The Oscars: Formerly titled the Academy Awards

Hi everyone. It's Andrew with a review.

So the Academy Awards took place on Sunday. Hosted by Seth McFarlane (and not McFarland as some have actually thought), the show was as buzzed about as it should be. People thought he would crash and burn; some thought that he would fail the minute he stepped out on stage. And as much as I hate this guy for creating Family Guy, I was hoping that wouldn't happen. Fortunately, it didn't happen. He kept it classy as he kept it humorous. In his monologue, McFarlane mentioned some of the years' nominees and made some jokes at their expense. Some of my favorites include one including making Tommy Lee Jones smile, Daniel Day Lewis in character as Abraham Lincoln looking at Don Cheadle and trying to free him, Roman Coppola being nominated (like every other Coppola), and making a Django Unchained joke about Chris Brown beating Rihanna (not the first, not the last) though I admit that shocked me too.
At first when William Shattner (aka Captain James T. Kirk #1) appeared on giant screen from the future, announcing that McFarlane is going to destroy the show, I thought "Oh no, this going to be horrible", while at the same time thought "How did the producers know the show would this bad?". Kirk showed Seth reviews of his hosting duty, ranging from "Worst Oscars host ever" to a mediocre "Seth McFarlane proves to be mediocre host", which Seth settled on because it's the best review he's ever gotten.
Kirk then showed McFarlane recordings of the telecast, including a not-so-subtle ditty about...the titty, "We Saw Your Boobs". My favorite part was when Jennifer Lawrence actually smiled; I nearly died. Seriously, a gay men's choir? But over time my perception changed as the monologue went on. Kirk shows a reenactment of Flight...with sock puppets. That was absolutely hilarious.
Instead of the usual "stick-the-host-in-the-movie" shtick, McFarlane chose a song and dance routine with Daniel Radcliffe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Kirk then showed Seth making Sally Field uncomfortable as the Flying Nun. (At least he mentioned Gidget, which I think is better than The Flying Nun) And then they kiss. And so McFar responded with another (sigh) song-and-dance routine, to the tune of "Be Our Guest" which actually was masterfully done and made me want to sing along. During this monologue, it felt like I was watching another awards ceremony disguised as the Oscars. And that's a good thing concidering what we're about to see.

Some of the presenters were, at best, awkwardly funny. Octavia Spencer acted as is she was about to brag about her surprise-but-well-deserved win last year, but thank God she didn't; the cast of The Avengers tried to go through the speaking parts and go to the nominees, but one of them keeps pulling back, which is embarrassing and humorous at the same time; Halle Berry...Halle Berry. Her just saying "Pussy Galore" make all guys swoon for her. (Yes, I'm misogynistic. Whatever.) Some of the other presenters were and kept it classy. John Travolta was true to his word when he said Oscar a lot. Then came the winners. While some had their speeches short and sweet, others...well, let's say that one was so long that the theme from Jaws was used to basically say "All right, you said enough. Now shut up and leave!" It was used twice more, but fortunately the speeches were shorter.

Now to those who performed. The ever so beautiful Dame Shirley Bassey performed the title theme song from the 007 film Goldfinger in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond films. She looked as great as she sang. Even in mute, she is incredible. Next was a celebration of the musical films of the past decade, including: Chicago, with Catherine Zeta-Jones performing "All That Jazz" (I didn't notice she was lip-syncing because I was busy looking at her body.), Dreamgirls, with the always-amazing Jennifer Hudson performing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" (she didn't need dancers or SFX or even more than one light), and the cast of Les Miserables performed basically almost everything (actually it was "Suddenly" and "One Day More"). All three were magnificent. Later on Adele sang the title theme song of the current 007 hit Skyfall. She left her heart on stage, but picked it up later on with her Oscar win for Original Song. Finally, after the In Memoriam segment, Barbara Streisand performed one of the best compositions by the late Marvin Hamlisch, The Way We Were. Both beautiful and heartwarming in memory of a great composer.

There were a few moments that made me almost say "What The Serious F*ck" Basically the part with the German Nazi was the WTSF moment of the entire show. Then came Anne Hathaway...and her nipples. They was popping like the sun in your face. The aforementioned Avengers mess-up is another. Seriously if you mess up, improvise or say "the nominees are...", don't point it out. And the scariest moment was when the mention of Best Picture nominee Amour came up. Now I'm afraid to go see it. Jennifer Lawrence falling to the stage, thanks to the big ass dress she wore. That made me laugh at her and fall for her at the same time. At least she has grace. And last but not least, McFarlane was joined by Kristin Chenowith to perform a song to celebrate the losers of the show. I couldn't hear it, nor understood it.

