Sh*t Habs Fans Say

Oscars 2012

Well, it's that time of the year again, when I blog about something I love that is non-sports related; MOVIES! Let's jump right into the nominees, my favourites, and my predictions.

BEST PICTURE

The Artist - DING DING DING, we have a winner. I'd be willing to put $$$ on this winning.

The Descendants - So. Bad.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Disappointing.

The Help - Loved. It. Some pretty incredible, three-dimensional female characters.

Hugo - Booooooring.

Midnight in Paris - My favourite of the nominees! Great for imaginative geeks :)

Moneyball - So friggin' awesome. You don't even have to like baseball to enjoy it.

The Tree of Life - Majorly pretentious snooze fest.

War Horse - Just "okay".

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Demian Bichir (A Better Life) - Beautiful performance in an "okay" movie.

George Clooney (The Descendants) - I would have been more apt to nominate his performance in "The Ides of March" as Best Supporting than this garbage.

Jean Dujardin (The Artist) - WINNER! If anyone else wins, it will be grand larceny.

Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) - Such a boring movie, I could barely sit through it. Oldman's performance wasn't much better.

Brad Pitt (Moneyball) - He would be my number 2 selection, but mostly because the rest of this category is pure crap.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) - I never realized how androgynous Close is. Brilliant performance.

Viola Davis (The Help) - The kind of performance that eats at your soul.

Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) - Good for her. I LOVED her in this.

Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) - Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Streep is simply the best.

Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) - Poor Michelle. My personal favourite female performance of the year, her third deserving nomination won't bear fruit this year. You'll get your Oscar one day, Williams.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn) -

Jonah Hill (Moneyball) - My favourite performance of the category. It makes me so incredibly happy to see the dude from "Superbad" with an Academy Award nomination.

Nick Nolte (Warrior) - Wonderful.

Christopher Plummer (Beginners) - Book it. Plummer's gut wrenching performance is impossible to deny.

Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) - Perhaps the most undeserving nomination in years. Ouache.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) - I have so much love for this woman and the radiant beauty and emotion that beamed from her in every scene in this movie. It's tough to pick a favourite in this category, because each performance was so wonderful.

Jessica Chastain (The Help) - So delicious.

Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) - While I was shocked at her nomination, and would have to rank this performance "last" in this category, I just love this actress so much, and am so incredibly excited and happy for her to be nominated.

Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs) - Such incredible depth, such a warranted nomination.

Octavia Spencer (The Help) - My prediction for winner.

DIRECTOR

Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) - Putting all my eggs in one basket; my favourite & predicted winner.

Alexander Payne (The Descendants) - Please god, no.

Martin Scorsese (Hugo) - Gag me. Not your finest work, Marty.

Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris) - This film is so delightful, and the direction is great. Seriously, go see it.

Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life) - Please go back to whatever pretentious film school you came from.

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

The Descendants - Blech.

Hugo - Booooo.

The Ides of March - Finally! Recognition for a great film (and even better script).

Moneyball - My fave and winner.

Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy - Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

The Artist - WIIIIIIIINNNNNNEEEEERRRR ALL DAY LONG, BABYYYYY.

Bridesmaids - Kristin Wiig is a friggin' Academy Award nominee. How awesome is that?!

Margin Call - Wait, what? I didn't see this one....

Midnight in Paris - <3 I have so much love for this movie. How haven't you seen it yet?!

A Separation - I'll be perfectly honest, I haven't seen this one either. I suppose by opinion in this category is moot.

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

The Artist - The only nominee worth knowing. In order for a silent film to be even remotely watchable, the score has to be fantastic. WINNER.

You can watch the OSCAR's Sunday, February 26th at 8PM. Then it's a return to plotless, talentless, shameless, tantalizing summer blockbusters. Until next season....

PS. Dear Academy, why no love for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" as the 10th Best Picture nom? Why no love for Leonardo Dicaprio (J. Edgar) or Ryan Gosling (Drive) or Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50)???

Buyers vs Sellers - The Grey Area in Between

Each year as February draws to a close, and the NHL's trade deadline day looms, a conversation inevitably starts among all hockey fans, in which they attempt to categorize "their" team as either buyers, or sellers. This has ALWAYS irked me, as I don't believe that it's as black and white as people make it out to be. In fact, I take issue with people referring to the Canadiens as sellers. In order to understand why I don't like this label, you must first understand what I consider to be "buyers/sellers"...

Sellers: A team that is unsatisfied with their position in the standings prior to the trade deadline, and has decided to trade away a large portion of their roster in exchange for draft picks and prospects, in hopes of improving their chances of cup contention in the future. In doing so, the organization is making several statements:

1) We are not making a push for the playoffs

2) We are not satisfied with the production of our talent

3) We are entering a rebuilding phase

Buyers: A team who is looking for the missing pieces necessary to complete their roster for either a playoff push, or Stanley Cup contention. The organization is making a statement that says they are pleased with their talent, and are looking to fill in the gaps.

The Habs are neither of the aforementioned. They have pieces they would like to sell that unfortunately do not yield any interested buyers. They also have pieces they will likely deal away who are attractive to buyers. But more importantly, they have an encouraging core group made up of several key cornerstones:

1) Young, developing talent (Eller, Emelin, Desharnais)

2) Future superstars (Subban, Pacioretty)

3) Stellar goaltending (Price)

4) Talented, veteran leadership (Cole, Gorges)

There are other players on the Canadiens roster that could easily fit into their plans for the future, however the aforementioned are those which will play key roles in their immediate success (and by immediate, I mean over the course of the next 3-5 years).

