A happier new year

I agree with K. The first post of last year lamented the dud start to 2016 that saw the passing of Bowie, Rickman and my mum's cat. Arguably this January has been worse but we all know what's up, this isn't the place to dwell on it. At least not right now. There have been good things too. As K said yesterday the Best Actor Oscar nominees is very hot. It's got to be the hottest line up of all time.

To verify this I went through a list of previous nominees on Wikipedia and I'm pretty sure this is indeed the hottest year of all time. In 1967 warren Beatty,  paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman were nominated, that's a fairly attractive lineup but it's hardly comparable to the 2017 list. In 1973 Jack Nicholson, Pacino, Robert Redford and Marlon Brando were nominated but Brando was well past his prime by then. In the last 15 years there have been a few hot lineups which surprised me seeing how hunk-free the telecasts have seemed in recent years. There was the hot 2005 double up of Joaquin and Heath which was pretty special. And I was delighted to see how many times HotMC member Paul Newman had been nominated over the decades. Still this year is definitely something special. Eighty percent hunk is a whole lotta hunk.

I suggested to K that it was disappointing that Dev Patel was not nominated for Lion instead of Denzel for whatever he was nominated for. Partly because Denzel strikes me as a smug fuck.  I don't know if Dev is any good in that movie but he does have a great Australian accent, that movie is nominated for Best Picture so he must be ok in it and he looks very handsome in it. A boner bona fide hunk.

Still, as I mentioned up top let's focus on the positive. It's like Meat Loaf said, 4 out of 5 ain't bad. 



Great films: The Departed (AM)

Sometimes I write a blog post and I feel pretty confident I know what K's position will be on whatever I'm writing about. Sometimes I predict things wrong and sometimes I just don't know. Today I want to talk about what a great movie The Departed is. I know that when K first saw that movie she was down on it, think mainly because it wasn't Infernal Affairs. But maybe she's changed her position. It's happened before. (Ask her what she thought of Tropic Thunder that first time she saw it. You won't believe what she tells you! (Spoiler - she didn't think it was funny.)) Now Infernal Affairs is a great movie, there's no denying that. And I wouldn't be true to the spirit of Miss Soft Crab if I didn't admit that not only do I think it's a great film but we Crabs have a lot of scwhingspect I mean respect for Andy Lau and Tony Leung. So sure I felt worried about what Hollywood may do to the film, but when I saw The Departed when it came out I thought it was pretty great. Not as an Infernal Affairs remake but just as a film, it was just a great film.

I hadn't seen The Departed since 2006 or so, until it was on television last week, and I gotta tell you guys, it is one effing great film. It has this great noir feel. Not in the hammed up way you usually see noir these days, with extreme shadows and high contrast, but in a much more subtle way. But the film also has this kind of Hong Kong cinema vibe too. In one shot Leonardo is trying to catch the cop, Matt Damon, that is in with the mob, chasing him down streets and he is doesn't know its Matt Damon but he sees this reflection in this wind chime mirror... Look, I can't really explain it very well but it just really felt very HK. I just really feel that Martin Scorsese is quite good at his job. He really could go far if he puts his mind to it.

It's also worth noting that The Departed has a pretty good cast. It's set in Boston and some of Boston's finest sons are in it. Marky Mark! Matt Damon. Alec Baldwin. Ok, according to Wikipedia, Alec Baldwin is actually from Massapequa, but Jack Donaghy is from Boston, and what's good enough for 30 Rock is good enough for me. But although the record clearly shows that I love Marky Mark a lot, I have to say it's really Leonard Dicaprio that stands out in this movie for me. He really is quite good at his job. He could really go far if he puts his mind to it. 

Look, I know that no one wants to read a review of a 10-year-old movie, but don't you want to think about great stuff. Maybe you think this movie is great, maybe you don't, but let me just sing the praises of remembering great films of the past. Now that Margaret and David aren't on TV anymore doing that classic movie thing they started doing I guess that is just another hole Miss Soft Crab can fill for you. You're welcome.