Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Oscars prepare to totally screw up film awards once more

Cinemaphiles and audiences across the world are working up a frenzy of excitement once more, as they prepare themselves for the annual Oscar Awards, the glitz of the red carpet, and the inevitable disappointment they’ll feel when the ceremony totally snubs the actors and shows which should definitely have won the trophies.

Now in their 88th year, the Oscars have already etched into the world’s culture an unforgettable rich history of creating prestigious awards and then giving them to some other fucking guy who definitely should have not have won.

“The Oscars are a timeless, truly memorable yearly event,” said historian Phil Mireels. “It has a renowned history of taking timeless, classical examples of cinema that deserve to be praised and lauded and that will be remembered, cherished and watched for decades to come, and totally botching the process of recognising how great they are.”

Mireels explained how, despite their rich history making a massive balls-up of who wins the golden statuettes every single goddamn year, this year is set to be truly unforgettable.

“We’ve had a lot of amazing feats of cinematography, directorship and acting be completely overlooked in the past," he said. "Come on, who could ever forget instant classics like Hitchcock's Psycho or Kubrick's Path of Glory getting shit-canned for movies no one even remembers anymore? How can you not cherish moments like the heart-warming, emotionally moving scene between warring brothers which got completely overlooked by the selection committee in City of God?"

“The only big question that remains this year is which totally fucking arbitrary crap film will be given the award and anger us all just like it does every year,” he said.

And with the Oscar’s rich and full history of outright blatantly wrong winners, speculation is rife as to which deserving actors will be snubbed or completely ignored for an Oscar.

”If we look at the extensive of amazing, breathtakingly talented actors who have been completely jilted and overlooked – names like Edward Norton, Christian Bale, Alan Rickman, Brad Pitt, John Malcovich, Michelle Pfeifer, Bill Murray, and Leonardo DiCaprio – then how can you not be excited to see whose brilliance gets beaten by some shitty patriotic war movie filled with flag-shots, lens flare, and an utterly desaturated colour palette consisting entirely of dark, grim blues and greys?" said Mireels. "I mean, we have such a strong field of contenders that it’s difficult to guess which one will be given a symbolic ‘fuck your achievements’ once more."

Pictured above and above-right: Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe are just two
of the illustrious stars to get snubbed by this goddamn ceremony

”I mean, really, what is an Oscars ceremony without you screaming at your television set ‘What the fuck, how did Leonardo Di Caprio not win AGAIN?’ or ‘How in the name of all that is good and right did Catherine Bigelow steal it from Avatar? HOW?’”

And the fans can’t wait.

“It’s going to be the biggest, best and most infuriating ceremony yet,” said film critic and long-time Oscars lover Isla Vilms. “Especially the biggest award, Film of the Year. There’s already is much speculation over which undeserving piece of shit will be given this prestigious award instead of the film everyone knows should win, just like last year and the several decades before it. My friends and I can’t wait to scream expletives at our TV screens.”

However, Vilms – like many thousands of cinemagoers – remains hopefully that she’ll one day see her opinion validated by a meaningless glitzy awards ceremony.

”I know that it’s just a dumb show and that them not winning does nothing to diminish their accomplishments and skills,” she said. “I just think it would be nice to see my favourite actor get a shiny trinket so that I can feel like my completely meaningless opinion matters in the world.”

Saturday, January 17, 2015

DVD companies adopt Adam Sandler anti-piracy measures

Taking a firm stance against the worsening global trend of illegally downloading films and series, DVD and CD production companies have today announced their decision to embed all their products with powerful anti-piracy measures, such as Adam Sandler’s Funny People or Jack and Jill.

"When we look at past cases of illegal downloads and internet piracy, we see time and time again how any CD or DVD protected with embedded content made by Adam Sandler is a powerful agent in deterring torrenters from stealing films,” said a spokesperson for Miramax Pictures, Hugh Torrent. “No one downloads them. In fact, the measures are so powerful that they have been known to even instill overwhelming sensations of nausea, vomiting and suicide in those exposed to them.”

"Imagine the scene: you're a pirate. You want to watch the latest Game of Thrones episode, but don't want to support the studio or actors in it. So you just illegally download from some shady site. That awesome theme music plays - we like to lull them into a sense of false security - and then BOOM. Subtle racism and vomit-inducing fart jokes bereft of any talent hits you straight in the brain."

Torrents said the historical evidence was powerful.

“Time and time again, we have seen the potency of footage embedded with this protection software. In the past we have run many, many experiments testing the latest versions of this defence software. Like when we first introduced the advanced content protection software in Spanglish and then slowly started to perfect it into its pirate-viewer-kryptonite forms in Blended and, oh god, Grown Ups 2. Literally no one pirates that last movie. Sure, it was so powerful it physically sickened legitimate viewers in the theatre, but that's the price we pay in the war against torrenters.”

And despite universal outcry from international human rights organisations and activism groups saying that such measures are “an extreme abuse of power” and “a despicably cruel extreme”, movie companies have stood by their decision.

“We’ve tried to scare off pirates with Cease and Desist letters, legal threats, huge fines, jail time, and really stupid anti-piracy adverts, but [illegal downloads] have continued unabated,” he said. “It’s about time we took extreme measures.”

However, the move has been branded “unoriginal copy-catting” by the South African film industry, saying they’ve been doing this for years.

“Piracy has been a huge issue in South Africa for years,” they said. “This is why we routinely protect our CDs and DVDs with content produced by Steve Hofmeyr and Leon Schuster – anti-piracy methods so powerful they’ve been known to make people commit suicide in the most brutal manner possible right in public places."

For those of you wanting to copy-paste this onto their own website without my permission, please study the image below.


Pic (my edit) made of Commons images and Head by Alex Neman. Yes, I know the hand is the wrong way round. Jesus, give me a break.