The dummy abides

Budding Ventriloquist coverage of the 2011 Oscars continues with...

Best Actor Nominee with a Face that Belongs on a Ventriloquist Dummy

or, more simply:

Best  Actor With a V Face

Just an observation:  In the ventriloquist dummy world, the male/female ratio appears to be that its been girls night out for quite a while. Bet it's a four guys for every gal deal. So for the male dummies who are really funny lookin', it's probably best they have gigs because they ain't getting dates.

Or is it in the dummy world, the funny lookin' ones are considered... hot?

***

In the best actor category, there's three "OMG, he's such a hunk" guys:

• Colin Firth from The King's Speech:  Well, at least he gave us stammerers hope.
• James Franco from 127 Hours: Yes, I get it. Chicks dig hair.
• Javier Bardem from Biutiful : Yes, I get it. Roguish handsome Latin lover type. Would the dummy do a lot of "oh, oh... I misspelled that" jokes?

Then, there's two real contenders:

• Jessie Eisenberg from The Social Network:  So much potential. The Harpo Marx look converts to a ventriloquist dummy almost instantaneously.
• Jeff Bridges from True Grit: It took me over 300 posts to come up with a reason to run a photo of The Dude from the Big Lebowski.  I feel strangely high achieving for it. Makes me want to get a beverage. The idea of a Dude dummy is pretty irresistible.

Feeling a bit conflicted, I might give Javier Bardem a second chance; maybe in conjunction with the Budding Ventriloquist version of the Oscar's Irving Thalberg Award (whatever that is) to either Fernando Lamas or Ricardo Montalban, Javier gets a nod.  Or maybe he just presents?

If you don't get the logic of this overtly, I have faith that intuitively, you are right there with me on this about Fernando and Ricardo, then - ipso facto-  Javier.

You are, right?

***

The winner will be will be announced on Oscar night on the Budding Ventriloquist simulcast as a simulpost that will spread across the webwaves with speed that wows.

***

Bet you've tried to work the word simulpost into a sentence ever since I made it up earlier this week, haven't you?  Just like you look for stuff on the webwaves all the time now?

The gritty animal fighter's speech

Budding Ventriloquist coverage of the 2011 Oscars continues with...

Best Supporting Actress Nominee with a Face that Belongs on a Ventriloquist Dummy

or, more simply:

Best  Actress With a  Supporting V Face

This time, it is really tough.

First, there's two long shots: 

• Amy Adams from The Fighter:  See yesterday's discussion on pretty.
• Hailee Steinfeld from True Grit:  Tempted to give this award to her simply because she should be in the Best Actress, not Supporting Actress, category.  But, that would be a political statement, not a true selection based on whether or not she has a face for a ventriloquist dummy. It would lack the journalistic integrity that is so very integral to this process and this blog. 

Then, there's two real contenders:

• Jacki Weaver from Animal Kingdom:  She bares a striking resemblance to a very specially shaped* girl at my high school who pretended to be my date so I could convince a bunch of Milwaukee County lifeguards that I had something going. (You are dying to hear this whole story is, aren't you? I promise, one day I will tell all. Like most stories of my youth, it's both charmingly cute and pathetic.)
• Melissa Leo from The Fighter: If the ventriloquist world needs a dummy that looks like a lady, she's a shoo-in.

And then, there's the one and only...

• Helena Bonham Carter from The King's Speech: She is so dang cool she gets three pictures. In college I had a date or two with a girl that turned out to be a Wicken. If she'd looked like Bellatrix LeStrange, I would have gladly gathered gnat's nuts or whatever she needed for her potions for sure.
   (FYI, she didn't.)
  
  But is it a face for a ventriloquist dummy?

The winner will be will be announced on Oscar night on the Budding Ventriloquist simulcast as a simulpost** that will spread across the webwaves with speed that wows.

*** 

Are you all playing along? Marking up homemade ballots with your selections? Debating over your hot dogs and mac and cheese this question for the ages?  Wondering when the home edition of this game will be out? Placing bets?

***

*Specially shaped is what we in the writing ilk call a euphemism. You can look that up.

** How "Simul" do you think I need to be with this?  Just sometime that night? When the award is being given?  No ventriloquist blog has ever attempted this, so I need some feedback here.

Pretty dummy, walking down the street?

Budding Ventriloquist coverage of the 2011 Oscars continues with...

Best Actress Nominee with a Face that Belongs on a Ventriloquist Dummy

or, more simply:

Best  Actress With a  V Face

Let's make the following assumption:

People won't take a ventriloquist dummy seriously if it's too pretty.

Thus fore and ergo and whatnot:  

• Natalie Portman from Black Swan: Pretty.  Can't quite get past the whole Star Wars thing.
• Jennifer Lawrence from Winter's Bone: Pretty.  Can't quite get past the fact I have no idea what she's been in before.
• Nicole Kidman from Rabbit Hole: Pretty. Can't get over that the movie Australia didn't do a Gone with the Wind in the Oscars.

