Author: Jared

The Academy Awards, 2014

/ Jared / Leave a comment

IMG_2214

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD EVENINNNNNNNG VIETTTTTBLOGGGGGG!!1!!1!

In the immortal words of Staind, it’s been awhile! Three years, in fact. Time flies when you’re working a lot and stressed out and busy with other stuff having fun! But, hey, I’m here now, blogging the Oscars, just like you wanted. You can all stop stop begging and pleading and refreshing your browser over and over OK? I mean, I know the last thing I should be doing is complaining about the devotion of my legions of fans, but to be perfectly frank, it was starting to get a little desperate.

JKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJK you guyz! No one cares about this at all!

Of course, Johanna and I will be doing one of our winner-picking competitions. It’s been a long time since we’ve done one of these for the blog, and it’s been really confusing for us. How are we supposed to know who is winning in our relationship if we don’t have award show winner-picking competitions to tell us, you know???

Ellen’s hosting right? That’s all right, I guess. She’s affable and mildly charming. Ellen is to hosting as 2013 was to movies, I think. Good, not great. I liked a lot of what I saw this year, but didn’t really love anything. But who cares, right? It’s the Oscars! Glitz! Glamour! Gowns! Flubs! Snubs! Subs! This message brought to you by Subway. Eat Fresh! Eat Fresh is a registered trademark of the Subway Sandwich Conglomeration.

Johanna has made us both a Gin Fizz for the occasion. Seems very appropriate for this old timey Hollywood event. “I was thinking about calling it the ‘American Fizzle’.” she said sheepishly. Works for me! Stop being sheepish, Johanna! Own your puns!

IMG_2195

OK, let’s get started, gang! While I go google how to spell McConaughey, you guys watch the 2013 version of one of my favorite internet time-wasters, Cinescape. Hats off to Matt Shapiro, the guy who puts these together every year.

Continue reading →

Good ads count.

/ Jared / Leave a comment

Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, I KNOW, OK? Nike is a big bad company and commercials are poisoning our children and Adbusters and Naomi Klein and everything etc. bah blah blah. Additionally, I have no clue what the Nike Fuelband is and I’m sure it’s stupid and I really don’t care. But I am amazed by the folks at Wieden+Kennedy and how they just consistently crank out ads that are both really visually interesting and not cheesy and JUST emotionally manipulative enough to get you excited without feeling TOTALLY gross.

I mean, did you see this one yet?  IT HAS DAVID BRENT IN IT.

I don’t know anything about marketing or video production or any of this stuff, but one day I will work for W+K. Even if it means I have to live in Portland.

Google Zeitgeist, 2011

/ Jared / Leave a comment

It’s peanut zeitgeist jelly time! It’s peanut zeitgeist jelly time! It’s peanut zeitgeist jelly time! Get it?  Remember that, guys? You guys are too young, guys.

Anywayz, Google Zeitgeist 2011!  If you know me, you know I love clips of stuff. Particularly when those clips are montage-y and backed by music and almost make me cry. So, obviously, I love this:

2011 went by fast, huh???  2012 already???  I saw a documentary about 2012, and I’m not sure we’re ready for this.

I mean, that’s a lot of John Cusack, right?  Also, the other stuff looks not so fun.

The Cinescape, 2011

/ Jared / Leave a comment

So every year, for the past six years, this guy Matt Shapiro has put together great montages of clips from the year’s movies.  And seriously, great job, Matt!  These are really amazing!  This must have been tons of work!  Bravo!  Kudos!

But man oh man as I watched this I couldn’t help but wishing he had a better crop of movies this year to montagify.  Wow were there not a whole lot of great or good movies this year!  I mean, right?!  Remember how last year we had like The Social Network and Inception and True Grit and everything??  And this year we have, like…uh, Moneyball?  I liked Moneyball, right?  Yikes!

Hopefully next year will be better.  For now, I’m going to go watch the montage from 2010. And also download the Deadmau5 song that was in the 2011 montage.

The Emmys, 2011

/ Jared / 3 Comments

DSC04320

So, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Emmys.  I always get excited for them because I love quite a bit of television, and quite a bit of the television that I love gets nominated.  But there are always one or two nominees in each category that (even though MAYBE I’ve never actually watched the show SO SUE ME) are clearly not worthy.  And, more often than not, one of those two nominees ends up winning.  Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnny Galecki won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy this year.  JUST KIDDING even the Emmys wouldn’t go that far, I mean it’s JOHNNY GALECKI lolz gimme a break!  If that happened I would expect the Emmys to receive an Emmy nomination for Best Comedy next year!  Get it??  Wocka wocka wocka!

So usually I start out excited, slowly lose my enthusiasm after some mind-numbingly bad award choices, and by the end of the night I’m a disillusioned husk of a man.  OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, because I don’t really care all that much, but you get my point.

As usual, my wife Johanna and I will be competing in a winner-picking competition.  She’s trying not to over-think things tonight and keeps muttering things like, “I refuse to base my self-worth on this.  I am an adult with a job.”  She is also going to fulfill her role as bartender for the evening.  We very recently found out that we will be moving from North Carolina back to Boston soon so that she can start the aforementioned job.  In honor of both Game of Thrones and the impending New England blizzards that we’re dreading, she has concocted a drink made up of vanilla-flavored vodka and seltzer that she’s calling “Winter is Coming.”  Yummerz?  We’ll see.

