But these great Americans are generally not members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and they don’t get to vote for who takes home the Oscar.  People like Sean Penn do.  And Tim Robbins.   And tranny vomit recipient Susan Sarandon.  

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These are the kind of folks who make up the majority of Oscar voters, so it’s no wonder that the Academy Awards show is so often a festival of nitwittery that leaves normal Americans scratching their heads wondering, “Um, what the hell was that?” 

Oscar has more than its share of astonishing failures, of crazy-uncle-locked-in-the-attic nods that the Academy sorely regretted about the time the after-party coke bowls ran dry.  The terrible Oscar choices listed here are only from the last few decades since the sting of choosing How Green Is My Valley over Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon has presumably faded since 1941– well, for some of us.  Oh, and you won’t find Marisa Tomei on this list – she rocks.  Deal with that, haters. 

So, in no particular order of insanity, here are Oscar’s 10 biggest recent screw-ups: ]

1. Crash: Best Picture 2006: Before Paul Haggis annoyed the Scientologists, he annoyed most of the rest of the world with Crash, a ponderous stew of liberal guilt and condescension that lucked into a Best Picture Oscar through a combination of pinko button pushing and the pure dumb luck of having an equally tiresome raft of competing nominees.  

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With fellow nominees Brokeback Mountain, Munich, Capote, and Good Night and Good Luck, Crash was up against sodomy, moral equivalence, more sodomy and George Clooney.  Apparently, the voters found Crash the lesser of five mediocrities. 

2. Shakespeare In Love: Best Picture 1999:  Well, I guess I’m just being petty.  I mean, Saving Private Ryan was merely a stirring, technically magnificent tribute to the unbelievable bravery of the heroes who stormed the beaches at Normandy and freed Europe from the grip of Nazi tyranny.  But Shakespeare In Love was about show business and it also displayed Gwyneth Paltrow’s epically unimpressive rack.  So I guess it was an easy choice for the Academy – they got to pick a flick about Actors and Acting while also dissing those dirty brutes who do Army stuff.  To pat themselves on their collective backs and diss the proles – how could they pass up that opportunity?  Well, they couldn’t, and they didn’t. 

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Now, there’s nothing really wrong with Shakespeare In Love.  It’s a perfectly serviceable film if you happen not to have testes, or merely hate all they stand for.  Sure, there are some guys out there who think a topless Gwyneth from 14 years ago is sexy, but movies need to appeal to more than just lonely shut-ins whose life partners are manufactured by the Kleenex Corporation.  This condescending, anti-American snob is to hot women what her husband’s band Coldplay is to cool music,and she needs to stick to her goop.com blog where she comments on the everyday problems that real moms face, like uppity butlers and “tiara hair.”  Enough said about her.  

In ambition and execution, Private Ryan – a film I have my problems with – was so manifestly superior artistically and technically that to overlook it could not simply be a mistake.  The electrifying initial landing scene is so unforgettable that it alone justified a Best Picture award regardless of what came after.  No, there had to be an agenda.  And that’s what makes this choice more than just risible – it was despicable. 

3. Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman: Best Actor 1993:  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  From his iconic roles in the 70’s like Michael Corleone to the bizarrely over-the-top but unforgettable Tony Montana in the 80’s, you could always count on Al to deliver.  But this?  It’s bad enough that it came to this; it’s worse that the Academy acted as an enabler to Pacino’s sad decline into tedious caricature. 

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Hooah?  I don’t think so. 

4. Roberto Begnini in Life Is Beautiful: Best Actor 1999:  This award was so manifestly undeserved that it made President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize seem as underwhelming as a third place middle school science fair ribbon tossed at Albert Einstein.  Let me put this out there – Life Is Beautiful is perhaps the stupidest, most offensive major motion picture ever made.  When the Nazis came looking for Begnini, this holocaust comedy literally had people in the audience yelling, “Hey, he’s hiding in the alley!” 

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Someone told Roberto Begnini a terrible lie – that he was amusing.  In fact, he is the most annoying performer in the entire history of cinema, a history that includes Matt Damon and Channing Tatum.  What takes him to a whole new level of suck is that he thinks he’s hilarious, which he is – in the same way a giant herpetic lesion is hilarious.  

The “wacky” English-mangling acceptance speech he offered when presented with this award was brilliant…to those who hit the sauce in their limos beforehand.  For the rest of the audience, it was like a root canal sans anesthetic, but without the fun.  Fortunately, Begnini has faded into well-deserved obscurity and his movies are today largely forgotten, a tribute to the collective human mind’s ability to block out traumatic experiences. 

5. Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine: Best Supporting Actor 2007:  “Let’s honor a trangressive indie comedy where the grandpa swears and drinks and does drugs – yeah, that’ll blow the collective minds of those squares out there in Jesusland!”  Such was no doubt the thought process that went into handing the little gold naked guy to veteran Alan Arkin for what was essentially playing the same curmudgeonly character he’d been essaying since the great Freebie and the Bean.  Now, that was an amusing, truly un-PC movie: 

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So rent Freebie and let Little Miss Sunshine fade into a vague, unpleasant memory. 

6. Diablo Cody for Juno: Best Original Screenplay 2008:  Once again, the Academy experienced the equivalent of a “double bagger,” where it wakes up in the morning, looks at what it brought home, and asks “What the hell was I thinking?” 

