Plugged In

Movie Monday: Green Zone

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:44:41 GMT

The Cheshire Cat isn't the only one grinning in Wonderland these days. Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton's curiously entertaining 3-D romp, was the weekend's box-office champion again, collecting another $62 million to bring its two-week total to slightly mad $208.6 mil. Three newcomers—Green Zone, She's Out of My League and Remember Me—made $32.4 million collectively, yet finished second, third and fourth.

Green Zone's weekend results must've been especially disappointing to its makers. The R-rated Iraqi War flick reunited A-lister Matt Damon with The Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass, and surely the folks at Universal were hoping for more. But maybe they shouldn't have. From what I gather, Green Zone was a well-crafted, but rather politically biased, effort—the latest in a long line of films to question our role in (and our motives for going into) Iraq. Almost all of them have flopped: Even The Hurt Locker, which took a pretty dispassionate look at the Iraqi War and scored several Oscars recently, barely made $15.7 million.

All of which suggests, to me, two important points. One: The film industry, by and large, thinks the United States' involvement in Iraq was a mistake. Two: The rest of America doesn't want to hear it.

But even though films like Green Zone have bombed at the box office, I can't help but wonder if they'll still affect how we view the war in Iraq down the road.

We all have thoughts about whether the war was justified or no, whether our government went in with the best of intentions or duplicitous motives. Perhaps history will give us a definitive answer—or perhaps we'll never know for sure. But most of the films about the Iraqi War seem to tell us that we do know … and since not many people follow history very well, I can't help but wonder whether Hollywood will forever shape how we view this critical period in our history, for better or worse.

It got me thinking a bit about war movies in general—how history influences them, and how they, in turn, influence us. Most of us believe World War II was perhaps history's last truly "just" war, and history seems to back that up … but I can't help but wonder whether all those flag-waving WW II flicks helped cement that view. The Vietnam War is seen as a national tragedy—a point of view bolstered by Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. And how many of us know much about the Korean War beyond what we've seen in M*A*S*H?

I dunno. I'm still mulling these thoughts around a bit, wondering whether it's a theme worth exploring in a story down the road. And, as such, I'd be interested to hear what you think: How much do war movies influence how we see the wars they depict?

Marijuana and a 'Lost Boy'

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:26:38 GMT

This week brought news of another celebrity's premature death. Corey Haim, one of the teen stars of 1987's vampire flick The Lost Boys, died March 10 in California at the age of 38. Published reports have speculated about the role prescription medication may have played in his death.

But regardless of whether drugs ultimately played a role in Haim's tragic death, they certainly played a damaging role in his life. In a 2004 interview with the British tabloid The Sun, Haim talked about the intersection of Hollywood and drugs.

"I was working on Lost Boys when I smoked my first joint," he said. Marijuana, it seems, only whetted his appetite for harder stuff, which in turn initiated a downward spiral that would dog Haim the rest of his life. "I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack," he said. Unnamed depressants or tranquilizers came next: "I started on the downers which were a h‑‑‑ of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck," he confessed. "But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day."

In a 2007 interview with ABC, Haim said, "I feel like with myself I ruined myself to the point where I wasn't functional enough to work for anybody, even myself. I wasn't working."

As late as 2008, longtime friend and fellow Lost Boy alum Corey Feldman said that drugs had hampered their relationship during two seasons of filming the A&E reality series The Two Coreys.

Any way you want to parse this story, it's tragic. But a couple of things seem clear. As has been the case in the lives of many child and teen actors, fame and fortune at a young age often prove to be a combustible, destructive mix.

But there's another connection I want to make here. Reading Corey's account of his addictions, I can't help but wonder if marijuana was the catalyst that launched his downward spiral. That first high wasn't high enough, it seems, and others soon followed in quick succession.

As many voices in our culture continue to proclaim that marijuana is harmless, no big deal, we would do well to remember that for some people, it may very well open a gateway to soul-sapping, life-ruining addiction.

Attack of the Giant 3-D TVs!

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:08:09 GMT

Wouldn't you know it. Just when I break down and buy a new, HD, flat-screen, fancy-schmancy television (it even comes with a remote!), I find that it's already behind the times. HD? That's sooooo 2009. The Joneses are buying 3-D TVs now.

Well, maybe they're not buying them quite yet. Panasonic and Sanyo just unveiled their first 3-D sets this week, and Sony won't be selling its own multi-dimensional screens until this summer. Still, television makers believe that folks like us will be screaming for 3-D sets in the near future. "We want to spend $500 more for our TVs!" we'll allegedly tell them. "And we want to wear funny glasses, too!"

