Oscar and Razzie Nominees

The nominations for both the Acadamy Awards and the Golden Raspberry Awards have been announced, and since it's become a trend here at the Matt Sutton Experience, I'm gonna post those nominations for you, my faithful readers, to check them out.

First, the Oscars...

Best Picture:

• Brokeback Mountain
• Capote
• Crash
• Good Night, And Good Luck
• Munich

Best Actor:

• Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
• Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
• Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
• Joaquin Phoenix, Walk The Line
• David Strathairn, Good Night, And Good Luck

Best Actress:

• Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
• Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
• Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
• Charlize Theron, North Country
• Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line

Best Supporting Actor:

• George Clooney, Syriana
• Matt Dillon, Crash
• Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
• Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
• William Hurt, A History of Violence

Best Supporting Actress:

• Amy Adams, Junebug
• Catherine Keener, Capote
• Frances McDormand, North Country
• Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
• Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain

Best Director:

• George Clooney, Good Night, And Good Luck
• Paul Haggis, Crash
• Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
• Bennett Miller, Capote
• Steven Spielberg, Munich

Best Animated Feature Film:

• Howl's Moving Castle
• Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
• Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Best Music (score):

• Alberto Iglesias, The Constant Gardener
• Dario Marianelli, Pride & Prejudice
• Gustavo Santaolalla, Brokeback Mountain
• John Williams, Memoirs of a Geisha
• John Williams, Munich

Best Music (song):

• "In The Deep" from Crash
• "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" from Hustle & Flow
• "Travelin' Thru" from Transamerica

Best Screenplay (adapted):

• Brokeback Mountain
  written by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana
• Capote
  written by Dan Futterman
• The Constant Gardener
  written by Jeffrey Caine
• A History of Violence
  written by Josh Olson
• Munich
  written by Tony Kushner & Eric Roth

Best Screenplay (original):

• Crash
  screenplay by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco
  story by Paul Haggis
• Good Night, And Good Luck
  written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov
• Match Point
  written by Woody Allen
• The Squid and the Whale
  written by Noah Baumbach

There's a bunch of other awards in there that nobody cares about, like costume design and editing and crap like that. If you want to know those nominees, go to the Academy Awards website. And now, the Razzie nominations...

Worst Picture:

• Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
• Dirty Love
• The Dukes of Hazzard
• House of Wax
• Son of the Mask

Worst Actor:

• Tom Cruise, War of the Worlds
• Will Ferrell, Bewitched and Kicking & Screaming
• Jamie Kennedy, Son of the Mask
• The Rock, Doom
• Rob Schneider, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Worst Actress:

• Jessica Alba, Fantastic Four and Into The Blue
• Hilary Duff, The Perfect Man and Cheaper By The Dozen 2
• Jennifer Lopez, Monster In Law
• Jenny McCarthy, Dirty Love
• Tara Reid, Alone In The Dark

Worst Supporting Actor:

• Hayden Christensen, Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
• Alan Cumming, Son of the Mask
• Bob Hoskins, Son of the Mask
• Eugene Levy, The Man and Cheaper By The Dozen 2
• Burt Reynolds, The Longest Yard and The Dukes of Hazzard

Worst Supporting Actress:

• Carmen Electra, Dirty Love
• Paris Hilton, House of Wax
• Katie Holmes, Batman Begins
• Ashlee Simpson, Undiscovered
• Jessica Simpson, The Dukes of Hazzard

Worst Director:

• John Mallory Asher, Dirty Love
• Uwe Boll, Alone In The Dark
• Jay Chandrasekhar, The Dukes of Hazzard
• Nora Ephron, Bewitched
• Lawrence Gutterman, Son of the Mask

Worst On-Screen Couple:

• Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman, Bewitched
• Jamie Kennedy and anyone stuck sharing the screen with him, Son of the Mask
• Jenny McCarthy and anyone dumb enough to befriend or date her, Dirty Love
• Rob Schneider and his diapers, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
• Jessica Simpson and her "Daisy Dukes," The Dukes of Hazzard

Worst Remake or Sequel:

• Bewitched
• Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
• The Dukes of Hazzard
• House of Wax
• Son of the Mask

Worst Screenplay:

• Bewitched
  written by Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron, and Adam McKay
• Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
  written by Rob Schneider, David Garrett, and Jason Ward
• Dirty Love
  written by Jenny McCarthy
• The Dukes of Hazzard
  written by John O'Brien
• Son of the Mask
  written by Lance Khazei

Most Tiresome Tabloid Target:

