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The Academy Awards, 2014

/ Jared / Leave a comment

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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!

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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.

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The Emmys, 2011

/ Jared / 3 Comments

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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.

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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.

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The MTV VMAs, 2011

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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.”

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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:

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The ESPYs, 2011

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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.

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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.

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The MTV Movie Awards, 2011

/ Jared / Leave a comment

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OK, OK, I know what you’re thinking.  When I did last year’s post on the MTV Movie Awards I said that it would be my last.  It wasn’t the MOST useless award show I blogged about (that honor goes to the Daytime Emmys), but it definitely felt like a waste of time.  But you know what?  Apparently my time isn’t all that valuable, because here we are again.

As usual, my wife Johanna is mixing us a themed cocktail.  Tonight she’s going with a somewhat hastily thrown together offshoot of the cosmopolitan.  Some vodka, cranberry juice, and since we don’t have any orange liqueur and we live in North Carolina where the state-run liquor stores are closed on Sundays, orange juice.  I KNOW, I KNOW, it’s not really a cosmopolitan, but in the wise words of Adam Sandler’s screenwriter, “Just go with it!” [DRINK UPDATE ALERT!  I was later informed that, in addition to the previously listed ingredients, the drink contains blueberry-pomegranate juice, lime juice, and seltzer.  Fancy!]

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She chose this because it’s red, like blood, which is perfect because TWILIGHT!!!1!!!!11!  Speaking of, did you guys see that Vanity Fair article about Robert Pattinson and how he is conflicted about his fame and his crazy fans and he can’t go to a bar without bringing in the police for crowd control and basically seems really depressed, but not in a cool goth vampire way, just in a sad human being way?  Anywayzzz, Johanna named the drink the “Bloody Bella.”

Also as usual, we’ll be competing in a winner-picking competition.  I’m pretty sure these awards are based entirely on online fan voting, which is always fun.  Particularly when the people voting are in a completely different demographic than I am.  I miss being in the 18-24 demo so much!  It was a lot of fun.  To paraphrase Kanye West, no one demo should have so much power.  Particularly when it’s such a stupid demo.  Remember how stupid we were?  Yikes.

Categories and winners will be in bold.  I’d like to ask you all to send your prayers and goodwill out into the world for Johanna, because she really needs the win.  I’m worried she’s going to lose interest; she’s already threatening to boycott the ESPYs.  The ESPYs!  Can you imagine?

All right, let’s go!  Take it away, Jason Sudeikis!  I’ll just be sitting over here mentally preparing myself to hear my wife talk all night about how much of a crush she has on the host.

9:00 – MTV starts off on the wrong foot with me with the reminder that Chelsea Handler hosted the VMAs.  You’re better than this, MTV!  Oh, wait, no you’re not.  I think I’ll zone out for this opening bit.

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9:05 – Not as good as last year, MTV Movie Awards!  I like you, Jason, but you’re no Aziz.

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Also, no one in this audience cares enough about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelity to warrant one joke, let alone six of them or whatever you just did.

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The Academy Awards, 2011

/ Jared / 2 Comments

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OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG you guys it’s the Oscars!  We can finally stop pretending to care about all these other shows, because the Oscars are here!

Seriously though, I’ve made a lot of jokes about award shows, but I clearly enjoy them.  Over the past couple of years, however, I’ve realized that this is the only one that takes its job at all seriously.  I mean, the only other award show that even seems like it is moderately trying is the Emmys, and even then approximately two nominees in every category are totally ridiculous.  But nine out of the ten nominees for Best Picture here are really good movies.  And the tenth isn’t really all that bad (Just so you know, the odd man out here is The Kids Are All Right, which was, at best, all right.).  This is a show that respects itself!  And for that, I respect it.

And yes, you did not misread me; I have opinions on all ten Best Picture nominees.  Because I saw ALL TEN OF THEM.  I did my homework!  This is, I’m pretty sure, the first time I have seen all of the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars.  And I am therefore full of opinions on ALL TEN OF THEM.   This should be fun.