But this is problematic for folks like me who already wear funny glasses. When I go see 3-D movie screenings, I have to slip a pair of plastic, 3-D glasses over my regular specs—a look that would surely make me king of the faraway land of Nerdtopia.

Thank goodness I'm not dating.

But I put up with these 3-D glasses in the theater because, of course, I'd get fired from my awesome movie-reviewing gig if I didn't. And also because the 3-D effects can be kinda cool. But I think 3-D movies are cool precisely because they're like a special treat: You have to go to a theater to see them. They're like Girl Scout cookies: fantastic in small quantities, but you wouldn't want to eat them for dinner for the rest of your life, would you?

OK, so maybe you would. But the point is still valid. Sure, some folks think a film like Avatar is much improved in 3-D. But how much would it add to, say, American Idol or Iron Chef? And frankly, I can think of a few shows—Discovery's Dirty Jobs comes to mind—that I'd pay not to see in 3-D.

And here's another thing: I can't keep track of my remote now, much less a pair of 3-D glasses. I don't know if I want to shell out another $40 for a replacement pair every time I lose mine, or sit on them, or remove them from my dog's mouth.

But maybe I'm just bitter because my television is already obsolete. Plus, I'm old. Maybe I'm looking at this new technology all wrong. What do you think?

Gambling With Chatroulette

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:21:15 GMT

In the ever-changing terrain of online social networks, there seems to be a new chat-tweet-skype-till-you-drop Internet craze popping up just about, oh, every 15 seconds or so. One of the latest rages grabbing everybody's water cooler gab time is something called "extreme social networking."

Haven't heard of it? It's an experience delivered through a Website called chatroulette.com. Join in and you're spontaneously connected to random strangers somewhere in the world via your webcam. From French jugglers to deep-South garglers to morons asking users to lift up their shirts, you can never be sure who you'll meet next.

Foxnews.com reporter Joshua Rhett Miller put it this way: "One minute you're chatting with a mom of two from Montauk, N.Y.—and the next you're staring at a stark-naked man in Bangkok." A vimeo.com video-maker named Casey Neistat broke down his several hour Chatroulette experience to connections like this: 71% guys, 15% girls and 14% perverts.

One of the big attractions of the experience—though I personally can't see how one might find it appealing—is what Neistat calls "nexting." In essence it's when someone spots you on their monitor and instantly hits the "next" button to connect with someone else. Neistat reported that he was nexted by the first 19 out of 20 people he saw on Chatroulette—a hang-around rate of about 2.9 seconds each.

Think about it: 19 thumb-your-nose rejections in under a minute. And by Neistat's own statistical odds, at least one of them was probably naked. Man, this sounds like great fun doesn't it? In spite of that, though, CNN reported that about 35,000 people are connected to Chatroulette's homepage at any given moment.

The biggest crime, however, is that among all the thrill-seekers and deviants are a fair number of kids. To participate, you have to confirm that you're at least 16 years old, but bypassing those barriers would be a breeze for the average 10-year-old—who could probably reprogram my computer in less time than it's taking to write this blog.

"It's a predator's paradise," said psychiatrist and Fox News contributor, Dr. Keith Ablow. "This is one of the worst faces of the Internet that I've seen. … Parents should keep all children off the site because it's much too dangerous."

I'm no doctor, but that's one tidbit of advice I wouldn't "next" too quickly.

He Said What on Facebook?

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:06:03 GMT

Have you ever been told something so personal that you wish you could remove the resulting awkwardness from your brain forever?

A few months ago, someone on my Facebook friends list announced to a gazillion people that he was about to have a medical "adventure" that most would want to keep utterly private. (I'll keep the particulars under wraps, but even television doctors frequently snicker about it.)

The announcement itself would have been bad enough, but then he chronicled the procedure in all of its gory clinical glory. He probably thought this was funny … but I thought it was just way too much information. I can name a couple of people who are having trouble looking him in the eye—myself included.

Wow.

It seems Facebook has become such an integral part of many people's lives that they automatically gravitate to it whenever they want to share anything. And I mean anything—even beyond silly personal stuff and into highly confidential information that could put lives and entire countries at risk.

Last month, an Israeli soldier revealed on Facebook the time and place of a scheduled raid on the West Bank. He even announced the name of his unit. He was "unfriended" by the Israeli army shortly after (read: kicked out and court-martialed) and sentenced to 10 days in prison.

His confidential update occurred even after Israel had launched a full-scale campaign highlighting the dangers of sharing military information online.

