2016 Oscars: Tom’s Best Picture Round-Up

By and large, I don’t put much personal stock in the Academy Awards.  They strike me as an excuse for Hollywood to pat itself on the back for all the good work it says it does.  If I watch the show at all, it’ll be the last few minutes to find out who won Best Picture, and that’ll be it.  The humor is rather lame, the musical numbers dull, and the low-burning outrage over what did and didn’t win can linger for decades.

Case in point:  Forrest Gump beat out both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture.  I don’t care how much you like Gump, there’s no way anyone can justify it is a better movie than both of those other two.

But then this year, I actually saw most of the Best Picture nominees.  Thoughts after the cut.  No predictions, though.  If you want predictions, try Watson’s article.

Star Wars Rewatch: Revenge Of The Sith

The consensus seems to be that Revenge of the Sith is, in fact, the best of the prequels.  True, that can be damning with faint praise, but…well, let’s see what the Geeks have to say about this one.

Movie Posters Without the Text…Part 3

Movie posters are iconic pieces of art but it is amazing how much the titles and font are part of the visual appeal.  We check out what the posters look like with the text stripped away and only the visual to sell the story.

What a Difference a Letter Can Make!

Sometimes one letter means all the difference in how a movie turns out!

Cool Limited Edition Action Figures

Do you know what they call a quarter pounder in Paris?

So, I was looking around the Net for Gabbing Geek content, and discovered Rainman.

Rainman is a South Korean artist who does cool limited edition action figures.  He sells them off his site, usually for a couple hundred each, and…well, that’s about all that’s known about the guy.  Oh, there’s a few other bits and pieces here and there, but unless you have $400 dollars (minimum) to drop on something of his, you probably won’t be buying one.

See some of his work after the cut.

Podcast Reaction: The Forrest Gump Edition

This week on the podcast, the guys and Jenny covered the 90s.  I’m actually less inclined to hate on the 90s than I am on the 80s, but not because I think the 90s were better.  Part of it is I came to adulthood in that decade.  The other part is, when you get right down to it, modern geek culture, an important part of this site’s purpose (you know, the thing this website is completely dedicated to), started then.  The 90s gave us the first serialized television, TV animation took a big step away from half-assed shows based on action figure lines, there was the rise of HBO original programming, and depending on when you start and stop the era, the X-Men hit the big screen in 2000.  The Cold War was over and the War on Terror hadn’t started yet.  It was a good time.

I still would not go back to it, because I still believe in living in the now.

Speaking of living in the now, let’s talk about how overrated Forrest Gump is.

Gabbing Geek 41: The Unbelievable 90s

Gabbing Geek 41: The Unbelievable 90s

It’s another fun look back to a decade of geekiness as the Gabbing Geek podcast episode 41 presents The Unbelievable 90s!  We cover movie trivia, soundtracks, and play a few rounds of ROD with 90s movies.  Give it a listen now or jump after the break to read more!

Time For Some Gratuitous Violence And Course Language

Sorry Jenny

After the break, check out this awesome supercut celebrating some of the best action movie pre-mortem one liners.  As per the title, be aware of NSFW language and violence.

Podcast Reaction: The Oscar Edition

A decades-long career in Hollywood’s ultimate reward: posing with a human ostrich.

This week on the podcast, Ryan and Watson managed not to spend the whole recording discussing box office totals, the sort of thing that makes me really miss Jenny.  Jenny, you see, like me does not care for that stuff.  But those two guys will discuss it to the pain.

TO THE PAIN!

Still, they were good this week, so what about the Oscars?

So, How Many Can You Name?

This is probably one of my favorite videos on YouTube.  Someone took tons of clips from tons of movies and TV shows and made a rather good techno-kinda tune out of it.  I’ve seen lots of stuff, but even I can’t name all of them here.  I tend to skip to this whenever I want a quick smile at someone else’s cleverness.