The Bottom 10: Worst Movies of 2012

Hollywood is in full on awards season mode as they roll out the contenders for this year's Academy Awards. After seeing ZERO DARK THIRTY, I think it's clearly got the lock on Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Yes--it's that good. But what about the bad movies of the last year? Well, these days with the proliferation of online critics, there are plenty of lists to choose from when looking for the Worst Movies of 2012.

CNN has a bottom 10 that has two Chris Pine movies (bad year for him) but also THE HOBBIT too (which people seem to love or hate). Moviephone has Tyler Perry's action misfire leading the list as well as TOTAL RECALL, which seems to be a bad-list regular.  GQ's list also includes TOTAL RECALL and the big budget disaster JOHN CARTER. Over at HitFlix, they thought 2012 was such a bad year that they came up with 20 films for their worst list---I hadn't even heard of PIRANHA 3DD but I'm somewhat intrigued (maybe because it stars one of my Kinda Cute dudes, Matt Bush). And the AV Club list features big budget, star-crossed films like HYDE PARK and THE PAPERBOY

As for me, I don't have a personal bad list as I tend to smell a bad movie a mile away (ie. Tyler Perry as a shotgun wielding detective formerly played by Morgan Freeman!). But I do have a de facto worst movie because I saw the trailer so many times I feel like I saw the whole horrendous movie; THE WORDS (starring Bradley Cooper). It was painful seeing this trailer once, but after the 7th time?  I don't know if anyone saw this film but it was on CNN's list which made me feel good.

SATURDAY SPECIAL: End of Year Supercut Of Top Movie Trailers For 2012

This is an amazing supercut of movie trailers for films released this year by an editing genius by the name of SleepySkunk. It's a mystery why this person doesn't use their real name but I suspect that maybe he is doing all this work --and this must have been a lot of work--at his day job. Anyway, they have put together a mega remix of some of the best and craziest and most beautiful movie moments from 2012 culled from the film's trailers. It actually makes it look like it wasn't such a bad year for movies after all.

Nate Silver Is Kinda Cute

In the nervous months leading up to this year's Presidential elections, my friends were all freaking out. They said it's gonna be close, Obama might loose, panic, scream, etc.  However, I was relatively certain this was not going to be the case. Why? I was following Nate Silver's weekly 538 blog on the NY TIMES website.  Silver, a super-nerdy statistician, predicted the final electoral results with 100% accuracy in the end. And now he is a superstar.  Oh yeah, and he's also gay.

Silver officially came out in a piece published in the UK's Guardian today. It turns out this 34 year old wunderkind is also kinda cute, too, so I'm adding him today to the Pantheon of "Kinda Cute" here on Hi-Fi Bri. You can read all about Nate and his mastery of the Presidential numbers game here. Before he got into politics, Silver was a baseball stats geek and before that gamed online poker sites for more then 400K. So let's do the math here...young + smart + gay + rich + kinda cute = total husband material. 

Before Romney/Obama Round 2, Mitt Debates Himself

As Mitt and Barack make their final preparations for their second debate tonight, there's some great videos circulating on the web of Romney debating himself. In the first debate, in a desperate effort to make himself a moderate, Romney contradicted a number of his previously stated positions.  In some cases he said the exact opposite of what he had said on the campaign trail months and even weeks before that debate.  So someone at Daily Kos put together this handy video where Romney debates himself on a number of these issues.  

So far this video and a subsequent one have nearly 3 million hits. Let's hope that with this and a stronger debate performance by the president tonight that the truth about Romney's positions will become evident to the voting public.  There was much criticism of President Obama's performance in the first debate but honestly I think he was in a state of shock as he found himself debating an opponent whom he literally did not know. Hopefully he can clarify some of this tonight and make it clear to the public who the real Romney is.

Stand-Up Comedian Punks Fox News In Live Interview

With 50 days to go til the presidential election, I am growing weary of all the political talk on TV about the race.  So this clip brightened my day a bit.  A standup comedian named Max Rice somehow made it onto Fox News for a live interview segment where he was supposed to be a young man who voted for Obama in 2008 and has now switched to Romney.  Fox News had a script--that young voters were having second thoughts--and this guy fit this suit, as it were.  Problem was, though, he was just conning them to get on the air and make a few jokes.

Rice says that the producers at Fox News were so desperate to find someone to personify their narrative that they got him on the air, with little questions asked (at least beforehand). The interview is awkward and goofy and a nice little reminder to those out there at news organizations with an agenda about this election. My advice to Fox and all broadcasters for that matter is to report the news rather than trying to make it up.

  

ONE TERM MORE--Musical Video In Support of Obama

This has been making the viral rounds today, in support of Obama's reelection. It's called a musical parody but it seems pretty serious (including an odd cameo by Trayvon Marin), though there are a few hysterical/clever rhymes as well. Was this funded by a Democratic superPAC? Or maybe the actors just chipped in. Either way, it's well done and almost stirring too at the end.  That picture of Obama in Rosa Park's bus seat helps.  One Term More--to the barricades, Broadway!