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Juno is not the most horrible movie of all time, despite the presence of the spirit-killing Michael Cera and Ellen Page and a soundtrack full of crappy, waify hipster alt-folk songs that are so twee they make Justin Beiber seem like Megadeth.  It’s just that Juno is embarrassingly pretentious, with the precocious heroine’s vocabulary packed with painfully cutesy words like “shenanigans.”  And when Rainn Wilson’s character calls her “home skillet,” well, you just want to slap him. 

This is the problem with a novelty act movie – the Academy is amused for a few minutes, votes it an Oscar, then spends the rest of eternity shaking its collective head after figuratively sobering up.  

7. An Inconvenient Truth: Best Documentary 2007:  It’s hard to believe that it was only four years ago that people actually believed in global warming.  But it’s not hard at all to believe that among the biggest suckers were the pampered quarter-wits who do most of the Academy Award voting.  Al Gore’s ridiculous exercise in propaganda, delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, was a natural choice for the Oscar voters, but they were probably pretty disappointed they couldn’t also vote for the nominated documentary that dissed Christians or the other one that trashed America over Iraq.  Whoever said that Hollywood doesn’t embrace a diversity of thought?  

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In any case, An Inconvenient Truth is destined to be the Reefer Madness of 2007, with stoned UC Berkeley students from the Class of 2032 laying around their dorms laughing at how stupid people were back in the mid-aughts.  Well, some people. 

8. The English Patient: Best Picture 1997:  Perhaps the Academy wanted some balance after properly awarding the magnificent Schindler’s List Best Picture in 1994, which is the only possible explanation for why this over-praised, under-interesting celluloid atrocity could have won.  After all, this is the film that seriously posits that collaborating with the Nazis is perfectly cool if it will help you score with a mediocre chick who happens to be married to some other dude.  

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Sure, we can’t expect the film’s mere utter moral bankruptcy to dissuade the Academy voters – these are the folks who think Roman Polanski is the real victim.  But couldn’t they at least notice that this soapy melodrama is about the most boring way to spend nearly three hours outside of a Meet the Press marathon?  

9. Kate Winslet in The Reader: Best Actress 2009:  What the hell is it with Hollywood and Nazi sympathizers?  Well, admittedly Kate Winslet’s character had more going for her than just cavorting with brownshirts – she was illiterate and liked to do underage boys.  In Hollywood, that’s like an acting trifeca, and Kate went the full fascist-illiterate-pedo. 

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Oh, the performance itself?  Um, I have a question:  How did Kate Winslet get tagged as some sort of great thespian revelation?  In every movie she is in, she always seems to bear the same furrowed-brow, vaguely troubled expression, as if she was suffering from mild indigestion.  It must be something else – perhaps her willingness to doff her clothes and display her chubby charms in pretty much everything she’s been in.  Whatever.  

10. 3-6 Mafia’s “Hard Out here For A Pimp”: Best Song 2006:  Perhaps the most hilarious pick of all time, the Academy’s choice of the year’s Best Song from the rap/hooker extravaganza Hustle & Flow was just awesome.  For once, the saccharine Disney ditties and the generic pop hits were thrust aside in favor of a gritty urban tune that finally dared to musically explore the difficulties that industrious entrepreneurs face in their daily lives.  Yeah, nothing like a song we can all relate to. 

Most amazing were the hip hop stylings of those past and future unknowns, 3-6 Mafia, cavorting on stage while a bunch of dancers dressed like Hollywood’s idea of “hos” gyrated and frolicked before the bejeweled and bewildered audience: 

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Simply spectacular.  Yeah, it sure is hard out here for a pimp who’s trying to get his money for the rent.  Who can’t identify with that?  Especially in Hollywood.  

And this year, Oscar, don’t forget to keep your pimp hand strong!

But when we look at the leading actresses of 2010, the dearth of great performances and great parts is stunning.  The Golden Globe nominees for best actress this year were Halle Berry in the anonymous flick Frankie and Alice, playing a crazy person in her usual over-the-top style; Nicole Kidman in the anonymous flick Rabbit Hole, playing a grieving mother in her usual cold and remote style; Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, playing a teenage girl looking for her meth-making dad; Natalie Portman in Black Swan, playing a crazy person with a constipated look plastered on her mug; and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine, playing a spoiled girl who gets knocked up, married, and presumably divorced.  Has anyone seen any of these women in any of these films?  And if the disastrous Natalie Portman – Queen Amidala masturbating, anyone? – is the frontrunner for Best Actress at the Oscars, how far have female figures fallen?

Far.  Quick, think of the ten greatest living film actors.  It’s not that tough – we have iconic male film stars all the time.  Now think of the ten greatest living film actresses.  Now take away all women over 50.  Still thinking, aren’t you?

The simple truth is that actresses were far more iconic fifty years ago than they are now.  We may want to shtup most of the actresses we see on screen today, but we don’t show up to see them because of their standout screen personas.  That isn’t because today’s actresses are less talented than their predecessors – we have many talented actresses on the scene.  It’s because screen executives have decided that truly feminine women, with both brains and looks, are no longer in keeping with the times.  Instead, film execs have cut a sharp dichotomy between “sexy” women and “smart” women – it’s either Megan Fox or Kate Winslet.  Charlize Theron can’t play a strong, graceful, beautiful woman – she’s got to be either a lesbian serial killer or a piece of eye candy.

The feminism embraced by most of today’s execs is antiquated.  They still think that women must act like men in order to promote equality of the sexes.  Make Natalie Portman’s character a man in Black Swan and take away Darren Aronofsky’s idiotic and self-centered camera movements and you’ve got an oversexed Ronald Colman in A Double Life.  There’s nothing feminine about Ellen Page in Juno – she’s more of a dude than Michael Cera in the same film.  What ever happened to Bette Davis, to Vivien Leigh, to the old-school, unmannered Meryl Streep?  They’re gone, replaced with pale imitations starring in angst-filled nonsense glorifying aberrant behavior.