Detracting from the fun is the fact that a lot of these categories seem preordained.  As always, my wife Johanna and I will be competing in a winner-picking competition here, and I’m worried that we’ll end up in a tie like we did with the Golden Globes. One can only hope that the costume/sound/editing categories will allow one of us to differentiate ourselves.

Johanna is, as ever, in charge of drinks.  She’s got like a thousand things going on right now, so I’m not going to make her try to come up with something crazy.  I think we’re just going to go with gin and tonics, because it’s a classy drink for a classy evening.  We’ll be upping the classiness to astronomical levels by referring to them as “The Meryl Streep.”  Also, it was 78 degrees outside today!  Warm weather drink alert, whattttt!

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How are we feeling about Anne Hathaway and James Franco as hosts?  I think they could be fun.  Or at least not boring.  Anne Hathaway is musical and funny and super hot, right?  And James Franco is also all of those things, except maybe musical.  I’ve never heard him sing, I don’t think.

So are we ready for this?  Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  Let’s ease in here, folks.  As always, winners and categories and score and such in bold.

8:31 – Johanna is still agonizing over her picks as the obligatory “hosts romp through the movies of the year” montage begins.  These are always enjoyable.  I am not being sarcastic.

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The Grammys, 2011

/ Jared / 3 Comments

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God, the Grammys are so gross.  I make a lot of jokes about bad award shows, but this is the worst.  Not only are all the nominees just really aggressively out-of-touch and terrible, but half of this crap came out in 2009.  I could swear some of this same stuff was nominated last year.  Plus, there are the oddities like Arcade Fire being nominated in the Album of the Year category but not in the Best Rock Album category.  I don’t even understand what the rules are here.  This is either going to be a lot of fun to laugh at or one of the longest nights of my life.

As always, my wife Johanna and I will be competing in a winner-picking competition.  This should be an interesting one for us, because the list of nominees is so utterly bizarre that we’re guaranteed to not do what we usually do and pick the same people in every category.  I’ve got to tell you, picking winners in this disaster was painful.  It upset my stomach to have to decide between, like, Neil Young and Mumford and Sons.  And not because they are both so good.  [Update: Turns out Mumford and Sons = Not bad!] Johanna kept saying things like “Whatever, whatever, I don’t even care,” as she went over her ballot.

To help ease us through this living nightmare Johanna has whipped up an adult beverage consisting of vodka, cranberry juice, seltzer, and lime juice.  She’s calling it “The Chris Brown” because it really smacks you in the face.  YOU SHOULDN’T MAKE JOKES ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, JOHANNA.

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Sigh.  Are you all ready to be bored by Lady Gaga’s faux-edginess?  To suffer through some performances by Bruno Mars or someone?  To watch your grandparents’ favorite rockers take home some awards?  Then let’s do this.  In the words of Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, sit back, relax, and strap it down.

8:01 – This is weird.  Doesn’t this usually start with a big musical number?  Like, they just jump right into it?  I know last year started with the Lady Gaga/Elton John/My Nightmares mashup. This year Ladies Love Cool James strolls out to introduce a menagerie of women to sing a tribute medley of Aretha Franklin songs.

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The Super Bowl, 2011

/ Jared / 4 Comments

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OK, wait, just for one second let’s talk about the Puppy Bowl.  Did you guys see Two Face?  He was clearly the best and my favorite because he just wants to chill.

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I’m also probably going to be good friends with Oliver (and maybe his brother River) because we share a love of movies.

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But anyway, the Super Bowl.  So, this seems like it’s going to be a good game.  Most people that I’ve heard have been picking the Packers to win, but they aren’t huge favorites.  It should be close.  Plus, both the Packers and the Steelers have huge fanbases and storied histories.  There is a lot going on here.  And somehow, I absolutely could not care less.  I can’t remember the last time I was this uninterested in this game.

