Last night's Oscar show has received such a universal panning that my saying, I told you so, seems more than a little redundant. I did sneak a peek and suffered through about 35 minutes of it. That was more than enough to convince me that someone should be brought up on charges for hiring James Franco and Anne Hathaway as hosts. Talk about deer caught in the headlights. In the 35 minutes I wasted on this train wreck, I saw two people I've never heard of before kill two minutes talking about the Oscar show continuing on ABC through 2020. Oh, Goody.
I saw the Oscars presented for Best Musical Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Effects Editing. The last two are some of the awards they should pass out at a rubber-chicken lunch the day before. I also had to endure the award for Best Makeup and a long-boring-monotone-read-off-a-card acceptance speech for Best Costume Design. Some people, including Kevin Spacey, sang. And then several more minutes were wasted passing out more Oscars that no one cares about like Best Documentary Short. Ugh.
Obviously the show's producers saved money on writers this year. I didn't hear one funny line during the half hour plus that I watched.
I tuned in about 9:40 and tuned out around 10:15. Thirty minutes of my life I'll never get back.
In the spirit of movies, though, I thought I'd share my views of one of the movies I watched last night while not watching the Oscars: Ticking Clock.
A serial-killer whodunit starring Cuba Gooding Jr. It's actually not a whodunit because you see whodunit right from the get-go. It's actually a clever plot line that suffers from a half-assed script and lackluster direction. For the buck I spent on it at Red Box, it was a deal. It's not all bad.
Gooding plays a crime reporter with an assistant district attorney girl friend -- who is only his girlfriend in this movie so that Gooding has a reason to go to her home and find her murdered. They interact for all of 30 seconds before she storms away and he is left to go visit her at her home. He is separated from a wife, who also serves no real purpose other than to try to flesh-out Gooding's character. She also is only on camera for a couple of minutes.
Because this is a movie, Gooding decides to single-handed catch his girlfriend's killer, who is also suspected of killing a few other people. The killer keeps a journal in which he not only chronicles his various murders, but also lists the names of his future victims and the dates on which he will kill them. Luckily for Gooding's character, he finds the journal. Now the race is on to prevent the future killings and nab the murderer.
To keep from revealing a plot twist, I won't expose any more of the story. With a tighter script, this movie could have been quite good. A few aspects are a little farfetched, such as Gooding's character going after this guy alone when he has a good buddy in the police department. The director, Ernie Barbarash, whoever he is, seemed content to just get the film made and into the can. Doesn't appear he put in any late nights trying to add some suspense or coax a little more out of his actors.
I suspect The King's Speech was about as suspenseful.
Is it worth seeing? For a buck, sure. It beat watching the Oscars.
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