Ironically enough, the feminism of today’s Hollywood has killed the female movie star.  If Hollywood wants to restore that luster, they’ll need to embrace femininity, in all of its three-dimensional glory, once again.

As entertainment falls further under the thumb of big business, we’re going to have fewer and fewer “movements” in media.  The grunge music of Seattle in the 90s, the pure funkadelic madness that came out of Minneapolis in the 80s, and the string of fun fantasy and sci-fi films produced by Steven Spielberg between 1981 and 1987 are a thing of the past.  The industry is more diverse, with studio executives throwing random things at the dart board, hoping something sticks.

A few things from 2010 will stick.  Here are the five albums and five films that rose above the dreck of the year.  I guess this was the worst year ever for entertainment.  Unless you count 1997.  Boy, did that year suck.

Music

I have a simple rule for music.  If it rocks, it works.  Genres are insignificant.  My ipod playlist makes no sense.  It may be the only place, besides the red carpet at the Grammys, that you can find Snoop Dogg next to Toby Keith.

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

This eponymously named album sounds like it came out in 1992, right between the Gin Blossoms and Counting Crows.  And that is a-okay with me.  A soulful album that rocks when it needs to, rolls when it wants to.  Her vocals are great, and the orchestrations and shifts between genres elevate this band above the boring female singer/songwriters that fill the airways.  Yes, Sara Bareilles, I’m talking to you.

Covered in Gas - Evil Cowards

Frequent “Red Eye” guest Dick Valentine released this side project while taking a break from his equally awesome band Electric Six.  This album is definitely NSFW, but since when is rock and roll supposed to be safe?  Clever lyrics, crazy synthesizers, and beats that are more infectious than swine flu.  Not everybody will dig it, but if you do, your cool meter just went up from David Lee Roth to Fonzie.

Light Me Up – The Pretty Reckless

Brent Bozell over at Newsbusters has some issues with the band’s lead singer Taylor Momsen.  Point taken Brent, but unlike Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga, there is a bit of authenticity behind Momsen’s rock star persona.  You get the sense that it isn’t a bunch of Hollywood types exploiting a young girl to appeal to an oversexed male audience, but a young girl exploiting an oversexed male audience.  A messed up young girl, to be sure, but I think she’s driving the car while we all sit in the back sipping our Slurpees.  If you’re like me and you’ve worn out your Hole “Celebrity Skin” CD, this is a worthy successor.  Taylor Momsen may be the reincarnation of Courtney Love.  What, Courtney Love is still alive?  Yeah, right.  Keith Richards is “alive” too.  Suckers.

The Archandroid – Janelle Monae

This album has been discussed on Big Hollywood before.  Like most leftists, Monae confuses ideals and actions, problems with solutions.  Her personal politics may be off base, but the messages in her songs are pitch perfect.  Plus, you’ve never really heard anything like it before.  That’s the mark of a true artist.

Charleston, SC 1966 - Darius Rucker

HOOTIE!!!!   Such a great album.  “I Don’t Care” featuring Brad Paisley is country music perfection.  Smooth vocals and rock solid country stylings make an album you can listen to over and over again.  And I have.

I probably should have mentioned Kanye West’s new album.  It is pretty awesome.  But man, he is such a tool.

Movies

Were there great movies in 2010?  Why, dare I say it? “You Betcha”!  (Note to editors, you can now feel free to tag Sarah Palin in this post to drive up hits.)

Inception

The Mack Daddy of Mack Daddy movies.  An action movie.  A science fiction movie.  An exercise in existentialism.  Everything is pretty damned perfect.  It’s great to watch a master filmmaker at the top of his game.  And hey, he managed to make Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page likable.  That’s some mad skills.

Kick-Ass

I already went into some detail about how this is a great Libertarian manifesto.  You can read it here.  And to sell my point further, I noticed while watching the Blu-Ray that the main character has an “Atlas Shrugged” poster on the wall in his room.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Are people so tired of Michael Cera being Michael Cera that they stayed away from one of the best movies of the year in droves?  Box office says, yes.  That’s a shame.  Edgar Wright’s homage to video games and twenty something angst is one of the most inventive films ever made.  It’s also wildly entertaining.  Although, I will say that the first time I saw it, I left the theater physically exhausted.  Yes, it’s that intense.

The Social Network

This movie is an odd experience.  It’s so well crafted, so engaging, so “interesting” that you can’t help but love it.  Yet, it is so emotionally detached at the end of the day that you feel a bit empty after seeing it.  Wait, it’s a film about Facebook and how a culture run by socially dysfunctional nerds may lack true human interaction?  Whoa, David Fincher, working on multiple levels there.  That empty feeling in my heart was the point?  Nice!

Centurion

How is crap like that new James L. Brooks movie in theaters and this movie barely got any screen time?  I mean it was in and out faster than a date with Jullian Assange.  (I kid, I kid.  You know we love you, you immature, ignorant, narcissistic, fascist douchebag).  This movie has it all.  Overacting British actors.  Ridiculous violence.  Over the top cinematography.  And hot chicks with weapons.  It’s like a Leigh Scott movie not made by Leigh Scott.  I’ll have to watch this over and over until Zach Snyder’s “Sucker Punch” comes out in March to get my fix.