• Tom Cruise and his anti-psychiatry rant
• Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Oprah Winfrey's couch, the Eiffel Tower, and "Tom's baby"
• Paris Hilton and... whoever
• Mr. & Mrs. Britney, their baby, and their camcorder
• The Simpsons: Ashlee, Jessica, and Nick

So there you are. The results will be announced in March, so check back here (or your favorite news website) then. And am I the only one who hasn't seen (or even heard of) 99.9% of the movies nominated for Oscars? Most of them played nowhere near here, and there's no way I'm fighting Louisville traffic to see a movie about gay cowboys that can't quit one another, no matter how good it is. (I'm not a homophobe or anything, I just don't care.) I've also noticed that comedies always get the shaft at the Oscars too. Why the hate, Oscar? Does a movie have to be hoity-toity pretentious crap to get your attention? Is that how you roll, Oscar? And why the snubbing of King Kong for the major awards? Just because it's way too long and gets kinda boring in the middle doesn't mean it's any less good than movies nobody has seen like Crash or Good Night, And Good Luck. Stupid spiteful Oscar.

Sutton Watches Smallville

So as mentioned earlier, here I am with my thoughts on tonight's episode of Smallville. I'm watching the episode as I type this, so that should answer any questions you may have.

• It's about freaking time Clark told Lana his secret. She looks like she's taking the news well. I mean, in a town like Smallville, with all the Kryptonite-fueled mutants running around, the idea of your boyfriend being an alien with superhuman powers probably won't be all that shocking after all. But I bet she half-expected aliens to look like E.T. or something from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• Aw, Clark made a diamond ring out of a lump of coal. How saccharine.
• Clark needs to go buy some new clothes. Yeah, Superman wears red and blue, I get it.
• Hah, Lois made a Crying Game reference. And then Chloe goes and makes a "out of the closet" reference. Geez, I thought Batman and Robin were the ones that got all the gay jokes.
• Aw, poor unloved Chloe. Clark stabs her in the heart again with that "I proposed to Lana" bombshell. When, Lord, when? When's it gonna be Chloe's time?!
• Yay, Clark and Lana are getting married. Until they break up, and Clark moves to Metropolis and hooks up with Lois.
• Way to go, Bo. Congratulations on the Senate win. Too bad you're gonna die.
• Along with Clark's confession, it's also about time we got Evil Lex. Michael Rosenbaum is the best part of the show, and him being evil (even if it's just him being a mean drunk) could make it better.
• Loeb Bridge? Awfully nice for the writers to name something after Jeph Loeb like that.
• Oh snap! Lana just got ran over by a school bus! And Lex sees Clark's super-speed too. Wow. Lana looks like she got cut up something good too. So much for the whole pretty perfection that is Lana Lang.
• "If I hadn't told her the truth, she'd still be alive!" See, Clark? Her death is all your fault. You said it yourself. I hope you're happy, Super-goon.
• And now he goes back to the beginning of the episode thanks to grabbing a crystal in the Fortress? Is it just me, or would it have been cooler if he'd made Earth spin backwards like in the first Superman movie?
• Clark, you jerk. Haven't you learned anything? Lying to Lana accomplishes nothing. Then again, telling her the truth got her smooshed by a bus, so what do I know.
• Hah, Chloe totally made a reference to spinning the world backwards. Just as soon as I make a joke about it, they do to. Get out of my head, Smallville!
• You know, thinking about it, if they did an entire episode set up like Groundhog Day, it'd be awesome. Maybe they could expand on this episode and do a cross between Groundhog Day and Final Destination. Where instead of killing himself over and over like Bill Murray, he could keep trying to stop Lana from getting killed, and she keeps dying in different ways every time.
• Great, and now Lois is dead. I'd been hoping that they'd have Chloe use Lois's name as a pseudonym or somesuch, so Clark could shack up with her while still being with Lois Lane. And now maybe it could come true?
• There is something so wrong about Lex kissing Lana.
• Ah, fate. There's just no getting around it.
• Aw, Lois is alive after all. There goes my "Chloe is the Lois that Clark loves" thoery. And Clark stops the bus from squashing Lana, too. Poor Chloe will never find love.
• Oh snap, I think Lionel knows Clark isn't human.
• And now Bo Kent's dead. Way to go, Clark. Thanks to your selfishness regarding Lana, you condemned your father to death. I hope killing him was fun, Super-jerk. I also hope someone drops a great big bomb full of Kryptonite on your house.

