#OscarsSoWhite? more like #OscarsSoBad.

Me and Wifey are over halfway through watching all of the movies nominated for Best Picture. While her list would differ, we both agree that no movies so far have stood out as anything special. So far, my rankings would go like this:

1. The Big Short (it was okay, but didn't care the hyper-kinetic style, and yeah, have a little bit of a problem rooting for rich dudes becoming even richer betting on predicted misery.)
2. Bridge of Spies (also okay, but slow, and the score was incredibly cheesy. Surprised to find it was written by the Coen Brothers.)
3. Spotlight (again, okay, but kinda of a generic procedural with cardboard cutout characters.)
4. Brooklyn (meh...I guess it was okay, but there was no real drama in it. Kinda hokey.) 
5. Mad Max: Fury Road (a decent action movie aside from the ridiculous guitar dude, but has no business being nominated for best picture). 

We have not yet seen The Revenant, The Martian, or Room. Hopefully at least one of them is the real deal, because so far none we've seen has come close to being Best Picture worthy. For real, Inside Out was better than anyof these movies.

Which brings me to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. My opinion is that it is 100% undeniable that Oscar voters are completely out of touch. Whether out of touch = racist, I can't really say, but I'm not gonna argue with those who say it is. I have not seen Creed or Straight Outta Compton, but from what I've heard both were just as worthy as those that were nominated. They surely couldn't be worse than Mad Max for Best Picture consideration.

But you know what I did see? Beasts of No Nation. How in the hell did this not have multiple nominations? This is where I start having some serious doubts with the selection process. There are at least four major categories for which it should have received nominations:

• Best Picture. It's far better than anything on the list I've seen so far. 
• Best Actor. You probably think I'm going to say Idris Elba, who was amazing, but I'm not, because Abraham Attah was even better. Both could have and probably shoudl have been nominated. 
• Best Supporting Actor. Idris Elba. I'll admit I have no idea where the line between lead and supporting actor/actress is. 
• Best Director. Cary Fukunaga. This is a no-brainer. You will not see a more beautifully shot movie this year. Insane that he was not nominated.

With a movie this good, with performances this strong, it makes you really wonder what the hell is going on. Did Charlotte "perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list" Rampling see it? Did Michael "You can't vote for an actor because he's black" Caine (actually, I know he did)? You would think that it would get some nominations for minor categories, but nope. Nothing. Zilch. It's on Netflix. Go watch it. Tell me I'm wrong.

hoodwinked #mixcd

Yet another comp I made who knows when and God knows why (1999 and because I was bored, actually). Lost the cover art, so I redid it, even though all of these songs pre-date Bush II by a pretty healthy margin. Probably a lot of duplicate songs from other comps I made. What can I say, I like what I like.

01 - Mandingo - Cursing Authority                
02 - Adrenalin OD - Sightseeing                  
03 - Consumed - Brutal Tooth                    
04 - Lifetime - Turnpike Gates                  
05 - Broadways - 15 Minutes                      
06 - Strung Out - Ghost Town                    
07 - No Use For A Name - A Postcard Would Be Nice
08 - Quadiliacha - Sandy Springs War Hymn        
09 - Refused - New Noise                        
10 - Bracket - 2RAK005                          
11 - Screeching Weasel - D.I.Y.                  
12 - Cleveland Bound Death Sentence - Baltimore  
13 - Sewer Trout - President Of The Anarchist Club
14 - Nards - Nuclear Mom                        
15 - Ink And Dagger - The Road To Hell          
16 - Avail - Tuesday                            
17 - Kid Dynamite - Heart A Tact                
18 - Hot Water Music - Turnstile                
19 - Neighbors - A Rich Person's Death          
20 - Inquisition - Gretta                        
21 - American Steel - Got A Backbeat            
22 - Litmus Green - D2                          
23 - Fracture - Non Serviam                      
24 - Goober Patrol - I'll Do Without            
25 - Against All Authority - Just An Obstruction
26 - Impossibles - Plan B                        


HOODWINKED

grigson

In today's Jambaroo, Drew Magary writes:

Again, I would urge you to do a Google Image Search for Ryan Grigson and attempt to explain why the Colts would ever entrust this man with the responsibility of building a team around Andrew Luck. 

I would also urge you to do so. Do it now. I'll wait.

OMG, right?

That's what I pictured the pharma-douche dude looking like.

punk, bitch

Late 90's comp I made, mainly highlighting favorite tracks from other comps. It made life easier not having to keep a bunch of comp CD's in the car for the two or three tracks I liked. The CD did not hold up these 15+ years, so I had to recreate it. I used MP3Gain to try and get some sort of levelling between tracks, but there's always going to be issues. I also had trouble tracking some stuff down, most notably "Everlast" by Shoegazer, which was on the "Two T.O.N. Comp". I used a ripped version from the "Hey Turkey" 7", but if anyone happens to have the comp, please share. Tangent: T.O.N. was a weird label. Shoegazer and Wingnut Supreme two of the best unknown bands, but I don't like a single other band on the label.

