Shane Life

One of the reasons that I’m excited about working downtown is that I feel like I will have more opportunity to walk around the city and take photographs. A few weeks back, I stumbled upon New Type York, a typographic photoblog curated by James Patrick Gibson. I instantly fell in love with the site for three reasons:

1. I’m a total typography nerd.
2. I love photography.
3. New York is a pretty cool city.

Obviously, my interest was piqued. But then, as I started walking around downtown Kansas City, I began to realize that I could do a similar project from our fair Midwestern town. With the handy tools of Tumblr and Twitter, I was able to quickly setup KC Type – a Kansas City typography photoblog. I’m going to try and post at least one photo per day there. If you’d like, you can grab the RSS feed or follow @KCType on Twitter.

Eventually, I think I might allow submissions and I’ve got some other ideas as well (KC Type on vacation…visits to other cities, etc.). But for now, I’ll just be posting one photo every day of signage, embellishment, decoration, embossing, or any random selection of Kansas City type that I find.

Some possible spoilers…

The season finale of Big Love was this past Sunday.

Alli and I were a little slow to the game for this show. We didn’t get on board initially, really getting into the show at the beginning of the second season. Once we got about three shows in, we were drawn into the madness that is Bill Hendrickson (Bill Paxton) and his three wives — Barb (Jean Tripplehorne), Nikki (Chloe Sevigny) and Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin).

The now-completed fourth season was the best by a mile, although the season finale certainly left a lot of fans hanging, considering that up to that point, more had occurred over the course of a season than at any other time. Particularly intriguing was Bill Hendrickson’s unabashed pursuit of power as he attempted to fill a recently vacated Utah State Senate seat. That story line, combined with Margene’s emboldened, more confident attitude (not to mention her minor crush on Bill’s oldest son by Barb, Ben) and Nikki’s constant searching for purpose and identity in her crazy world led to some serious polygamist hijinks, including trips to Washington and Mexico.

For a long while, one of the only reasons that we had HBO was Entourage, but now, we have another reason to keep our subscription. If you’ve got HBO and are wondering what Big Love is all about, give it a few episodes. It’s a lot of fun.

This was the first time in four years that Alli and I have not hosted an Oscar party at our house. With the job change and everything going on, we needed to take a break this year and just enjoy the show on our own. HOWEVER…

Why is it impossible for them to stay on schedule? My DVR cut off and I missed the final 4 awards (read: THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES). Fortunately, the Internet came to my rescue and I was able to see the acceptance speeches from Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Kathryn Bigelow and…Kathryn Bigelow.

I have to be honest. Last night’s awards were somewhat of a disappointment to me. Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin weren’t funny (nor really were both of them necessary…why two hosts?) and the outcomes — well, I just can’t get on board with The Hurt Locker. Look, I appreciate the significance of Bigelow’s win. It’s ludicrous that a woman has not already won a directing Oscar. But I think that Peter Sciretta from /film said it best in his tweet:

What I liked:

• Pete Doctor wearing the bottlecap pin on his tux to commemorate Up.
• The way that the Best Original Score nominees were presented by the League of Extraordinary Dancers.
• Ben Stiller dressed up as a Na’vi from Avatar, which was hilarious.
• John Hughes tribute. The man was responsible for some of the funniest movies of the 80’s and 90’s.
• Christoph Waltz finally getting his acceptance speech right. Everything else he had said in acceptance speeches had been an incoherent mess.
• Up winning for Best Score (seriously, I was probably happier about this than anything else during the evening). Giacchino is amazing.
• Doug Benson’s (host of the I Love Movies podcast) live tweets during the show. Hilarious.

The big surprises:

• Precious winning the Best Adapted Screenplay award. Really was certain it was going to Up in the Air.
• The Hurt Locker winning Best Original Screenplay (although once you saw how much the night was swinging towards Bigelow’s movie, it wasn’t as surprising). I thought this would be Tarantino’s for Inglorious Basterds.
• Farrah Fawcett being left out of the In Memoriam montage, but not Michael Jackson.
• Mo’Nique didn’t get played off the stage. I was sure that when she won that she would ramble on for 5 minutes.

What I didn’t like:

• Baldwin and Martin. Just not very funny.
• Really shocked about Up in the Air getting shut out. After seeing all 10 Best Picture nominees, I truly believe this was in the top 3. Fortunately, Jason Reitman is young. He’s doing great work and will continue to do so.
• The pre-show hosted by Kathy Ireland was just PAINFUL to watch.

So, what did you think? Did you watch the whole telecast?

So, it’s one of my favorite weekends of the year — Oscar Weekend. And that means that we also finished up the Best Picture Showcase at AMC today.

First things first, a disclaimer: I am recently employed by AMC and have to state that these opinions are my own.