No Nice Way To Say It: The Olympic Mascot Looks Like A Penis

There was a great bit on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE earlier this week about the Olympic mascot for the London Games, which officially open tonight.  There are actually two of them Wenlock and Mandeville and they are supposed to be two drops of steel, which Kimmel says appropriately "makes no sense at all".  Agreed.

When he showed an image of the one on the right (Wenlock I think?) and asked some folks walking down Hollywood Blvd. what they thought it was, the majority though it looked just like a penis.  Seriously.

This would not be the first time an Olympic mascot has caused some concern. There was the weird Izzy from the Atlanta Games, who garnered the unfortunate nickname "Sperm In Sneakers".  But with stories about all the sex going on in the Olympic Village, maybe it's totally appropriate. So let the games begin...

Did London Grindr Really Crash Because Of Olympians?

I saw a headline which I initially thought was something from The Onion: "Gay Dating App Crashes As Olympic Athletes Arrive."  This was from THE SUN, a notorious tabloid in the UK. But despite the craziness of this statement, it's factually true. Grindr, a gay dating app, did crash over the weekend at the same time that athletes from around the world were arriving in London for the kickoff of the 2012 Olympics, which start this Friday.  The outage started in East London where a lot of athletes are staying.

Grindr's most popular city is London, with 350,000 users, and the speculation is that the arrival of thousands of athletes caused the system to overload. However, not all Olympians are gay.  In fact, I would argue that very few of them are....maybe 7-10% if you take the usual statistical model. It's possible it was just a busy sexy summer weekend in London and it crashed, just as the athletes happened to show up. Friends in NYC w/iPhones report that Grindr crashes/freezes are becoming more common as the service grows more popular. 

Anyway, it does make for a good headline though....and it has been racing around the internet today because of it.  

God Bless America....Now If You Can Just Spell It

The Republican campaign for the nomination may be over with Romney hitting the magic number of delegates last week. But the campaign's endless silly season continues with this latest gaffe; a misspelling of the word "AMERICA" on Mitt Romney's iPhone app.  This appeared last week as "AMERCIA" and was quickly corrected.  Yet since then, there have been two other spelling errors on the campaign's website--"sneak-peak" and "2012 Offical Gear".  

There was a funny item on New York magazines' website today speculating whether the mistakes were intentional, as a way of generating press due to increased attention from Internet grammar nerds. LoL. A novel strategy, sure, but one that certainly has worked!  But, as it turns out, the problem for the Romney campaign is real.  They have actually posted an online ad for a copy writer/editor. 

Hillary Goes Viral With A Power-Meme

Hillary Clinton has gone viral this week with a meme based on a striking photo of her wearing supersized-sunglasses while sitting checking her Blackberry on a military plane.  "Texts from Hillary" is now a Tumblr where Hillary sends pithy texts to the famous and infamous.

This all comes on a wave of new attention about whether or not Hillary will run for President in 2016.  It seems odd that this sort of attention is happening when the 2012 Presidential race is far from over.  But that's the nature of the political chattering classes....always a step ahead of the curve.  It's also possibly fueled by the boredom setting in with the current race.

MAD MEN Jumps Into The Presidential Political Fray

Other than Betty Draper's "big" return to the show last night, the other notable event on MAD MEN last night was a tossed away line that her husband said while talking on the phone.  It was a reference to George Romney, the then governor of Michigan, who Henry called "a clown".

Though it was a throwaway line and not part of any of the show's real storylines, the mention caused a political tempest today, with Tagg Romney going on Twitter to defend his dead grandfather.  Slate has the full coverage of the Tweeting that ensued.  All in all, I thought it was a fun reference to something modern in the shows' 60s context.  And clearly a fun political tweak by the show's liberal creators as well.

Etch-A-Sketch Is Trending & Its Stock Rising

After an off-hand comment by a Romney campaign operative, Etch A Sketch is trending this week.

In yet another random sidebar of the Republican presidential race (which has played like one random sidebar after another) Etch A Sketch is now being talked about by the remaining candidates for the Repblican nomination.  The reference was to shaking the Romney campaign like an Etch A Sketch at the end of the primary race, and recalibrating Romney to be more conservative for the general election.

Whatever the meaning, it's done wonders for a toy that most people probably thought had gone the way of the Rubik's cube.  But no, Etch A Sketch lives and its stock yesterday doubled in price on Wall Street as reported on the WALL STREET JOURNAL's blog. So maybe Romney will inadvertently create some jobs as demand for the long-forgotten toy ramps up as the Republican primaries heat up.

OSCARS SPECIAL! Billy Eichner Asks New Yorkers What Movie Is In Them

This year, the Oscars have a theme...."Celebrate the Movies in All of Us".  God knows what that means.  Fortunately, the Oscars actually seem to have a sense of humor about their own theming as they asked Billy Eichner to take to the streets of New York and, in his own unique way, try to find out what movies are "in" New Yorkers. The results are hilarious as usual.  And make sure you stay til the last guy at the end....amazing!!!