It all makes me wonder if social networking has made us lose our secrets and our minds.

Movie Monday: Alice in Wonderland

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:13:16 GMT

In the curious country of Underland, there's a certain cake that, if you eat it, will make you grow.

I wonder if the folks at Disney have been force-feeding that magical cake to the studio's ambitious 3-D project, Alice in Wonderland. The movie's ticket sales ballooned to an outrageous $116.3 million take over the weekend to become 2010's highest-grossing movie in just three days. Brooklyn's Finest, another new release, was a laughably distant second in this caucus race: Its $13.5 million haul, by comparison, wouldn't even fill a rabbit hole.

There's more than magical cake involved in Alice's early success, though. The Tim Burton-directed fantasy opened on more than 7,300 screens and earned 70% of its receipts through lucrative 3-D screenings. Nothing mad about that strategy—as Avatar proved just a few months ago.

Personally, I liked the film (as creepy and unsettling as it sometimes was), and it was fun to watch in 3-D. And this film, unlike Lewis Carroll's classic children's tales, came with a real, honest-to-goodness story. Carroll's books were less about plot and more a wildly imaginative travelogue—a look at a curious country and its bizarre, croquet-playing residents through the eyes of a little girl. But Burton gave Alice something more to do here than shrink, have tea and chat with flowers and, as such, I think the film—while not as whimsical or fun as the books—had a little more narrative oomph. It suggests we could all use a little more "muchness," I think, and that's a good lesson for us at any age.

But enough from me. Did you see Alice? Was it positively trillig? Or did you find it much too muchness?

Live Oscar Blog

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:30:13 GMT

It's time to begin Plugged In's official live blog of the Oscars. Our red-carpet invites must have gotten lost in the mail this year, so we'll be watching it on television, just like you are, and writing about whatever seems news- or noteworthy to us. Please feel free to add your comments as we go along, and we'll try to address them on the fly. All times are U.S. Mountain Standard. Refresh your browser window to see our latest comments.

6:19 p.m.

Paul Asay (Plugged In Associate Editor): So I've torn open the bag of Doritos you brought, Steve, cracked my first Mountain Dew and am all ready for the Oscars--and Plugged In's first foray into the world of on-the-fly blogging. And what a night it will be, don't you think?

Steven Isaac (Plugged In Editor): Hmmm. I see here that by averaging the durations of the last 25 Oscar telecasts, subtracting 3 hours and then dividing by 2, we'll be done here in exactly 7.42 hours. Are we going to take nap breaks or just keep chugging soda all night?

Paul: Soda, Steve, soda.

Steven: Fine. But I'm not doing the Dew with you. I'm an old-school, straight-up Coca-Cola man myself.

Paul: OK, since nobody's paying us anything for all these product placements, why don't we get started with the most important question of the night: What'll take home Best Picture?

Steven: Blue is the new gold this year. No question in my mind that it'll be Avatar all the way. The whole point of this year's Oscar changes (10 nominees for Best Picture among them) is to make regular folks start thinking the Oscars are relevant to them again. And a whole lotta regular folks have seen Avatar. And most of them have loved it. Plus, the Academy voters do not want to antagonize the Na'vi. They've seen what happened to those surly earthlings.

Paul: True. Thing is, though, I don't think it's that great of a movie. I mean, wasn't it just sort of Dances With Wolves under a different moon? I'm thinking The Hurt Locker's going to take it. Gritty, taut, compelling ...

Steven: And quite a bit more foul than Avatar, if I remember your review correctly. (Not that that ever stopped Oscar from loving a film before.)

Paul: No it didn't.

Steven: Looks like they're done with their red-carpet dress-examinations and interviews. The theme music's coming up. We're under way, everybody.

6:33 p.m.

Paul: Wow. Those are quite the outfits. Getting off to an interesting start, I'd say, with Neil Patrick Harris.

Steven: And why wouldn't he get things rolling with a dope reference?

Paul: Oh, and they just talked about Woody Harrelson being high. Hmmm.

Steven: Off-color jokes and recognitions for big stars are always the order of the day each year as the Oscars get started. So much so that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin's gag about a threesome probably went virtually unnoticed in most homes watching right now. But on a positive note, they made fun of the fact that movies are so often made based on video games!

6:48 p.m.

Paul: Oh, that Christoph Waltz leaves with the first Oscar (for Best Supporting Actor). No surprise there, but I hear he was incredible. You saw the film, Steve?

Steven: Incredible performance in the middle of an incredible film ... in quite a few ways, artistically but also as it comes to some pretty extreme violence, too.