Last weekend, we had Avatar, Up in the Air, Precious, The Blind Side and Inglorious Basterds. (If you want to read about weekend 1 of the Best Picture Showcase, you can revisit my previous post.)

So to complete the 10 Best Picture Nominees today, the lineup was:

• Up
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• A Serious Man
• District 9

As we did last weekend, we arrived late since we’d seen (and own) Disney Pixar’s brilliant UP.

So technically our day was supposed to start with A Serious Man, but we actually kicked it off with the movie I was most looking forward to today: An Education.

I really loved An Education. Carey Mulligan is just unbelievably charming and complex in a terrific coming-of-age story penned by one of my favourite (with added ‘u’ because he’s British) authors, Nick Hornby. Filled with great performances from Peter Saarsgard, Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson and that dude who is supposed to marry Amanda Seyfried in Mamma Mia!, all are eclipsed by Mulligan, who just brings so much wonderful charm to Jenny, the main character. The story is one we’ve heard before, but I just really connected with this story and thought to myself, “It’s too bad that nobody has a clue about this flick.”

Next flick up was The Hurt Locker, many critics’ pick to win the coveted Best Picture Oscar. I guess I just didn’t see the same movie because to me, it did NOT live up to the hype. It was a decent enough movie, but it really reminded me a lot of Jarhead (hat tip to Alli, who helped me remember the name of that movie). It’s a decent movie, but I really didn’t like it as much as I wanted to for whatever reason. Anthony Mackie was really the saving grace here.

A Serious Man was one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a long time. I have never really liked the Coen brothers, but have tolerated them. This flick was just incomprehensible. And I wasn’t alone in this assessment. Nearly everyone in our theatre felt the same way, wondering how it’s possible that this horrible, make-you-want-to-blow-your-brains-out-depressing movie could have a chance as the Best Picture of the year. Absolutely hated it.

My feelings on A Serious Man may have helped me to hate District 9 considerably less. I got a text from my brother telling me that he guaranteed I would hate it. Well, Jake, you were wrong. I didn’t hate it. It was unbelievably ambitious, but we’ve come to expect that from Peter Jackson. The beginning of the flick was a bit disjointed, but once it, *ahem*, takes its “turn”, it becomes a lot more entertaining. For those of you that have seen District 9, I have a question for you: did you think that the story had some parallels with Avatar? Alli brought that up after the movie and I had to chuckle because it’s not terribly far off.

So, after 2 weekends, Alli and I tackled 8 out of the 10 Best Picture nominees, having seen the other two multiple times. The Best Picture Showcase experience is such a blast (and I’m not just saying that because I work for AMC) if you love the movies. I happen to love the movies.

So my final rankings of all 10 films (my opinion, based upon how much I actually liked the films…I realize that I have no ability to judge these films based on anything else but my own personal opinion):

1. Avatar
2. Up
3. An Education
4. Up in the Air
5. The Hurt Locker
6. Inglorious Basterds
7. District 9
8. The Blind Side
9. Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
10. A Serious Man

I realize that putting The Blind Side as high as I did leaves me open for ridicule. But I really didn’t like Precious or A Serious Man. AT ALL. As far as what is going to win? I think it is a two-horse race between Avatar and The Hurt Locker. I’m giving the edge to Avatar right now. But The Hurt Locker has a ton of momentum. We’ll have to see…

So what were your thoughts? What do you think will take the Oscar for Best Picture Sunday night?

Zach Galifianakis is hosting Saturday Night Live this week with musical guest Vampire Weekend.

I’m hesitantly excited, mostly because SNL has been pretty lousy of late. But Galifianakis is funny just standing there, so I’m anxious to see what he does on the show. Hopefully Seth Meyers and the writers don’t screw it up.

My brother Jake turns 30 today.

Jake’s one of the funniest people I know and he just so happens to be one of my best friends. I’m lucky like that…to get along with my brother so well.

But this isn’t really a post about my brother so much as it is a post to him, welcoming him into his 30’s.

I’m proud of you, Jake. Not only are you my favorite brother (natch) but you’re also a loving husband, a great dad, a loyal friend and a hard worker. Knowing that you’ve now joined the rest of us in the ranks of your 30’s makes me feel old, sure, but I’m also reminded of how much you’ve grown since 25.

You’ve matured in a way that, at that time, I am not sure I would have believed…not 5 years ago.

Understand that I don’t mean that in a condescending way. I’m just so proud of the man you’ve become, even if you will always be my little brother and I’ll always, by default, be able to whip you.

I hope you have a great day.

Since the Academy upped the number of Best Picture nominees for this year’s Oscars from 5 to 10, the Best Picture Showcase format at AMC had to change. While 5 select cities (New York, Chicago, LA, Washington D.C. and Toronto) will have 24-hour marathons, Kansas City hosted two venues, including my home theatre, Studio 30, which sold more Best Picture Showcase tickets than any other city in America.

