Rob Huddleston's Blog - Movies

Announcing: The 13th Annual Filmstosee.com Oscar Pool

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:14:00 -0600

Those that know me know that I'm a little bit of a film nut. In fact, I originally got into web design because I wanted to know how to create a web site where I could post film reviews. That site turned into my first domain purchase - filmstosee.com. If you've ever contacted me by mail, you've almost certainly gotten a response back from my email at that domain. (I'm proud to say that I've had the same email address now for almost 14 years - far longer than anyone else I know.)

While filmstosee.com has had many ups and downs over the years - it's currently in one of its down stages - one thing has remained constant on it, which is my annual Oscar pool. I started this over a decade ago with a small group of friends. Through the years, it's grown into a slightly larger group of friends, but it's still a fairly small thing. Which is fine by me. But I wanted to take this opportunity to send it out there to my now-larger audience of blog readers.

So here's the deal. Simply go to the Oscar pool page. Fill out the form on the right to sign up. This will take you to a page that lists all of this year's nominees. Select one nominee from each category - the film or person whom you believe will win. Then, tune into the Oscar ceremony on Feb. 22. Enjoy the show (that is, assuming that Hugh Jackman doesn't bore everyone to death as host.)

The next morning, check your email. You'll have a message there from me (well, technically, from my server) telling you how many guesses you got right. Then, you can go back to the web site and see how you did against everyone else who signed up. You can either congratulate yourself on a job well done or make a resolution to see more movies this year.

What do you win? Well, nothing, other than pride. This has always been about just having fun. I don't have any sort of budget with this to give away prizes, and trying to collect some sort of entry fee to create a "pot" that I could give to the winner creates a ton of extra work (and I'm fairly sure might violate laws in some places.) So really, just have fun.

The pool is open to absolutely everyone. If you have other friends/family/Facebook contacts/Twitter followers/etc. who you think might like to join, send them the link. (http://www.filmstosee.com/oscars)

Thanks, and enjoy.

Oh, and before anyone asks: yes, I am most definitely going to get the film review side of filmstosee.com back up and running before the end of this year. In fact, I've already created what I think will be a great design for the site. Right now, I'm waiting until I finish my current book to free up some time and until Adobe gets around to making a Windows version of Flash Catalyst available before I can actually rebuild it, but I will definitely let everyone here know when that happens.

Star Wars returning to theaters!

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:06:00 -0600

This is so cool. What was already shaping up to be one of the best movie years in a long time, with a new Indiana Jones, another Bond (albeit one with a really stupid title), and several bound-to-be-good films like Ironman, now there's the news today that August will see a return to the theaters of Star Wars: but this time, it'll be the animated Clone Wars series! You can read more details on the Monsters and Critics website.

New Star Trek movie trailer online ... in HD

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:13:00 -0600

Paramount has posted the teaser trailer for the new Star Trek movie online, and it's in HD. It's amazing how much better it looks than the normal videos you see online.

The good, the bad, and the excruciating

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:56:00 -0600

Eventually, I plan to get Filmstosee up and running again as a proper film review site, but in the meantime, I'm going to use this space for the occasional review. I've been teaching Adobe Flex in SF for the last few days, and as usual spending my evenings in the City seeing movies. Last night I pulled a double feature: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, and Juno.

AVPR was entertaining. I was nothing more, and nothing less, than you'd expect. It picks up exactly where AVP left off - the Predators are getting ready to return from their hunting of the Aliens on Earth, but one of them got infected, so a baddie bursts out of its chest while in orbit. Predictably, it kills the crew and causes the ship to crash outside of a place claiming to be Gunnison, CO. Of course, it was actually filmed in Canada, and to folks like me who know what Gunnison looks like, well, let's just say that British Columbia is a heck of a lot prettier.

A couple of face huggers escape and carnage ensues. The last Predator on the ship manages to get a message out to the home world before being killed, so one of them comes to try to stop the Aliens. I read an article about the movie in which the producers describe this Predator as being like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, which is accurate.

Of course, a bunch of hapless humans get in the way of the little war. They're led by Steven Pasquale from Rescue Me and Reiko Aylesworth, late of24. As in the last film, it sort of turns into an us vs. them vs. them slaughterfest.

As I said in the beginning, the movie was entertaining. Obviously you shouldn't try to think too hard about it, but it was fun to watch.

Juno, on the other hand, was just plain fantastic. Without a doubt, it's the best movie of 2007.

The movie centers around Juno, played by Ellen Page, a 16-year-old girl in some small town in Minnesota who gets pregnant. What separates Juno from every other teen pregnancy movie, though, is that it doesn't try to be some preachy, cautionary tale. Instead, it deals with real people in a realistic way. Juno is one of the strongest characters I've seen in a movie in awhile. Her father, played by J.K. Simmons, and step-mom, played by Allison Janney, make it clear that while they don't approve of the situation, they still unconditionally love Juno and offer amazing support.

Much of the film centers around Juno decided to give up the baby, and finding what she thinks is the perfect couple in Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. But as with every other person in the film, they are flawed human beings. Watching the interplay between the two of them - Garner desperately wants a baby, while Bateman isn't sure - and their interactions with Juno provide the film's soul.

Tonight, I rather unfortunately decided to see No Country For Old Men. That should be enough of a clue as to what I thought of it.

First off, I need to say that I am a huge fan of the Coen Brothers. Fargo is one of the best films of all time, likewise O Brother, Where Art Thou. Intolerable Cruelty, their "sell out" Hollywood movie, is likewise great. That said, I'd guess that even DaVinci created crappy works at times, and so I guess I can try to forgive them for this stinker.

The plot follows the misadventures of a Texas nobody, played by Josh Brolin, who stumbles across a drug deal gone bad, finds $2 million, and then is relentlessly hunted by Javier Bardem, a psychopath searching for the money. Tommy Lee Jones plays the small town sheriff is way out of his league trying to deal with the bodies that keep piling up, and Woody Harrelson shows up for about ten minutes of the movie for no reason at all.

Movies, in my eyes, can commit a lot of sins, but the one thing they can never do is bore me. I'm not sure when I saw a movie that bored me as much as this one.