What a depressing, upsetting episode. They went back on the whole "Lana learns Clark's secret" promise (wasting five years of buildup in the process) and they killed one of my favorite characters, and it's all Clark's fault. I hope that in next week's episode, he realizes that. Because it is.

Land of the Reviews

Not much is going on in la tierra de Sutton, so I don't really have a lot to talk about. But I do, dear readers, have a new review for you to read. The review is George Romero's fourth zombie movie, Land of the Dead. And with that, it puts me at five new reviews this month. That's what I like to call "progress," folks.

I might be back later with Smallville thoughts. Tonight is the big 100th episode, and a major character is gonna die. So anyway, that's all for now. Check out the review, and thanks for reading.

Werewolf/Vampire Hybrids At The Movies

Another weekend, another trip to the cineplex. I caught the 10:00 showing of Underworld: Evolution tonight, and considering I haven't seen the original Underworld yet, I didn't really understand the majority of the plot. There were a heavy amount of references to the events of the first movie, so if you go into the sequel without seeing it, you're probably going to be as confused as I was. From what I could discern, the heroine (as portrayed by the ever-lovely Kate Beckinsale) has teamed up with a heroic half-vampire/half-werewolf hybrid to stop a powerful vampiric villain from using his equally powerful werewolf brother to create an army of evil werevamp hybrids. Or something like that, I don't know for sure.

In any event, since I had no clue what was going on with the plot, I spent most of my time enjoying the action. And oh boy, is there action. Broken necks, jaws (and heads) ripped off, a brawl in the back of a moving truck, monsters getting thrown into whirring helicopter blades, and lots and lots of gunfire. And because I enjoyed myself watching it, I'll give Underworld: Evolution three and a half stars. I might promote it to four once I see the first Underworld, but that's the rating I'm going with now.

I was also quite intrigued by the trailers in front of Underworld: Evolution. The trailer for the remake of When A Stranger Calls makes no sense to me, because they give away the big twist right there in the trailer. Does that make any sense to anybody else? And then there was the trailer for Silent Hill, the cinematic adaptation of the video game. I haven't played any of the games, but the movie looks absolutely terrifying, so I'll definitely be in line to see it. After that, there was the trailer for X-Men 3, and I'm looking forward to that one as well. Sure, there might be 3000 people in the cast, but if War & Peace can manage, so can X-Men 3. And wrapping up the trailers was one for a new movie starring Milla Jovovich, titled Ultraviolet. Oh man, Ultraviolet looks like a big sweaty pile of monkey poop. It just doesn't look good at all.

Speaking of big sweaty piles of monkey poop, I'm currently watching King Kong Lives (the sequel to the 1976 remake) on television. I've seen better "man in a suit" effects in even the worst Godzilla movies. You'd figure that by 1986, they could have made some advancements in makeup design. I mean, if George Lucas can make Chewbacca look believable, then some genius could have slapped together a better King Kong outfit. The movie is so horrible, it's almost offensive. I want to punch this movie in its face.

And that's the end of this story. Sutton out.

"That's some high-quality H2O."

There's not a whole lot going on to talk about, but I do have a new review for you to read. It's last year's underappreciated ghost story Dark Water, and I hope you enjoy it.

Out.

Two Fantastic Fours? Would that be the Fantastic Eight?

I've got another review for you Sutton At The Movies fans to peruse: the 2005 movie adaptation of The Fantastic Four. And you can check out my review of the rare 1994 Fantastic Four movie by clicking here too. Check 'em out, will you?

Time Travel Has Never Made Such Little Sense

Thanks to the wonder that is Netflix, I finally got around to seeing the director's cut of Donnie Darko today. I haven't seen the original theatrical cut, but if it's anything like the director's cut, then it's one trippy movie. Ever see one of those movies where you know you're watching a good movie, despite having no clue what was happening at any given time? That's what Donnie Darko was to me. It's kinda hard to follow the first (and even second) time through, but things all start to make a modicum of sense after repeated viewings. But don't get me wrong, it's a very well-directed, well-acted movie.

Jake Gyllenhaal is awesome, and if there's any reason to watch Donnie Darko at all, it's for his performance. My only real complaint with the cast is that neither Drew Barrymore nor her character really seem like they belong in the movie. I'm not going to imply that she stuck herself in the movie with her power as executive producer (she totally didn't do that with the Charlie's Angels movies, either), but the character doesn't really contribute much of anything, outside of giving director Richard Kelly a reason to stick clips of Watership Down in the movie. But in any regard, Donnie Darko is one of those movies that you'll probably like if you enjoy movies that mess with your head. And because it still managed to be entertaining in spite of being totally confusing, I'll give it four stars. It's not a bad movie at all, it's just... well... different.