There you have it.  Ten good things about 2010.  Not the worst year ever for music and movies.

Clearly, that was 2003.

You all know John Cusack– he’s that vaguely good-looking guy who, for about 25 years has turned his benign, angsty presence into a movie meal ticket.  He was kind of the Michael Cera of the 80’s, playing pretty much the same mildly amusing, smirky character in a series of films that are remembered more fondly for the nostalgia they provoke than for any intrinsic value.

Better Off Dead was okay, I guess – I was hammered when I saw it on dollar night in 1985. One Crazy Summer was okay, I guess – I was hammered when I saw it on dollar night in 1986.  Do you see a theme?

John Cusack is cinematic wallpaper.  Has anyone in recorded history ever said, “Dude, we MUST see this new flick.  It’s got CUSACK, man.  He’s EPIC!”  That’s as likely as saying, “I partied with Lindsay and Paris last night and this morning I didn’t itch!”

Cusack is most fondly remembered for his role as Lloyd Dobler in Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything (1989).  But not by me, since I found it unwatchably precious, a kind of manifesto designed to reassure terminally sensitive nonconformists that their inability to connect with normal people marked them as superior beings lesser mortals could never comprehend instead of marking them as the tiresome losers they usually are.  It does not hold up.  Also, that Peter Gabriel song he plays in the famous boombox-over-the-head scene sucks.

It’s educational to check out BoxOfficeMojo.com to see how Cusack’s work has actually done using real numbers – yeah, sensitive nonconformists, I know it’s uncool to point to objective facts and evidence when subjective feelings ought to provide the basis for opinions, but whatever.  The fact is that Cusack really has not been in that many movies, and most of what he’s been in during the last couple decades hasn’t worked out too well.

Sure, there’s the occasional small hit like Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), where he played a cynically detached hitman with a penchant for wisecracks and new wave music, or High Fidelity (2000), where he played a cynically detached record store guy with a penchant for wisecracks and new wave music.  However, the real story is the other movies that he’s done that just kind of sat there – a Grisham adaptation (Runaway Jury (2003)) and a couple of forgettable rom-coms (Serendipity (2001), America’s Sweethearts (2001)).  When he’s in a splashy big-budget action epic (Con Air (1997), 2012 (2009)), it’s hard to tell whether the movies do well because of or in spite of his presence, or if he makes no difference at all.

His most recent opus, the kinda-funny Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), did well – it almost certainly made money – but every time Cusack’s hangdog character came on screen the hilarity came to a flying stop.  When the Cusack magic is really in full effect is when he does the little movies where his lefty politics must have played a key role in his taking the parts.  In War, Inc. (2008), a satire of American Mideast policies, he plays (another) angsty hitman.  That smash reeled in a whopping $580,862 at the box office.  Grace Is Gone (2007), another anti-Iraq war flick, made a whole $50,899 at the box office.  If it was 1907, that would have been a flop.

Cusack appears to be the go-to guy for Hollywood producers looking for a nonthreatening presence with an edge of mordant existential crisis to show up and play the lead.  He won’t get any butts in seats, so the thought process goes, but he won’t keep them away either.

Until now.  See, Cusack fancies himself something of a political activist.  And, of course, the term “activist” means “flaming progressive” since conservatives who are active in politics are properly referred to as “racists” or “Islamaphobes” or “fascists” or “racists” one more time for good measure.  With that in mind, he says things in his – wait for it! – Huffington Post blog like:

Bush 2.  How depressing, corrupt, unlawful and tragically absurd the administration’s world view actually is…how low the moral bar has been lowered…and (though I know I’m capable of intellectually lazy notions of collective guilt) how complicit our silence as citizens is…Nixon, a true fiend, looks like a paragon of virtue next to the criminally incompetent robber barons now raiding the present and future.

Read the whole thing – it’s hilarious!  Cusack leaves no hackneyed lefty trope unturned.  He writes like an over-privileged Hollywood actor thinks – chaotically, self-righteously, and with clichés in the place of ideas, as if his mere act of feeling strongly about something makes it incumbent upon the rest of us to understand and accept his insights regardless of how incoherently he presents them.

Also, he quotes Joe Strummer.  Look, I am second to no one in my appreciation of The Clash, but dude, let Joe rest in piece by not bringing up his embarrassing “political” lyrics.

Now, Cusack dropped out of NYU after only ne year, so he should know better – his lack of a pinko university education should have given him a fighting chance to develop a solid understanding of the world, whereas graduating from that prog robot factory would have been all the explanation we need to understand how he got his head so mixed up.

What he forgets is that he simply does not have the stature to go about alienating the audiences who have tolerated his innocuous presence for all these years and thereby created a career where, by all rights, he should not have one.  It’s not bright to gratuitously alienate the people who disagree with him on, say, the Ground Zero mosque – you know, that racist, ignorant, stupid, and racist 70% of Americans (did I mention racist?).  He recently tweeted on that subject:

I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES [of] DICK ARMEY AND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS

First of all, I have no idea what that means except that John Cusack is inarticulately angry at conservatives.  Called on it, he proclaimed it a “’most absurd, over the top joke’, uttered ‘after the 9000th time I was asked about ground zero centre.’”  Note the use of the word “absurd” again – “absurd” is one of those giveaway words that dumb people usually use to sound smart when they mean “stupid.”

The point is not that John Cusack is a liberal – I like lots of liberal actors.  I didn’t even dislike Cusack, to the very limited extent he ever entered my consciousness.  The point is that he really does not have the reservoir of goodwill that he needs to let him go around publicly disrespecting the people who pay to see the movies he happens to be in.

