Backstage at the Oscar Nominations Announcement

The Oscar nominations were announced by Salma Hayek and her funny bangs at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills this past Tuesday. I got to attend the event, but the only real dirt I can dish from being there was that I shared an elevator with Salma and that she was all weepy and emotional before the event in her "dressing room" (the restroom on the 7th floor of AMPAS). People speculate that she was teary-eyed because she was happy to find out pal Penelope Cruz had earned a nomination. It's either that or she just heard that Adam Sandler's Click had somehow scored an Oscar nod.

Find the eight things in this picture that won't be winning an Oscar this year.
Hint: Seven of them are pictured in the posters on the wall, while one of them thought a YouTube "Adorable Kittens" montage warranted consideration from the Academy.

Now that the nominations are out, here's a quick rundown of this year's picks:

Babel
I haven't seen it, but I think it's like an international version of Crash.

United 93
Too soon? No, Oliver Stone returning to moviemaking with World Trade Center right after making Alexander is too soon.

Supporting Actress

Jennifer Hudson has now become the first veteran of American Idol to be validated by Hollywood's top honor

Supporting Actor

Same goes for Mark Wahlberg, but replace "American Idol" with "The Funky Bunch"

Borat

Members of the press actually groaned when this nomination was announced. Snobs. When I see a movie that celebrates dildos as artificial limbs, Baywatch as masturbation material, naked man-on-man wrestling and poop in a baggie, it smells like Oscar to me. I suppose it also smells like poop in a baggie, but still.

Previously Nominated Actresses

Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett all got nominated. Again. I haven't bothered to see any of their movies. Again. Women who are British or could be mistaken for British always have a good chance at getting nominated.

Movie Titles
Little Miss Sunshine, No Time for Nuts, Happy Feet, Children of Men and The Queen. They could be nominated films, but they more likely sound like titles in a gay porno Netflix queue.

Apocalypto

Insert anti-semitic Mel Gibson joke here.

An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore has a good shot at starring in a winner since this year's nominations don't include documentaries on 'tards, cancer kids or the Holocaust. Insert anti-semitic Mel Gibson joke here.


Special contest! Submit a comment and identify the movie posters pictured in the photo above. The first commenter to get all seven correct or whoever has identified the most movie posters in the next week will become Blogger of the Month! It's an honor almost as prestigious as the Oscar for Best Sound Editing!
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R.I.P Lily Munster

Actress Yvonne De Carlo, who's best known as the sexy mom on The Munsters passed away on Monday.

Yvonne De Carlo
1922 - January 8, 2007

De Carlo had a long career in B-movie westerns such as "Frontier Gal," "Black Bart", "River Lady," "Calamity Jane and Sam Bass" and "The Gal Who Took the West.". De Carlo was also filmed in various skimpy outfits in Hollywood middle eastern flicks like "Song of Scheherazade," "Slave Girl," "Casbah", "The Ten Commandments" and "Desert Hawk."


Spiteful photo by Jason, who, as everyone knows, is the mortician of this blog and that R.I.P. articles are his schtick. Enjoy, Chris!
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R.I.P. Scooby-Doo Creator

Animator Iwao Takamoto, who's worked with Disney and Hanna-Barbera on such cartoons as Peter Pan, The Jetsons, Cinderella, 101 Dalmatians and The Flintstones, passed away yesterday. Takamoto is probably best known for creating Scooby-Doo, an enduring series destined to keep his spirit alive. Of course, it'll probably turn out that it's not actually his spirit that's hanging around but really Old Man Grimley the banker in disguise. Damn those meddling kids.

Iwao Takamoto
1925 - January 8, 2007

Nintendildo

Welcome Nintendo fans! In case you haven't heard, the Opera Internet browser has been available on the Nintendo Wii (pronounced "Wheeee!" for the uninitiated), for a few weeks, and of course Hands in the Air is 100% compatable. That means that at this very moment, someone could be reading this post from the comfort of their couch, a Wii Remote firmly in hand. Maybe even you!