Which leaves...

• Michelle Williams from Blue Valentine.
• Annette Bening from The Kids are All Right.

They are pretty, too, of course, with something else besides.  But now, a simple exercise:

Draw lines from the edges of the mouths of these two actresses...  And you make the call.

Tough, huh?

***

Just to be clear, I have not thing against pretty.  Pretty is pretty good in my book, too.  Just not for a ventriloquist dummy.

So please remember, this award is not about who is talented, who gave the best performance, or anything like that.  This is about who has a face that would make a great ventriloquist dummy.  That's a very special distinction, indeed.

And, it is fully intended as a high compliment...because it is.

***

I wanted to work a discussion on the having an "interesting" look, but ran out of time. That can be quite beautiful, as in "turquoise is an interesting color."  I'll have to flesh this idea out soon.

***

The winner will be will be announced on Oscar night on the Budding Ventriloquist simulcast as a simulpost* that will spread across the webwaves* with speed that wows.

***

* Simulpost and webwaves are words I proudly made up, and my contribution to the web lexicon of made-up words. 

The US Patent office has informed me words can not be copyrighted.  At least not mine, but I'm not taking it personally.  Yet.

Maybe it hasn't sunk in.

By a hair...

Budding Ventriloquist coverage of the 2011 Oscars continues with...

Best Supporting Actor Nominee with a Face that Belongs on a Ventriloquist Dummy

or, more simply:

Best  Actor With a Supporting V Face

And the nominees are, from the youthful guys with hair group:

• John Hawkes from Winter's Bone.  Great potential. Don't know of a dummy with immature facial hair on the current scene.
• Mark Ruffalo from The Kids are Alright. Absolutely refuse to consider a face out of my high school years. Doesn't he look like the guy all the girls said "Oh he's so cute, I want to play with his hair"? (Did I just hear a gagging noise? Or was that me making a gagging noise?)
• Christian Bale from the Fighter. I could have been that handsome if I'da tried. Yea, I could'a.

And from the actual talent that doesn't rely so much on hair group:

• Jeremy Renner from The Town.  This Hurt Locker star has a seriously intense look. Is the world ready for a dummy with an intense look?
• Geoffrey Rush from The King's Speech.  Animated face. Has worked with monkeys.

***

The winner will be will be announced on Oscar night on the Budding Ventriloquist simulcast. Or should that be simulblogging?

Or is it simulpost?  I like that one. I think adding that to the lexicon for the Net is worthy of consideration.  Right after webwaves.

Can you trademark a word?

***

It isn't really my male-pattern balding that makes me so obsessed with the "hair/acting success correlation."

Well, yes it is. I guess it's kind of a stupid and petty way to break down the nominees. I won't approach the other categories that way. At least not the actress categories.

Woody? Should he?

For the month of February, Budding Ventriloquist will explore the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture. The issue is not which one is "best." The issue is: Which movie would be even better if ventriloquism was part of the story?

***Third in a series***

***

TOY STORY 3

Opening Scene

Cowboy Woody (voice by Tom Hanks) walks into a below street level tavern, where pig Hamm (John Ratzenberger) is sitting sipping a brew. "Woody!" everybody shouts in a manner that conveys tradition. The bartender (voiced by Woody Harrelson) becomes confused because not only is his name Woody, but his voice is named Woody, too.   Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) enters from down the stairway, and calls Woody a "hockey puck." Woody and Woody (Woody) don't know whether to be offended or laugh off as a commentary on the sports bar decor. A marvelous piano jingle plays and opening credits role.

The plot thickens

Andy, the toys' owner, is old enough that he pretends that his toys sit in taverns now.  He's going off to Texas A & V (Agriculture and Ventriloquism) University. It is time to put his toys away.  The toys get put in a box and instead of being put in the attic, the box is donated to a day care center. Chaos ensues, and Woody calls on his friend Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen), and confuses the dirty rotten stinking lousy cheating little kids by pretending that Buzz is a ventriloquist dummy.  Buzz - as a dummy- talks to the kids about how to do home repair, the kids get really bored, get out their nap mats, and fall asleep.

Until it flows like molasses
All the main characters wind up on out of control skateboards for a chase scene. Rex (voiced by Wallace Shawn) talks a lot because he has a cool voice for cartoon characters.  Purple teddy bear Lotso (voiced by Ned Beatty) keeps getting nervous when he hears banjo music. Finally, Woody brings all the characters together, convinces them that Andy's new ventriloquist dummy will be a good addition to the gang, that Buzz was just pretending to be a dummy and has not gone to the "dark side." They all make nice, Randy Newman sings a gravelly ballot, and if you leave your email with the usher, you can get a digital movie merchandise catalog.

