Dear "The Revenent": No thank you.

Dear The Revenent,

I saw a little bit of what you had to offer, and while I appreciate the effort that went into making it, I'm going to politely decline.  Does Leo's character get his revenge on that crazy dude who left him for dead and that I didn't even recognize was Tom Hardy?  Does he live happily ever after?  What does the inside of a horse corpse look like?  I will never know.  I think I made it about an hour in before I realized that I didn't want to suffer through to the end of the film, and it's not that you guys didn't try.  Friends say the cinematography is beautiful, and thinking back on it?  They are right!  There were sweeping pans of hillsides that were worthy of The Sound of Music, and close-up shots that showed just how long it had been since these boys had a hot shower.  And all the brutal action, blood and suffering seemed very real.  Good on you! And I'm glad that Native Americans are getting acting gigs, thankless as those gigs may be.  But when the computerized bear... and it was truly spectacular by the way, there were only a couple of times that the ends of its fur looked like the ends of the branches on the fiber optics Christmas tree we used to plug in and display on top of the filing cabinet in my old HR office...

But when that bear attacked Leo's character, should I have been rooting for the bear?  Or shouldn't I at least have felt something other than terribly sad because in the end Leo left those two bear cubs motherless in what has already been established as an unforgiving country?  Don't get me wrong, I wanted to care about him, but I didn't know who he was!!!   He'd said about three words throughout the whole film and seemed to me just like another schmoe with a gun.  That CGI bear was a mother with two CGI cubs to feed!!!!

And to Leo;s character- yes, Tom Hardy was ruthless and horrible and deserves to get fucked up!!!  But can I completely blame him for thinking that you likely wouldn't live after that attack?  There's a reason #fuckedbyabear is trending right now.  You should have seen yourself!!  It was very bad.   If it had been me dragging you around in the freezing snow and I thought you were going to die any minute, and in the meantime you were being a real Debbie Downer and keeping us from making a speedy exit from the frozen tundra where Native Americans rightfully had it out for us?  Well, truthfully I don't know what I would have done.  There would have been some flailing and crying, that I can say for sure, and I probably wouldn't have buried you alive, but the likely fact is that we would have ALL become Otter Pops.  And yes, he literally buried you alive, and did really awful things to that mean kid from The Chronicles of Narnia, but it just wasn't enough to make me care about you.  I hear that at some point there's a scene with you and your former love, and maybe if that had come a lot sooner, I would have invested more.  At least there's that hope.

As it was, after awhile, I sadly looked into the bottom of my popcorn bag, discovering it empty.  I looked back up at the screen and there you were crawling around on the ground, a dirty mangled mess.  STILL!!  I really wanted to leave the theatre, and yet I knew there was this thing with a horse corpse.  It's all people can talk about.  They say:

"He crawled into a horse corpse!!!  He got really cold, and he looked dirty as fuck!  It is OSCAR TIME!!"

In regards to that, I don't want to negate your work.  It did look very real, but... apparently, a lot of it was real!!!  No offense, but if you were to put my Uncle Frank on-screen, throw him in a freezing river, make him eat guts and crawl into a horse corpse he would look realistically miserable, because he would be miserable!!  That's not acting!

Finally, I saw a horse come on the screen and I thought to myself "Thank God.  Let's get to this legendary horse corpse moment so I can fecking go", and yet, it was all a tease.  It was just more Native Americans.  It was then that I realized I probably didn't want to hang around for who knew how long, waiting for a moment that was just going to make me feel sad for the horse, and haunt my dreams for months to come. It was that point at which I made a speedy exit.

So thanks, truly.  It's not just you.  It's me too.  I think I'm more of a Carol guy.

My kind of movie!

Not my kind of movie.

Complete List of 86th Academy Award Nominations

1. Best Picture: "American Hustle," ''Captain Phillips," ''Dallas Buyers Club," ''Gravity," ''Her," ''Nebraska," ''Philomena," ''12 Years a Slave," ''The Wolf of Wall Street."

2. Actor: Christian Bale, "American Hustle"; Bruce Dern, "Nebraska"; Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Wolf of Wall Street"; Chiwetel Ejiofor, "12 Years a Slave"; Matthew McConaughey, "Dallas Buyers Club."

3. Actress: Amy Adams, "American Hustle"; Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"; Sandra Bullock, "Gravity"; Judi Dench, "Philomena"; Meryl Streep, "August: Osage County."

