MUSIC SEEN – remembering some of our favorite confluences of music in movies, television, video games, anything. Pairing the moving image with musical notes is a time honored craft – about which, we will clumsily say is pretty awesome and pretty cool.
“Auto Rock” (Mogwai) in Miami Vice (2006)
Why this movie? Why this song in this movie? Why now? So many questions.
Michael Mann re-made his 1980’s TV show in 2006 with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, alongside an underrated supporting cast of pre-Moonlight Naomie Harris, pre-Leftovers Justin Theroux and an ahead-of-its-time visual aesthetic, both surrealistic and gritty. It’s not a perfect movie, by any estimation. But it does do some things very well. Take music for instance.
The seventh episode of The Media By Us pan-media podcast, Talkie Talk.
In this episode, we have Brent, Chris and David (TJ is on assignment) discuss their Watchlist/Playlist before diving into Reality Competition shows to fill the media void (The Challenge, Are You the One?, Stranded with a Million Dollar, and Survivor).
The direct podcast RSS feed is here. And please contact us through email, Facebook (movies, TV, games), and Twitter.
Intro – Watchlist/Playlist: Homework Follow-up:Swingers David – All About Eve, Playing: Fallout: New Vegas Chris – E.R., X-Men: Apocalypse, Logan Brent – The Americans, The Bernie Mac Show, There Will Be Blood, Playing: Skyrim, 8-Bit Halfwit Teaser Main Topic: Reality Competition TV The Challenge, Are You the One?, Stranded with a Million Dollars, Survivor New Homework Assignment:Kung Fu Panda (new to Netflix)
(Slight warning: Some mild language)
(Intro music – courtesy of Willow Walkers / Outro music – “Vagabond” courtesy of Jockers Dance Orchestra through the Free Music Archive)
The sixth episode of The Media By Us pan-media podcast, Talkie Talk.
In this episode, we have Brent, Chris, TJ and Daviddiscuss their Watchlist/Playlistbefore diving headfirst into the 89th Academy Awards, going over the winners, the kerfuffle over the last award, and general overview discussions about what this year’s ceremony means going forward.
The direct podcast RSS feed is here. And please contact us through email, Facebook (movies, TV, games), and Twitter.
And Then There Were Ten – in which our intrepid hero goes back and expands the Academy Award Best Picture nominations to ten nominations, and goes about filling those hypothetical slots. This time – it’s 2008. Check out previous entries here.
Chapter 5: Indie Movies in our Temples of Gloom (A Wildcard Throw-Down)
INDIE MOVIES… BEING SO…. INDIE. (image: Complex)
And it comes down to this.
The last magical slot for expanding nominations in 2008.
If the rest of the movies previously assigned to the extra Best Picture slots are playoff division winners (Box Office Division, Acting Division, Animated Division and Comedy Division), then this last slot is the wildcard play-in game.
Looking at guild support, all the usual suspects have already made it: Frost/Nixon, Milk, Slumdog Millionaireand Benji B all wrapped all four major guild nominations (Producer, Director, Ensemble Acting, Writing). The other two with more than one guild nominations are The Dark Knight (DGA, PGA, WGA) and Doubt (SAG, WGA) which made the extra slots as described in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of this speculative manifesto. All that’s left are the WGA nominees, but this guild is a poor predictor for nomination success (43% correlation of WGA nomination to Best Picture nomination). This leads us down an appropriate avenue – the wildcard movie in the wildcard slot.
Talkie Talk Ep. 5: Video Game Movies... Movie Video Games
/
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed
The fifth episode of The Media By Us pan-media podcast, Talkie Talk.
In this episode, we have Brent, Chris, TJ and Daviddiscuss their Watchlist/Playlist, some news from Brent’s News Corner before going into video game movies… movies that remind us of video games… video game adaptations of movies… and everything in between: we discuss it all and have a Real or Fake quiz about video game properties.