And now the WINNERS:

Picture Argo (Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney)
Actor Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Actress Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Director Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
Supporting Actor Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Supporting Actress Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables)
Original Screenplay Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
Adapted Screenplay Chris Terrio (Argo)
Cinematography Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda)
Costume Design Anna Karenina (Jacqueline Durran)
Documentary Feature Searching for Sugar Man
Documentary Short Subject Inocente (Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine)
Film Editing Argo (William Goldenberg)
Foreign Film Amour (Austria)
Makeup and Hairstyling Les Misérables (Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell)
Original Score Mychael Danna (Life of Pi)
Original Song "Skyfall" from Skyfall (Music and lyrics by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth)
Production Design Lincoln -Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson
Animated Short Film Paperman (John Kahrs)
Live Action Short Film Curfew (Shawn Christensen)
Sound Editing TIE-Skyfall (Per Hallberg & Karen Baker Landers) and Zero Dark Thirty (Paul N.J. Ottosson)
Sound Mixing Les Misérables (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes)
Visual Effects Life of Pi (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott)

And that's my review of the Acade--I mean Oscars. (sigh)
Good night, everyone and see you next year.

OJ Part 2: The Oscar Pistorius Case

What's up, people? Andrew here once again.

So if you watched last years' Olympics and fell in love with the Blade Runner aka Oscar Pistorius, then please read this story.

Earlier this month, Pistorius' girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a South African model, began to celebrate Valentines Day. She is also a supporter to end rape and violence against women. She was supposed to attend a seminar to end rape and violence against women the next day. Unfortunately that didn't happen. On February 13, Steenkamp arrived at her boyfriend's home, where Pistorius claims he mistook her for an intruder and shot her. The next day, February 14, Pistorius was arrested and charged with murder in the alleged shooting death of Steenkamp. February 15; Pistorius went to court, where he wept after prosecutors announced that a charge of premeditated murder would be pursued. Steenkamp perviously appead on a South African reality show "Tropika Island of Treasure" before her death. The show previously wasn't scheduled to air, but producers decied to air it after consulting with Steenkamp's family; the decision was not based on ratings.

I'll skip to the end of the of the story because this is too much for me. On February 22, Pistorius was granted bail. His next court appearance on June 4. As side effects of his bail, he must surrender his passport and all travel documents. He will also be forced to turn in all of his weapons and firearms, and is prohibited from purchasing or owning additional firearms. He will report to a probation and correctional officer upon his release and until the case ends.

Now to my point (sorry if you read all this): Pistorius shooting his girlfriend was horrible. I don't really believe he thought that he heard an intruder in his house, unless he knew that Steenkamp left the house and was sleeping at the time. There were rumors that neighbors heard an argument between them so I believe that there was an argument between them, Pistorius was furious for a dumb reason, wouldn't have it with Steemkamp, got a gun and shot her. He should be locked up for a long time for shooting someone anyway, and probably for lying too, if he was. Pistorius was a hero to not only to paraplegics but also to his home country. He deserves what he gets.
Good night, all.

MTV AND BET HACKED---No wait, they're not.

Hi-ho, dudes ans babes.

Today I'll talk about the show Washington Journal. This program is a call-in show on C-SPAN airing every morning at--wait a minute here. I just a better post. Instead I'll about what happened earlier today. MTV and BET's Twitter pages were hacked. Their pictures (their logos) switched with the other network's logo. And MTV's header had an ad for BET's highly-anticipated BET EXPERIENCE weekend concert and public events series. My embarrassed self thought that this was true, instead of going Genre Savvy. I actually thought that. And then I tweeted this.

OH MY GOD @mtv IS HACKED!!!!! @mtv IS HACKED!!!!!! SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!

— Andrew Pollard (@AndrewPollard_) February 19, 2013

I was worried that MTV would follow Burger King and Jeep as the next account to be hacked. (Oh and it follows me too.) So I thought this would be over tonight or later this week. But my worry intensified as I noticed (by a tweet, no less) that BET was hacked too.

Moon Man to make special appearance on @betawards #MTVhack

— BET (@BET) February 19, 2013

So I did this too.

OH MY GOD @bet IS HACKED!!!!! @bet IS HACKED!!!!! SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!

— Andrew Pollard (@AndrewPollard_) February 19, 2013

Yeaaahhhh. So I was scared for them. I feared for them. I almost prayed for them. (why?) I thought someone else's account would be hacked too. Like mine. But...there is a weird twist to this story. A few minutes later (while still on Twitter) that some websites reported that...this was all a fake. A stunt. A sham. A lie. And it made me laugh, admittedly. It was hilarious and clever. Something I haven't seen before. And like everyone else, I went on with my day, forgettimg this ever happen-
MAROON MONDAYS SUCK. THIS BLOG IS HACKED. HitFix, The A.V. Club, and The Daily Beast ROCK!!!! McGee rules!!!!!!!!

The Grammys: TVs Most Boring Night

Hi everyone. Andrew here once again.

