My Own Grammy Awards

In two weeks the Grammy Awards will be airing live on TV.  In theory, the Grammys are my favorite awards in the entertainment industry.  I can review all nominees by listening to a three-minute song as opposed to a two hour movie or a season of TV episodes.  In practice, though, the Grammys are absolutely horrible.  Their choices in nominees fail to reflect the popular culture of the time, and while popularity does not necessarily mean quality you can not tell me that Allison Kraus and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand was the most significant album of 2008 or that Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters was the best representative of music in 2007.  Instead of predicting the Grammy winners based off the nominee list, I am going to compile my own list of should be winners, regardless of whether or not they were nominated.  I have not idea what the cut off dates for submissions were or when my choice of winners released their music so my list is just for anytime in 2010.

Album of the Year: Body Talk by Robyn – Body Talk is many things; hipster, indie, artsy, but most of all pure, 100%, unabashed pop.  Creative wordplay throughout the lyrics accentuate the spectacular production.  Unlike many others, I did not like Robyn’s last album.  I found it too pretentious and cold but this is an inviting album that will make you think, laugh, and tap your feet.  Standout tracks:  Dancing On My Own, Fembot, Indestructible, Hang With Me, Time Machine, Get Myself Together, and Stars 4-Ever.

Record of the Year: Bad Romance by Lady GaGa – I know this song is nominated for a Grammy but I forgot which category.  Hopefully this one.  Lady GaGa saved pop music from one of the worst decades in pop music ever.  She deserves the sales, fame, and awards she has received the past couple of years.  While Telephone is my personal favorite song of her’s, Bad Romance is probably the better song artistically.

Song of the Year: Love the Way You Lie by Eminem and Rihanna – This song would be hard to beat in a category devoted to songwriting.  Lines like “Maybe our relationship isn’t as crazy as it seems, maybe that’s what happens when a tornado meets a volcano, all I know is I love you too much to walk away though” resonate in your brain and actually make you think.  I’ve been a big Eminem fan since I was in middle school and this is Eminem’s first decent song since 2002’s Lose Yourself.

Best New Artist: Ke$ha – While she may not be the best singer, she is one hell of an entertainer.  Her songs are fun, successful, and in three years Ke$ha will most likely be on the same road that Vanilla Ice is currently on.  Let her have an award while she can still get one.

Female Pop Vocal Performance: Bad Romance – Just read what I wrote under record of the year.  Other contenders include California Gurls and Teenage Dream.  Please note that while I do think Ke$ha deserves some sort of award, any category with the word vocal in it is not her’s to win.

Male Pop Vocal Performance: Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz – This is a hard category.  As a whole, the guys just did not bring it in 2010.  Usher was big, but I just don’t like anything Usher has put out since Yeah in 2004.  Break Your Heart had some good vocals, a great hook, and even better production.  I also like how a song with a line like “no point trying to evade it” can be a number one hit.  I can’t see T-Pain rapping the word evade.

Pop Performance by a Group: Hey, Soul Sister by Train – I really liked this song up until I heard it for the 961st time.  It was everywhere in 2010, but for good reason.  It’s a quality song with simple production.  My only complaint with Hey, Soul Sister is that sort of feels like it’s trying to be Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours 2.0.

Best Collaboration: Love the Way You Lie – I really want to give this award to Telephone by Lady GaGa and Beyonce for the sheer ferocity of their performance in both the song and video but I guess technically Eminem’s song is the better of the two.

Best Picture Nominee Reviews

Today I saw 127 Hours, my ninth of the ten movies currently up for Best Picture at the Oscars.  All I’m missing is Winter’s Bone and that’s only because I haven’t found a theater around Phoenix playing it.  As a whole, 2010 was a TERRIBLE year for movies.  It seemed like every weekend brought another sequel, another three-quel, another remake, another comic book adaption, or another super hero movie and to cap it all off, far too many movies were being made in 3D.