Paul: I was kinda rooting for Christopher Plummer ... overdue from The Sound of Music. But I think Quentin Tarantino should get some sort of an award just for his chin. It's pretty impressive.

6:58 p.m.

Paul: Best Animated Film. Up wins. That makes me happy. I'm feeling so ... up! As if my house was being pulled into the sky by balloons! In a great year for animated films, this was still the best of the bunch. 'Course, Fantastic Mr. Fox was pretty impressive, too.

7:10 p.m.

Steven: We talked a bit earlier about some of the negative content included in this year's Oscar open, and didn't really have any time to talk "shop." So I want to register the fact now that that was one of the lamest opens I've seen in years and years. Martin and Baldwin can be really funny when they want to be and when they have good writers (the subject that's just coming up right now on the screen). But this just didn't cut it.

Paul: But on the up side, these awards are cruising right along. We might be outta here in 15 minutes or so, don't you think? And I think Tina Fey's hair looks nifty.

Steven: The Hurt Locker wins its first of the evening for Original Screenplay.

Paul: Hurt Locker, 1, Avatar, 0.

Steven: And about Tina's hair. It looks very, very much like my wife's hair looked in 2001. So I'm not so sure it's as cutting edge as Tina might think it is.

Paul: I'm just jealous when I see anyone who still has hair.

7:19 p.m.

Paul: The John Hughes salute is pretty nostalgic. I think I saw every single one of his films when I was a kid. That was before I became a Plugged In movie critic and therefore far more discerning, of course.

Steven: The burner from The Breakfast Club was everything I never was in high school. I was shy, nice and cared about everybody. That guy did none of those things ... on the surface. But on the inside he was more like me than I knew back then. Must be a lesson in that somewhere--and I hope its not that I was a closet burner.

7:28 p.m.

Paul: Just noticed the ratings box on the screen. It's TV-14 with a string of letters after it. Kind of interesting that, for an awards show that's technically for the "whole family," the rating is fairly exclusionary. Would they be covering just in case something unforseen happens? Or does it address some of the plunging necklines? Hmmm.

Steven: Or did they know going in that they were going to push a few boundaries?

Steven: Best Animated Short goes to a film that looks like it tweaks commercialism in society. Isn't it about time for an ABC commercial break?

7:39 p.m.

Paul: Love Ben Stiller as one of the Na'vi. Shouldn't he be taller, though?

Steven: This is the funniest thing all night. Clean, clever, self-aware. Can't say as I'm a huge Ben Stiller fan when it comes to his movies, but this is great.

7:52 p.m.

Steven: Geoffrey Fletcher won for Adapted Screenplay for Precious. My immediate response to his halting acceptance speech: You're not drawing a blank, like you think you are. You're the realest guy that's been on stage yet.

7:59 p.m.

Paul: The big categories haven't seen a surprise yet. Mo'Nique has nabbed Best Supporting Actress for her role in Precious. And, I must say, it's richly deserved. She played an absolute monster, but she still managed to give the character just a bit of heartbreaking humanity. It was a brutal role in a worthwhile but brutal film.

8:20 p.m.

Paul: Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner are up, talking about how horror "doesn't get the respect it deserves." A good montage, but I got to say, the scariest thing I've seen tonight was George Clooney's glare.

Steven: Why is it that we like to be scared by movies? We can disagree with the usefulness or morality of horror films all we want (and we do!) but it's indisputable that people adore jump scenes and creepy blades for fingers on mad men (from Freddy to Edward Scissorhands). Sin nature? Or just thrill-ride silliness? It's something Christians have been grappling with for as long as movies have been trying to scare us--and long before that.

Paul: Yeah, pretty interesting. It's something we do a fair amount of talking about at Plugged In. Man, after seeing the complete montage, I think I know what that TV-14 rating was for ... nothing like seeing aliens jump out of people's rib cages and centipedes crawling into people's mouths to make an Oscar ceremony complete.

Steven: And now they're on to the next thing: an award for sound effects. There's something that makes a huge difference in horror movies. Because if you've ever watched a scary movie with the sound off, you know that it's usually more funny than scary. We all really respond to sound.

8:27 p.m.

Paul: Another award for The Hurt Locker. Wow. I think that makes it Hurt Locker 3, Avatar 1. Steve, are you still sure Avatar's going to win Best Picture?

Steven: Well, sure, why shouldn't I be? Didn't the Na'vi get to vote for their own film? And an alien vote counts twice. They're just letting all the little guys win a few before gobbling up the big one.