The fourth episode of The Media By Us pan-media podcast, Talkie Talk – a very special episode.
In this episode, we have Brent, Chris, TJ and David go through an extensive town-hall style debate to see which movies should win in every category of the 2017 Academy Awards. The winners… may surprise you. The discussion… just may save your life. After the jump, winners of the discussion are posted – so only click if you want to ruin the surprise.
Later in the week, we’ll go back to our normal format (Homework, Watchlist, Main Topic).
And Then There Were Ten – in which our intrepid hero goes back and expands the Academy Award Best Picture nominations to ten nominations, and goes about filling those hypothetical slots. This time – it’s 2008. Check out the previous entries here.
Chapter 4: The Quote-Unquote Comedy (A Three-Way Throwdown)
It Happened One Night (1934) – first Best Picture comedy (image: AV Club)
The “Comedy.” If you’re even reading this multi-post treatise of speculative Oscarology, then you’re probably already aware that comedies generally get little respect in this arena. Since the successful days of comedy/musicals in the 1950s, nominations are hard to come by and wins are harder still for comedies. 2008 is no slouch in this judgment, with zero comedies nominated for BP – the funniest of the bunch is probably Slumdog Millionaire, but one would be hard pressed to consider that a chuckle fest – aside from the poo scene – poo is funny.
In this self-celebration of seriousness, comedies are ranked as less significant than traditional dramas. Why do they get less love in this respect than their other genre compatriots? I don’t know yet – so, an analysis of the nomination statistics is in order. And later on, I’ll create my own Sadness Index to figure out a winner.
The official The Media By Us Oscar prediction showdown between TJ and David. Posted here for posterity, TJ and David talk through every single category for the February 26th ceremony:
(Image: DB Movies Blog)`
BEST SHORT: ANIMATED / LIVE ACTION / DOCUMENTARY
TJ: So, let’s start with the shorts. I’ve only seen one. But I’m picking it to win Best Animated Short. Piperwas adorable.
David: Piper should be the leading candidate. It has also been awhile since Pixar has one in Best Animated Short – a lot of upsets.
TJ: And with Pixar not having a nomination in the feature category, this could be a decent secondary prize for the studio.
David: Poor Pixar. I hope the billions help. I have not seen nor will see any short for this year. So I’ll take your word.
TJ: It was good. I’ll watch them before the ceremony, I hope. I’m taking Joe’s Violin and Ennemis Interieurs for Doc Short and Live Action Short respectively. Those two categories seem a lot closer than Animated Short.
David: I like to go with the saddest sounding ones, not knowing a lot about them. Give me La Femme et la TGV (film), Blind Vasha(animated) and 4.1 Miles (doc) as some wild cards. Shorts are typically ballot bloodbaths – separating ties and declaring winners
TJ: Nice. I picked Joe’s Violinin hopes that it’s just 5 minutes of my old friend Joe holding a violin. I’d vote for that.
And Then There Were Ten – in which our intrepid hero goes back and expands the Academy Award Best Picture nominations to ten nominations, and goes about filling those hypothetical slots. This time – it’s 2008. Check out the previous entries here.
Since the days of Steamboat Willieto the CGI movies of today, very few films have received top recognition in a Best Picture nomination. But the medium has also changed considerably during this time period. It’s hard to imagine the complicated and super-sad Anomalisaup against the bright songs of The Land Before Time, also super-sad in its own right. There are the children’s singalongs, hand-drawn for Disney from yesteryear, and there are the emotionally-wrought, complex and funny character studies that Pixar makes today for Disney.
The third episode of The Media By Us pan-media podcast, Talkie Talk.
In this episode, we have Chris, Brent, TJ and Daviddiscuss last week’s homework (Begin Again) go into their Watchlist/Playlist, before going into REWATCHABILITY! – why we rewatch movies and TV, and replay video games – and some media that are favorites in this respect to enjoy again and again and again, and again… and again.
