Brian and Ed talk awkward parental interactions, drive-by toe sucking and @FanceeSauce joins the guys for FanceePop.

 

Brian and Ed talk NCAA Tournament, annoying sitcom kids and Malaysian jetliner theories. Plus, the guys are joined by FanceeSauce to discuss Lindsay Lohan’s sex list. Get some.

 

A special two-part episode featuring a Bachelor roundtable with special correspondent Cate McManus (@FanceeSauce) and sports radio icon Jason Stewart (@JasonStewart), and Ed slanders Beckner as a consumer of Star Wars fanfic.

Strap on your leather chaps and pour yourself a festive cocktail because the gay Super Bowl is Sunday night and we’re calling the winners.

 

Host

Ellen DeGeneres

This might be the toughest gig in Hollywood. Everyone’s watching, the show lasts a million years and you gotta play it safe. Let’s face it, nobody’s safer than E to the DeG, which isn’t good for fans of things that are entertaining.

Will she say anything remotely funny? No. Will she do a huge over-the-top song and dance number that lasts 14 minutes too long? Yes. Will she be incredibly pleased with herself? Undoubtedly. Is she a huge phony that smiles for the camera, but ritualistically tortures her assistants for sport once the red light goes out? Seems likely.

Winner: Not the viewers. Jon Stewart hosted this show once. So did Chris Rock. This is the route the producers should take. Jimmy Kimmel would be great. So would Stephen Colbert. But instead they’ll probably keep digging up Billy Crystal, who my grandmother is still crazy about, but in her defense, she’s been dead since 2008.

 

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

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)

Toughest category of the evening. The Captain Phillips guy’s nomination (and hopefully a sandwich and good Hollywood veneers guy) is his victory. Bradley Cooper was solid but unremarkable. Fassbender was sadistic and creepy and awful and deserves to win, but alas he’s a relative newcomer and first time nominee. Add a dose of slave rape into the mix and unfortunately the best man doesn’t win.

It comes down to Jonah Hill working for scale and owning the screen under the masterful hand of one of the great auteurs of American cinema and Leto who may have out-AIDSed Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club. Leto probably deserves to win and may edge out Hill in the voting, but it’s tough to see the Academy awarding both AIDS performances.

Winner: Too close to call, but it’s Hill in a coin flip.

 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)

Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave)

Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)

June Squibb (Nebraska)

Another nearly impossible category to predict. Everybody Loves J-Law, and really what’s not to love? If American Hustle deserves an Academy Award, it should be for it’s only memorable performance. That said, she’s already got one and surely she’ll have opportunities for Oscars in future projects that aren’t utterly disposable.

No one saw August: Osage County, and the people that did didn’t say good things. Julia Roberts got her career service award more than a decade ago, and no one’s ever going to confuse her with Meryl Streep. No chance.

Sally Hawkins, Lupita Nyong’o and June Squibb are all equally deserving. Any of them could win and there’d be no quarrel, but Nyong’o’s riding a tremendous wave right now and her future will be even brighter once she’s decorated with Oscar for this brilliant performance.

Winner: Nyong’o.

 

Best Animated Feature

The Croods (Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco, Kristine Belson)

Despicable Me 2 (Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, Chris Meledandri)

Ernest & Celestine (Benjamin Renner, Didier Brunner)

Frozen (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho)

The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki)

Like all good parents we stare at our phones as a coping mechanism when forced to endure these tragedies.

Winner: No clue. Frozen?

 

Best Cinematography

The Grandmaster (Philippe Le Sourd)

Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki)

Inside Llewyn Davis (Bruno Delbonnel)

Nebraska (Phedon Papamichael)

Prisoners (Roger A. Deakins)

 

Inside Llewyn Davis was widely considered this year’s big Oscar snub. People seemed at a loss as to why this film didn’t receive more nominations. Maybe those people neglected to consider this fact: Justin Timberlake is in it.

Gravity should, and will win. It’s a breathtaking visual triumph.

Winner: Gravity.

 

Best Visual Effects

Gravity (Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, Neil Corbould)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, Eric Reynolds)

Iron Man 3 (Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash, Dan Sudick)

The Lone Ranger (Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams, John Frazier)

Star Trek Into Darkness (Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann, Burt Dalton)

See above.

