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Best Random Movie Dances

Posted in dance, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags dancing, lists, movie review, movies, pop culture on June 19, 2008 by Paxton

I love movies. If you read this blog, you know this. I also love dancing. If you’ve seen me dance, I’m sorry. The wife and I were watching Little Miss Sunshine the other night and we started talking about how much we love little Olive’s dance routine at the beauty pageant. This led to discussion about other dances in other movies we loved so that, naturally, led to this blog article. It’s surprising how often a scenario like this will lead to an article. Maybe I should wear this shirt 24-7. My wife would then counter me by wearing this shirt.

Before I begin the list, I’m going to lay down a couple ground rules. The movie can’t be a musical. Those invite more professional dance routines and don’t have the same feel as a comedic dance routine in a movie that has no singing. Also, the movie can’t be about dancing. That one is for obvious reasons. I’m mainly thinking about random, comedic dance routines in the middle of a movie that serve no other purpose than to make you laugh. Now, I know I’m going to miss one, so if I forgot your favorite, sound out on the message boards.

So, without further ado, here is my list of Best Random Dances in a movie.

Olive Hoover’s talent routine in Little Miss Sunshine – I had to start with this one as it’s the movie that started the whole discussion. I’ve seen this movie twice since I started writing this article. It is hilarious. Funny situations and family members, great script, interesting locations. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and rent it. The main attraction, and the reason it gets on this list, however, is Olive Hoover’s dance routine at the beauty pageant. It’s talked about throughout the whole movie, you never know going into the pageant scenes what is going to happen. When it does, it’s like a bullet train to Awesome City. I dare you not to laugh at it.

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Hollywood Life Lessons Pt II

Posted in hollywood life lessons, humor, movies, pop culture, TV shows with tags hollywood life lessons, movies, TV shows on March 11, 2008 by Paxton

Hollywood Sign While watching tv my wife and I came up with some life lessons that had been taught to us by tv and movies. I posted the first five earlier but we came up with another five. Learn these lessons now, that is what TV and movies are for, to teach you things you can’t learn on your own.

In case you missed the first part, you can find it here.

This is a quick entry today, I have another one scheduled for Friday that has to do with St. Patty’s Day (which is on Monday, I know).

Everyone buys the same thing at the grocery; leafy green lettuce and a long loaf of french bread that sticks out just so from the top. And everyone gets it in a brown paper bag.
Everyone has that one friend/drinking buddy that does nothing but speak in funny/snarky one-liners. The friend has no shame and hits on anything that moves.
If a guy’s best friend is a girl who’s secretly in love with him, the guy will not even notice her as a prospective girlfriend and only think of her as “one of the guys”. Oh, she will always be hot.
If a girl’s best friend is a guy that’s secretly in love with her, the girl will not even notice him as a prospective boyfriend and only think of him as “a friend”. Oh, and he’s always kind of a dork.
No matter where you are going, if you have to drive there, you will find a parking spot right in front. Even in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

Technorati Tags – Hollywood humor TV shows Pop Culture movies

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Awesome finds at the Jacksonville Book Fair

Posted in books, Jacksonville, library, reviews with tags books, movies on March 5, 2008 by Paxton

Book Fair This past weekend was the Friends of the Jax Library Book Sale. They hold it every year at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds. It takes place in a giant expo building filled with boxes and boxes of books that the library no longer needs. They sell them off on the cheap to raise money. Paperbacks were fifty cents, softcovers were one dollar and hardbacks were 2 dollars. Not a bad deal. When my wife and I went on Saturday afternoon I thought everything would be picked over leaving nothing but old cookbooks and Self-Help guides. Suprisingly, even though the sale started late Thursday and continued all day Friday, there was still PLENTY of books to be searched and picked through by late Saturday afternoon. I was very impressed.

I love going to book fairs and looking through old stacks and boxes of books. Old book stores, flea markets, garage sale stores, book fairs, you name it, I can get lost for hours (ask my wife). So for me, this book fair was a blast. I love seeing all the old, outdated manuals and reference books, as well as the cheesy romance and fiction novels that have become anachronistic. You can find awesome old computer books for machines that haven’t existed in at least ten years next to paperback novelizations of movies from the late ’70s. The wide spectrum is what makes it all fun.

While digging through all the boxes of books I came across some awesome finds. I bought some, took pictures of others. I thought I might share with you some of the most fun stuff. Let’s begin…

Beaches II – I’m not surprised that the Jacksonville Public library is trying to sell off its back stock of this Beaches sequel. What does surprise me is that I only found one copy in the bins to be sold. I expected crates of this book to be trucked in and dumped in the corner, given free to anyone that happens to walk past. Originally published in 1991 as just I’ll Be There, this was Dart’s sequel to the tear-jerking, my mother loving, Beaches. It picks up right after the movie/book and gives us another 300 pages of sappy torture as CeeCee tries to raise her dead friend’s (and did you ever know? she’s her hero) daughter. Beaches II: I’ll Be There…now playing, in my worst nightmares.