01 - Wingnut Supreme  -  Chicken Killer
02 - Pinhead Circus  -  Too Bad She Won't Live
03 - Black Fork  -  Mathilda
04 - Shoegazer  -  Everlast
05 - Neighbors  -  Sometimes
06 - Sofa Glue  -  Locked Up
07 - Rickets  -  Diet Punk
08 - Eveready  -  I Hate You
09 - Rhythm Collision  -  Underground
10 - Overlap  -  Song #9
11 - Various  -  Chickenhead - Young Fidel
12 - Bristle  -  Officer Right
13 - F.Y.P  -  2000 A.D.
14 - Nimrods  -  I Don't Really Care
15 - Mr. T Experience  -  Unpack Your Adjectives
16 - Spazz  -  Climate Best
17 - His Hero Is Gone  -  Leash
18 - Peechees  -  Maintenance Free
19 - Cockney Rejects  -  Flares N Slippers
20 - Falling Sickness  -  Seein' Stars
21 - Dag Nasty  -  Trying
22 - Crumbs  -  Scott And Jane
23 - Ejected  -  East End Kids
24 - 88 Fingers Louie  -  Something I Don't Know
25 - Anti Nowhere League  -  For You
26 - Crucial Youth  -  Shave Clean
27 - Boris The Sprinkler  -  West of The East
28 - Smears  -  Honey Jar
29 - Nobodys  -  Fuck You Too
30 - Chron Gen  -  Jet Boy Jet Girl

 Punk, Bitch

the twisted geography of #truedetective

True Detective Season 2 was an unmitigated disaster. A riveting one, but still, a disaster. With the benefit of hindsight, I tried to recap the season for Wifey. I got two sentences in before I confused myself and had to abort mission. I've been told  by the internet that it reached the "so-bad-it's-good" threshold, but I maintain it motored right past that marker and did a full 360 back to simply bad. It did have some redeeming qualities, primarily the unintentionally (maybe?) hilarious dialogue (the unanimous winner = “It’s like blue balls, in your heart.”

But the main problem I had, the thing that had me shouting at my TV, was not the ludicrous, unintelligible plot. It was Nic Pizzolatto's weird geography of the West Coast.

1. The story acts like it's totally no big deal to travel from Ventura County to southern Los Angeles. It's an hour fifteen from Oxnard to Vernon with Google painting the route blue. With traffic? You're looking at at least two hours. If you want to argue they were working from closer in Ventura County, fine, but I distinctly remember there being coastline involved, and the distance from there is virtually identical. But the show acts like these places are just down the road from each other.

2. At one point during the whole "environmentally damaged properties near the high speed rail route" storyline, they visit Fresno. Now aside from the fact that Fresno is a good three hours from Fresno on a good day, the picture they paint of Fresno is some bucolic mountainside farming area.

This is not what Fresno County farmland looks like:

This is what Fresno County farmland looks like:

Are there areas of Fresno county out in the foothills that could look like the first picture? Sure. But that's not where any proposed high speed rail line would go.

3. One of the crimes in the story takes place in the hippy enclave of Guerneville. Officers show up there immediately. Except Guerneville is 7 hours away by car and 2 hours by plane (plus renting a car and driving a few more hours). The show doesn't necessarily need to mention all this travel, but someone from the east coast must be assuming this is all in the same area, since travel is not mentioned at all.

4. There's also a lot of casual mentions of heading to Oregon. Sounds nice. Except that's an 11 hour drive. If you want to get out of the state quick, head east! You can make Nevada and Arizona in a few hours.

5. Possibly the most baffling case of geographical confusion occurred in the finale. Velcoro finds a tracker on his car, in Los Angeles. He drives to plan his confrontation, and ends up in a grove of what look to me to be redwoods, where he meets his ultimate demise. The news reports of his death indicate Porterville. Well, there are no redwoods in Porterville. But if you head east into the mountains, there are. From Los Angeles to the Trail of 100 Giants in Kern County, it's 3.5 hours. Am I supposed to assume Velcoro just so happened to have a full tank of gas (though the Dodge Charger does get pretty good freeway mileage) and they just yada yada yada's a three and a half hour drive? Well they yada yada yada'd longer drives, so I guess I answered my own question.

All in all, the show treated the enormous state of California like it was Rhode Island. Geography - the most ridiculous aspect of a ridiculous show.

This wouldn't be as weird if dude didn't retire in 2010 and this truck was older than that. But he did and it isn't. #nba #osw

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losers of the year

When I was a wee lad, I was into KISS in a big way. Completely inappropriate for my age, but it was the 70's, and that's just they way we rolled. My big sis would sometimes get her kicks by mocking them and getting me all riled up. I remember her citing a poll in Tiger Beat or something naming KISS the worst band in the world. I was fuming. And for a looooooooong time, she had me convinced that the lyric in "Surrender" was "threw my KISS records out" instead of "got my KISS records out". I don't know why this would have made a difference in the context of the song, but she insinuated it was a bad thing, as I was completely unaware of context. I only knew KISS records were being thrown out, and that was a travesty. I was too young and dumb to use her Leif Garrett obsession to retaliate, so I just stewed.

Anyways, I mention all this because I recently heard "Surrender" and it's awesome and they liked KISS and Leif Garrett sucks.

Love you, sis!

commute playlist 05/06/2015

This morning:

• Babes in Toyland - Bluebell
• Testament - Blessed in Contempt
• Descendents - Mr. Bass
• Slayer - Jesus Saves
• The Dismemberment Plan - The Things That Matter
• Screeching Weasel - This Ain't Hawaii
• Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster
• Adolescents - Losing Battle
• J Church - No Suprise
• Zeke - Relapse
• Leadbelly - Julie Ann Johnson

Good job, Google Play Music Shuffle Library feature!

Disturbing, but I lol'd. #humancentipede #osw

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#osw #mixedmessages

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3 words: Peanut Butter Latte #osw

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