Latest Targ is Up!

It's a new week, so it's a new episode of U62: The Targ!

I've got Episode 3.19: Take the Blue Pill this week. We're chatting about the Oscar nominations, I've got some reflections on The Matrix, and there's one final Monopoly update.

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Saucy Chicken

Ah, the Chicken McNugget. Truly, one of the most innovative items on the McDonald's menu. As the legend goes (or, as I read it in the book Fast Food Nation), one of the McDonald's marketing guys went to the McDonald's product development guys and said, "I want you to develop some kind of chicken produce...as big as your thumb...that people can eat while they're driving." The product development folks locked themselves in the lab, got to work, and eventually came out with the Chicken McNugget. It was added to the McDonald's menu sometime in the mid-1980s.

The mid-1980s, the height of my childhood. And Chicken McNuggets became a childhood favourite. They were the only thing I'd eat when I went to McDonald's when I was a kid. I eventually outgrew them, and I only have them every once in a while now. But for at least the past 25 years, the McNugget has remained unchanged.

Which is why I geeked out a few days ago when I saw the TV commercials. McDonald's had introduced brand new dipping sauces for the McNuggets! The four basics: Sweet and Sour, BBQ, Hot Mustard, and Honey, were joined by two new additions. Wait a minute. Doing some quick research online, it looks like McDonald's discontinued Honey as a dipping sauce some time ago. Oh, well.

Two new sauces! Never had such a thing been attempted! Well, I do remember their special "Oriental McNuggets" from the late 1980s, which came with special Teriyaki dipping sauce, chopsticks, and a fortune cookie. Oh, and let's not forget McDonald's attempt at "grown up" McNuggets a few years ago, the Chicken Selects. The "grown up" dips were Spicy Buffalo, Creamy Ranch, and Honey Mustard.

But my mission tonight was to try the two new McNuggets dipping sauces: Spicy Szechwaun and Zesty Mango.

I wasn't too impressed with Spicy Szechuan. Maybe it's because I've been stocking the kitchen at work with instant szechwaun noodles for lunch, and I'm just getting tired of spicy szechuan. It had a nice kick, and a spicy aftertaste. All in all, not too bad.

The Zesty Mango is my favourite of this new duo. It's definitely trying for an Indian flare, as I could smell the hint of curry when I opened the packet. I could taste it, too, as soon as I ate that first, freshly dipped McNugget. This one truly is zesty. "Sweet and Spicy" would be a good way to sum up this sauce.

It's nice, but not enough to get me dining on McNuggets regularly again.

A Whole Bunch of Animated DVDs

Wow, it's been so long since I did a blog post about upcoming DVDs. Maybe it's because I haven't swung by my favourite DVD websites in such a long time. I swung by them tonight and look what I found....

Ponyo, the latest animated hit from Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, is due to come out on March 2. It'll be a 2-disc special edition. For bonus features, you get a whole slew of new featurettes about the film and the history of Studio Ghibli (including new interviews with Miyazaki), a special introduction by the film's producers, and the entire storyboards for the film.

Even though it tanked at the box office and didn't really offer anything original, I really enjoyed the computer animated movie version of Astro Boy. It hits DVD on March 16. For bonus features, you get some featurettes, some cut scenes, some new animated sequences, and more stuff TBA.

Also coming out on March 16 is Disney's triumphant return to traditional animation, The Princess and the Frog. It'll be available in three versions: single-disc DVD, single-disc Blu-Ray, and the DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack. The DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack is something that Disney started doing last year. It has the film on both DVD AND Blu-Ray, for those who are still in mid-transition. Anyway, for bonus features, you get a running commentary with directors John Musker and Ron Clemments and producer Peter Del Vecho, deleted scenes, and the music video from Ne-Yo. That's just on the DVD. On the Blu-Ray, you get all that, plus a whole bunch of featurettes about the making of the film and all kinds of concept art.

And finally, rounding out March is Fantastic Mr. Fox coming on March 23. I'm still upset that I missed this one in the theatres. For bonus features, you get 8 featurettes about the making of the film and the trailers.

March is going to be a good month. Expensive, too, as I'll probably be buying all of these.

Scarecrow's Oscar Picks

Well, it's that time of year again!  I do so love my movies, and the Oscar nominations have been announced!  In just one month, we will be celebrating the best in film for the previous year!



