Tuesday, January 15, 2013

misery on parade

OK, let's see now...the Civil War, slavery in the antebellum South, poverty and endless persecution in post-Revolution France, bipolar disorder (and that's in the comedy)...yup, it must be the annual crop of Oscar Best Picture nominees. Ho, ho, ho...what a field of gut-busting hilarity we have to choose from this year! No wonder Anne Hathaway's so depressed (see right).

Bummer.

But if we all work together maybe we can perservere through this time of hardship with food, drink, good friends and TV at the Annual Barker Oscar Party. The dirge begins at 6:00 PM on Sunday, February 24, and, so help me God, we're not gonna run another downer like "The Help" to kick things off like we did last year. I swear, I never saw a roomful of party guests turn so somber so quickly as happened that night. Sorry about that. Maybe we'll show a cartoon this year instead. Anything other than one of the Best Picture nominees, that's for sure.

Just to underscore what a dismal field of downers you have to choose from this year, check out the video below which offers the rare opportunity of getting to see the stars of two Best Picture nominees arguing over whose movie is more depressing. Please enjoy Anne Hathaway and Samuel L. Jackson engaging in "The Sad-Off". Warning: explicit language throughout.

bond...james bond

Alright! Now this is more like it! Guns, girls and gadgets, that's what I'm talking about! And, finally, some respect from the Academy...well, sort of. No, the latest James Bond film isn't up for any of the major awards (unless you count that mopey Adele song). And they're not shelling out any honorary Oscars like they did back in '82 for the late Bond producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli. But they are going to be running a tribute segment during the awards show in honor of the series 50th anniversary, probably owing to a decision that the show wasn't long enough as it was.

Methinks I sense a theme for our party emerging. Perchance we'll run "Skyfall" at the party's beginning in place of one of those depressing Best Picture nominees. (Although even "Skyfall" was kind of a downer for a Bond film. Childhood hang-ups for Bond? Bond can't shoot straight any longer? And they kill off...well, I won't give it away in case you haven't seen it. But it's depressing, trust me.)

Yeah, the more I think about that the more I like it. James Bond certainly makes for a better party theme than Abraham Lincoln does. I mean, where does that leave you: name half of the guests The North and the other half The South and have them fight it out for the food? I'll be magnanimous about this and not embarrass the anonymous person who wanted a Lincoln party by mentioning them by name.

Gwen.

Report from L.A.

During our trip out to Los Angeles in December Gwen, Chase and I took a tour of the Dolby Theatre (formerly the Kodak) in Hollywood, the home of the Oscar ceremonies. The image of the theatre to the right is from the souvenir postcard we were given at the end of the tour.

That's it. That's the entire story. We didn't see any famous people while we were there. We can confirm that it's really, really big and has a lot of red seats, and that it's real and it exists and it isn't some fake set like they used to stage the so-called "moon landings". Oh, yeah, and Cirque du Soleil was performing a stage show at the theatre at the time, although they're not there anymore. The end.

How to win the big bucks

Well, we're not expecting to have any new contestants in this year's Oscar Pool...I can't recall any new people that we met during the past year...so by now all of you entrants should be painfully familiar with the rules, but just for posterity here they are once again:

Your online ballot is available here. In each category, use the drop-down menu to the left of each nominee in that category to rank the nominees from "1" to "5", assigning a "1" to the nominee you feel has the best chance of winning, and a "5" to the one with the least chance of winning (and don't forget the 2's, 3's and 4's in-between). Best Picture is still a troublemaker of a category, with between 5 and 10 nominees, depending on how awful the field is in this particular year; adjust your ranking accordingly. Be sure to fill in your name and email address at the top of the ballot; when you have every category filled in completely hit the "Submit" button at the bottom of the ballot. (We now have the ballot formatted so that it shouldn't be possible for you to submit it unless it's filled out completely. Huzzah!) You will forced to relinquish one U.S. dollar at the door on the night of the party to qualify for the biiiig winnings, should you have the ballot with the lowest score. Good luck!

(Oh, and if you should need some help deciding how to vote, you can find trailers for the Best Picture nominees and the Best Song and Best Original Score selections right here.)