Sharing My Dreams: Cars & Barrett Jackson

For many boys growing up, they fantasize about owning a fast or fancy car some day and I was definitely one of those  boys.  To sit behind the wheel and tear around the streets turning heads and of course impressing girls!  (at least it was that way when we are in our teens, it is just that some men never grow past that point)  In elementary school it was the Corvette and in high school it was the McLaren F1 and in my adult life it is the Aston Martin DBS.  I still love cars to this day, enjoying my Gran Turismo racing video game, watching the British Top Gear (the US version is awful.  Why did they feel that they needed to make a US version?) and of course enjoying the Barrett Jackson auction when it is on tv.  For me cars represent freedom.  Freedom from the constraints of distance and an escape from life.  When I am behind the wheel of my car I am the only one in control and I have a certain peace when I drive by myself watching the minutes turn into miles.  I sometimes see myself tearing down the Stelvio Pass in Italy and other days just cruising in a small town in a 1955 Chevy Bel Air.

The most attainable part of my dream is to some day travel to Scottsdale, Arizona to witness the Barrett Jackson Auction with my father.  I would love to have a little extra money set aside in a few years so that we could cruise home from Arizona in a classic.  I am not talking about a huge sum of money, just enough to buy a restored classic from the 50’s.  I don’t want a tricked out custom, just restored, with seat belts installed and preferably in blue and white.

The first half of the dream would be the auction.  To see all the wonderful cars and to watch the auctioneer do his magic as the price of a fancy custom car skyrockets past the 1 million dollar mark.  To experience the chaos of the bidding floor as the bid assistants use everything within their means to get the attention of the auctioneer.  Flailing their arms, blowing on whistles and yelling are all fair game and I can only imagine how crazy it could be.

The second half (if I were to make a purchase of a car) would be to cruise back to Michigan in my new car taking turns with my dad driving across the United States.  Stopping in cities I have never been, seeing sights that I have never seen all the while enjoying a nice piece of history.  Kinda like the cool/good parts of that crummy Paul Reiser movie “The Thing About My Folks” except that my dad and I don’t have to build the relationship that the characters have in this film because we already have that relationship (which will make things a lot easier).

Reactions: Oscar Nominations

Last year was the first year for the expanded “Best Picture” category at the Oscars and I wasn’t too happy with some of the selections that were made.  It was a year that saw a crappy movie “The Hurt Locker” win best picture, a crappy actress Sandra Bullock win best actress, an overrated documentary “The Cove” win best documentary  and a whole heap of movies that shouldn’t have been nominated for Best picture.  Well how did they do this year?

• First of all, there were not a whole lot of movies that really stuck out this year and somehow they came up with these 10:

1. Black Swan (A decent movie chalk full of over the top shock, but not a Best Picture)
2. True Grit (Not even a top 5 Coen Film and I am a huge Coen Brothers fan)
3. 127 Hours (I saw a 60 minutes piece on this guy a year or two ago, that was enough for me)
4. The Fighter (Hey look, its a boxing movie…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
5. Inception (This was the Best Picture of 2010, hands down)
6. The Kids Are All Right (Are you serious? The movie that should have been titled “Without Consequence” is a Best Picture? This movie was not good)
7. The Kings Speech (The second best film of 2010.  Great all around)
8. The Social Network (This years Up In The Air, shall be forgotten by next year.  Decent flick but not a best picture)
9. Toy Story 3 (I have already forgotten that I have seen this movie, that is not a good sign)
10. Winters Bone (Another very forgettable movie, but it seemed like Oscar bait)

I say remove Toy Story 3, The Social Network and Winters Bone.  Insert Ghost Writer, Greenberg and The Town  (not because The Town was a great movie but because it is better than those three movies.)

• How was Christopher Nolan overlooked for Best Director?  They must really hate this guy.  I say subtract David Fincher, add Nolan
• If Annette Benning wins Best Actress, I will be officially done with the Oscars.  She wasn’t even the best actress in The Kids Are All Right and she wasn’t even that good.  How much did they pay for this nomination?
• And the Best Actor is……Colin Firth, Colin Firth, Colin Firth, Colin Firth
• Best Original Score:  Somehow The very very very bland and forgettable The Social Network soundtrack keeps getting press.  How is Hans Zimmer not the favorite?  This seems really fishy to me
• Best Original Screenplay:  They should cancel the Oscars if this award goes to any movie other than Inception.  How did The Kids Are All Right get nominated?

Ugh, I have bad a really bad feeling that The Social Network is going to ruin the whole night.  Taking home loads of awards that it doesn’t deserve only to be found in the land of forgotten and forgettable movies bargain bin with Crash, Shakespeare In Love, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire and Million Dollar Baby.  Take me back to 2007 please!!!