He doesn’t want to join the elite list of people whose political activity is so irredeemably obnoxious that audiences simply refuse to see his movies just because of his mere presence.  Now, he’s not quite in the Hanoi Jane or Sean Penn category – you suck up to the North Vietnamese or Chavez and, dude, I am done with you – but the box office message is clear.

Let me break it down for you since your coterie of suck-ups won’t:  John, no one wants to see your pinko films and no one’s particularly interested in being harangued by the guy best known for portraying someone named Lloyd Dobler.  My career advice is take a deep breath, thank the Lord for your incredible good fortune, and try not to unnecessarily tick off the very people who are the reason you’re a movie star instead of the assistant night manager at a suburban Chicago Denny’s.

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Enter “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” a stylized – and teen-friendly – conglomeration of rock band, early Nintendo, Samurai swords and the glamour of Indy rock and roll. 

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), 23, lives a meaningless life in Toronto (but don’t hold that against him – it’s Toronto), playing bass in a small-time band and rebound dating a high-schooler after his girlfriend dumped him and became a famous pop musician. His life changes when he falls for American rocker chick Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) at a party. They start dating, but Scott quickly learns that if he wants the relationship to last he’s got to fight for it – against her “League of Evil Exes,” six ex-boyfriends and an ex-girlfriend who will fight to the death to stop Scott Pilgrim’s happiness. 

It’s original in just about every way. From battle-of-the-bands action scenes pitting musical monsters against each other, to early game system references, the film is pure fun from beginning to end. 

Being based on Canadian writer Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels, director (and co-writer) Edgar Wright incorporated a number of elements, like split screens and different camera angles, directly out of the genre. It made for a fun viewing experience, and reminds you that it’s a movie. 

But the acting doesn’t. By the end of the film, the characters roped me in. Cera was hilarious as usual, but he channeled his typical lack of confidence and geeky style into a very real 23-year-old protagonist, still trying to find himself. Winstead was a hot mystery girl and the supporting cast of evil exes and band friends soundly captured just about every stereotypical personality in the music/Indy music scene. In the end, I was invested in whether Scott wins his girl or not, and that’s the best mark of a good film. 

The film is pretty clean. Every F-word is bleeped out by a computer game sound effect with a black bar over the offender’s mouth. It gives each use a comic twist, and keeps the film easily in the PG-13 rating. 

Action sequences are stylized. Scott Pilgrim reduces his enemies to arcade slot coins in killer kung-fu battles. When he defeats the eccentric evil exes, he advances to new “levels” and his point total for each battle appears on screen, ensuring that you don’t take the victories too seriously. 

The story is well constructed, with references reappearing, and the dialogue is solid. 

From the preview, if you’ve seen it, you’ll know that there’s a “sex scene” in the film. It’s another comic element, resulting in Ramona telling Scott that she doesn’t want to have sex with him. There are a number of references to sex, but they are humorous and relatively innocuous. 

While the story delves into Scott’s quest to overcome his own self-doubt and avoid becoming a tool like Ramona’s exes, don’t search too hard for a deep lesson. You’ll just be disappointed. But if you’re looking for entertainment, it’s the funniest film I’ve seen since “Kick-Ass,” and one of the best in the graphic novel genre. It’s definitely a journey to the box office that I’d recommend.

You have to believe that out there somewhere is an action movie director who knows what a tripod is.  That there is a young lead actor who has never starred in a CW television series about beautiful but sensitive teenage male models with supernatural powers.  That there is a comedy screenwriter who can imagine a “funny” situation not involving a bodily fluid.  That Michael Cera will one day play a different character.

In that spirit, a spirit of Pollyannaish hope in the face of overwhelming evidence indicating that Hollywood’s product will almost certainly continue to demonstrate that evolution is a two-way street, I present ten movies that are coming within the next six months that might actually be good – or at least not make me throw things at the screen and slap around the ushers.

1.  The Wolfman (This Weekend):  I’m digging the idea of this remake of the classic Universal horror flick.  The super cool trailer got me, as did the presence of Anthony Hopkins.  Now, let’s talk about the baggy-eyed, mumbly elephant in the room.  Yeah, it’s got Benicio Del Toro, but on the bright side he’ll probably spend most of the movie howling.  Sure, I’m still steamed about his commie suck-up fests Che Part  I and Part II, but at least the second one has a deliriously happy ending. 

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2.  Shutter Island (February 29, 2010):  I’ve taken some grief lately about my view that Leonardo DiCaprio is to acting what herpes is to romance.  Not Ben Shapiro-level grief, but grief nonetheless.  In my own defense, DiCaprio is terrible.  And that brings us to this bizarre Scorsese flick that I had zero interest in until I watched the mind-blowing trailer.  Apparently DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo are government agents and they go to some mental hospital for the criminally insane and everything works out swimmingly.  Not.  It looks awesome, even with Leo.  Freaky.  Creepy.  I am so there.

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3.  The Crazies (February 26, 2010):  I love zombie movies.  I even wrote one once.  The producers who optioned it hired a script consultant who wanted me to build up the characters’ back stories.  I observed that perhaps they had forgotten that it was a zombie movie.  Hence my career in law.  But I digress.  This flick, a remake of George Romero’s little-seen original – little-seen because it stinks – at least seems to have the potential for some old-fashioned B-movie thrills.  It’s regular folks turning into homicidal maniacs – classic.  Sure, there seems a slight anti-military vibe to the trailer with the implication that our troops are a bit trigger-happy, but hey – when the zombie apocalypse starts, bro, it’s shoot first and ask questions later.