The lineup for the first weekend was:

• Avatar
• Up in the Air
• Precious
• The Blind Side
• Inglorious Basterds

Since Alli’s been sick (and we’ve seen it twice), we decided to cut out on seeing Avatar again and showed up about 15 minutes prior to Up in the Air. We settled into our seats (which we purchased ourselves…I went as a fan, not as a Community Manager) and enjoyed the day.

Mostly.

The experience of the Best Picture Showcase is a blast for movie lovers like us, but one thing you can never avoid is the gut-wrenchingly uncomfortable movie. This year, that movie was Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire.

Brutal. Just utterly brutal. Stereotype-filled to the brim. Good performances from Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe, but they are certainly a type. Their performances reminded me of something I heard Matt Damon say once that it’s easy to win an Oscar, you just have to pick the right role (I think it was Damon…I can’t find a link to the quote, but I’m pretty sure it was Damon when he was on Inside the Actor’s Studio).

As far as the other movies go…

The Blind Side was a nice movie. I’m not convinced that Sandra Bullock would win Best Actress any other year but this one. It’s certainly her best performance since Crash, but is it Oscar-worthy? I don’t know. I can certainly see why people love that movie. It’s inspirational. It’s about our national past-time, football. But The Blind Side is definitely one of the movies that benefited from the expansion to 10 Best Picture nominees. That being said, the kid that plays SJ is hilarious.

Inglorious Basterds was what I expected. Tarantino certainly has a style that can be appealing to some. But the typography nerd in me was annoyed by the opening credits where he managed to stuff at least four different typefaces in, which is a big design no-no. Christoph Waltz was absolutely brilliant as Hans Landa and deserves every single bit of acclaim that he’s received. The story itself…*shrug*. There were people who’ve said that Inglorious Basterds is Tarantino’s best work so far. I respectfully disagree…and not just because of the typography.

On second viewing, Up in the Air was my favorite film we saw. Jason Reitman, like Tarantino, also has a very specific directorial style. But where Tarantino’s style has seemingly remained the same, Reitman’s is evolving into something fantastic. The shots he captures of Ryan Bingham’s America are really beautiful and the performances from leads — Clooney, Kendrick and Farmiga — are all terrific, with Anna Kendrick (who we’ve really only known as Jessica from the Twilight movies before now) really doing an amazing job as Clooney’s young understudy Natalie.

Just a quick comment on the Best Picture Showcase itself. Now that I work for AMC as a Community Manager, it was an interesting experience. I didn’t attend as an employee, but a fan of the movies, just like most everyone else in the theatre. And for people who love the movies, the Best Picture Showcase is an amazing time. I’m looking forward to finishing it up next weekend, with:

• Up
• A Serious Man
• The Hurt Locker
• An Education
• District 9

I’m most looking forward to seeing An Education and The Hurt Locker. An Education was written by one of my favorite authors, Nick Hornby, while The Hurt Locker…well, I’m anxious to see what all the hype is about.

The Oscars are only a week away, so it’s fitting that this story came out on The Daily Beast today: 10 Ways to Win an Oscar:

So I think we can lock up the four acting awards right now (not that they weren’t already):

• Best Actor: Jeff Bridges (Get fat, go ugly)
• Best Actress: Sandra Bullock (Speak with a funny accent)
• Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (Holocaust, Accent)
• Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique (Go ugly)

Now that those awards are decided, the real battle comes down in Best Picture and Best Director. Now, usually, that award goes to the same film. It’s certainly had exceptions in the past and I get the feeling that this year might be another exception.

See, I’m not sure that the Academy will discount the juggernaut Avatar in favor of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker for Best Picture. However, I am pretty sure that Bigelow is going to win the Best Director award. Now, those two might flip-flop, but I am not sure that one movie will take both those awards. Lord knows that most of Hollywood is rooting against James Cameron. You have to imagine that many of them are thinking, “Doesn’t he have enough? Top two box office movies of all-time? And Aquaman!”

Whether or not Avatar/Cameron or Hurt Locker/Bigelow win remains to be seen, but at least actors now have a formula on winning an award, if they so desire.

I found out something really cool as I started my new job at AMC on Friday:

I can ride the bus. Conveniently.

This is a huge win for me. As someone who drives almost 30 miles each way from South Olathe to downtown Kansas City for work, I get annoyed by my commute. I have to pay attention. That’s at least an hour of my life that I waste each week that could be spent reading, writing, Twittering or any number of things.

One of my benefits is the choice of a parking pass at the 10th and Main parking garage or a bus pass. I’m not sure what my schedule’s going to look like for the first few weeks, but I’m likely going to attempt to start riding the bus, which should be pretty cool.

I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.