My desire to watch it is also hurt by the fact that the television rights this year belong to FOX, which means this is going to be really overproduced and will constantly pander to the lowest common denominator.  And will feature a robot.

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The Golden Globes, 2011

/ Jared / 1 Comment

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We warmed up earlier this month with the People’s Choice Awards, but now Awards Season begins in earnest with the Golden Globes.  By the way, People’s Choice Awards, you may need to reassess your existence if you’re nothing more than an unnoticed ramp-up to the ridiculous disaster that is the Golden Globes.  And I’m sure you noticed that I didn’t even bother with you, Critics’ Choice Awards.

As per the usual, my wife Johanna and I will be competing in a winner-picking competition.  We’ve done this for nine award shows and I’ve beaten her eight times.  Her one win?  Last year’s Golden Globes. That doesn’t bode well for me tonight; I suspect her tendency to make at least one or two crazy choices really helps her because of the general goofiness of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

She wants the win, too.  You guys should have seen her agonizing over her ballot!  I thought she was going to have a breakdown making her picks.  She also had to fulfill her role as award show bartender.  In honor of the foreign voters and the drunken, vaguely trashy vibe of the evening, she’s whipped us up a wine spritzer with equal parts Chardonnay, Sprite Zero, and Diet Orange Fanta.  As she set it down in front of me she said, “These are relatively disgusting, BTW,” but I’m enjoying mine so far.  She’s calling it the “Slutty Exchange Student” and assures me that she’s working on a second concoction for later this evening.

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All right, let’s get started.  As always, categories and winners in bold.  Take it away, Ricky Gervais!

8:01 – Here’s Ricky!  As I said last year, I think he’s perfect for this job, mostly because he doesn’t seem to care much about offending people and he doesn’t seem stiff and over-prepared.  I’m looking forward to it.

His drinking a beer on stage thing is starting to feel like a gimmick, though.

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8:04 – The audience has definitely warmed to him since last year.  He’s getting more laughs from the famous people up front.  Robert De Niro is certainly enjoying himself.

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The People’s Choice Awards, 2011

/ Jared / 3 Comments

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2011 has begun and another awards season is here, and we all know what that means; Johanna and I must resume our award show winner-picking competition.  If you’re sensing a lack of enthusiasm on my part, that’s due to the fact that tonight we’re starting with The People’s Choice Awards.

I don’t know about you, but I was under the apparently false impression that this was a real award show.  I mean, I knew from the title that it was voted on by the “people,” so the actual winners are inevitably going to be terrible.  That’s no excuse for the list of nominees, though.  No real award show in 2010 has any reason to nominate Jackie Chan for anything, right?  The categories themselves don’t even make sense.  Two of the TV show categories are “Favorite TV Obsession” and “Favorite TV Guilty Pleasure” and the nominees for both seem pretty interchangeable.  And Mad Men apparently doesn’t qualify as either an “Obsession” or a “Guilty Pleasure.”  At least we finally get to vote for our “Favorite TV Doctor.”

I’m having trouble even figuring out who the target audience for this show is.  This is key, because since this is a winner-picking competition, I need to know what type of person was doing the voting.  So, judging from the nominees, this is basically the MTV VMAs/Movie Awards except it’s aimed at the dorkier tweens and teens.  Also, there is probably a lonely housewife factor that I need to consider.  Noted.

If you’ve been keeping score at home you’ll remember that I pretty handily trounced Johanna in the 2010 competition.  Of the eight award shows we’ve done this for, I won seven of them.  It’s a new year, though, so we’re wiping the slate clean and giving her a chance to redeem herself.  Let’s get started.  As always, categories and winners in bold.

9:00 – No one told me this was hosted by Queen Latifah.  Although, to be fair, no one said anything about this show to me at all, ever.

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9:02 – She’s opening with a cover of “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz.  This is officially Johanna’s favorite opening to an award show.  I’m busy scanning the audience to see how many celebrities are actually in attendance to try to see what I’ve gotten myself into.

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