8:35 p.m.

Paul: Jeto wonders whether we think the Paranormal Activity spoof clip was funny. It was! But not as funny as Ben Stiller's Na'vi impersonation.

Steven: Cinematography award goes to Avatar. So, Paul, that's one more for the blue team.

8:39 p.m.

Paul: James Taylor's playing for the annual "In Memoriam" segment. This is one of my favorite parts of the ceremony, as morbid as that probably sounds. Natasha Richardson, Karl Malden ... I feel the sudden need to get a tissue.

Steven: Um, I didn't know "In My Life" was supposed to be a sad, funeral-type song. My wife and I had this sung at our wedding!

8:50 p.m.

Steven: My daughter's in ballet. She'd love the dance montage if I dared let her watch a TV-14 evening of Hollywood hype! (She's 9.) Maybe it'll be on YouTube tomorrow.

Paul: Tomorrow? It's probably posted right now!

Steven: This is much better than the Vegas-style stuff at the beginning of the show. Nicely choreographed. Very expressive in a cool, old-school way.

Paul: I never knew you were such a dance nerd, Steve.

Steven: A dancing daughter has a way of changing a man.

8:55 p.m.

Paul: Avatar's pulled even with The Hurt Locker with its win in Best Visual Effects. Maybe you were right after all, Steve.

Steven: A half-billion-dollar production budget should buy you at least a Best Visual Effects award.

9:04 p.m.

Paul: Well, it looks like lots of you are pretty pleased with Up's win for Best Original Score. I completely agree. I just hear the first notes of that song and I just start thinking of Paradise Falls, talking dogs and balloons. And I can't help but smile.

Steven: The Cove has won Best Documentary Feature.

Paul: What a coincidence! Steve and I are wearing Snuggies here at Plugged In headquarters, too!

9:12 p.m.

Paul: You know, I don't think I've heard an acceptance speech yet that made me roll my eyes. Is this unusual, or am I just getting more tolerant in my old age?

Steven: The night is young yet--at least by Oscar standards.

9:24 p.m.

Paul: If I was giving out an Oscar for the comment I most wish I had thought of first, it would go to TealN for: "I would like to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi to be a foreign language." Bahahaha!!! :-)"

9:34 p.m.

Paul: It's time for the big awards now, and the first--Best Actor--goes to (gasp) Jeff Bridges. Again, no big surprise, but a nice tribute to a long-respected actor. And it's great to see him honor his parents in such a significant way.

Steven: That was a whole lotta schmoozing going on before they finally got around to making the announcement, though. Words like "dreamy," "magnificent," "master," "tremendous" and "glorious" were thrown around with so much sincerity I ended up not being quite sure that they were.

9:52 p.m.

Steven: The Best Actress award has been couched for some time now as a head-to-head battle between Sandra Bullock (in The Blind Side) and Meryl Streep (in Julie & Julia). Looks like the pundits were right on the money. And the winner is: Sandra Bullock. No hail Mary pass on this one. Paul, you reviewed that film ...

Paul: And she was pretty awesome in it. Me, I was rooting for Meryl. But, of course, she'll have another chance next year (and the year after that). It's great to see The Blind Side get some love, though. And, oddly enough, Bullock won a Razzie award--the award that's given out to the worst actress of the year--last night. First time ever that somebody's won best and worst for the same role. [Note: bjeedav's comment is correct. It actually wasn't the same role, just the same actress.]

Steven: She said some really nice things about her mom, and moms in general.

9:59 p.m.

Paul: Kathryn Bigelow wins Best Director for The Hurt Locker. James Cameron, Avatar's director and Bigelow's ex-husband, was one of the first people to stand up for her ovation. A nice moment. Does this mean The Hurt Locker will get Best Picture too? Or will the votes swing Avatar's way? No! I guess it's The Hurt Locker. Sorry, Steve. You lose. I win.

Steven: That had to be the shortest lead-in to an Oscar Best Pic win in history. ABC must have threatened them within an inch of their lives to make sure the telecast ended on time. Or maybe it was because they didn't want the Na'vi to have time to stage a revolt since they weren't going to win! Well, so much for the populist angle that's been such a big part of this year's build-up. If the Academy had wanted to seal that deal, Avatar would have needed to win. But war movies are big deals at the Oscars.

10:10 p.m.

Steven: That short lead-in made the Best Picture choice seem somehow less important than the Best Actor/Best Actress nods, but it seems to me that it'll still push The Hurt Locker, which is already on video, up in the public mind over the next couple of weeks. So I'll make a shameless plug here for everybody to check out our review of that film that's available here on this site. Paul, any final thoughts?

