: Amour (100/1 odds)…Because the Oscars love picking the boring, stuffy, old people-bait movies. Just like “The Artist” did last year, an “Amour” win will set movies back 100 years.

(A quick side note: How interesting that this year featured three movies where the audience knew the ending of the story with 100% certainty before walking into the theater (Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty). And yet, they were three of the best movies, and one of them is probably winning Best Picture. Somehow these movies were able to keep me in suspense the entire time even though there was zero chance for a surprise ending. Incredible work by everyone who made these three films.)

BEST DIRECTOR

  • Michael Haneke (Amour): I don’t have a goddamn clue if he did a good job directing.
  • Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild): I’m going to assume he did a good job because he coaxed a Best Actress performance out of a nine-year-old.
  • Ang Lee (Life of Pi): Apparently there’s an unspoken rule in Hollywood that says you should stay away from using children, animals and large bodies of water in your movie. Something about any of those three variables making things much more difficult. And yet all three were major players in “Life of Pi.” I haven’t seen it yet, but if people voted in this category based on “biggest headaches overcome,” I bet Lee has a great chance to win.
  • Steven Spielberg (Lincoln): Spielberg isn’t quite the lock for directing as his lead actor is for that category, but he’s probably going to win his 3rd Best Director Award on February 24th. Regardless of “Argo” being the frontrunner for Best Picture, Spielberg has the inside track here because Ben Affleck somehow didn’t get nominated for the directing category.
  • David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook): Adding to my “this movie is just a dressed-up rom com” comments from before…anybody who can mask a romantic comedy as well as Russell did with “Silver Linings” deserves a ton of credit. Trickery or not, the movie was still an A+.

Odds-on favorite to win according to gambling sites: Steven Spielberg (1/4 odds)

Long shot that I might put a bet on: David O. Russell (14/1 odds)…If this really is a “fan favorite” year and “Argo” wins the Best Picture, then it makes sense for David O. to win for directing. I promise you it’ll be the movie you stop the channel surfing on most often when you see it pop up on HBO or Cinemax over the next few years.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

  • Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook): In 12 years this guy has gone from playing the gay dude in “Wet Hot American Summer” and the asshole villain boyfriend in “Wedding Crashers” to a bona fide A-list actor who can carry a movie. He’s legit and deserves to be recognized for that. Unfortunately this year he’s up against a guy who seriously made me question whether Abraham Lincoln had actually risen from the dead to play himself in a movie. Thinking Cooper will get his Oscar due eventually. I don’t think this will be his last nomination.
  • Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln): Just the man I was talking about. The Lead Actor category is not a competition this year. If ever there was a situation where someone shouldn’t bother preparing an acceptance speech, it’s the other four men in this category. I’m pretty sure Day-Lewis could murder the head of the Academy tomorrow and they’d still feel obligated to give him this award. I wasn’t alive when Abraham Lincoln was doing his thing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a recording of the big man Presidenting it up, but I honestly believe he looked and sounded exactly like what Day-Lewis brought to this movie. This is one of those movies that’s worth watching purely for one man’s performance.
  • Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables): Didn’t see it so I have no idea about his performance.
  • Joaquin Phoenix (The Master): Ditto.
  • Denzel Washington (Flight): I actually watched this today. It was my first ever rental from a Red Box machine because I really wanted to see if there was any chance Denzel could unseat Mr. Lincoln. It was a solid, dramatic performance, but I thought the movie was a little boring. Washington had some very memorable scenes, but I knew I’d never take this movie seriously when I saw the trailer for it months ago and a plane was flying upside down.

Odds-on favorite to win according to gambling sites: Daniel Day-Lewis (1/50 odds)…That means you have to bet $50 just to make $1 of profit. Normally I wouldn’t recommend this, but if you’ve got $50,000 to spare, I guarantee you’ll make the $1,000 profit off of it.

Long shot that I might put a bet on: Bradley Cooper (40/1 odds)…It’s a waste of money, but maybe the Academy has a lot more white supremacists who are still irked by Lincoln’s freeing the slaves than we imagined.

 ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

  • Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty): Not to take anything away from her performance, but I think the intense storyline and the emotional appeal of hunting Osama bin Laden carried this movie much more than any single actor did. She was damn good, don’t get me wrong. But if you threw Heather Graham into Chastain’s role as the CIA Agent in this movie, I don’t know if the film would take that big of a hit…and Heather Graham is an awful, awful actress.
  • Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook): She would certainly win if we were voting for which actress we most want to see up on stage on Oscar night. But I don’t know how she wins Best Actress without Bradley Cooper winning Best Actor. He was a bigger piece of the movie and probably carried a lot more scenes than her.
  • Emmanuelle Riva (Amour): Didn’t see it.
  • Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild): Didn’t see it, but hopefully I will by Oscar night.
  • Naomi Watts (The Impossible): Didn’t see it.

Odds-on favorite to win according to gambling sites: Jennifer Lawrence (4/7 odds)

Long shot that I might put a bet on: Quvenzhane Wallis (50/1 odds)…Because I’m lukewarm about the two performances I saw, and it would be awesome for someone this young to win while watching whoever presents the award try to pronounce her name.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

  • Alan Arkin (Argo): Basically him and John Goodman should have been co-nominated for “Argo” because they were in the movie almost equally and both were hysterical. Good performances from both guys, but not Oscar worthy in my opinion.
  • Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook): The problem here is that De Niro’s character is supposed to be a bookie in the movie, and I know far too much about sports to buy into his performance as that bookie.
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master): Didn’t see it so let’s just assume he won’t win.
  • Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln): I came out of the theater after seeing “Lincoln” and all I could remember was Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance. Everything else in this movie seemed like background noise. TLJ was actually really good in his role as Thaddeus Stevens (especially with the twist at the end of him wearing a wig!), but I’d only be rooting for him if he’d never won an Oscar before. Oh, and I hear he’s a real asshole.
  • Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained): Just like Waltz steals the show in Quentin Tarantino’s last film, “Inglourious Basterds,” so too does he steal the show in “Django.” In “Basterds” he was opposite Brad Pitt. This time he shared the screen with Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio. Quite a feat to overshadow all of those guys. He might have given my favorite performance of the year in the non-Daniel Day-Lewis category.

Odds-on favorite to win according to gambling sites: Tommy Lee Jones (+110)

Long shot that I might put a bet on: Christoph Waltz (+140)…OK so it’s not really a “long shot” in the traditional sense, but I don’t care. He’s not the favorite and he should be.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

  • Amy Adams (The Master): Didn’t see it, but I like her moxie.
  • Sally Field (Lincoln): If you can win an award like this based on one scene, then Sally Field should win for the scene in “Lincoln” when she talks circles around Tommy Lee Jones’ Thaddeus Stevens as she’s welcoming him to a dinner party. Great scene, but that’s all I really remember from her performance.
  • Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables): You already know I didn’t see it. I assume she’s going to win, but I hate her new short haircut.
  • Helen Hunt (The Sessions): Is this a real movie? Haven’t heard of it.
  • Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook): I saw this movie so long ago now that I barely remember her role as the Mom. I know she tried to break up the fights between Bradley Cooper’s character and Robert De Niro’s character, but I’m struggling to recall any other pertinent details.

Odds-on favorite to win according to gambling sites: Anne Hathaway (1/50 odds)…Apparently she’s as much of a shoo-in as Daniel Day-Lewis is.

Long shot that I might put a bet on: Jacki Weaver (50/1 odds)…Because it’s one of only two supporting actress performances I’ve seen and I’m a sucker for the big long shot.