***

This movie was hard to spoof, what with it being animated and about toys, too.

***

Those of you who saw the "oops" two days ago where only part of this post got posted, sorry about that.  It was in post-production.

***

Of all the things I get to talk about in this blog, have I ever mentioned my passion for hot dogs? Such passion that I bring it up randomly?

There's never been a great novel about a man who loves hot dogs. Yet.  Just like there hasn't been a great ventriloquist novel.  Yet.

BREAKING NEWS: BV to cover royal wedding

Hudson, WI (VPI) - Dan Bushman, executive producer and co-host of Budding Ventriloquist Presents Gridiron Gurus,  annouced today that Budding Ventriloquist is commiting to cover the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William on April 29, 2011.

"We have a lot of stuff to figure out," Bushman said, setting his watch to London time. Bushman was the executive producer of the Budding Ventriloquist Winter Olympic Coverage in 2010.

"Covering the Winter Olympics almost ate our lunch, but we learned not to underestimate what can be done without leaving Hudson, Wisconsin."

Bushman annouced that he and George Budding, the cohost of the highly successful Gurus series, will coanchor the coverage. "George is working on how to say 'tea and crumpets' as we speak," Bushman said. "Though not in a particularly nice way. The idea will grow on him."

When asked if Max LeMonk and Steve Hideaway from the Winter Olympic coverage team would be part of the staff, Bushman said only that he could not talk about ongoing contract negotiations. "Getting top talent is always a challenge."

"We are gonig to pull out all the stops," Bushman said in his closing remarks. "Hopefully our audience on the webwaves does the same. Or, I mean, doesn't want us to stop. Right?"

***
More on this story as it develops.
***
VPI is Ventriloquist Press, International.

Oh, up your Victor-ola!

Fresh off the snub by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences at the Oscar nominations, now there's this.

***

I watched the whole darn program.  I watched Lady Gaga come out of an egg.  I watched Justin Bieber make hip-hop look cute.  I watched Bob Dylan enyoy being Bob Dylan. 

I watched The Claymaker, Clay Matthews of the World Champion Green Bay Packers (yeaAAAAA!!!), say a few words because he's damn cool for a football player.  I saw M&M (at last that's what they said his name was) imitate the moves of his physical therapist, Dr. Dre.

I watched when a woman sing about where her favorite dog was buried (honest to God!).  I watched Mick Jagger give a lesson in knowing how it's done. I watched Mick Jagger give me a lesson in the benefits of staying thin. I watched and realized I have been listening to Barbra Streisand all my life, and I haven't gotten tired of it.

I watched and realized that Rihanna the singer has nothing to do with Rhiannon, the Welsh witch the Fleetwood Mac sang about in 1978.

And I kept thinking, they still save the big awards for last.

But in the end, more disappointment knocked on my door.

So where was Grammy for Best Ventriloquist Recording? Best New Ventriloquist?

I did write them. I asked them to consider Budding Ventriloquist Presents Gridiron Gurus as a 20-track Album of the Year. I asked them to consider Week 8: The Blair Guru Project for some individual special consideration. And, I specifically asked them to just consider the audio of George and I singing Sleigh Ride and Auld Lang Syne.

Unlike last year when I bemoaned the Grammy snub, this year I did produce a body of work worthy of note, did I not?

I usually don't get this way, but I just want to say to them (whoever or whomever "them" are):

Snobs!

***

The real answer to this issue is Budding Ventriloquist: The Podcast. Tha'da-ed teach'em.

In-something...

For the next month, Budding Ventriloquist will explore the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture. The issue is not which one is "best." The issue is: Which movie would be even better if ventriloquism was part of the story?

***Second in a series***

Inception

Opening Scene

Leonardo DiCaprio washes up on a beach and is taken prisoner by (in the first twist) scrupulous Oriental thugs who bring him to a room. He has a conversation with a very intimidatingly scrupulous Oriental thug leader, who does not look like Ming the Merciless. Leonardo takes out a ventriloquist dummy and looks at his mouth. If the dummy talks but Leonardo's lips don't move, Leonardo is dreaming.  Turns out Leonardo has  created a technique to invade people's dreams as a ventriloquist, though the person he's invading believes he's a dummy.


The plot thickens
When trapped into using his gift not for good but for evil, he rounds up Jeff Dunham, Terry Fator, and other great ventriloquists who have been hiding in plain sight as entertainment superstars when in fact they are escaped renegade slaves of Ming the Merciless, who is trying to corner the world vase market. Leonardo explains that he will take the dream ventriloquism to the fourth level.  He'll make his dummy talk, who is actually a rich guy in dummy's clothing. That dummy will stay at a very funky hotel and acquire another dummy who will then in turn talk through the mouth of a very muppet-like puppet who may or may not be Leonardo's mother. The mother puppet has a fierce gunfight with an army of snow soldiers.

