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.

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.

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?