And now, here’s my arbitrary, subjective and illogical ranking of the 19 movies I saw that came out in 2012:

19). Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

18). Snow White & The Huntsman

17). Wanderlust

16). The Campaign

15). Men In Black III

14). Prometheus

13). The Amazing Spiderman

12). The Hunger Games

11). Flight

10). This is 40

9). Ted

8). The Avengers

7). Dark Knight Rises

6). Lincoln

5). Moonrise Kingdom

4). Zero Dark Thirty

3). Argo

2). Silver Linings Playbook

1). Django Unchained

My Friend with a Thousand Opinions Finally Gets One Right: The Book of Mormon

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Does anyone else have that friend whose opinions are unnecessarily strong? The type of person who doesn’t quite give you an opinion when you ask for it, but instead gives you a declaration of how you MUST do something? I feel like I have at least six friends like that. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. Let’s say you’re 20 years old, you have a fake I.D. and you want to impress your college friends by throwing a party at your parents’ house while they’re away. And let’s say you told this friend you were planning to get a keg for the party, and you were leaning towards Miller Lite—something everyone could enjoy. The friend in question doesn’t give you an opinion on a better beer you could get so much as saying, “You’re fucking retarded if you get Miller Lite. You really gotta splurge for Heineken or something like that. You’re making a big mistake with Miller Lite. Just get Heineken, trust me.”

This hard-headed “my opinion is right, yours is wrong” mentality basically has the reverse effect on me: I stop listening to these people in any situation, and I usually do the opposite of what they would want just because I’m an instigator.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that after years of dismissing a certain friend’s opinions because I refuse to obey wannabe dictators, he finally made a strong recommendation that was completely appropriate. You see, this man couldn’t just say, “You really should go see The Book of Mormon. It was a great show that everyone would love.”  Maybe he was trying to say just that, but instead it came off like this: (to a group of 10 of us) “Everyone here needs to go see The Book of Mormon. It’s not an option…you need to go see it as soon as you get back from vacation.” And of course when people in the group gave the old, “Oh ok, sounds interesting,” he responded, “No, I’m serious. Everyone HAS TO see this show. It’ll be the best show you ever see. You’re stupid if you don’t see it”

Luckily I had already purchased tickets to go see The Book of Mormon at a later date so I don’t have to give him all the credit for inspiring me.

If you’re unfamiliar with the show in question, it’s a musical that satires religion, specifically Mormonism, and was created by the guys who do South Park. More info here: The Book of Mormon

And like my friend said, it is the best show you will ever see (assuming you’re under the age of 75 and someone who can take a joke about Mormons).

I’m not here to give a full review of this show. You can find professional opinions on The Book of Mormon everywhere you look.

I’m just going to tell you that on Friday night I was both pissing myself and crying from laughter within the first three minutes of the show. It was funnier than any movie or TV show I’ve seen in years. It was worth the price of admission more so than any other live show or concert I’ve ever seen.

If you’re familiar with all the work that the South Park creators have done: South Park the TV show, South Park the movie, Team America movie…you can expect The Book of Mormon to be better than all those things combined.

So in the words of my opinion-challenged friend: You want to see this show. You need to see this show. Go see this fucking show or else you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. And if you’ve already seen it, you NEED to see it again, like I’m planning to do.

50 Shades of Confused: When Bad Ideas Go Even Worse Than Planned

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Even though it probably seems like every blog idea I have is brilliant, I’ve gotta come clean and own up to a terrible mistake I’ve made.

The plan was to read Fifty Shades of Grey and write a couple of posts that would be a CliffsNotes-like overview of this popular book. My thinking was that it would be a uniquely funny set of posts because most men haven’t read this book (and never will), and rather than focus on the erotic and serious parts of it, I would dig out the humorous and ridiculous pieces and share those with the world.

A bad idea doesn’t begin to describe my miscalculation. This was a bad idea:

Reading this book was more like a catastrophe stuffed inside a disaster wrapped around a tragedy.

I’ve wasted a lot of time in my 29 years, but I’ve never been this upset over losing three hours of my life—about the amount of time I’ve spent getting through the first 160 pages of this book. The only comparable thing that comes to mind in terms of being this upset was when the girls in my 7th grade class talked some of us boys into going to see A Walk in the Clouds at the movies. We were so pissed off we threw candy at the screen, mocked other moviegoers and eventually stormed out before the movie ended.

