An Oscar Retrospective (aka #ManCrush Monday on Seth MacFarlane)

In what critics are calling “the first and most original idea of 2013 or ever” I’ve decided to post a few of my thoughts on last night’s 85th annual Academy Awards.

Soft-shoeing their way into the hearts of millions…

For starters, Seth MacFarlane absolutely crushed it with the hosting duties, which is no easy task given that the über-critical media is just waiting to pounce on any and all missteps, real or imaginary. Also, keep in mind that we haven’t had a decent host for the ceremony since 2009’s festivities; last year was a past-his-prime Billy Crystal (whom I adore, but wasn’t great that time around…probably due at least in part to the fact that he was a last-second replacement for Eddie Murphy) and the year before was the dreadful Franco/Hathaway duo — she’s as bad at being herself as she is good at being other people and Franco just bounced back and forth between “possibly stoned” and “definitely stoned” the whole night. I thought Seth MacEff struck a great balance between deprecation of self vs. deprecation of others, and while every joke can’t be a home run (rough crowd to drop a Chris Brown/Rihanna joke on, I liked the Mel Gibson line but it was a bit passé, etc….though like any seasoned funny-man he recovered impressively and instantaneously) I thought the vast majority of his material was gold. And like it or not, I’m your male 18-34 demographic, so my opinion literally matters more than yours (18 trillion dollars of targeted advertising can’t be wrong). MacFarlane devotees already know that he has a passion for classic Hollywood (thus the soft-shoe numbers and old school pageantry of the opening performances) and if you’re smart enough to see through the boob-jokes, you’ll see a love for tinsel-town’s glamorous golden era that most of this generation lacks. Which leads me nicely into…

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Dustin’s Three to See: January

Don’t get out to the movies as often as, say, a single 29-year-old manchild with an escapism complex? Well don’t fret, I’ve taken all of Hollywood’s shoddy offerings and narrowed them down to the three that won’t make your $20 movie ticket feel like a total waste. I call it Dustin’s Three to See because I am as creative as a kindergartner. As always I keep things as spoiler free as possible.

As any even casual observer of movie culture can tell you, January is a bad month for movies. Generally considered the graveyard of the release calendar, January is where bad movies go to die. After the holidays people usually have less in the budget for activities like moviegoing or tipping their bartender, and as a result, movies that are deemed not as good as movies like Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection end up here. Whether it’s rewrites, poor focus group results, or just an overall bad film…if you think of a movie as a toddler, January is the timeout-chair its sent to when it’s misbehaved.

That said, there were still a couple diamonds to be found in the rough of this January, and if you got an AMC giftcard for Christmas like I did, here are the January releases that are worth your while.

Movie 1) — Gangster Squad
Remember a second ago when I said how January is full of mediocre movies? Gangster Squad is not a good movie. However, it’s not a terrible movie, either. And against the rest of the January slate, that makes it…watchable. The awful tragedy in Aurora, Colorado last summer meant that Gangster Squad’s much-publicized scene where the gangsters shoot through a movie theater screen and into the audience instantly became extremely inappropriate, meaning that the newly-infamous scene and the ending of the movie both needed to be rewritten and reshot before the film could be released. Whether it was those drastic post-wrap changes or something else that made Gangster Squad only okay, we’ll never know. But if you like Ryan Gosling (and just a cursory glance at any social media suggests that you do…a lot), flapper-style Emma Stone, and some cool period-accurate visuals, Gangster Squad is worth a go…if only to whet your whistle for when The Great Gatsby comes out.

Hey girl, sorry you couldn’t be in Drive.