Now, ever since I first discovered the Internet and blogging, I've taken a minute to blog my Oscar picks.  But see, the thing is, I do things a little differently.  Over the next month, you're going to be seeing all kinds of picks for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and so on.  I don't bother picking those categories.  I only pick the categories that I care about!  



So, the first category that I care about, Best Visual Effects:

• Avatar


• District 9


• Star Trek

My Pick:  Do you even have to ask?  Avatar was 12 years in the making, 5 years of that was spent developing a new kind of movie camera to film this thing.  Everyone agrees that it's the most seamless blend of live-action and CGI ever captured.  Avatar, no contest.



Next up, Best Original Song.  The nominees are:

• "Almost There" from The Princess and the Frog


• "Down in New Orleans" from The Princess and the Frog


• "Loin de Paname" from Paris 36


• "Take it All" from Nine


• "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" from Crazy Heart.
  
  

My Pick:  Ooo, tough call this year.  Disney animated films dominated this category back in 1990s, so it's easy to fall back on nostalgia and pick one of the two from The Princess and the Frog.  But I see that the song from Crazy Heart won the Golden Globe in this category, and the Golden Globes are always seen as a good indicator.  But you know what?  The Princess and the Frog is the only film on this list that I've actually seen, and I'm guessing the Academy voters are in the same boat.  I put my money on "Down in New Orleans." 





We now have Best Animated Film.  The nominees are:

• Coraline


• Fantastic Mr. Fox


• The Princess and the Frog


• The Secret of Kells


• Up

My Pick:  Wow, looking at this list of nominations, I can't help but think there were a lot of great animated films this year.  The dark horse in this category is The Secret of Kells , which I gather is a little French animated film that got a very limited release in the USA.  I really have a soft-spot for Coraline as well, that was a remarkable film.  That being said, though, there is one film on this list that was beloved by audiences and critics and has already scooped up an armload of awards.  The winner will be Up, easy money. 





And lastly, I do one token mainstream category that's going to be analyzed to death.  The big one, Best Motion Picture:

• Avatar


• The Blind Side


• District 9


• An Education


• The Hurt Locker


• Inglourious Basterds


• Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire


• A Serious Man


• Up


• Up in the Air

My Pick:  As you can see, the Academy is trying something new this year.  They've expanded the Best Picture category to 10 films, to include more mainstream films, and thus more films that the average moviegoer has actually seen.  That being said, there's really two films right now that have been dominating all the awards shows running up to the Oscars:  Avatar and The Hurt Locker.  One is a science-fiction epic about a battle on another world that has just become the #1 film of all time, the other is an intimate drama about an Army bomb disposal expert in Iraq.  It really is a battle of style vs. substance.  That being said, since the whole expanded category is all about reaching out to mainstream films, something tells me that the fruits of that labour will be Avatar taking the Best Picture statue. 



The big show is on TV on March 7.  Your hosts this year are Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.



For all the nominations, check out the official Oscar website. 

This post was originally posted at my work blog, which you can read at 94.1 the River.

Latest Targ is Here!

I've got a new episode of U62: The Targ!

This week, we're chatting about movie advertising, I share some really neat news about Iron Man 2, and I give an update on the voting in that Monopoly: Canadian Here and Now edition.

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Weird Al: Movie Director

Yay!

My hero, "Weird Al" Yankovic, just announced his next project! He's directing a movie!

Well, it's a TV movie for the Cartoon Network, but still...a movie!

Weird Al says that he just signed a big production deal with the Cartoon Network to produce stuff...TV shows, cartoons, movies, and such forth. And figured that a TV movie would be the best place to start.

Weird Al is writing and directing it, and will give himself a small role. Weird Al mentions that the Cartoon Network wanted a young protagonist, so the main character is a teenager.

No word yet on a plot or what it's about, but Weird Al says that it's not a sequel to UHF and it's not a documentary about Winston Churchill.

Weird Al says that he goes on tour this summer, and the earliest he could probably start filming it is this fall.

No word yet on when it'll air on the Cartoon Network.

Here's Weird Al's official blog, where he shares what little details he can.

Latest Targ is Up!

Time to kick off a new week with a new episode of U62: The Targ!

I'm firing up Episode 3.17: The 4 Railroads. I chat about the politics of DVD special editions, I discuss the Spider-Man reboot, and I obsess over this Monopoly Canadian edition.

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