A message to rabid fans of "The Dark Knight"

Obviously, The Dark Knight had quite an amazing year. Not only was it a commercial smash, becoming the second biggest domestic hit of all time (behind Titanic), but it also received rave reviews, and not just for Heath Ledger's performance. And now there's the increasingly likely chance that The Dark Knight could take another massive leap forward for "comic book movies" (although it's much more than that) and become a Best Picture nominee. In spite of what I'm getting ready to say, I would actually be thrilled it that happened, considering that so many of the end of the year "Oscar-bait" films have either underwhelmed, or simply been very-good-but-not-great. Now, that being said, there are some who are taking The Dark Knight's Oscar campaign a little bit too far. Take the opening of this "review" written back in July just after the film's release....

Note to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Usually you have a tendency to stick your nose in the air at genre films. Your taste has become less and less based in reality, and you are in danger of becoming irrelevant. If you want to avoid this, you must nominate “The Dark Knight” for Best Picture, and not only must Heath Ledger be nominated for Best Supporting Actor; he better win it. Otherwise you will become the joke many already suspect your organization of being.

There are so many things wrong with this. First, since when is this guy in a position to try and bully The Academy? This is, after all, from a website that was only started in mockery of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Yes, one could say that the Academy (particularly the older/more traditional members) does sometimes ignore "genre films" (although, isn't EVERY film part of at least one genre?). But apparently the Oscar success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, or even the fact that the original Star Wars was nominated for Best Picture, isn't enough to appease some of the true rabids. Perhaps the weakest argument the writer makes is that the Academy's taste is, "less based in reality" (what on earth does that mean?) and that they are in danger of, "becoming irrelevant". Okay, so maybe he's upset that the Academy tends to go for movies that don't make a lot of money (again, completely ignoring the Oscar love for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, Titanic and Chicago) but is that really a real reason to call someone out? According to his logic, the Academy is almost a joke because they reward films that don't always make a bunch of money, thereby implying that the masses didn't rush out to see them. However, is it really the Academy's fault that a lot of the movies they nominate don't have massive box office returns? No, that blame goes to the studios who open films in 10 theaters and expand them across the nation at a glacial pace. And going back to the issue of popularity, if the 2007 Oscars had been based purely on "what the greatest number of American people saw", then the Best Picture nominees would have looked like this:

• Spider-man 3
• Shrek the Third
• Transformers
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (the only really good film of the five)

Yikes. So, back to that review excerpt, the other issue that infuriates me is that he demands that The Dark Knight be nominated for Picture, and that Heath Ledger must not only be nominated for supporting actor, but that he MUST WIN or else the Academy will be a complete joke. While I do think that the movie should be nominated and that Ledger should win, to say that Ledger MUST win isn't just whiny, but it's insulting to all of the other supporting actor contenders throughout the year; this guy is saying that those other men don't matter, because "OMG HEATH LEDGER GAVE LIKE DA BEST PERFORMANCE EVAAAAH!!!" And if The Dark Knight doesn't get nominated, maybe it's not because of an anti-comic book bias, but maybe the Academy simply thought that there were five movies more deserving of the spots. Get over it. If all this whining and moaning continues, it could very well spoil Ledger's increasingly likely Oscar. No one likes sore winners.

A message to writers/journalists/bloggers everywhere...

I know I'm probably not the best person to go on a rant about grammar. I catch ludicrous mistakes on here all the time, and there are most likely errors in this very post. However, when I make mistakes like "they're house" instead of "their house", it's usually an accident that I fix as I soon as I find it. For many, unfortunately, this is not the case. So, not to sound like some insufferable English teacher, but I feel like I have to at least sound off on some of the grammatical errors that simply drive me over the edge. Now no one can say that I didn't try.

1) Their vs They're vs There

• It's actually REALLY simple. Their is possesive, they're is a contraction meaning "they are", and there is a reference to location. Some examples to drive home the point....
• I want to burn that copy of "Twilight" sitting on that table over there.
• I can't believe they're reading "Twilight"; I thought their tastes were much more refined.

2) Good vs Well

• Nothing irritates me more than to sit down in my high school's cafeteria (pardon, dining hall) than to hear one of my friends brag about how he, "felt like I did really good on the pop quiz."
• For starters, the words differ in function. Good is an adjective, and well is generally an adverb. So...
• I did really well on the in-class essay in AP English (which, if you have my teacher, is still grammatically correct, but none-the-less a lie).
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a really good movie (yes, yes it is).
• However, well can be used as an adjective: I don't feel well today.

3) A history/historic/historically vs An history/historic/historically

• Did I say that errors in good vs well bothered me? Those mistakes are nothing compared to the sudden RAGE I feel when I see an error here. Why? Because it isn't just an error made by average Joe's. I've seen errors in high quality publications. I was recently horrified by Anne Thompson's review of "Benjamin Button" in Variety, wherin Ms. Thompson declared the film, "an historic acheivment." 
• NO. NO. NO. NO.
• "But wait!" you say, "We say 'an hour' and that's correct, right?" 
• Yes, it is correct to say "an hour", but that's because English pronunciation all but drops the "h". The "h" never changes the fact that "hour" is pronounced identically to "our", which begins with a vowel, therefore making "an hour" correct. Though the "h" in "history" may not be where the main stress of the word falls, it is still crucial to the word, and, being a consonant, very much requires a damn "a".
• Still not convinced? Helium, a well respected website that focuses a lot on languages has this to offer:

• Should the "h-" sound be pronounced with breath, or without? Is it simply a matter of opinion?

  The answer, coincidentally, is a historic one (not an historic one). Like many words in the English language, "history" is derived from French. The French language does not pronounce the "h-" sound at all it is, in essence, swallowed. For many of the words beginning with the letter "h" that English commandeers from French, the French pronunciation is respected: "honour" (Fr. "honneur"), "honest" (Fr. "honnete"), "heir" (Fr. "hair"), and "hour" (Fr. "heure") to name but a few. However, there are also many h-words taken from French in which English has changed the pronunciation of the "h": "hideous" (Fr. "hideux"), "horror" (Fr. "horreur"), "hotel" (Fr. "hotel"), and, of course, "history" (Fr. "histoire"). The words that retain the French pronunciation of "h" still begin with a vowel sound in English, and the article "an" should be used: an hour, an honest woman, etc. For those words that English modifies the pronunciation of, thereby breathing the "h-" and creating a consonant sound, the article "a" should be used: a horror movie, a hideous man, etc. It would sound ridiculous if we heard somebody say, "I have an history test tomorrow", because English changes the pronunciation to a breathed "h-" sound. Therefore, we can safely reason that the English adjective "historical" should be constructed from the English noun "history", breathed "h" and all, and thus take the article "a".