Until it runs like molasses

Just as the mother puppet is about to die, the bell hop from the hotel (who looks a lot like Charlie McCarthy) gets a cell phone call and realizes that his smarty phone is actually a bomb. As the bell hop suddenly needs to sneeze, time comes close to stopping, and Leonardo and his ex-wife fall into a monolithic world that looks a lot like the old Polish south side of Milwaukee, where she and his wife live in the flat above her (or his?) mother and father.  Realizing that all he needs is to wish upon a star, because it makes no difference who they are, the bell hop sneezes, the oriental thugs tip over Ming's tea, all the cars lose their tires in  the huge car chase, Jerry Lewis is everywhere, and Leonardo wakes up in the bosom of his family, but his dummy is on a plane with the rest of his ventriloquist compatriots.  The suitcase of money seems real enough. His kids are happy to have their daddy back, even if the kids both sound like Jerry Mahoney and Mortimer Snerd.  Are his lips moving?  The credits role...

"The End?"

***

The actual plot of Inception was more complicated than this. Sorry if I had to dummy down the whole thing.  If you are like me, you saw the movie a while ago. So you might be saying, "Oh yea, I remember it now. What parts did he make up for this spoof?"

***

A ventriloquism book about the Dummying Down of America? 

Get my publisher on the line.

***

This is one of the rare times that I've used a concept twice on my blog by writing this send up of Inception. If you noticed it, you get a Budding Ventriloquist tee shirt*.

They're on back order.  Don't plan to wear it on Valentine's Day. Definitely won't ship in time.

***

* Available in black, white, turquoise, and sage - perhaps all at once.

Gridiron Gurus - Super Bowl XLV

This is it. The last episode of Budding Ventriloquist Presents Gridiron Gurus for the season.  And how much cooler could it be than the show reveals whether the fearless prognosticators pick the Green Bay Packers (a personal favorite) or the Pittsburgh Steelers (a team that wears black).

The pick might surprise you. And for the first time all year, George and I are in total agreement.

Really.  It might. Or, it might not.

Enjoy.

(If it doesn't play here,  go to  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH4JClBLiWk.  It's too good to miss!)

***

To my flange* of regular readers and viewers:

Thanks for watching the season progress.  Now we, the entire production crew of BVPGG will have the off season to figure out how to make Gurus, Season 2 even bigger and better.  Believe it or not, George is already saying, "next year, let's try ..."

***

*A Flange is a group of baboons. Yes, I just love the word. No, you are not baboons to me. Far from it.

(Did I talk my way out of that one good enough? Hope so.)

The King's Dummy

For the next month, Budding Ventriloquist will explore the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture. The issue is not which one is "best." The issue is: Which movie would be even better if ventriloquism was part of the story?

***First in a series***

The King's Speech

Opening Scene
Prince Albert walks to the podium at Wembley Stadium and, because of a terrible stammering problem, makes the entire crowd rife with pain.  Because the crowd was all Brits, no one could tell, really, except for Prince Albert, of course.  He feels terrible for torturing the crowd.  Apparently, Brits just know when they do that to each other.

The plot thickens
The eventual Queen Mum, Albert's wife, goes to Lionel Logue - speech therapist, actor wannabe, Aussie.  He hands Prince Albert a ventriloquist dummy, and suggests that the prince would be able to rid himself of stammering (and forgive his mother) if he learned now to perform ventriloquism. The Prince at first rejects Logue's unconventional method.

Until it runs like molasses
The Prince goes to a party hosted by his brother, King Edward, and his gay lover - or so he assumed.  After finding out that Wallis Simpson was a woman (not Wallace...), the Prince returns to Logue, and learns to use his dummy to mock the Archbishop of Canterbury, and after becoming King George VI, uses ventriloquism to repel the Huns and claim victory in World War II.  Logue coaches King George in cussing and gets the King to believe that the audience for his radio addresses to the nation - the people of Britain - never see his lips move.

***

The trick of this series is going to be whether I can get to go to all of the movies nominated to have a good basis for making up this foolishness.  There's 10 in all. I've already seen three or four.

Will you, my flamboyance* of regular readers, be able to tell which ones I've seen and which ones I'm just faking?  (Yes, I realize that, in an of itself, is a ridiculous question, coming from a budding ventriloquist.)

Do you think I actually saw The King's Speech?

Hmmm, you say?

***

* A Flamboyance is a group of flamingos.

***

Do you think Geoffrey Rush might just be a nominee as a face that belongs on a ventriloquist dummy?

Ohhh, do I have an idea about a different way to consider the nominated actors. You see what's coming, don't you?

Why didn't I think of this before!