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Second Guessing the Academy: Worst. Oscar Wins. Ever.

Posted in 80s, Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, pop culture with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, Oscars Wild, pop culture on February 20, 2008 by Paxton

One of my friends, Kathy, a regular reader of this blog, emailed me and asked me to write about what I think the worst Oscar wins of all time were. I thought it was a very good subject for me to tackle and since the Oscars are telecast live this Sunday at 8pm EST, there’s no time like the present to call the Academy out on the carpet (the RED carpet…so to speak). So I sat down to do the research.

I was originally just going to start in the mid-’80s but started moving backwards to my birth year, 1974. Then I moved even further back to 1970. Obviously, I didn’t start seriously watching the Oscars until the mid-’80s but 1970 is about where I start to recognize movies and have opinions on what happened that year. If you want to check out year by year results of the Oscars head on over to Oscars.com to their Academy Awards Database. You can search by year, award or actor. It helped me a lot in piecing this whole article together.

I started by looking back at the nominations and winners for the 8 main award categories (Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay). Like I said, I went back to the 1970 Awards and started my research there. I looked at the nominees and winners for the year and picked the times that I thought the Academy got it wrong. I tried to only pick out completely egregious errors. Ones that offended my delicate sensibilities. I mean, the oversight had to leap off the page at me screaming, “WTF WAS THE ACADEMY THINKING?!” If a movie I liked didn’t win, but I thought the movie that won was worthy, I didn’t bother mentioning it. Keep in mind, this is my own opinion, however right I am, it’s just an opinion.

Let’s begin.

1972 – This year, the Best Supporting Actor was filled with 3 actors from The Godfather; Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall. How do you choose? If you are the Academy, you pick Joel Grey for his work in Cabaret. Wait, wha-?! That’s right, neither Michael, Sonny nor Tom Hagen won an Oscar for their efforts. But looking back on it, we all can see Mr. Grey’s performance was one for the ages. To throw salt in the wound, Cabaret wins Best Director over Godfather. Tell me that is not a tragedy. At least Brando won Best Actor this year (but he refused the award because Indians were not being treated fairly or something. What a weirdo).

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Here come the Oscar Nominations for 2007

Posted in Academy Awards, humor, movies, Oscars, reviews with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, Oscars Wild on January 22, 2008 by Paxton

Well, today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the list of Academy Award Nominees for the 2007 movie season. Honestly, I’m a little appalled at how many of these movies I haven’t seen. The nominees for the “big 4” (actor, actress, director, movie) are a little “out of the box” for my tastes. I don’t know if this whole writer’s strike is having a strange effect on the whole of Hollywood or what, but these nominees are a little strange. As you recall from my favorites article a few weeks ago, I saw almost 5 movies a month this past year however I have not seen the majority of movies that were nominated. That’s how whacked out these nominees are.

Well, like I did last year, I thought I would take a look at a few of the Academy’s selections and maybe give a critique. I won’t go over all of the selections, just some of the more visible categories. You can click the image at the top of this article to go to the Oscar website to see a full listing of nominees. Let’s take a look at a few of the Academy’s decisions this year.

Best Leading Actor:
George Clooney – Michael Clayton – This is a good movie, however I don’t think I would watch it again. Great performances, but the movie dragged a little bit in the middle. This is a good choice however as Clooney was fascinating to watch.
Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood – Daniel Day-Lewis is a phenomenal actor. That’s a given. I’m iffy on this movie, however. I don’t normally like the subtext laden movies that feature a metaphor of our own world so we can learn about the mistakes we are making. I don’t need a millionaire director to tell me that oil corporations are bad and the quest for money is evil. I get that. I will, however, probably see this movie on DVD just to see Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of the main character.
Johnny Depp – Sweeney Todd – Haven’t seen this, but I really want to. Depp follows up his Oscar nominated character Jack Sparrow with another Oscar nominated character. My wife’s aunt and grandmother saw this movie recently and were less than impressed. However, I’m going to assume that they are not the target audience. I think it looks good, and Depp is probably his usual awesome self.
Tommy Lee Jones – In The Valley of Elah – Wha-huh?! I’ve never heard of this movie. A quick check of Yahoo! Movies tells me it was released last September and also stars Charlize Theron…really? Holy crap, where was I?
Viggo Mortensen – Eastern Promises – Saw this and didn’t really like it. Viggo is good, he is completely into his character and the twist at the end is shocking, but the movie is just too dark and somewhat hard to watch. Not one of my favorites, but Viggo, I think, deserves this nom.