You must be the other guy!

Everyone saw them, everyone wrote about it; the 79th academy awards. A plate of mixed feelings. I'll cut to meat & potatoes.

-There was a moment during the telecast when I uttered "Wow, Pan's Labyrinth is cleaning up" only for them to lose out on the next award for best foreign feature, go figure. The german movie filmmakers must feel like everyone who made Crash last year when they "upset" Brokeback Mountain, a collective we got away with murder feeling.

-I thoroughly enjoyed Ellen Degeneres, I have nothing else to add to that other than, I had the same feeling at the end of Finding Nemo.

-Helen Mirren is a snob.

-Peter O' Toole wanted to look upset, except he permanently has the same bewildered expression on his face.

-It's not an award show without Jack, I just wish it was an award show with his hair

-Somewhere a brooding Dakota Fanning is pacing in front of a tv smoking a cigarette watching an interview of Abigal Breslin.

-Same goes for any actress without an oscar at the sight of Jennifer Hudson.

-I never saw Children of Men, I sort of regret that now.

-How about my boy Ennio! Two people called me to say "Hey thats the guy!", yup thats the guy. How two minutes of speaking Italian translates mainly to just, "He says thank you" is beyond me though.

-Alan Arkin, I liked you since So I married an Ax Murderer, good job.

-Word has come out that Eddie Murphy stormed out after his loss to Arkin, as if he were a serious actor, comon Buckwheat, even Bill Murray wouldn't make Norbit.

-If your in one of those minor catagories with two or three other people, wouldn't you arrange some type speaking rotation for the potential win. Instead someone always hogs the mike. Why do they always wing it?

-speaking of wings, what's everyones favorite flavor?, I ordered Jamaican Jerk and Garlic Parm that night.

-I had a blog entry similar to the one about Morricone on the backburner about Thelma Schoonmaker. I'm planing on doing a few entires on obscure or forgotten filmmaking figures that deserve to be recognized, however Thelma won for her editing in The Departed, and got a ton of praise when she went up to the mic. Did you see Martin Scorsese?, only time of the night he had tears. So that sort of renders that future entry somewhat moot. Oh well. But just take my word for it when I say she IS the best editor ever and is my favorite.

-There isn't a man who knows more about film or loves it more than Martin Scorsese. I find it cool when someone who is more film crazy than i'll ever be gets their due. If I could talk film with anyone for just one day, it would probably be Mr. Scorsese. He's 65 and still as fast talking and enthusiastic as day one. I'm glad he finally won.

Which brings us to the best picture winner The Departed, a film that perfectly captures the city of Boston and its surroundings. It meant a lot to me considering I was born and raised in the city, the metro area. As I got older we progressively moved further west. (Even though im still 20 minutes away). At heart i'm a city boy through and through. Those characters in the movie, I grew up with those people, I know them, I still do. I knew those cops who would stop into my Dad's restaurant. We knew those sketchy guys who lived on the Harbor. We spent sundays at the Hay Market and Faneuil Hall. My uncle is as Irish as they come. I'm not talking New England, or even just Massachusetts, I'm talking about the city itself, it's part of me, Boston. When it comes to crime as the movie depicts, i've seen robbings, car theft and people held at gun point before back in the days of the late 80's, early 90's(Not that the city has ever been completely rampant in crime, it's very safe and nice now, later on the area I grew up in was named the safest city in America). I know the importance of Larry Bird, hell, my parents named me after Kevin McHale. I ran down comm ave with a pats flag when we won our first superbowl. I don't have a thick accent or anything, but it's all the same. I'm absolutely no masshole, I'm Bostonian. There's a difference. Who knew, It took a director who made a living off films based in New York to finally win the big one with a film about Boston. Thanks Marty. And thank you Honk Kong of course for the wonderful original. Ironically I shot a short film in the exact same area way before the films release. Those shots on the rooftop overlooking the harbor are identical. Same type of sky and everything. I remember after seeing the premiere with some friends who live in back bay. We went to the Boston Common theater and after walking out, it was awesome because there we were, right on the set itself. The State house to our right, and a walk back home right through the heart of Chinatown. Wicked awesome.

Ennio Morricone

You've never heard of him, but you've definitely heard him. Ennio Morricone has become Rome's most famous classical music composers to ever come out of the city. Over the past year he has preformed in various European cities and just recently preformed at radio city music hall, his first ever performance in the United States. He has collaborated with such classical stars such as violinist Yo-Yo Ma. Like all good music, his music takes you to another place, puts you in a certain mood. We all know that feeling that comes to all undergrads, whether its blasting Kanye as you pregame, Phish as you smoke, belting out the lyrics to "Red red wine" on your girls night out, "Sweet Caroline" after the sox win, That complicated R.E.M. song on karaoke night. 30 seconds to Mars as you put on your emo clothes, singing along to Led Zeppelin in your car. Or if your anything like my wannabe-gotti sophomore year roomate; cranking Jadakiss at all times and getting written up until you get in trouble with housing services. You get the picture. Music moves people. So what does this have to do with a guy who waves his conductor's wand to an orchestra of people, and more importantly, what does this have to do with movies??

Because Ennio Morricone also just might be the greatest film composer of all time. Here's an example of his work, you may know it...