Kentucky Could Still Win, Right?

I hope everyone had a happy Friday the 13th, because I know I did.

Continuing on a theme, I took in another film tonight, this time being Glory Road. The story of the Texas Western basketball team that started five black players against the all-white Kentucky team in the 1966 NCAA championship game, the movie is essentially the result of changing Remember The Titans from a football movie to a basketball movie. As can be expected, there are a number of historical inaccuracies, but the majority of them can be excused for the sake of drama. Josh Lucas, who plays coach Don Haskins, is good, and the rest of the cast (made up of people I've never heard of, with the exceptions of former Smallville co-star Sam Jones as one of Texas Western's players, Tatyana Ali from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a player's girlfriend, and Jon Voight as Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp) is entertaining. I did like the movie and thought it was entertaining, so I'll give it four stars.

And that's good enough for me.

"When did we get ice cream?"

And now, it's time for another post. First off, I want to send out a big hello to a new reader of the blog, my good friend Jenny. Hi, Jenny!

Caught both Hostel (again) and The Ringer tonight. You can scroll down for my thoughts about Hostel, so I'll talk about The Ringer. It kinda fell off the radar a few weeks ago since it wasn't all that successful, but there are quite a few moments that I thought were absolutely hysterical. There was one scene that had me fighting for breath because I was laughing so hard, and a particular line of dialogue that myself and my ragtag group of friends continued to quote for the rest of the night ("wait, when the F did we get ice cream?!"). Three and a half stars for The Ringer.

And finally, after over 18 hours of total gameplay, I stand at the top of the video game mountain that is Resident Evil 4. And I'm quite happy with the final result, too. I vowed to conquer it, and I have. Hooray for me.

I'm Bad! I'm Evil!

Made a wee bit of progress on Resident Evil 4 today. Got past the bulldozer section, only to end up getting into a knife fight, then having to dodge lasers right out of the first Resident Evil movie. The lasers were cool, but that knife fight has to be my favorite part of the game so far. It's just too awesome.

In between rounds of Resident Evil 4, I've been watching a few episodes of the first season of Angel (via the box set I got for $20 at Wal-Mart after Christmas). I've only watched four episodes, but they were all good ones. I love the Spike episode, but what really got me were those two Faith episodes at the end of the season. Those two episodes are doozys. I can't watch that whole "I'm bad! I'm evil!" alley fight without getting a little emotional. Now that they really aren't doing anything, maybe Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku could get together and do Faith, The Vampire Slayer. I'd watch that show every week.

And that's all the news that's fit to print.

I'm staying far away from Europe now.

So I just got back from seeing Hostel, and, well, it's different. I think it's fitting that Takashi Miike has a cameo in the movie, because Hostel owes a lot to Miike's Audition in terms of style and storytelling. Yeah, there's no middle-aged Japanese man looking for a new wife in Hostel, but both films involve someone falling deeper and deeper into a world they eventually regret getting involved with. Though while Audition gives the appearance of a romance movie in its early going, Hostel comes across as a teen sex comedy. Though honestly, until the movie finally hits its groove, the movie's kinda boring. The three lead characters are flat and one-dimensional, existing only to move from one sexual conquest to another. But hey, they can't all be winners.

Once things all go to Hell towards the end of the movie, however, things definitely tend to pick up. While I've seen movies that are far more violent (The Passion of the Christ, for example), Hostel is still most certainly violent and disturbing. There are quite a few moments where I was actually covering my eyes, believe it or not. The performances from the cast are unmemorable, but Eli Roth's outstanding direction and the movie's wild finale make up for it, so I'll give Hostel three and a half stars. Not bad, if you can handle violent movies.

I've also concluded that I've grown numb to on-screen nudity in films. The first half of Hostel has so much nudity that I could have sworn the projectionist had started rolling a porno film instead. After a while, I just wanted to throw up my hands and say, "Okay, I think I've finally seen all the naked women I need to see." Thanks a lot, Eli Roth. Jerk.

In other news, I've finally made some headway in Resident Evil 4. I made it past those Thwompy things, past a pair of 15-foot-tall trolls, past the creepy little midget that turns into a nasty giant tentacle monster, and past two nasty buggers called the Regenerator and the Iron Maiden, but now I'm stuck again. I'm on this bulldozer tearing my way to freedom, but thanks to a ridiculously low amount of decent ammo and a general lack of knowledge in what I'm doing, I keep getting ran over by a giant flaming truck. But I'm gonna figure it out. I always do.