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4.  Cop Out (February 26, 2010):  Yes, it looks idiotic, but it’s Kevin Smith directing Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in a cop movie.  Oh, and that Stifler guy is in it too.  How can that go wrong?  Actually, how will I know if it goes wrong, because I’m not seeing it without first having a Dos Equis or four to get my mind right.  This will be perfect for those nights when you don’t want to challenge yourself with more cerebral fare – like The Crazies.

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5.  Greenberg (March 26, 2010):  This new Ben Stiller film, directed by Noah Baumbach, looks like some kind of art house slacker-comedy.  Still, it seems amusing, and it also features the return of Jennifer Jason Leigh.  From the trailer, she’s gotten even cuter.  It’s worth a shot.

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6.  Hot Tub Time Machine (March 26, 2010):  Let me just say it again, because if you are wondering why this movie must not be missed then you obviously did not read and appreciate the title:  Hot Tub Time Machine.  Witness the magic.  John Cusak.  Rob Corddry.  Craig Robinson.  The chubby guy who turned Amish in Sex Drive.  With unharnessed star power like that, you’re guaranteed at least a mildly amusing time at the theater.

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7.  Robin Hood (May 14, 2010):  This is the reunion of Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott, and we can only hope it is a tenth as indisputably badass as Gladiator.  The trailer looks interesting, with lots of hacking and smiting.  Still, I’m worried.  I never liked the whole “steal from the rich and give to the poor thing” – I always thought maybe the poor should get off their collective butts and get to work instead of waiting for handouts.  Those barges and bales aren’t going to tote and lift themselves.  But again I digress.  Let’s just keep our fingers crossed on this one.

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8.  The Last Airbender (July 2, 2010):  Who knows – maybe director’s M. Night Shyamalan’s latest surprise twist will be to make a movie that doesn’t suck.  After watching the baffling trailer, I still have no idea in hell what this is about.  My wife says this is somehow related to a cartoon series, and the kids want to see it.  Whatever – I’m just happy about being able to take the kids to the movies and not ending up having to explain where babies come from.

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 9.  Cyrus (July 9, 2010):  I’m a sucker for comedies of acute discomfort, and this one seems appallingly uncomfortable.  John C. Reilly, who was incredibly moving as the loser cop in Magnolia, is the anti-hero.  He meets up with Marissa Tomei, who has a really creepy son in the form of the bulbous Jonah Hill.  Antics ensue.  I can’t wait.

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10.  The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (June 30, 2010):  I’m thoroughly excited about this latest entry in the emo-vampire sweepstakes.  Sorry there’s no trailer, but I’m sure the filmmakers will be branching off in surprising, challenging new directions.  It goes without saying that the first two films were awesome.  Kristen Stewart’s trademark lip-bite can convey an astonishing range of emotions, from anger to fear to joy to unrequited horniness.  That skinny pale boy is dreamy too.  I think that these films get a bad rap, what with most people mocking them instead of approaching the films as the powerful stand-alone artistic statements that they are.  Yes, I am truly looking forward to Twilight III – mostly because it will mean that for a while the kind of people who like these films will be sitting in movie theaters far the hell away from me. 

Looking back over this list, it’s pretty clear that the studios are not exactly front-loading the 2011 Oscar contenders.  But not every movie has to be great.  Sometimes you just want to have fun, and for the next six months that’s where the bar is going to be set – at “Fun,” right below “That Really Made Me Think,” but a notch above “I Shoulda Smuggled in Some More Beers.” 

Maybe next fall there’ll be a few more mature entries.  Until then, just remember that for every Casablanca, there are a thousand MacGrubers.

If there was ever a need for a young actor to reinvent his image, it’s Cera – for the persona he’s been stuck in is so passive his characters barely seem to exist. He takes a big, bold and highly entertaining step in that direction with the new comedy “Youth in Revolt,” based on a novel by a writer named C.D. Payne that’s become a cult sensation since its publication in 1993 and has confounded filmmakers ever since.  

The reason why the novel has been so hard to adapt is two-fold: the book is a gigantic, 500-page tome written in the form of a journal composed by a fictional high-school student named Nick Twisp, and it’s packed with his randy sexual fantasies and frustrations. But screenwriter Gustin Nash and director Miguel Arteta (“The Good Girl”) have solved the problem in astute fashion: cutting down the frequency of the sexual material resulting in a 90-minute confection that’s still risque enough to be rated-R without being overly offensive. “Youth in Revolt” stands up well against the classic canon of the late great John Hughes’ ’80s teen films. 

“Youth” follows the tale of Twisp as he expresses his frustrations with trying to lose his virginity. He’s incredibly awkward in normal teenage situations, yet has his own highly honed sense of taste with a particular fascination for French New Wave films and Frank Sinatra on vinyl. One summer weekend, while trapped with his zany cougar of a mom (a hilarious Jean Smart) and her bizarre loser boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis, the bearded bizarre loser from “The Hangover”) for a weekend at a dilapidated lake resort, he meets the girl of his dreams, Sheeni Saunders (Portian Doubleday in a terrifically sexy yet sweet film debut). 