Winner: Gravity.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke)

Captain Phillips (Billy Ray)

Philomena (Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope)

12 Years a Slave (John Ridley)

The Wolf of Wall Street (Terence Winter)

We’d like to see Captain Phillips win just because the real-life crew says the real-life captain is a real-life liar. We definitely don’t want to see Ethan Hawke win because we still have douche chills from the time he sang that Violent Femmes Song in Reality Bites.

Winner (and soon-to-be juggernaut): 12 Years a Slave.

 

Best Original Screenplay

American Hustle (Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell)

Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen)

Dallas Buyers Club (Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack)

Her (Spike Jonze)

Nebraska (Bob Nelson)

Her should win. It probably won’t, but it should.

Winner: Her.

 

Best Actor in a Leading Role

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)

Christian Bale is an Oscar winning actor and truly one of the best around. His reputation garnered this nom, but the material doesn’t deserve this or any other reward.

Leo was great, but the only way he wins is if Hollywood decides it’s time to say “thanks for making us rich” like they did for Julia Roberts and Sandy Bullock and he needs to turn 40 before that happens.

Chiwetel Ejiofor deserves to win but won’t. The Academy is still hungover from Jean Dujardin’s acceptance speech and isn’t looking to send another best actor trophy across the pond.

It’s criminal that Bruce Dern hasn’t won an Oscar. He was nominated for Coming Home, but lost to Christopher Walken playing Russian roulette in Michael Cimino’s chef-d’oeuvre, The Deer Hunter. It would be a bigger crime to award him for Nebraska. It just wasn’t that good a movie.

This period in Hollywood history will be remembered as the period that silenced the McConaugheyters (credit us for coining this term). We should all be thankful that he got off the beach, and out of the shitty Kate Hudson vehicle rut, and finally realized some of the potential we saw early on. Beginning with the surprisingly good Magic Mike, followed by the criminally underseen Mud, a riveting cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street and freaking everyone the fuck out Sunday nights in True Detective, we’re all existing in Matthew McConaughey’s time. Dallas Buyers Club isn’t great, but McConaughey’s performance is. The Academy loves performers that become emaciated and Hollywood really loves AIDS. There’s a chance he doesn’t win this award, but we can’t have that AIDS blood on our hands.

Winner: McConaughey.

 

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Amy Adams (American Hustle)

Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

Judi Dench (Philomena)

Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)

Cate Blanchett and it’s not even close. This was a complex and conflicted character that simply could not have been trusted in the hands of a lesser talent. Blanchett is a generational talent and this may be her best work. Much has been made about whether or not she’ll thank Woody Allen in her acceptance speech. Look, Woody Allen is a creep and probably worse, but he directed Blanchett to an Oscar winning performance. There’s exactly zero chance she doesn’t acknowledge him from the stage. We just hope she also acknowledges her co-star, the Dice Man.

Winner (and lock of the evening): Special Cate.

 

Best Directing

American Hustle (David O. Russell)

Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón)

Nebraska (Alexander Payne)

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Every nominee, with the exception of McQueen has directed better movies. But no one flexed his nuts as a director this year quite like Cuarón. McQueen gets his taste when they announce Best Picture. Cuarón gets a deserved nod as director.

Winner: Gravity.

 

Best Picture

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

Gravity

Her

Nebraska

Philomena

12 Years a Slave

The Wolf of Wall Street

If this award were based solely on amazing wigs, American Hustle would win in a route. But let’s be honest, American Hustle is a popcorn movie that wasn’t near as good as the other popcorn movie in the category, The Wolf of Wall Street, which also won’t win.

The only thing more disturbing than Barkhad Abdi’s teeth is Tom Hanks’ accent in Captain Phillips.

Nebraska was duller than its namesake state.

Gravity looked really cool and will certainly win plenty of awards that aren’t this one.

Best picture is a race between the only two important films that were nominated, Her and 12 Years a Slave. While neither is a masterpiece, this should be a much closer race than it will turn out. The codgers that vote on these things didn’t see or understand Her and 12 Years a Slave has everything that Academy voters love: historical significance, terrific performances by talented performers (sit down, Brad Pitt) and a heaping helping of good old white guilt. Bet the plantation.

Winner: 12 Years a Slave.

 

I don’t think there’s any question that the answer is clearly yes. Sure, the ESL thing doesn’t exactly help his case, but let’s be honest, in any language Juan Pablo is an idiot.