It all started when he teamed up with Italian director Sergio Leone. These Italian versions of westerns or "Spaghetti Westerns" was born and would go on to become arguably one of the most popular genres in film history. Clint Eastwood would not have a career if it weren't for spaghetti westerns. They were revolutionary for there iconic characters and cinematography. But what made these films truly legendary was the epic music. Morricone being the go to guy on all these films from A Fistful of Dollars to The Good, The Bad & The Ugly to Once Upon A Time In The West. Directors like Quentin Tarantino(Kill Bill) and Robert Rodriguez(Once Upon A Time In Mexico), huge fans of the spaghetti westerns, have even sampled Morricone's music into their work. Here's an example. In my opinion, this is the best scene from Kill Bill: Volume 2, the song used is Morricone's "L'Arena" sampled from the film The Mercenary.



His music is so epic and influential, that films shot and edited their sequences to coincide with Morricone's music. You can see that in the Kill Bill clip from above which even Tarantino would admit to; quote "To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music...". In Once Upon A Time In The West, Morricone not only completed the films score before shooting was done but he also brought other sound design ideas to the table such as telling director Sergio Leone to use the ambient sound of the land to heighten the drama, an aspect that is now a staple in most spaghetti westerns. Here's another example of all this from one of the dramatic opening scenes of Once Upon A Time In The West. You can just clearly see how all the sound and music from Morricone influences all the other artistic decisions the film presents.



His body of work doesn't just end at Spaghetti Westerns. He's created scores for such acclaimed films as In The Line Of Fire, The Battle Of Algiers, The Untouchables, Malena, Cinema Paradiso, Bulworth, The Mission and Sergio Leone's final film Once Upon A Time In America. He has been nominated five times for the academy award yet never brought home the golden statue. On Feb 25th, Oscar Night, he will not only finally get one, but arguably receive the most acclaimed of all, the lifetime achievement honorary oscar. Deservedly so in my opinion. The final scene music in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly gives me chills just thinking about it. Music touches us all. It's all about emotions and the feeling we get out of it. With movies, we don't really think about it that way since everything is visual. But without a great composer like Ennio Morricone, I'm not sure if we could even appreciate those visuals in the first place.

Blog Wars: The Kevster Strikes Back

"I’ll be back"…Ok so I didn’t quite say that but the message is clear. I’m taking a step back in time and going back to the blog. I’m going to attack this new and improved blog like Michael J. Fox in "Teen Wolf" attacking the basket. I’m gonna treat it like Ivan Drago treats other boxers ("I vill break you blog") This is my blog. I’m the boss of me, I’m the star, you got that Jack? King Kong ain’t got shit on me!

<---- "Buy Direct TV!"



In case you haven’t caught on, my blog is about movies. Over the course of the year I will be reviewing a couple, lending my personal take on them, throwing out a lot of recommendations, and just talking about my life and how it relates to the world of cinema as it is something I really enjoy and would like for it to become a profession. The origins of this blog began last year in another 297 experimental english course; Digital Storytelling. There, I had so much fun with the blog that when I knew I could continue it, I had to tumble down that rabbit hole. Enter, Writing into the Blogosphere!

Ok so lets just jump into things and pretend I never left in the first place. I just finished watching "School Ties" which I think I can best describe as a movie trying to be a movie. The film boasts an ensemble young cast including Brendan Frasier, Matt Damon, Chris O’ Donnell, Ben Affleck, Anthony Rapp (That TA guy from Road Trip & also Dazed and Confused) and of course Cole Hauser who you gotta love cause he looks like the type of guy who would beat the crap out of you at a bar if you beat him in foosball and trash talked after.

"that was NOT a goal"

I love looking back on ensemble casts because I always think about how everyone’s career panned out. I mean, back then, if you had to bet, wouldn’t you have had to put all your money on Chris O’Donnell and not Matt Damon for who would have the most successful career of all the guys. He did "Fried Green Tomatoes", "School Ties" and "Scent of a Woman" in a span of a year back then. He was going places. What the hell happened Chris? (oh that’s right, "Batman & Robin", nevermind)

"AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!!"

The film is about Frasier’s character struggling to fit in at a rich prestigious New England prep school because of the fact he is Jewish. The rich white kids led by Damon give him a very hard time after initially befriending him when they find out his religious beliefs. Because of the greedy Jewish stereotypes they believe in, they do awful anti-Semitic things to him. It raises a lot of issues of prejudice in general. Personally, I feel there’s a larger issue at hand when it comes to prejudice. Why must we feel the need to strongly define ourselves in the first place? Isn’t that basically like trash talking others? Doesn’t that create backlash? In the spirit of black history month, shouldn’t we be defining people by the content of their character? Why did we never truly implement that? Why are humans so territorial? I always try and treat people of all backgrounds as equals and in life I’ve met plenty of good human beings from different backgrounds and beliefs just as much as I’ve met complete assholes from those same backgrounds and beliefs. Yet it seems most revert to what may seem to be loyalty in culture, which I think is wrong. I mean, isn’t that pretty much why we have war in places like the Middle East? I think it would be better if we lived in a utopian world where we were all just one country and we did not have religion too for that matter; imagine that. And hey, you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Sigh…I guess that’s why I like movies. I can escape in them and they never change. I’m happy that I get to do this blog as this gives me an excuse to watch more. I feel great and look forward to blogging again. Like Paul Newman in "The Color of Money"…IM BACK!