A Man-Made Earthquake Suspected In Ohio

With all the Iowa election news sucking up the air this week, there was this somewhat alarming story on Yahoo news yesterday that got lost in the Iowa rush.  The New Years day 4.0 earthquake in Ohio appears to not have been a natural seismic event but rather something potentially caused by a side effect of the controversial practice of "fracking".

CBS News did a report on this as well which you can watch here.  It's not conclusive but certainly alarming that this method of disposing water waste from fracking could be setting off fault lines. So if the world does actually end in 2012, humans may be the direct cause of it.

A Round-Up Of The Week's Rick Perry Memes

There was an explosion of memes this week surrounding Rick Perry's hateful YouTube "commercial" for his failing Presidential campaign.  The spot was desperate ploy to revive a campaign that has crashed and burned since his infamous "oops" moment during a Republican Presidential debate where he could not remember his own talking points. And now, with more than a million views on YouTube and more Dislikes than Rebecca Black's "Friday", the "ad" has inspired a lot of gay outrage....and humor too.

 I love the Teletubby in the background version of his ad below but I'm especially fond of the Brokeback pic, given that Perry has some rumors about his own sexuality.  Of course, there are even some YouTube spoofs. One in which Perry is remixed to "lisp" through the whole ad.  Another where someone stands in for Perry.

The bottom line is Perry's campaign is going nowhere and, even with all this Internet attention, he'll be lucky to get single digit support in Iowa's Presidential caucus next month.

Herman Cain's Smokin' New Campaign Ad

Yesterday morning, I saw a link to an ad for rising Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on FB.  I clicked on it and it was so bizzare I thought it must be a hoax.  It only had about 300 hits too.  Today it has nearly 400,000.  The ad shows Cain's campaign manager, Mark Block, talking about Cain and the campaign somewhat haltingly and then smoking a cigarette at the end.  No, make that relishing a cigarette. Then there is a weird/creepy shot of Herman Cain turning towards the camera in extreme closeup.  

Well, believe it or not, the ad is real.  And many are calling it the worst political ad of all time.  You can listen to Herman Cain himself on a radio show explain the whole thing, though he seems somewhat surprised by it too.  But basically, his message is that he is going to be who he is and his campaign manager is going to be who he is....a guy who loves smoking on camera. Whether or not this is a saavy strategy to get people to vote for him, it is certainly getting his message out there.  And now, according to a new CBS poll,  Cain has taken the lead over Romney by 4 points.

Gay Republican Running For President...Seriously

So it sounds like a setup for a joke; a gay, Jewish, Republican running for President enters a bar and starts canvassing for votes.  But for Fred Karger, a 62-year old California political consultant, he is serious. Sort of.  He's knows he has basically no chance of winning the Presidency or even a GOP primary for that matter. But he's going for it anyway (with his own money too!) in an attempt to get the message out that you can be gay and run for the highest office in the land.

The LA Times ran a feature on Karger yesterday which is sorta fascinating.  He was closeted and made disparaging gay jokes freely until coming out just five years ago at age 56. In the 80's, he worked on George HW Bush's presidential campaign, specifically the heinous Willi Horton angle, and also shilled for major tobacco companies.  But what really got him personally involved in politics was spearheading the efforts against Prop 8 and the Mormon Church's campaign against marriage equality.

Despite this, he's found no love from the gay community for the simple fact that he is a Republican.  But he's not giving up and is determined to get onstage for at least one GOP Presidential debate.  It would certainly be interesting to see him challenge Romney and his party on the issue of marriage equality. But, registering less than 1% support in the latest polls, it seems unlikely that Karger's efforts will be more than a queer footnote on the 2012 campaign.

Michelle Bachmann May Be Scarier Than Sarah Palin

Congresswoman Michele Bachman, a Republican from Minnesota, has been making the Iowa rounds lately, testing the waters for a possible Presidential run in 2012.  And from some of her recent statements, posted today on Towleroad, she might actually be scarier than Sarah Palin.

Railing against gay marriage, she went on a diatribe over state and federal judges referring to them as "black-robed masters".  And then there was this choice quote: "They are not put there to make decisions".   OK--I honestly don't care if you don't like the idea of gay marriage and think it's immoral and all that religious jazz.  But seriously, if you want to want to run for President, you should know that the judiciary branch plays a key role in our system of government, namely that of making DECISIONS.  To refer to them as sinister, mystical "masters" is not only bad rhetoric but it suggests a base ignorance of our constitutional form of government.

Rep. Bachman was a hit with the conservatives she aimed her remarks at. But she was also heckled a few times at a college event.  She can expect more heckling if she continues to spew not just hate but sheer ignorance of the government which she might aspire to run someday.