Sheeni is not only hot, but shares Nick’s affinity for esoteric arts and a zesty way with the clever kind of dialogue that “Dawson’s Creek” put in vogue. They fall for each other instantly, which is completely baffling to Nick, but her fundamentalist Christian parents keep magically appearing whenever Nick is about to reach the promised land. When Nick’s mom decides to go back home abruptly, Nick’s afraid he’ll lose his chance at not only sex but true love (he immediately proposes that Sherri run away with him and start an artistic new life jet-setting around the world) – so Sherri tells him “Be bad. Be very very bad,” so that his mom will dump him off on his father (Steve Buscemi), who’s about to move to Sherri’s small town with his bimbo girlfriend.

That’s when Nick invents his alter ego, a French badass with a pretentious mustache named Francois. Much like the cartoon devils that once rested on the shoulders of Loony Tunes characters encouraging them to do the wrong thing, Francois becomes the voice of absolutely no reason at all – pushing Nick to vandalize, steal, blow stuff up, and ultimately raid Sheeni’s girls-school campus in his quest for both sex and love. 

“Youth in Revolt” packs all this and more into a fast-paced yet often touching 90 minutes, with a sterling cast that also includes Ray Liotta and comic legends’ Fred Willard and M. Emmett Walsh. Screenwriter Nash and director Arteta masterfully know when to loosen and tighten the reins in a scene, offsetting the dialogue with just the right touch of sincerity when it’s in danger of being too clever, and letting the occasionally outrageous scenarios leave just enough to the imagination.

Even Sheeni’s parents, who do fit the mold of an endearing caricature, are dealt with in short doses that keeps them from becoming offensive.

Cera rises to the challenge of his dual role, brilliantly balancing his sensitive-loser persona with the anarchic abandon dictated by Francois. Seeing him “blow up half of Berkeley” in one ingenious sequence is a delight that leaves viewers hoping he’ll continue to take chances, breaking out of his career shell with the same zest that Nick learns to break out of his personal rut.

At the beginning, in order to protect his mother’s boyfriend from a fight with some sailors he sold a malfunctioning car to, the mother takes her son and boyfriend for a brief vacation. On that vacation, Nick meets a girl he’s immediately attracted to but she’s dating someone else. However, Nick still thinks he has a chance. In order to make himself more attractive to her he develops an alternate and “dangerous” personality named Francois, who has a mustache and enjoys causing trouble and destruction.

The premise, a “nice” guy wanting to engage in some “bad boy” behavior, is an intriguing one and one with a lot of potential. As nice guys are known for finishing last, what good guy has not wanted to become a “bad boy” to attract attention from the female sex? This movie takes that idea to the extreme with Francois showing up as another character entirely, albeit a character that only Nick can see.  The movie does have some funny moments and witty dialogue that had me laughing out loud.

Unfortunately, the movie is often stereotypical and crass. For instance, the film features a religious couple – the parents of the girl that Cera’s attracted to. They’re Hollywood-made and think Cera and the cat he shares with their daughter are both devilish fiends their daughter must steer clear of. Their son (played by Justin Long, in a wasted role) is a typical druggie who spends a lot of the movie giving his drugs away to those who want them and to some who don’t . The scenes of drug use are clearly meant to be funny but  we’ve seen it all before.  When the druggie drugs his own parents for Thanksgiving, it’s more sophomoric than innovative.

In terms of crassness, this is a movie clearly intended for adults. From the drug use to the coarse focus on sexuality, this is not for teenagers. There are couple of adult scenes, including a sequence in which Nick fantasizes about sticking his finger up a woman’s butt. If you are not into tasteless humor, stay away. 

***POSSIBLE SPOILER***

Lastly, I hated the conclusion where Nick makes a realization about his relationship with the girl. It is a false and bizarre revelation used to give the movie a “happy” ending. I don’t want to ruin anything, but in the last scene, Nick realizes something about the girl he likes that clearly does not ring true to the audience, and the rest of the movie attests to the fact that this realization is false. I left the theatre disappointed.

Overall, there were some funny moments and a good premise. Unfortunately, the movie does not follow through on it enough. The best part is Cera, who’s very funny. But this won’t measure up to his previous projects (“Arrested Development,” “Juno,” “Superbad”). I give it a C-.

The new film Year One is definitely taking a beating from the critics, especially conservative ones.

Two reviews by my colleagues at Big Hollywood exemplify the complaints. Comedienne Victoria Jackson expresses immense disappointment with the film’s high proportion of obscenity and vulgarity (she reports that she left the film in tears of frustration and sadness), and John Nolte observes that it lacks a sensible story line, excessively indulges in its performers’ ad libs, manages to have scenes that are both overlong and end too abruptly, has a nonsensical timeline, and is just sloppy and poorly executed overall.

Both of these critics’ observations are quite accurate, but I think there’s more to this story.

Certainly the film is absurd, disorganized, obscene, and ludicrous. Produced by Judd Apatow and starring the notoriously self-indulgent Jack Black, Year One could hardly avoid having those characteristics. Harold Ramis has done much better work than this, notably as co-writer of Groundhog Day, Ghostbusters, Back to School, and the first couple of seasons of SCTV, but he also wrote the inept screenplays for stinkers such as Club Paradise, Armed and Dangerous, and the year 2000 remake of Bedazzled. Films on which he had the most influence as writer seem to have the poorest scripts.

Hence, expecting a logical, coherent story and some respect for audience sensibilities from Apatow and Ramis seems rather a forlorn hope. Moreover, anarchic comedy of this type can be both funny and somewhat meaningful. As Nolte noted, the film seems to be an attempt in some ways at replicating the breezy narrative style of the “Road” films of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

I agree, and would note that while the character played by Jack Black does suggest Hope’s “Road” characters, the one played by Michael Cera is more reminiscent of Woody Allen’s early film persona. The two characters work well together, as in the classic SCTV sketch “Play It Again, Bob.”

