You're Hurtin' Me

Ok, I don't normally let stuff like this bother me but . . . oh, wait, yes I do normally let this stuff bother me, and I have for years. In case you couldn't tell from the lame title of this post, I'm outraged that William Hurt (of A History of Violence) was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the Academy Awards. First off, I could talk for days about how disappointed I was in this movie. It was one of the few movies I saw this year that got nominated for anything at all, and for me it just fell flat for a number of reasons, which is a shame (at least for me anyway) because I was looking forward to seeing this movie when it came out. However, if I had to narrow down all of my reasons for dislike this movie to one reason, that reason would be William Hurt.

Just a little background for you here on my moviegoing experiences and habits. Not once in my life have I ever walked out on a movie. I don't do this because I respect the hard work that goes into the filmmaking process, and even if a movie is awful, I already paid for it so I might as well stay. Also, there has only been one time where I have outwardly laughed at a movie in the theater because it was so bad it was funny, and that was A Day After Tomorrow (which was my best movie theater experience ever). So, with you now knowing these two facts, I almost walked out on A History of Violence after William Hurt came on the screen for the last not even 20% of the movie. In fact, when asked after the movie how I thought it was, the first thing I said was, "William Hurt was embarassingly bad, and I didn't even know he was going to be in the movie."

William Hurt in A History of Violence:



I'm not going to tell you exactly who he played (just in case you haven't seen it yet), but trust me when I say that he gave the ABSOLUTE WORST PERFORMANCE of a mainstream actor that I've heard of in a now nominated (Supporting Actor & Adapted Screenplay) for an Oscar motion picture, and possibly any movie . . . ever. He was so bad that I actually laughed out loud for every minute he was on the screen. I really would love to describe his performance (let's just say he plays a tough guy with an east coast accent with curious facial hair) but you people really have to see it for yourselves to know what I'm talking about. Up until this role, I liked William Hurt as an actor in the selected films of his I've seen. Not only did his performance ruin this movie for me, but it has ruined William Hurt the actor in my eyes for the rest of my life, and it's not like I was even a fan.

Unfortunately for those of you who haven't seen A History of Violence, the DVD doesn't come out until March 14, so you have no idea what I've been talking about unless you saw it in the theaters. As for who should've been nominated instead, I would go with just about anybody else who was in a movie this year - from the deserving, like Jack Black for King Kong, to the not-as-deserving-but-still-really-good-and-better-than-Hurt, like Rupert Grint from Harry Potter, to the not-even-a-male-actor-who-was-also-awful-in-her-movie-but-still-not-as-bad-as-Hurt, Katie Holmes for Batman Begins, to the not-even-a-human-in-a-documentary, the Bear that killed Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man (which for some reason was also not nominated for Best Documentary). Just in case all of that confused you, here is the very same list of the four performances that the Academy could've picked before William Hurt:

Jack Black:



Ron Wealsey:



Katie Holmes (click on the picture for a larger version):



and a murderous, now deceased, Grizzly Bear:



COME ON!

In case you haven't figured it out by now, this year's Oscar Recap post will be extremly bitter. I never thought the Academy would be able to almost make me forget that Peter Jackson wasn't nominated for Best Director (he doesn't have to win, but at least nominate him - I mean did you see that movie and do you know how hard that was to make?). At least now I have another reason to watch other than Jon Stewart - to root against William Hurt. Let's go, Paul Giamatti!

Oh Happy Day!

This is about the best possible post that I could start off with for 2006. Today, Bob Hill was named the head coach of the Seattle Supersonics, who fired their previous coach Bob Weiss after the team got off to a 13-17 record. I couldn't be happier for Coach Hill because he is such a nice guy with a great family and it's so good to see him back where he wanted to be all along. The three years that I worked for him at Fordham will probably go down as the greatest job I'll ever have, and a lot of that is because how cool and approachable he was to myself and the other managers. If you consider all he went through at Fordham, plus the fact that he is most likely the most misunderstood person in the history of Fordham basketball, then this news is even sweeter. The entire staff here at Failure's Art will be rooting for the Sonics the rest of the way. Now go make the playoffs and get yourself a big new contract, and I just may bring back The Bob Hill Experience. So awesome.



more Bob Hill links:

ESPN.com

The Seattle Times

Q&A from September 28th