Articles tagged with academy awards

Analyzing the 2010 Oscar Acceptance Speeches

posted by lee on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 7:00am

I thought about trying to parse the subtext of Jeff Bridges’ rambling Oscar acceptance speech (spoiler alert: he’s channeling The Dude in a seriously uncanny way), but to no one’s surprise, I decided to try a slightly more…quantitative method.

Behold, the 2010 Oscar Acceptance Speech Word Cloud:

(Click for a larger version)

Statistical insights, after the jump:

Episode 82: The Lamentations of the Women

posted by Matthew Wrather on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 12:01am

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Josh McNeil, John Perich, and Jordan Stokes to overthink the two year anniversary of OTI, rise and fall of Conan, and the apotheosis of Sandra Bullock in this year’s awards season.

Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Download Episode 82 (MP3)

Bad Oscar Jokes

posted by lee on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 10:08am

oscarBe sure to add your own in the comments. I’m sure the OTI readers have some real winners up their sleeves.

Q: How many members of the Academy does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Depends on when the light bulb was released. If it was before November, none. They won’t even give it a chance to shine.

Q: Why did the member of the Academy cross the road?
A: To get to the art house cinema across the street.

A member of the Academy walks in to a bar. “Bartender,” he says, “give me a drink.” Bartender asks, “What’ll ya have?” Academy member says, “something not too high budget, released later in the year, has not too much action or comedy, and takes itself very seriously.” Bartender punches him in the face.

A member of the Academy walks into a bar. He starts chatting with the bartender, and the subject of who he nominated for “Best Original Song” comes up. The academy member says he really liked “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E” but couldn’t really think of anything else that was Oscar-worthy this year. Bruce Springsteen walks in and punches him in the face.

A member of the Academy walks into a bar. “Ouch!” he says, “I thought I raised that bar a lot higher than that with my snooty selections for best picture this year. Why is it so low? Or maybe…my stature has just increased along with my standards. That must be it.”

Thank you. I’ll be here all night.

[Every now and again, when we are on the verge of vomiting up the crap Hollywood is shoveling down our throats, this weekly series by Matthew Belinkie reminds us to keep things in perspective. —Ed.]

Cliffhanger

The Movie: Cliffhanger

Why It Strains Credulity:

Lithgow looks precisely like the Harvard-educated Fullbright scholar that he is. And Stallone looks exactly like the HGH-abetted manimal that he is. Bottom line: if Ivan Drago couldn’t do it, there’s no way the bad guy from Footloose is going to defeat the Italian Stallion.