DSC04317

OK, let’s get this thing started.  Time to hype ourselves up for another bloated award show!  Repeat after me: “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”

8:01 – Fun (??) opening musical number!  Oh, Jane Lynch.  In just a couple short years I’ve gone from liking you a lot to still liking you but being annoyed at your overexposure because of Glee to kind of maybe not even liking you anymore?  But this bit is pretty winning.  Maybe you’ll redeem yourself in my eyes tonight!  And I know my opinion is all that really matters to you, Jane.

DSC04321

Continue reading →

The MTV VMAs, 2011

/ Jared / Leave a comment

DSC04312

BLACK AND YELLOW GUCCI GUCCI LOUIS LOUIS FENDI FENDI PRADA!!!1!  YO! MTV gives out VMAs!!

Seriously, this is one of my favorite award shows, if only because it is consistently bonkers.  I mean, most of the time it’s only bonkers in an over-produced, manufactured MTV type of way, but it’s still sort of fun if you don’t think too much about it, I think?  And every once in a while something that’s actually bizarre happens.  I was actually starting to get excited about this earlier today until I remembered that Chelsea Handler was the host [Edit: Wrong.].  UGH THAT DOUBLE UGH.

Anywayz, my wife Johanna and I will be competing in another of our CLASSIC winner-picking competitions.  Luckily, there are only like eight categories tonight (at least on our ballot), so this should be easy enough.  Johanna is also, as usual, in charge of our themed beverage for the evening.  I’ve been singing (rapping?) Kreayshawn all day long, so she’s calling tonight’s drink the “Gucci Gucci.”  We don’t have any Adderall to grind up and put in a beverage, so she’s making a variant of a Cuba Libre because, in her words, “it’s something a trashy girl would drink.”  After her first sip she added, “I’ll only be having one of these.”

DSC04262

Let’s get going.  Categories and winners in bold.  And if Kanye does anything crazy, it’ll be in bold and also, like, 20 pt font.

9:35 – Hey, guess what!?  Time Warner Cable is the worst!  The tech they use is ridiculously out-of-date and barely functions, and it decided this evening to not record the first 35 minutes of this show!  Now I’m going to use that 35 minutes of my life that they saved me tweeting at them about how horrible they are.

I suppose this means I missed the opening performance (Lady Gaga, I think?), so that’s too bad, but this also means that I have to hear Chelsea Handler talk less, so, win some lose some, I guess?  [Edit: Wrong.]  Oh, well.  Deep breaths, Jared;  it’s just the VMAs.  This will all be online later anyways.

Johanna is hopping on to MTV.com to see the results of any categories that we missed.  Let’s check in.

Best Video with a Message: We both went with Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and it wins.  1-1.

Best Pop Video:  Johanna went with Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and I went with Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”, because we had both forgotten that it was 2002.  Since it is 2002, though, Britney Spears wins with “Till the World Ends”.

Best Rock Video: I went with Foster the People here because I have never heard of them before.  Johanna remembered that it was 2002 this time, so she went with Foo Fighters, who win.  2-1 her.

All right, let’s rejoin our regularly scheduled programming.

9:35 – Jack Black, Will Ferrell, and Seth Rogen are here reprising their roles as the Beastie Boys from this thing:

DSC04263

Continue reading →

The ESPYs, 2011

/ Jared / Leave a comment

DSC04216

Prior to blogging about last year’s show I had never bothered to watch the ESPYs.  I mean, it’s the ESPYs, right?  Come on, ESPN, the ESPYs?  What a stupid name!!  Plus, why do we need an award show for sports?  I’m pretty sure we already have awards for sports.  You know, like MVPs and championships.

But then I watched them, and wow, it was a lot of fun!  Mostly because of all the great montages.  I love a good montage, and ESPN is really good at putting them together.  Plus, Seth Meyers is hosting, there is sure to be a bunch of weird, awkward celebrity/athlete pairings, and it’s a slow Wednesday night.  What else do I have going on?  I’m in.

The ESPYs are also perfect for the award show winner-picking competition between my wife Johanna and I, because she has absolutely no idea what’s going on.  She claimed not to have heard of any of the boxers until I pronounced Manny Pacquiao’s name for her, and she’s currently Googling the names in the “Best Jockey” category.  As I said last year, if I don’t win this one, it’ll be embarrassing.

As always, in addition to blindly picking a “Best Bowler,” she is also in charge of making us a themed cocktail for the evening.  She’s whipping something up with gin, lemonade, and a splash each of cranberry juice and sparkling water and calling it the “Derrick Rosé” in honor of the man who has managed to steal the title of “Jared’s Sports Crush” away from Albert Pujols.

DSC04214

Categories and winners are in bold, and I’ll be keeping score as we go along.  Let’s get started.  Play ball!  Kickoff!  Tip off! Puck drop, or whatever!

9:01 –  You know you’re watching a seriously classy event when it’s sponsored by a motor oil.

DSC04217

Continue reading →