Paul: Thoughts? I'm too full of chocolate chip cookies (thanks to Steve's wife!) to think very coherently at this point. I can't believe we're already done. I was expecting to be typing until at least Tuesday. And to think, I was so looking forward to another 27 hours of your company, Steve. Alas. Good night everybody.

Oscar Categories I'd Like to See

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:23:32 GMT

If you tune in for this year’s Academy Awards telecast, listen for the phrase in ceremonies held earlier. Simple words rich with meaning. For starters, this is a warning. It says, “The following awards categories were deemed too much of a ratings-kill for inclusion on prime time TV.” Best Left-Handed Director of a Foreign-Language Stop-Motion Documentary Short? Great time to grab a snack or put the dog out.

Furthermore, “in ceremonies held earlier” is the motion picture industry’s way of reminding us that three hours isn’t nearly enough time for Hollywood to adequately congratulate itself. Indeed, the Oscars are the black-tie equivalent of a progressive dinner. Sunday night is dessert. Which got me thinking, With all of those categories, why not a few more? And which ones would I like to see? This is what I came up with:

3-D Movie Actually Worth the Surcharge: In an attempt to lure people away from their HDTVs and into the theater, 3-D seems to be the wave of the future. But more often than not, today’s 3-D movies deliver just enough added dimension to give my 8-year-old motion sickness. The Avatars of the world are few and far between. In fact, films shot in traditional 2-D (Clash of the Titans and the next two Harry Potter films) are now trying to cash in on the Avatar craze by adding 3-D as an afterthought. So how ‘bout we reward filmmakers who make full use of the technology instead of peddling the 21st century equivalent of colorized black-and-white movies?

Best Picture That People Paid to See: Personally, I think increasing the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten was a mistake. It just adds clutter in the name of bringing in a populist film or two that wouldn’t have made it otherwise (District 9, The Blind Side). Why not create a category to honor those quality movies everyone flocked to see? There’s something to be said for a well-crafted blockbuster that grossed, say, $200 million. If ABC wants to keep Oscar viewers around ‘til midnight, this is the award that would do it, all the while letting Tinseltown nominate five populist films (Star Trek anyone?) instead of two.

Best Picture With a Sociopolitical Agenda: Most years, one of the coveted Best Picture nominations gets wasted on a so-so “message flick” lauded for championing a social agenda or political issue close to Hollywood’s heart. An inconvenient truth? Perhaps, but it’s also a fact. My solution: Just give ‘em their own category. Let true entertainment dominate the major categories and leave those feature-length sociopolitical PSAs to duke it out amongst themselves.

Best Performance by a Voice Actor: Have you ever been so impressed by a vocal performance in an animated film that you thought it deserved special recognition? I sure have. But because it’s not a traditional “role” the Academy doesn’t acknowledge it. With animation maturing as an art form, this would be a great time to give those actors their due. No need to separate awards by gender or create a “supporting” subdivision. Lump examples of the year’s best voice work together and may the best man/woman/comic animal sidekick win.

Yessir, if I ran the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, those are a few categories I’d propose. How about you? What do you think would spice up the Oscar telecast or, for that matter, one of those “ceremonies held earlier”?

Be sure to tune in to this week’s Official Plugged In Podcast for a fun roundtable discussion of this year’s Best Picture nominees, plus Oscar trivia and more. Also, join us right here on Oscar night to participate in our live blog!

Privacy Schmivacy

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:54:56 GMT

The concept of privacy is, um, really, really different in China. Over there, it seems, everyone has a right to know just about anything they want to know about you. Even the Mandarin word for privacy—yinsi—implies a menacing selfishness among those who want secrecy.

As my personal stories from living in China attest (oh, man, do they), we in the West are usually appalled by such lack of confidentiality. But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims this North American social norm has changed drastically.

At a recent awards assembly in San Francisco, Zuckerberg said, "When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was, 'Why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?' Then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way, and just all these different services that have people sharing all this information."

He went on to say that he believes privacy is no longer a social norm. (Out of the mouths of overconfident 25-year-olds ….)

Considering the fact Facebook has more than 350 million users, many of whom post intimate details of their lives daily, Zuckerberg may have a point. But he also can't deny the fact that countless users complained bitterly when Facebook recently changed its privacy settings.

I wonder if the concept of privacy is different among Millennials and other generations. Or are people of all ages sharing information via an emotionally detached Internet that they would never share in face-to-face conversation—and then get upset when they feel they lose control of it?