And just like that experience from 1995, I’m ready to throw something at this book, metaphorically speaking…except instead of some harmless jujubes, I’d like to fling my feces at this book and its author.

In case it isn’t crystal clear yet, I’m out. I won’t read another page. And I will lose respect for anyone who reads it and claims to enjoy it.

Even if the book wasn’t a boring and repetitive mess—any time someone speaks in this book they are “murmuring” according to the author, and every time the two main characters are together, she is biting her lip and he is running his hand through his unkempt hair—the writing is so poor that it’s beyond distracting.  Here’s a two-sentence example of the typical writing in the book:

“We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton and John and Patrick—the two other part-timers—and I are besieged by customers.”

I think they had a lot of customers in the store that day…

Also, four of the first 13 words in sentence two are “and”…it’s seriously the writing of a slightly inept third-grader.

If you’re still interested in CliffsNotes from the first 10 chapters that I actually read, here they are:

-A college senior, Anastasia Steele, is forced to go interview the richest man in Washington because her roommate, the editor of their school’s newspaper, got sick.

-The author makes this girl seem like the least appealing person in the world…a cross between Drew Barrymore’s character in Never Been Kissed and Anne Hathaway’s character in the beginning of The Devil Wears Prada.

-That comparison may make you think I’m only making fun of this character’s physical appearance. But from a maturity standpoint, she’s apparently a 22 year old who frequently uses the phrase “double crap,” and somehow through all of college has essentially never even kissed a guy. She’s just exploding with sex appeal…

-The billionaire she interviews, Christian Grey, is basically described as a cross between the hottest man on the planet and God.

-And yet somehow, as everyone in the world already knows, this book is about the steamy love affair between these two people. Totally, 100% believable.

-Anyway, the first five chapters are basically a back and forth of this man being unsure if he wants to get involved with the college student…not because he’s not attracted to her (because he so believably is!), but because he “doesn’t do the girlfriend thing.”

-But finally, after 80 excruciating pages, this guy decides he has to have this ugly duckling. For the next few chapters we get to read all about him taking her virginity while he simultaneously convinces her to enter into a S&M relationship where he is essentially her master (the dominant, I think they call it), and she has to be his submissive and do any and all sex acts that he desires…double crap!!

-When I reached chapter 11 and saw that for the next 12 pages I’d be reading an actual contract that Christian makes his women sign (complete with a three-page appendix) before starting this formal relationship, I gave up. Did I really need to read a bunch of legal clauses to enjoy a smut novel? Here’s an example of those 12 pages:

“The Dominant reserves the right to dismiss the Submissive from his service at any time and for any reason. The Submissive may request her release at any time, such request to be granted at the discretion of the Dominant subject only to the Submissive’s rights under clauses 2-5 and 8 above.”

That is some steamy, sexy shit right there.

And for anyone who hoped I would read the entire book and give full CliffsNotes so you could hear how it ends, I just read the final page and it sounds like Anastasia leaves Christian, the only man she ever loved.

Tear.

What Kind of Asshole Makes a Joke About the Colorado Movie Theater Shooting?

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

I’m trying to figure out just how outraged I should be over a friend’s Facebook comment that said the following:

“Just had the unfortunate experience of sitting through all three hours of the new Batman movie. Those people who got shot during the first hour were actually lucky. (Yes, it was that terrible.)”

That’s just a horrible thing to write, correct? I’m not even gonna say it’s “too soon” for a joke like that because there won’t be any time when it’s not too soon. Am I overreacting to this comment? Is it ok to joke about this if all you’re saying is “better that they got shot during the first hour than the third hour”? I don’t think so, but then I look at the comments below her post from her other friends and there are only six of them, and only in one did someone say she shouldn’t have said that.

