Random bits

Last time I posted something, I was having big dreams of writing all kinds of entries on here about various items. Obviously, that never happened, so find a combination of all these things after the jump.

I have been delinquent

It's true, I've been neglecting the blog here. It may have something to do with buying Mario Kart Wii. For the sake of having everything in one place, I've written two blogs for Zoom In since my last post, and I'll probably write something else on here soon about how much I love The Wrestler and something making fun of the Friday the 13th remake.

But in the meantime, here is a bit about how the moviegoing experience and how we watch films in general has changed over the decades, and here I write about how Kristen Wiig should be in a romantic comedy (and how that genre's crappy in general). Seriously - imagine Virginia Horsen treking the globe in a hot air balloon trying to find her dream lover. It's romantic, right?

Um.. WHAT!?

Anybody who's been keeping an eye on the Oscar pools here know that we've been expecting big things for The Dark Knight in the nominations today. But where was it?! Nearly NOWHERE!! The big categories it was considered a contender in - Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay - completely shut it out.

And none of us were just predicting this as crazed Batman fans. Take a quick look at just about any noted and respected Oscar pundit's website (The Envelope at the LA Times is a good example) and they were in agreement. Add to that the fact it was recognized as one of the year's top films by National Board of Review, American Film Institute, and the Writers, Directors, and Producers Guilds -- all of these are incredibly reliable bellwethers to what's going to end up among the nominees. I'd also like to think I built up a pretty good argument for it winning the whole thing here.

Other surprises at a glance:
-Michael Shannon got a supporting nod. That guy rocks. I love how everybody cheered at the nominations for him.
-The Boss neglected for his song from The Wrestler? Somewhat surprised Gran Torino's song was shut out of that, too.
-Just about every nomination The Reader had. Nothing against the film itself, but that built up some steam out of nowhere.
-

Samsploitation, or: How I Learned To Talk Really Really Loud and Love the Snakes

Back in the day, there were all sorts of fun subgenres that would be categorized with the umbrella of 'exploitation films.' Anybody that's in NYC can head to St. Mark's Place for a visit to Kim's Video to check out some of these subgenres: blaxsploitation, chixploitation (with its own subgenre 'women in prison'), hicksploitation, apesploitation, and my personal favorite "[Charles] Bronson Is God."

Now it's beginning to come to my attention that there is a new exploitation subgenre on the rise. In fact, it's been around for years, but I'm going to stick my flag in it and declare its existence: Samsploitation.