I also wonder what privacy will look like in 10 more years. Hopefully I'll never be told what type of underwear most people are wearing.

Johnny Depp Freaks Me Out

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:14:15 GMT

My wife and I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly. And this week when the magazine showed up in our mailbox, the image smiling at me from the cover was enough to make me blurt out "AHHHHH" and jump back into the street.

What was it, you ask? It was Johnny Depp, made up as the orange-haired, green-eyed, gap-toothed Mad Hatter—the character he plays in Tim Burton's reimagining of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice is the latest collaboration between Depp and Burton in a partnership that stretches back 20 years, to 1990's Edward Scissorhands. Since then, they've partnered on Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride and Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Burton's latest exercise in cinematic oddity purportedly has a budget in the neighborhood of $200 million.

Now, I know Depp and Burton are established commodities. But I have to wonder how many other people respond to that image the same way I do. Maybe I'm just drifting into old-age curmudgeon-dom, but this picture just freaks me out. Needless to say, I have no interest in seeing the movie … let alone taking the wife and kids.

How about you? Any thoughts on Burton and Depp's latest out-there exercise? Do you plan to see Alice in Wonderland or skip it, and why?

Academy Award Flubs and Snubs

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:43:14 GMT

Will the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences get it right this year and pick the best picture for Best Picture? Well … let's just say they don't have the greatest track record.

Just for fun, let's try a little pop quiz to test your memory. Do any of you remember the movie How Green Was My Valley? It was the best picture winner for 1941. I guess I can't blame you if your first reaction was, "Huh?"

It was a good film, but I'll bet you might easily remember (or have at least heard of) The Maltese Falcon or Sergeant York or maybe a little pic called Citizen Kane—all of which came out that same year. (Not to mention Frank Capra's Meet John Doe. That one wasn't even given a nod.)

OK, that was a gazillion years ago. But there are quite a few film favorites that have been skipped over for films that were, shall we say, less than long-lived classics. Here's another example, just for grins. In 1963, the year that Alfred Hitchcock made The Birds, Liz Taylor was Cleopatra and Peter Sellers was pratfalling through The Pink Panther, what film won the big prize? A pic called Tom Jones. You remember that one, right? (And I'm not talking about the big-voiced Welsh singer.)

And I've always been amazed at the list of incredibly talented actors who were snubbed or, in some cases, never even nominated for an award. Some of my favorites who never took home an Oscar include Harold Lloyd, Ida Lupino, Steve McQueen, Agnes Moorehead, Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds, Richard Burton, Glenn Close, Kirk Douglas and Orson Welles.

So which "also rans" would you have chosen? And what was left off the list this year?

Planning Our Own Oscar Party

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:41:30 GMT

When it comes to movies, we're serious men and women. When you walk into a theater, we don't want you to be blindsided or suffer a locker full of hurt. Yes, some of these films can leave you feeling up, but others can sequester you in a district of misery. So we serve as your avatars in the theater—your inglourious bastions of integrity, making sure that, when it comes to entertainment, you're never left up in the air. We want, in short, to give you an education and provide you with the precious tools you'll need to navigate this fascinating, sometimes frightening world of media in which we live.

You'd think, then, that since we take movies so seriously for 364 days a year, we would earn the right to take a night off, plop down on the couch, open a bag of Doritos and just watch the Academy Awards, without telling everybody what we think of them?

Fat chance.

This Sunday, Plugged In's editor Steven Isaac and I will blog live during the Oscarcast.

Oh, sure, we'll still be eating Doritos: I made Steve promise to bring some. But instead of wiping our cheesy hands on our jeans like everybody else, we'll be wiping them on our computer keyboards as we chat about everything from Quentin Tarantino's cultural impact to Helen Mirren's hair. We'll be online and accessible once the awards start flying, and we'll stay 'til the bitter end, approximately 27 hours later. So drop by and read what you want to. Better yet, join our conversation by posting your comments, too.

And you can start right now by helping Steve decide whether to bring the Cool Ranch or Nacho Cheese-flavored Doritos. Then, on Sunday, find us by visiting pluggedin.com and clicking on "blog" in the navigation bar. Or just click here.

Movie Monday: Cop Out

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:25:57 GMT

Sure, Shutter Island may have lost nearly 50% of its box-office take in a week. Sure, it might've made just $22.2 million—less than Avatar has probably earned through themed lunchbox sales.

But it was still enough to push the Martin Scorsese thriller to the top of the movie heap again, besting newcomers Cop Out ($18.6 million) and The Crazies ($16.5 million).