After that one person did respond to her comment negatively, the original “friend” I’m speaking of followed up with this:

“Also, of course the massacre was a terrible tragedy, and I’m sorry for the families of everyone who died (…anyone who knows me is aware that goes without saying). But I’m sure anyone who actually suffered through the entire movie would agree: it’s probably better for everyone involved that it happened during the beginning of the movie, rather than right at the end — that would have added insult to injury.”

Does her clarification here make it any better?

I’m so torn on how to react to this…Ignore it? Make a comment on her wall about how awful of a person I think she is? Post her name and all of her info on my blog for others to send her nasty messages? My problem is that if I comment on her wall, I will probably go way over the top and tell her how I hope she gets gunned down while trying to do something she enjoys.

I’m going to let my readers decide how I should respond to this with a vote (see below).

This is beside the point, but…she’s totally wrong about the movie. Dark Knight Rises was a solid B+/A-.

Back to School: Week Two…When All the Assholes Hijack My Writing Class

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Heading to Week Three of Television Writing Class in just a bit, and I thought I could piece together a blog about my experiences so far. I blogged about my Week One Class, but never got a chance to check in after Week Two.

If Week One was all about everyone getting to know each other, then Week Two was all about people trying to prove their intelligence and show off their TV obsessions. Seriously, one minute the teacher is asking us what existing TV shows we’re thinking of writing a script for (the goal of the class, after all), and the next minute people are discussing how “Louie isn’t a sitcom; it’s a show full of existential vignettes.”

I’m not joking…someone actually said that.

Week two was a bit of a reality check because I was hoping all along that it was only in my previous life of being around sales people where there was always someone in the group who had to prove they were the smartest in the room. I wanted to think it was unique to typical sales guy douche baggery, but alas, it seems like every group has one…or three.

After a 15 minute tangent of a conversation between two people in class arguing about Louie and 30 Rock, the teacher finally asked, “So are either of you picking Louie or 30 Rock as your shows to write?”

Nope. Of course not. They just wanted to waste our time and hear themselves talk.

I honestly thought a room full of writers would make for a quiet setting, a bunch of recluses who are scared of public speaking and attention. I was very wrong.

I’m trying to figure out what I should do the next time a conversation is going off the rails. I might go with yelling out, “Can you two shut the fuck up so this guy (pointing at teacher) can teach us something?” But I was also thinking of going the less mature route of making a super loud farting noise to break up the discussion. I can’t decide which way to play it.

A few more random notes before I pack up my grapes and M&M’s and head off to class:

–Arrested Development is the absolute gold standard of TV writing according to my classmates. If you try to say anything negative about this TV show, you will get ostracized from the group. Our teacher said one negative thing—that the writers of this show only wrote jokes for themselves, not for the general public—and I’m pretty sure at least five students are dropping out of his class because of it.

-If Arrested Development is the gold standard, then Whitney is…the poop standard? The pyrite standard? (ahh, that’s a thinker’s joke. You see, pyrite is a metal compound that’s often referred to as “fool’s gold” because it looks a lot like gold, but is actually worthless compared to gold.) Whatever the opposite of “gold standard” is, that’s Whitney, according to my class.

-The TV show I’m picking to write a script for is Happy Endings. If you don’t know it, give it a shot. It’s a good one. And if you do know it and happen to have some really brilliant ideas on what would make a good episode for that show, feel free to send it my way.

-Finally, I think our professor has done too many drugs in the past. Why do I think this? Well, for one, he’s constantly referencing all the drugs he’s done in the past. And two, he seems to keep forgetting which class he’s teaching while he’s lecturing us. And in Week Two, he was supposed to bring in DVDs that had episodes of sitcoms on them for us to watch as a class, but he screwed up and brought only Portlandia episodes, which is a sketch comedy show. I’m trying to figure out how long until I’m allowed to scream out, “Hey, Prof, I’m paying for this class out of my own pocket. That’s right…not my parents’ pockets, not through some loans that I won’t see the repercussions of for years…MY. OWN. POCKET. So why don’t you get your head out of your ass and bring the right material to class?” It’s probably still too early to do that, but it’s coming.