In order to truly be "sellers", the Canadiens would need to enter a rebuilding mode, which is not necessary, as they already possess elite caliber talent. Obviously improvements need to be made, and clearly the status quo is not sufficient (in fact, the problems the Canadiens face are not brand new; they have simply been masked by superior goal tending over the past two seasons that has carried them further than they should have gone. But I digress.)

What exactly WILL the Canadiens do come deadline day? Well, it has been widely agreed upon among NHL insiders for several weeks that the Habs' movable pieces come trade deadline include(d) Gill, Moen & Kostitsyn, the former having already been dealt. The fact that the return on #75 consisted of more than a 2nd round pick is fantastic (side note: Blake Geoffrion, acquired by the Canadiens in the Gill deal, has 1G & 3A in his first two games witht he Hamilton Bulldogs, the Montreal Canadiens AHL affiliate). By trading away any or all of these three players, does not make the Canadiens "sellers".

The labels of "sellers/buyers" are simply a result of hockey fans needing a label to put on the mis-shapen box they insist on trying to cram "their" team into. Yes, the Habs need to retool. Yes, the Habs should (and already have) make moves prior to the trade deadline. However, they are a team that will continue to improve via off-season signings, and draft picks. Yes, this season sucks. But don't despair, Habs fans. This team isn't heading into a long, protracted period of rebuilding, where you can expect to skip the playoffs for a few years. There are already signs of encouragement for the future. So chill out, and stop labeling everything.

Ovechkin Rap

My curiosity as to what Ovi was rapping about got the better of me, so I asked my friend, Alex Gorchkov, to translate. Thought I'd share, in the event it was of any interest to you fine folks :)

And of course, the rap itself, for your viewing pleasure!

Salut la visite, Cammy

The Montreal Canadiens are nothing if not dramatic. If any organization were to trade a player midgame, it would have to be this one. While the news of Michael Cammalleri's imminent trade spread throughout the Habs bench and amongst fans watching at home, most immediately jumped to the conclusion that this had to do with the comments made the day prior about his teammates' "losing attitude", and that Pierre Gauthier was a classless bum for trading our beloved Cammy between the second and third period of Thursday's game versus the Boston Bruins. *Insert sound of record player stopping abruptly* Get a grip, folks.

First off, Cammalleri's toxic personality hadn't only reared its ugly head with the comment he made on Wednesday. He has always been one to go to the coach and demand to play alongside whoever had the hot hand, and refuse to play alongside certain players that he felt didn't contribute to his personal growth, namely Lars Eller (it couldn't possibly be his own fault that he only had 9 goals in 38 , right?!)

When players behave this way, it trickles into the locker room. The guys knew what kind of person he was. It's no surprise that #13's departure didn't have the same effect on the boys that Spacek's departure did.

Secondly, if you truly believe the midgame trade is "classless", perhaps you should consider a few things first. The Habs acquisition in all of this, Rene Bourque, had 2 left to serve in a 5 game suspension. The Flames also had a game on Thursday night. In order to get Bourque into the Habs lineup as quickly as possible, they needed to make sure that he was on the lineup for the Calgary Flames for Thursday's game, so that it would count as one of the remaining 2 on his suspension, otherwise Bourque would not be able to play on Sunday versus the Rangers.

Also, if you think this was a "panic" trade that was made at the last minute, you're sorely mistaken. The deal had been in the works for at least 2 weeks. If anything, Cammalleri's comments in Wednesday's La Presse likely had more to do with the imminent trade than anything else (side note: did he really say anything all that shocking? The Habs are a 12th place team. They are losers, with a losing mentality. Otherwise they would be above the playoff cutoff line. But I digress.)

Now that all that is out of the way, hey look! The trade! The Habs give up 29 year-old Michael Cammalleri, who still has 2 years left in his contract at $6 million, 25 year-old goaltending prospect Karri Rämö, and a 5th round draft pick. The Flames give up 30 year-old Rene Bourque, who still has 4 years left in his contract at $3.33 million, 20 year-old prospect Patrick Holland, and a 2nd round draft pick. This is a good deal. The cap hit alleviation alone appeases me. The 2nd round draft pick REALLY excites me.

People really seem to underestimate the value of a high draft pick throughout the regular season. That is, until the draft arrives. Then they can't grasp why the Habs can't draft the French-Canadian version of Sidney Crosby. Also, the average draft pick WON'T play in the NHL immediately after being drafted. Fans, you need to have the patience to allow the player to develop into a decent hockey player before rushing him into the bleu, blanc, rouge (see Guillaume Latendresse).

Also exciting to me is giving up Ramo. This creates space within the system to potentially draft someone like Malcolm Subban (yes, that's PK's little brother, a goal tender who is draft eligible at the 2012 Entry Draft). For the record, I believe the Habs should have dibs on all the Subbans. I think Jordan would look pretty good with the CH on his chest as well.

This was a good trade. Bourque has a higher goal-per-game output than Cammy. He costs less. The Habs have an extra second round draft pick. It seems no one is capable of assessing whether or not this was a good deal without bringing in the way it was handled into the mix. Nothing but dramatic Habs fandom. Montreal, you seriously need to GET A GRIP. Pierre Gauthier does not sit at his desk plotting ways to run this team into the ground. He is trying, and perhaps it falls short, but this isn't a personal attack on you, Jean-Jacques from Laval, or you, Melissa from Longueil. Maybe, if nothing else, Bourque's French sounding name will confuse and temporarily appease the pure-laine protesters...