The film’s silly, illogical timeline and other such features thus accord with a long comedy tradition, and the obscenity is no greater than much of what passes for theatrical film comedy these days (alas!).

And as Nolte correctly observes, the comical references to religion (of which there are many) are clearly meant to be silly, not satirical. In fact, a speech at the end of the film by Jack Black really focuses on politics, not religion, and warns the people of the city of Sodom not to place their faith in political messiahs, advice that applies today as well.

Moreover, in their own mad way the earlier scenes of the film seem quite positive toward monotheistic religion, with Jack Black’s character defending religious faith and the idea of an omnipotent, fully benevolent God (as one imagines Bob Hope would in the same circumstances) against the attacks by Cera’s character (which one imagines Woody Allen would press in this situation).

There can be no question, however, that the film is chock full of grossness, vulgarity, and an adolescent obsession with bodily functions to an extent that is extraordinary even in today’s no-holds-barred theatrical film culture. It’s as dirty as a Frenchman, as Homer Simpson would say.

Fixating on this unpleasant subject matter, however, is causing critics to fail to see a perfectly evident meaning of the film: that the monotheist religions are the great source of civilization in human history.

This is the clear conclusion to be drawn from the film if we step back from its stream of ugly events and think about what the narrative actually means. It’s essential to note that the protagonists are treated well only by the monotheistic, religious people, the Jews. In their prehistoric home at the beginning of the film both the protagonists are viewed as outcasts, with Black as an inept hunter and Cera a timid, epicene gatherer of nuts and berries. Their life is brutish and unfulfilled, and their fellow tribe members treat them very badly.

In the Biblical city of Sodom, where the characters end up eventually, they are captured, enslaved, beaten, threatened with death, imprisoned, subjected to continual threats of being sodomized, and witness the appalling barbarity, cruelty, and injustice of that pagan society. Whereas the film mines much humor from the uncomfortable reality of adult circumcision among the Jews, in Sodom the people are engaging in regular sacrifices of female virgins, who are burned to death to win favor from their pagan gods.

(One of the film’s most successful attempts to bring the Bob Hope attitude into the vulgar contemporary context is Black’s observation that a human sacrifice is a waste of a perfectly good virgin.)

The scenes in the city of Sodom depict a society of immense awfulness, and the filmmakers explicitly allude to similarities with the modern-day United States, including a direct reference to Las Vegas when a character observes that what happens in Sodom stays in Sodom. That’s an comparison one might expect a from political conservative or the Religious Right.

In Israel, by contrast, where the protagonists are the guests of Adam and then Abraham (yes, the timeline is irrational), they encounter decent hospitality and are treated quite well. Having witnessed Cain’s murder of Abel (the motives for which are presented quite accurately, and comically), they are thereafter continually endangered by the world’s first murderer, who moves to Sodom and finds the place very much to his liking.

The protagonists’ reaction is exactly the opposite. They want nothing more than to get away from that place, while attempting to rescue two female members of their tribe who have been captured and enslaved (which happens to the protagonists as well).

Thus the film clearly depicts non-monotheistic societies as horrible (albeit in varying ways), while connecting these to what is unattractive about contemporary American society, and the monotheistic one as vastly better places to live despite a few comic eccentricities.

Certainly one would wish Year One to be a good deal less adolescent in its humor and rather more sophisticated in its attempts at wit, but it’s also important to recognize what the film actually means behind its preposterous and frequently annoying surface. The wisdom of a fool is nonetheless wisdom, after all.

Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) play hunter-gatherer cavemen who don’t quite fit in with their small tribe. Both are clumsy, intensely disliked and in unrequited love with a couple of lovely cavewomen. After Zed breaks rule number one and tastes the forbidden fruit, he’s exiled. For some reason, Oh follows along and they set off on a series of tedious antics involving Biblical characters, the city of Sodom and whole lot of wondering as to what director Harold Ramis, the genius behind “Groundhog Day,” “Analyze This,” “Caddyshack” and “Vacation,” was thinking.

Judd Apatow is one of the producers, so that explains the overlong scenes full of unfunny, self-indulgent ad-libbing, but there’s practically no story. Like a foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the duo heads off on the Road to Interminable drifting from one “comedic” set up to the next riffing along the way in that annoying, hesitant-enhanced, post-modernspeak that passes for clever dialogue nowadays: “Yeah, I know, but … you know, if you were … because I could … and then we would – you know what, forget it.”

Beyond plodding, many of the individual scenes are also choppy. Scenes end abruptly as though what the makers had on film was so bad there was no other choice. The whole affair reeks of sloppy, laziness or plain old poor planning that couldn’t be salvaged in the editing room.

The timespan of the film makes little sense. Our protagonists start out in prehistoric times but then walk their way into the Old Testament era of Cain, Abel and Abraham. I bought it, but those of you who didn’t skip World History to smoke Newports and listen to Led Zeppelin might find it jarring.

In many ways, “Year One” most resembles Mel Brooks’ “History of the World: Part 1 (1981),” but one of those ways is that neither is a very good movie. As far as any talk about how the film mocks the Bible… The satire is silly, not mean-spirited, so some effort would have to go into being offended.

If you’re desperate for prehistoric antics this weekend, Netflix Ringo Starr’s “Caveman” (1981). It’s no classic, but there are at least a half-dozen laughs (six more than you’ll find in “Year One”) and Ringo’s wife, Bond-babe Barbara Bach, will help you to forget all about the comedic lulls.