4. Supporting Actor: Barkhad Abdi, "Captain Phillips"; Bradley Cooper, "American Hustle"; Michael Fassbender, "12 Years a Slave"; Jonah Hill, "The Wolf of Wall Street"; Jared Leto, "Dallas Buyers Club."

5. Supporting Actress: Sally Hawkins, "Blue Jasmine'''; Jennifer Lawrence, "American Hustle"; Lupita Nyong'o, "12 Years a Slave"; Julia Roberts, "August: Osage County"; June Squibb, "Nebraska."

6. Directing: David O. Russell, "American Hustle"; Alfonso Cuaron, "Gravity"; Alexander Payne, "Nebraska"; Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave"; Martin Scorsese, "The Wolf of Wall Street."

7. Foreign Language Film: "The Broken Circle Breakdown," Belgium; "The Great Beauty," Italy; "The Hunt," Denmark; "The Missing Picture," Cambodia; "Omar," Palestine.

8. Adapted Screenplay: Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, "Before Midnight"; Billy Ray, "Captain Phillips"; Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, "Philomena"; John Ridley, "12 Years a Slave"; Terence Winter, "The Wolf of Wall Street."

9. Original Screenplay: Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell, "American Hustle"; Woody Allen, "Blue Jasmine"; Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack, "Dallas Buyers Club"; Spike Jonze, "Her"; Bob Nelson, "Nebraska."

10. Animated Feature Film: "The Croods"; "Despicable Me 2"; "Ernest & Celestine"; "Frozen"; "The Wind Rises."

11. Production Design: "American Hustle," ''Gravity," ''The Great Gatsby," ''Her," ''12 Years a Slave."

12. Cinematography: "The Grandmaster," ''Gravity," ''Inside Llewyn Davis," ''Nebraska," ''Prisoners."

13. Sound Mixing: "Captain Phillips," ''Gravity," ''The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," ''Inside Llewyn Davis," ''Lone Survivor."

14. Sound Editing: "All Is Lost," ''Captain Phillips," ''Gravity," ''The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," ''Lone Survivor."

15. Original Score: "The Book Thief," John Williams; "Gravity," Steven Price; "Her," William Butler and Owen Pallett; "Philomena," Alexandre Desplat; "Saving Mr. Banks," Thomas Newman.

16. Original Song: "Alone Yet Not Alone" from "Alone Yet Not Alone," Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel; "Happy" from "Despicable Me 2," Pharrell Williams; "Let It Go" from "Frozen," Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez; "The Moon Song" from "Her," Karen O and Spike Jonze; "Ordinary Love" from "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom," Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen.

17. Costume: "American Hustle," ''The Grandmaster," ''The Great Gatsby," ''The Invisible Woman," ''12 Years a Slave."

18. Documentary Feature: "The Act of Killing," ''Cutie and the Boxer," ''Dirty Wars," ''The Square," ''20 Feet from Stardom."

19. Documentary (short subject): "CaveDigger," ''Facing Fear," ''Karama Has No Walls," ''The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life," ''Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall."

20. Film Editing: "American Hustle," ''Captain Phillips," ''Dallas Buyers Club," ''Gravity," ''12 Years a Slave."

21. Makeup and Hairstyling: "Dallas Buyers Club," ''Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa," ''The Lone Ranger."

22. Animated Short Film: "Feral," ''Get a Horse!," ''Mr. Hublot," ''Possessions", "Room on the Broom."

23. Live Action Short Film: "Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn't Me)," ''Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything)," ''Helium," ''Pitaako Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)," ''The Voorman Problem."

24. Visual Effects: "Gravity," ''The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," ''Iron Man 3," ''The Lone Ranger," ''Star Trek Into Darkness."


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Some quick thoughts-

First of all, where the fuck is Oprah?  It's not a huge surprise since she was left off the Golden Globes nominations and sure the movie was far from amazing, but Oprah was a stand-out in an otherwise manipulative by the numbers walk down history memories lane.

Sad to see that Emma Thompson was not nominated for Best Actress, but I suppose from an academy perspective, regal British lady isn't too much of a stretch for her.

More excited about the Best Supporting Actor category than anything else.  If either Barkhad Abdi of Captain Phillips or Jared Leto of Dallas Buyers Club wins, I will feel that justice has been served.

Happy to see Woody Allen nominated for his screenplay although I think it borrows HEAVILY from A Streetcar Named Desire, from character archetypes to plot points to underlying themes.

Final thought-  Sure Cate Blanchet does crazy very well, but my emotional vote goes to Judi Dench.