Day 28, Movie 24

The Despicable Me (2010)

An animated comedy about a nefarious criminal mastermind (sorta) name Gru who is….well…despicable.  After an up and coming criminal mastermind named Vector steals a pyramid word within the mastermind community is that it is time for Gru to retire.  Gru destined to not be out done by Vector sets out to steal the moon by shrinking it, but it seems that his nemesis has got a step on him at every turn as Vector manages to steal the shrink ray from Gru before he can pull of his plan.  Gru ends up having to recruit 3 young orphan girls to help him get his shrink ray back and at this point the movie changes tone from a simple heist style movie to one of a family less man learning to love and develop a family of his own.

This is a humorous movie and is more of a Pixar lite movie because it lacks the emotional depth and story of a Pixar film.  Some of the humor seems pratt fall forced and I understand that it is a movie geared towards children but when you have a solid movie like this one, you feel cheated when they resort to cheap laughs.  But hey I admit, I am no the target audience.  Steve Carell does a fine job as Gru and there are good jobs turned in all around but as I have come to expect, Jack McBrayer is annoying as usual.  I am just glad that he only had bit voice rolls to tone down his obnoxious tendencies.

I enjoyed this film and it is good to see someone other than Pixar put out a solid animated movie.  It seems ripe for a sequel.

Score: 7.5/10

Sharing My Dreams: Japan

Even Cats Enjoy Hanami

I apologize for the long absence of posts like these.  I have been totally consumed by my 100 movies in 100 days project and it is wearing me out.  I have a little extra time today and I want to start a new topic to discuss some of the life dreams/aspirations that I have.  I am going to call this topic “Sharing My Dreams” and it will give me an opportunity to share, reflect and hopefully involve some of you readers in my life aspirations.  I felt it was good to start with my biggest dream and that is to travel to Japan.

I have had an obsession with Japan for many, many years now as I am fascinated with so many different aspects of Japanese culture.  From Hanami, to Ryokan, to Japanese films (Harakiri, The Bad Sleep Well, Tokyo Sonata,  to name a few), Japanese music (Kodo drumming, Toe, The Peanuts, Shugo Tokumaru, to name a few), Japanese authors such as Haruki Murakami and of course Japanese food.  Such a diverse assortment of food and beverage, I mean come on they have Ice Cucumber Pepsi!  I have even taken Japanese language classes at the TFLI and use my study cards and text book to try to learn the difficult language.  Needless to say, my obsession in ingrained in to my every day life.

Why Japan you ask?  I am intrigued by a culture who has been so progressive yet has clung so tightly to its cultural roots.  On a one day trip in Tokyo you could see both The Imperial Palace and Akihabara (Tokyo’s Electronics district) which would be like a trip from the ancient Japanese empire to a not so distant time in the future.  The idea of traveling the various regions of Japan and staying in traditional hotels (Ryokan), seeing the lights and hustle and bustle of Tokyo and experiencing hanami with so many of the residents of the city seems amazing to me.  I would set out with my camera each day and capture enough memories to last a lifetime (and maybe even come back with a new toy for my camera).  The Japanese are a very respectful culture and to be part of that, observing their cultural rules and standards is part of the dream that I have.

I work every day towards this dream and I hope to be heading there within a years time.  Until then I will continue watching, listening, eating, prepping and enjoying Japanese culture.  Oh and enjoying great blogs such as this one – Link

 

Do you dream of one day traveling to Japan?  If so drop me a comment.

 

Day 28, Movie 23

Van Helsing (2004)

This movie follows a notorious monster hunter who is assigned to hunt down and kill Dracula.  There are several other classic Universal Monsters including Frankenstein’s monster and Wolfman but the central story revolves around Dracula and his desire to give eternal life to a whole new breed of vampires.  The plot and story are all fine with the type of movie it is supposed to be but so many mistakes are made along the way to keep it from being enjoyable.  The largest flaw comes with the character portrayal.  Van Helsing teams up with an heiress by the name of Anna (played by Kate Beckinsale) who for some reason wears completely impractical outfits that do nothing but show off her body.  Why did they do this?  Did they think the story was that bad that they had to lower themselves to trashy looking women to get men to the theater?  Secondly, Dracula’s harim of 3 vampires are made to be as loud and annoying as possible.  High pitch, skull piercing voices  and cackling makes every scene that they are in a cringe worthy one.  Lastly, the story seems to go on and on.  It could have been wrapped up 30 minutes before it got tiresome but instead they chose to expand it past the two hour mark to test the wills of even the most devoted genre movie follower.  Why?  You have got me, but it was a major blunder to let this movie be much over an hour and a half.

Van Helsing (played by Hugh Jackman) is the only likable character in this film and the only decent actor.  It is a close competition of who wins the worst acting award between Dracula (played by Richard Roxburgh) and Anna.   Each tries to steal the scene at different points of the film with their awful portrayal of their characters.  Sometimes overly theatrical, sometimes flat and all the time awful, they made a flimsy movie into an unbearable one.  I would like to see this story and direction giving to someone capable of filming a good story not to a person who gave us The Mummy Films and the live action of The Jungle Book, but hey he has gone on to great things in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  How does the guy keep getting work?

Score: 4.0/10