The 55th Grammy Awards were on this week...and boy, was I bored.
I missed about the first half-hour, which featured a performance by Taylor Swift. She said the "spoken word" version of the song in a British voice as a dig at her 15th ex, Harry Styles. The performance used both stages, which I found unfair that the 2 half-stages could've been used for an older or legendary artist. I'm glad I didn't see the performance, because I wasn't having it with Taylor because of her songs of breakups and the famous guys she dated for 2 months when she could've dated one guy that she felt was right to settle down with. The performance was wild and weird (I only saw pieces on TV) and looked like a circus. I can't say more, because I didn't watch the whole thing and isn't planning on watching either.
The next performance was by Ed Sheeran who performed "The A Team" with legendary singer Elton John. Unfortunately I didn't watch that either. So on to Fun. who performed "Carry On"...which I didn't watch, as was the performance by Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley; they sung a medley of "Over You" and "Home".

I didn't see Miguel's performance of his nominated song "Adorn" with Wiz Khalifa live, but did get to see it on YouTube. It was 2 minutes long. 2 minutes. Why was this performance this short? Were the producers thinking that there wouldn't be enough time in the whole 3.5 hour show for this to fit in full? It seemed like it. What ruined it was when they just walked through the audience and reached center stage. It was also ruined by Wiz Khalifa just being there, who I assume was on the remix (if there ever was one). This dude just did not need to be there. And him saying "Yo" and "Yeah" a lot really didn't liven it up. Despite these reasons, this is the one reason I'm mad at myself for not watching earlier. Boy, I'm hoping BET has him perform this song more longer at this years' BET Awards (and probably without Wiz).

Next was Mumford & Sons, who performed "I Will Wait". The performance was good and, since I heard the song for the first time, I thought it was good too. But what made me remember it best was when the band performed in front of big, bright lights, which made me turn away a few times. It was good to watch and look, but wasn't great.

Next was Justin Timberlake's triumphant return to music with his hit "Suit & Tie" and new song "Pusher Love Girl". The performance was as black-and-white as...well, anything in black-and-white. I first thought that Justin was singing too hard, but it was his mic that was the problem, as I barely heard what came out his mouth. Ditto for Jay-Z; everything was weak and quiet. But the setup was beautiful. And I loved the performance of "Pusher Love Girl". Just Justin moving around and dancing in front of an orchestra is fine for me.

Maroon--heh heh--Maroon 5 sang "Daylight", a song I thought is a wonderful song that I'm glad isn't another poppy dance tune that barely sounds like them. The setup was greatly executed (the band in front of clouds) and sounded great live. Then Alicia Keys pops up and preforms the overly-used-but-loved-so-much "Girl on Fire", beginning with her on drums like she's Sheila E. Also beautifully executed (singer in front of ambiance), both artists performed their songs amazingly...until they mashed. That's when the piece dragged down. I liked it at the start, but disliked it at the end somehow.

Rihanna was up to sing "Stay" with Micky Dolenz. I sorry, Mikky Ekko. Why this dude is named that is beyond me. Anyway the piece was dark with Roman columns and both performed beautifully. It's just that it was boring for me. Riri just stood in the middle while Mikky sat on something. So they sang great, but everything else was not.

Later The Black Keys sang "Lonely Boy" with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Dr. John. This was one of the few great exciting pieces of the entire show. So great don't have anything else to say. Seriously. Nothing. Later on Kelly Clarkson sang a tribute to Patti Page and homage to Carole King. Let me just say that she slayed the mic...and the stage...and the songs...and her inebriation. She was drunk earlier but sobered up quick.

The Lumineers performed "Ho Hey". I admit the song is slow and boring...so was the performance.
I don't know who Jack White or his songs are, so I can't say anything about his piece.
Okay. Carrie Underwood. Her voice. That dress. Oh God, that dress.

Then Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, and Kenny Garett performed a tribute jazz legend Dave Brubeck with his song "Take Five", one of the best jazz songs ever. Another one of the great few. And later, Elton John, Zac Brown Mavis Staples and Mumford & Sons made a great tribute to legendary rock artisrt Leon Helm. It was beautiful, full of heart and perfect to say "we love you" to one of the greats.

Juanes performed "Your Song". Never heard of him. Frank Ocean performed "Forest Gump". The setup saved him from an otherwise bad performance. And host LL Cool J joined Travis Barker, Chuck D, Tom Morello and DJ Z-Trip for a tribute to passed-on Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch. It was perfect and shows that LL Cool J should stay as a rapper.

He sucked as a award ceremony host and, from what I heard, should host again.
So the Grammys were worse than last year and should be better next year.
That's my review, and I'm going to bed.
Good night, everybody.

Anyway, it got boring from when I first turned CBS. Almost every performance was making me ready to sleep (again).