The Artist proves how bad the Academy Awards are

Call this far fetched, but when will we start awarding movies that are purely awesome, not just because of there artistic (no pun intended), political, or racial make?

I watched 20 min of the artist and fell asleep. Theres a reason we dont have tons of silent films anymore, BECAUSE THEY ARE BORING. Bascially, this movie won picture of the year for regressing what we have done over the last 80 years and people loved it purely because it was different. Ok look, Maybe the movie was fantastic the next 1 hour and 40 minutes. I will never know. But if you cant hold my attention for 20 minutes I’m certainly not giving you any more of my time.

(Cue the 100+ comments im about to get from artsy people who say im not “open-minded”)

Heres the thing, I am in no way a movie critic, a film lover, or even have a knowledgable understand of the entirety of what goes into making a movie. But what I do represent is the  very  large and majority of the populations in America. The eyeball test. Look, When I leave the theater, was the movie A) Awesome B) pretty good C) ok D) not very good E) Absolutely terrible or F) completely boring

Im not sure if the Artist was either D or F, but probably a little of both. Considering the movie business is all about entertaining, I think we should start taking into account films that are just Awesome, regardless of whether ot not they have any artisic flair, political statement, or racial overtone. Take for instance Batman Returns. I dont care what anybody says, it should have won the Oscar. And clearly the world agreed as at the time it was the highest grossing movie EVER.

Yet because it has none of the attributes I listed above it never has a shot.

Take last year as well. The Kings speech was good, but again a little slow. And did you see the other movies nominated. Wow. Some great ones there. The Social Network, Inception, True Grit. And where was Shutter Island???

They should change the criteria now to this: To win the Academy award your movie has to be completely unpopular with most of America, have some underlying message, or be very  “different” from anything mainstream.

Things are mainstream for a reason. People like them!

MY favorite movies of the year:

The Girl with the Dragon tattoo

Moneyball

Drive 

Others  that EVERYONE Liked

The Help

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Improving the Premier League part 2 (My Response to Vosk)

This is my response to a great comment left to me by Vosk, who brought up some interesting points in my previous article about improving the premier league. From all the hate I got from everyone in Europe, and all the love I got from everyone in the US, this is clearly just a cultural sports thing. Anyways, If you havent read it or Vosk’s comment please do so here.

**In case you are a moron, Vosk’s quotes are bolded, and my responses follow

There is a reason the league is 38 games, the best team over the season wins, why would anyone in the world want a shower of clowns like newcastle winning the league on playoffs?????

As far as the regular season goes, I completely agree. The best team in the regular season should win the regular season.Thats an honor within itself.  But that is only the REGULAR season. What about the postseason?? Every other  great team sport in the world that matters has a post season. In fact football’s (soccer) most prestigious events have a playoff system (Both the Champs League and the World Cup). Winning in the playoffs is what really makes teams legendary. When the pressure is on, and the whole world is watching the real champs will step up.

In the Premier league no game matters more than any other. That is a statistical fact. 3 points is always 3 points. Hypothetically if City in a season happened to never beat a top 5 the whole year, yet beat up on the crap teams and still had the most points, they would be champs. Is that fair? Maybe. But there could be many reasons such as injuries, bad calls, manager changes, etc that accounted for this.Also, teams evolve and change though the year. This means the best team at the  end of the year might  not win the title because they were still learning to play together at the start. Being a champion is about who is left standing at the end of the year, otherwise the season would only be 4 games long. Shouldn’t teams have to prove themselves in the playoffs, at the end of the year, where sports are always at their best?

The regular season winner would certainly be rewarded by being the No. 1 seed. They would get a first round buy, and would then play the lowest seed left. But being good in the regular season and being great when it matters is a different story. Take your team United this year. They have been awful this year when they are in big games that actually matter (or have the  pressure of elimination on them)  such as their displays in the Champions League debacles against Benfica and Basel, in elimination games in both the FA cup and Carling Cups, and even against Ajax  in the Europa league last night. Do you really get the feeling this is a championship worthy United team? And yet they may very well be champs in a few months. I dont know. Im not saying they are or aren’t. Yet they could win the title by one point because City draws the last game of the year. If there were a playoff system, how unbelievable would that be! If you make it through the gauntlet of those games then there is no question you would be champs ans deserve every bit of credit. Think of it reversed as well. Say you lose 3 games here in a row. You are out of the title race. City could at the end  of the year, limp into a  1 point margin and win the league. Yet with Furgy as your manager, United may very well come into their own and be hands down the best team at the end of the year. But it wouldn’t matter. I would hate to see that.

Secondly, opening the the league up a little is a GREAT thing. I know you probably hate it because you are a United fan (I have nothing against United fans for the record) and love seeing them win title after title, but you know that being in contention is really about the money. Money is the only thing that realistically  gives a team any shot whatsoever. And for the record im not saying United only wins because of money. Im saying to be in contention to win, you have to have money.  That eliminates 75% of the league. Why not just make the league 6 teams then? If you know nobody else has a shot then why even let them play? I hate hearing teams say “yeah finishing 11th was an amazing year for us”. You play to win the game. Not finish 11th place. Thats garbage. You shouldnt be playing sports if you want to finish 11th. Go play the guitar or something, because clearly you arent even worthy enough to win at any sport. With playoff berths available at the 5 and 6 spots there is certainly a chance for any team to go on a great run and make it into the playoffs.

buys/first picks’ are literally the worst ideas iv ever heard

I never once mentioned first picks. Or a draft. Yet you wrote a whole Paragraph on it? Not sure where that came from? I know thats unrealistic.