And that, my friends, is all I've got for now.

Giant Mosquitos Really Bug Me

A new post, a new review. This time, it's May, a movie that you may or may not have heard of. But check out the review, then go rent the movie. Or rent the movie, then check out the review. Either way works.

Resident Evil 4 has really been kicking my butt lately. I'm somewhere around the middle of the game, stuck in a cave full of giant mosquitos that spit acid. They're bad enough when there's only two or three of them and they're invisible, but when there's a giant pack of them in a narrow cave, they're a pain in the neck. And then when I finally get past the giant bugs, I end up getting squashed by one of those huge Thwomp things from the Super Mario Brothers games. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, those things. I hate those things. I'll make it past them one of these days, however. You better believe I'll persevere. And I still have to get around to playing Resident Evil 3 too! That's next on my agenda of video games to conquer.

"Sutton At The Movies" Achievement Awards

After reading Libby's list of her personal top five movies for 2005, I had the idea to reprise something I did at the end of 2004. So I hope you - yes, you - are ready for the second annual "Sutton At The Movies" Achievement Awards. These are pretty much random awards that I hand out to the cinematic adventures I took in 2005. If you think a movie should have been represented here, either I thought something else was better, or I just didn't see it.

• Best Movie: Sin City
• Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, Walk The Line
• Best Actress: Naomi Watts, King Kong/Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line (tie)
• Best Supporting Actor: Jack Black, King Kong
• Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Carpenter, The Exorcism of Emily Rose
• Best Director: Steven Spielberg, War of the Worlds
• Best Horror Movie: The Exorcism of Emily Rose
• Best Movie Based on a True Story: Walk The Line
• Best Movie Based on a Comic Book: Batman Begins and Sin City (tie)
• Best Soundtrack: The Devil's Rejects
• Best Use of a Song in a Movie's Closing Credits: "Somewhere Out There" by Our Lady Peace, from White Noise
• Best Sequel: The Devil's Rejects
• Coolest Concept: White Noise
• Best Villain: Tobin Bell as The Jigsaw Killer, Saw II
• Best On-Screen Team: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, and Sheri Moon Zombie from The Devil's Rejects
• Worst Movie: Fun With Dick & Jane

Just for saying's sake, I'd have given High Tension the Best Horror Movie award, but since it was technically first released in 2003, I decided it'd be ineligible. Sue me. But those are the awards, like them or not.

Just A Good Ol' Review

Welcome to 2006, and to celebrate, I've got a new review for Sutton At The Movies. The new review, up for your reading pleasure, is the movie adaptation of The Dukes of Hazzard. Check it out, won't you?

Welcome to the New Hotness

Happy freaking New Year!

For those of you coming here from my old Tripod blog (or as I lovingly call it, the "Original Experience"), welcome to the New Hotness. My move to Blogger is complete, as evidenced by the four years of archival posts that you can click on to your right. My move to Blogger was mainly one of convenience, as I just thought it was too hard to keep up with my past posts. A month-by-month thing is far easier than year-by-year, if you ask me. Besides, I got tired of typing everything up in FrontPage Express, then uploading it to Tripod.

But never fear, fans of the Original Experience. The Original Experience will stay open, and I'll be copying my Blogger posts over there. I'm keeping it open primarily because it hosts Sutton At The Movies, as well as having a certain sentimental value because it's been open since November 2001. The Original Experience is the grandfather of what was once the Delphi Blog Nation, and I could never bring myself to close its doors for good. Tripod will have to die before the Original Experience does. But with the new year comes the New Hotness, and this blog will now be my "default" blog (for lack of a better term). You don't really need to update your links and bookmarks (what with the cross-posting and all that), but I'd like to think backing up four years worth of posts would be worth something. (Wink wink, nudge nudge.)

Anyway, that's enough of that. While I'm here, I'd like to thank the following sponsors for their continued support:

• Dynamite Kudo, the Furious Five, and all those at F.O.E.T.
• The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense
• Wolfram & Hart, Attorneys At Law
• Angel Investigations
• Wayne Enterprises
• Xavier's School For The Gifted
• Dingoes Ate My Baby
• Wyld Stallyns
• The Boar's Nest
• Project Mayhem
• The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad

Once again, Happy New Year. Sutton out.