All three films are rated R, and all seem largely geared toward moviegoing men. Cop Out whittles that demographic into a narrower swathe—old-as-dirt moviegoing men like me who can still hum the theme music from Beverly Hills Cop if asked. (Axel F, anyone?)

If that's the case, they missed the mark—at least with me. The Kevin Smith-helmed Cop Out is an extended homage to the buddy-cop movies of the 1980s, only with fewer mullets and more swearing. It's a strange thing to pay homage to, frankly. I grew up in the 1980s, and I never felt any particular nostalgia for the genre. And even if I did, I'd want a better homage than this.

Major film studios apparently assume that children hibernate this time of year: Why else would they release movies—albeit three very different movies— that essentially target the same demographic? If families were prone to brave the cold, harsh winter and go see something, you'd think studios would make more money if they gave them something to see. Don't you think?

The Sounds of Success

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:55:19 GMT

So, what's the most enticing sound you can think of? Birds singing? The engine of a Ferrari 458 Italia? Rain spattering on your window?

How about … a buzzing cell phone?

According to neuromarketing research expert Martin Lindstrom, we love the soft hum of a silenced cell phone—or, at the very least, we can't ignore it. And that means Madison Avenue won't be ignoring it for long, either.

According to a story on Time.com, about 83% of all advertisements focus, primarily, on visuals to entice us to buy something or go somewhere. Oh, sure, we hear waves crash and seabirds call in certain beer commercials, or the sound of a sizzling steak for a restaurant chain or two. But really, when was the last time you heard sound used as a top-notch subliminal selling point for, say, window cleaner?

But the sounds we hear can be just as influential, if not more so, than the things we see. And there are certain sounds we're programmed, one way or another, to respond to.

The sound of laughing babies blew the doors off every other auditory cue in Lindstrom's arsenal: We listen to a baby laugh, and we can't help but pay attention. And that makes sense on a whole host of levels

The buzzing cell phone, next on Lindstrom's list, was far more intriguing. While I think we're probably genetically programmed to pay attention to whatever sounds babies make (we, after all, have to take care of them, so it'd make just good biological sense that the sounds they make would trigger certain reactions in us), the cell phone couldn't be a pre-programmed relic from earlier times. This is new neural wiring for us: The sound, to our modern ears, may signal connectivity and community. We hear the phone and we think, "Ah, someone wants to talk with me! And I might even want to talk with them, too!" Lindstrom's theory is that our auditory programming is now so tuned in to the phone buzz that, should we hear it during a fast-food ad, we'll be more likely to crave a double cheeseburger.

In fact, a double cheeseburger sounds good right about now. But I digress.

Lindstrom found the third most impossible-to-ignore sound was the fluttery shoosh of an ATM machine doling out cash—which perhaps says something about the premium we place on money. Fourth was the sound of a steak sizzling on a grill. No word as to whether vegans found the sizzle equally enticing.

With Madison Avenue always looking for new ways to sell us things we don't really need, we can expect to hear lots more of these sounds in our future. Lindstrom, frankly, seems a bit surprised that advertisers have largely downplayed our eardrums thus far.

To that, I have two words of explanation for Mr. Lindstrom: mute button.

When the Funnies Aren't Funny

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:34:34 GMT

If I touch an actual newspaper nowadays, it's usually because I'm waiting a) in a doctor's office, b) for my car's oil to be changed or c) for a restaurant table.

Last week it was "a." And as I lamented my sore throat and killed time—why is it that doctors never have to wait on us?—I read the Denver Post's funny pages. (I also did three crossword puzzles because it was a lonnng wait.)

Anyway, it turns out that some comics aren't really comical lately. Sometimes they just hit very close to home. There were several that didn't make me laugh so much as say, "Ouch," and not because my throat was on fire.

One comic strip showed a family at the dinner table. A daughter was listening to an iPod. Another was texting on an iPhone. The father was gazing into an iTouch, and the mother was said to be "iRate."

A second cartoon showed a teen who decided to quit spending so much time on Facebook—so he asked his Facebook friends for suggestions on how to cut back (!).

A third strip showed a hoard of strangers flocking to a man's door and saying, "Hi … We're your Facebook friends."

If you're an armchair sociologist, it should probably alarm you that three nationally syndicated comic strips had a similar theme on this random day, especially since that theme was technology's damaging effect on relationships.

Besides these cartoonists, am I the only one who sees reason to be concerned about devices and sites, or am just I a Luddite who needs to get over it?

How has technology affected your family and friendships?