You cannot devalue the FA cup like you have here, im sure you wouldnt make this comment if you have watched enough of those games, totenham’s game at the weekend was a perfect example of the FA cup, im sure any player whose played in england will tell you they would love an FA winners medal.

My idea doesnt de-value the FA cup. It increases its value, does it not?  Doesnt increasing the stakes make it more valueable for a team to win? This is just commense sense. Increase the reward and you increase the value. But this would only work if you have the playoff scenarios. I agree it does ruin the FA cup without a playoff system. And for the record, I watched that Tottenham game over the weekend. A womens football match would have been more entertaining.

Tottenham sure didnt look like a team who cared. And thats because they probably didnt. And dont go telling me Stevenage played an inspired game of football. If Spurs want a medal they should show it.

Lastly diving is part of the game, get used to it.

I get that. But what I’m saying is, it doesn’t have to be. Its only part of the game because we let it be part of the game. You are right, I like it when guys get fouled on purpose when they are being crafty and generally do get their legs clipped. I am only talking about video replay confirmed dives where no contact was made whatsoever. Its unfair guys get cards for no reason and games are decided on cheating. If you have at least one eye that can see  and 10% of a brain then you could easily  have retroactive fines based on replay, without any abuse of power or opening a can of worms on judgement calls.

Improving the Premier League

I have now been watching the premier league for about 5 years. I was once an ignorant American, in fact probably am still an ignorant American, however I finally saw the light on the brilliance of the magic sport of football and I am so happy I did. With that being said, it may be naive and even completely moronic for me, a fan of only 5 years,  to make suggestions on how to improve the most watched league in the world.  Nonetheless I am going to make a couple of suggestions that I feel could benefit everyone involved.

Get rid of diving

Many would say this is impossible to do and that it is now part of the game. Thats an absolute joke. The Premier League needs to realize how many Americans have recently become increasingly interested in their league. Thats a 400+ million person market that could add to the money machine. Look already at how many owners are now Americans. The sport is growing steadily and it cannot be ignored. With that, the one thing Americans ( And the Irish) hate more than anything, is when athletes act like complete pussy’s by faking injures to try and get a free kick. Stop rolling around like you were shot six times in the shin. Americans are already going crazy over the unbelievably violent NFL making its rules more strict to reduce the amount of hard hits on players. We dont like pussys. And the more diving that continues in the premier league the more fans you will immediately turn off. With that being said, heres how to solve the problem:  Fine the players retroactively for every dive.  I am talking like 25% of their weekly wage. Give it to charity. It works for everyone. I dont understand why this is so hard. If it is conclusive that the player intentionally dove, as in there was no touching whatsoever, then fine the crap out of them. I assure you the diving will stop very quickly. I understand there will be some light contact situations where some go down much easier than they should. Thats fine. Things will even out in the end. Players looking to get the call will eventually get tricked  into diving and will look like even bigger frauds.

Make the Cups/ Tournaments actually mean something

I always hear about how wonderful the FA cup used to be. I still dont even understand what the hell the Carling cup is. It seems like they exist for the sole purpose of making money. There needs to be something on the line here if you really want this thing to matter. I say, just scrap the Carling Cup altogether. Its useless, its basically a chance for the big clubs to play their reserve squads. Nobody even watches it until the semi finals and even then its nothing special. Now, what to do with the FA cup. I understand it still means a huge amount to clubs who are smaller and in lower divisions. But, for the majority of the casual and mainstream fans, nobody cares unless the big clubs are playing against each other. And even then, does anyone really care that Man City won the FA cup last year? Nope. Everyone just remembers Manchester United winning the league. To avoid this, I think that something needs to be done to incentivize  the clubs to do well. I think that winning the FA cup should result in gaining 5 bonus points in the respective league you are in. Now that would make a serious difference. You wouldnt have seen some of the half assed performances we have seen this year with that on the line. 5 points can change a season. Imagine how badly Tottenham would be playing now if they knew winning the FA cup could get them back in contention for the title. And it would give the clubs that cannot afford the big name players a chance. You might be wondering how right about now, and that brings me to my last point.

The Premier League needs a playoff system

I dont care about tradition or any of the other old timer arguments you may give me. Its simple. The top 6 make the playoffs. The top 2 get buys in the first round. Then the 3 seed plays the 6 and 4 plays the 5. There is both a home and away leg much like the Champions league. How brilliant would that be! And to make it better, both legs would be played in the same week. This now gives teams like the Newcastle and Sunderlands of the world a chance to win the premier league making the league 50x more exciting. And with the proposed FA cup 5 bonus points teams could easily get the boost the need to make the playoffs. Imagine at the end of the year the excitement there would be.It would no longer be a 2 horse race every year with all other games being meaningless. After the first round, the 1 seed would play the lowest remaining seed and the 2 would play the other. This heavily favors the 1 and 2 seeds, who deservedly had the best years, by making these teams play 4 games in 2 weeks. Also, after these two matches, there will be a single game for 3rd and 4th place the next week. This is another massive game with the automatic Champions League spot vs Champions league playoffs spot on the line. And with a nice enjoyable week off, the finals would be played in one match at Wembley for the league title. I couldn’t think of a more exciting and more profitable situation for the both the fans and the league. More teams would be in it, more people would watch, and the TV contracts would be outrageous. A win for everyone.