Nintendo Wii's have been notoriously hard to come by since launch in November, but we're hip here, so of course we have one at HITA HQ and hells yeah it's online. I was even able to wrestle a remote away from Jason long enough (the dude spends hours just making Miis, it's embarrassing), to get the Opera browser. And what was the first thing I looked for as I sat there on the couch, browsing the Internet on my TV? Porn, duh. Then I immediately went here to HandsintheAir.net, which is like porn for your mind.

Bondage! Babes! Hairy animals with antlers! It's Kiinky Wii Sex!

Apparently I'm not the only one with this set of priorities, either. It looks like some porn sites, seeing an opportunity (and certainly a sudden boost in traffic from users rocking the Opera browser), have begun adapting their sites to be Wii friendly. That's right, now "playing with your Wii" takes on an even filthier connotation. Now if we could only manage to get those dirty-minded Wii fanatics to make the same jump I did and come to Hands in the Air, we'd be bigger than Elvis or at least most D-list porn stars. Eat your heart out Lisa Sparxxx.

And the sexy stuff doesn't stop there. Apparently when you name your console after a childish euphemism for "penis" and shape your controller like a phallus, people tend to think naughty thoughts about it. Who knew? So some people have put together a video entitled "Wii Sex." No, it's not what you think. Okay, it IS what you think, it's just that you don't get to see any of it, which is a shame because the two people in the Internet video are ugly in the way where you would expect they would need to take their clothes off to be worth looking at.

If all of this naughty Wii stuff is getting you frisky, you can check out MapWii.com and actually find fellow Wii owners/perverts in your very own neighborhood. You guys could, like, trade naked Miis and make them screw or something. I don't know. Maybe have a Mii orgy in your Mii Parade channel. Anything that turns your new Nintendo console into a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah is heartily endorsed. After all, video games really are about playing with yourself.


Compromising photo by Jason. All models were at least 18 at the time and all of them can keep a secret.

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New York Smells Funny ...

So any visitor to New York recognizes the familiar "New York" fragrance of homeless guy urine puddles and yellow cab exhaust - not today my pets. Today we had a different sensation as the smell of gas permeated parts of Manhattan and New Jersey this morning.
Buildings were evacuated and I am sure that many people thought that it might be some type of attack.

According to the mayor, everything was all normal and I didn’t smell anything when I left work but it reminded me of the last unusual smell incident when the city smelled like maple syrup.

What’s next? I’m hoping for blueberry pie in 2008.

Student Is Saved from Subway Fall Only to Live to See Crappy Movies

My New Year's resolution is to save your life. In just the first week of 2007, the standout news headlines have all been about good Samaritans saving random New Yorkers, and I've been inspired.

Mind the gap. And don't forget about the oncoming train, either.

First, there was the Manhattan subway hero who saved a student who seizured his way onto the train tracks. Today, two more average Joes became heroes when they caught a baby who fell out a window of a Bronx apartment. Less jaded people might think that this rash of heroism proves that people are naturally good. I say it merely proves that people are naturally clumsy.

So back to my New Year's resolution of saving lives. It turns out that I save lives every day since I continually refrain from throttling random strangers for the stupid things they do -- like the producers of the upcoming film, Primeval, which opens next week.

The new horror movie touts that Primeval is about the world's "most prolific serial killer," comparing its villain "Gustave" to Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer. The kicker is that the movie trailers and ads fail to reveal that Gustave is really a crocodile.

Now, I'm no profiler, but I don't think wild animals qualify as serial killers and I'm pretty sure that whirring noise you're hearing is Steve Irwin rolling in his grave.


By Primeval's broad definition of serial killer, the tagline "Inspired by the true story of the most prolific serial killer in history" should also apply to fatty films like Supersize Me and Fast Food Nation and cancer cinema like Thank You for Smoking and Dying Young.

Beware of serial killers who moonlight as polo shirt logos

Chalk it up to stupid marketing. While the thought of seeing Orlando Jones getting chomped by a croc is appealing, most people wouldn't want to see a movie about a future luggage set/pair of pimp shoes that's killed over 300 people. So now you've been warned about the Primeval. Consider your life saved.