Despite the less than stellar year, I really like this year’s list of Best Picture nominees.  The big reason is that I have heard of them.  With the exception of Winter’s Bone these movies were all playing at the AMC theater by my apartment, meaning everyone and anyone could have seen them without having to hunt down a small art house that only plays movies that people who like to think they should be from New York but are really from Milwaukee enjoy.  And if Hollywood can see that original, quality stories can make money too than maybe I won’t have to see Growing Up With the Fockers in 2012.  Here is my take on this year’s Best Picture nominees, each with their own rating out of a possible score of five:

Black Swan – 4/5 – When I first heard people talking about this movie, I thought it was the story of a girl auditioning for Swan Lake. I thought it was supposed to be one of those inspirational stories about someone following their dreams.  Thank god I was wrong and that Black Swan was actually semi-horror, semi-suspense, semi-psychological thriller but all good.  Natalie Portman is great in this movie, and I usually don’t particularly care for her, as is Mila Kunis who shows she is much better than the crappy That 70s Show.

The King’s Speech – 4/5 – Excellent movie, plain and simple.  Having a simple story and character development here is better than the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on CGI in crappy movies like transformers.  My only complaint is that Geoffrey Rush was a bit gimmicky, though I attribute that more to the writing than his performance.

True Grit – 5/5 – I went into this movie expecting to hate it.  I hate Westerns and those uber-Macho movies filled with “strong silent” characters.  This movie, however, surprised me.  I had not seen the original nor had I read the book.  When I saw the main character was a 14-year-old girl I knew this movie would be different from what I thought.  In fact that 14-year-old girl played by Hailee Steinfeld was the best part of True Grit.  For some reason Steinfeld is nominated for Supporting Actress rather than Actress, but she should definitely win for her performace.

The Kids Are Alright – 4/5 – Interesting premise with great acting and writing.  Annette Bening seems to be getting all the buzz but in my opinion, Julianne Moore did an even better job.  I thought this movie would feel a little too indie for me, like it would be trying to be quirky, but I was wrong.  Probably won’t win Best Picture, but then again most movies don’t and that doesn’t mean they are any less entertaining.

The Fighter – 3/5 – This rating comes from me being biased, it should probably be higher.  It was a well done Cinderella story boxing style.  I just don’t really care for boxing, sports movies, or East Coast accents.  My parents liked it, there’s something positive.

Toy Story 3 – 5/5 – This movie breaks all rules I had with the typically awful three-quel.  Not only was Toy Story 3 good, it was better than its predecessors.  This is my personal favorite movie of the nominees and while it probably won’t win I would bet money it has the longest longevity.  Kids today watch Disney movies from before World War II and this is the only movie of the nominees I can see being relevant in 10 years.

The Social Network – 5/5 – There is nothing bad about this movie.  The writing, the acting, the directing; everything works.  I sneaked into this movie after I saw Legends of the Guardians:  The Owls of G’ahoole because I felt that the movie industry needed to give me something after sitting through that complete crap-fest.  If Toy Story 3 doesn’t win, I hope The Social Network does.

Inception – 4/5 – Great concept movie with cool plot twists and that make you forget Leonardo DiCaprio is really an irritating Al Gore wannabe.  My favorite thing about this movie is not on screen, however.  This was a big budget Blockbuster that was genuinely good.  It was an action movie but was not generic like 99% of other action movies are today.  I just really hope they leave this alone, end on a high note, and skip the sequel.

127 Hours – 5/5 – I really like Danny Boyle.  He makes big movies with that indie feel minus the annoying entitled, pretentiousness that a lot of indie movies seem to have.  This was a great psychological, character study that really got the viewer thinking about what they would do had a rock fallen on their arm and trapped them in a canyon.  I, personally, would probably just sit there thinking something along the lines “Welp, I guess this is how I’m gonna go.”  But the fact that it even got me to think something like that without feeling grossly morbid is a sign of an excellent film.  Side note: James Franco deserves the Oscar for this movie.

Winter’s Born – I have not seen this, but I imagine it being a small budget movie that thinks it is better and more important than it really is, along the lines of Crash.  We’ll see though, I’m going to keep looking for this movie but if I can’t find it I’m just going to watch it on one of those Chinese pirated movie websites.