I also think that the only plausible reason ABC and the producers of the show had to cast this guy, who is unbearably dull, was to capture the Latino demographic they must have been missing. Right? Or maybe they misjudged women swooning over his accent (myself not included). Either way he’s not smart.

Let’s be clear, I’m not saying he’s in the same league as a sociopath like Brad Womack, or a wee little lunatic like Jake Pavelka. Unlike his evil predecessors I think the tears that regularly pour from Juan Pablo’s dopey close-set eyes have some dopey guilt and possibly some dopey empathy attached.

It’s become clear after watching him in action over the last eight weeks that Juan Pablo Galavis is both stupid, in the drastically low-IQ sense, and a narcissist, in the “I’m on a reality show” sense.

Having questionable motives is certainly helpful, if not a requirement, for Bachelordom (has there ever been a contestant on either side of the fence who’s sole reason for entering this contest was to honestly find true love?) but it also helps to be stupid. This is about being in the spotlight. Lacking a solid grasp of basic logic or morality might just land you a huge, cheesy Neil Lane rock. Call it a bonus.

Juan Pablo is looking for a pay day as much as a nanny. He’s been called out for not paying child support and now he’s obviously trying to carve out a reality TV career, which he hopes includes a turn on Dancing With The Stars, not to mention those M&M ads. We all know dancing is his first real love. And no one said you have to be smart to be an opportunist.

Ever the dipshit, he admitted to Andi Dorfman’s dad during Monday night’s hometown dates episode that he had come on the show to find a good stepmom for his daughter. This is actually how stupid he is. Mr. Dorfman replied, ”Your decision first has to start with you and that person.” It had apparently never occurred to him that he should look to connect with a woman before deciding that she could function as a live-in babysitter and occasional dance partner. There are probably some cultural differences at play here, but essentially this guy is a huge moron.

It makes sense though. After all, the producers wouldn’t want some smarty asking questions or somehow discovering that he’s a contestant on what is clearly (if only to the audience) a heavily manipulated game show. When date cards arrive they’re not dictated by the Bachelor (I’d pay money to hear him read aloud from the phone book though) just as none of what happens on the dates is either. The show’s producers have more control over these budding “relationships” than they want the audience to know.  Although at this point, does anyone really give a shit? Is there a video montage somewhere of the winner of every season’s reaction upon learning that her new fiancée didn’t actually own that yacht?

It’s insane to believe that every season the Bachelor or Bachelorette in question has NO idea who he or she is going to propose to until the last episode. Unless you’re Desiree Hartsock and the person you’ve decided on bails in the final hour so you just propose to your second choice. “Hey, why not? I mean, we’ve come all this way, I may as well marry SOMEONE.”

Poor Renee Oteri was dragged through this process because they needed an underdog for the audience to root for. She was never going the distance but it made for better TV to keep her around, to get our hopes up that she could have a happily-ever-after to her sad-single-mom-looking-for-love story. But viewers are more savvy to the ways of The Bachelor now, no one was remotely fooled. With the possible exception of Renee, sadly. The one person who was actually there for the “right reasons.”

So Dumb Pablo is left after home-town dates with the three girls who were the front-runners from the start, but he’s in way over his head because they’re all smarter than him, which is like saying a monkey is smarter than your shoe. He’s said nothing of substance to any of these women throughout the entire season, while they’re sharing their stories and feelings and wanting to tell him they’ve fallen in love with him. This shallowness can only be explained away by his rudimentary grasp of the English language for so long though.

The fact is that this show would be impossible with a cast filled with smart people. Those people might realize that the best course of action might be to abstain from having intercourse with someone you stand a 33 percent chance of coupling with in the short term and a zero percent chance of coupling with in the long term. If this game show were to cast contestants that realized they were on a game show there would be no game show.

And while I doubt that anyone is going to need convincing, if you’re on the fence about JP’s dumbness you can always read his blog.

 

 

RIP Harold Ramis, new Robocop, bovine sex and the Bachelor Report. Get some.

Ed breaks down his encounter with a Miami hooker, and @FanceeSauce joins the guys to talk about the Bachelor.

Brian and Ed sing the praises of Marcus Smart, talk about McGruff’s munchies and catch up on the Bachelor with special correspondent FanceeSauce.