MY OSCAR PREDICTIONS


Best Picture:
I keep fluctuating. The obvious answer is Avatar, but I keep thinking Hurt Locker will upset it, letting Cameron have best director, but now I'm thinking that I'm overestimating the Academy and I will give AVATAR as my final answer

Best Actor:
Jeff Bridges

Best Actress:
Geez, Sandra Bullock doesn't deserve it; Streep doesn't deserve it for THIS movie, as good as she was; Gabourey is too new to win over Meryl Streep; that leaves Helen Mirran and Carey Mulligan....I'ma go with Helen Mirran.

Supporting Actor:
Christoph Waltz. "That's a BINGO!"

Supporting Actress:
Mo'Nique.

Director:
James Cameron. I mean, Avatar is no great film but it's a stunning achievement, so I think he deserves Best Director

Animated Feature:
UP will most likely win, and it was great, but in my heart I think Coraline should win.

Foreign Language:
White Ribbon. Henake has finally made an accessible movie and it will win.

Visual Effects:
Avatar of course. Seems silly to even have this category this year. Heh, imagine Star Trek wins? That would be hysterical.

Art Direction:
Again, Avatar should win every visual award.

Those are the only awards I care about or know anything about.

This is from 1966.
Can you imagine CBS playing this today? A full minute of dialogue-free, hand-drawn, irony-free animation, with nothing to actually promote? This would probably be done in 3D computer graphics and squashed to the side to make room for a commercial for an upcoming show, while the whole thing has an animated "Dancing With The Stars" pop up on the bottom of the screen.

TICK...TICK...TICK...

It was a beautiful November afternoon, so I took the kids do a little nature walk / hiking path thing near our house. We walked and explored for an hour or so, met other people, saw fishermen, threw rocks into the lake. My son said it was beautiful and my daughter said it was "like a miracle." To sum up, we had fun.

Cut to 8 hours later. I'm in bed with my wife, watching LOST on DVD. There's literally one minute left in the episode and I unconciously brush my right arm with my left and feel a little scab, or dot of dried blood. I wipe it again and realize it's not a scab. EW! It's a freaking bug! I looked closer and saw that, yeah, it was a bug with its head in my arm. OH GOD! So we stop the DVD and I go to the bathroom while my bugphobic wife is doing her best to not explode.

She called the Nurse's hotline as I went online and we came to the realization that even thought it's been 8 hours, it's still well within the period of safety and I was not likely to have been exposed to any illnesses yet. This was especially true because the tick was not engorged. It was as if it had just settled in when I noticed it.

I got the tweezers and tried to grab it without...ew...removing its head. I pulled about 4 times and it wouldn't come out. Ew Ew Ew.... So I took my shirt off and got serious. That's when I saw the others.

There was another on my shoulder and another near my other shoulder. How my wife didn't pack up and leave right then I don't know. I brushed one of them and it took off. It hadn't dug in yet. We got it off and put it in a ziploc bag. I gently tugged at the other one on my shoulder it came right out. Into the bag. I went back to the one on my arm and went back to tugging. Pop! I got it out in one piece and put it into the bag.

Then we thought..."Oh crap...the kids." Both kids had had showers and were already asleep. How do we wake them up and say, "We need to see if there are bugs burrowing into you, like Daddy."? Luckily, they're solid sleepers and we just went in, rolled them over, pulled up their shirts and pants and rifled through their hair and found absolutely nothing. There were 3 total and I got all of them.

So I'll go to the doctor on Monday and see if he wants to give me any antibiotics or anything, but I'd say I'm out of the woods. Ha Ha. Get it?

I saw this poster in a bus stop that was in front of a Nathan's. I thought that was pretty funny.

*EDIT*
Apparently there was some confusion, so let me explain.
The movie looks terrible. The thing I thought was funny was the big sign advertising OLD DOGS in front of a hot dog restaurant.

WEEKEND OF INSANE MOVIES



This past weekend I saw three films that really excited me. When I say "excited", I mean I was invested, moved, shocked, and/or genuinely amused by all three.

The first was "Antichrist," an unrated thriller(?) with only two speaking parts. In essence, a couple loses their son to a tragic accident while they are making love. The wife is inconsolable with grief and guilt. Luckily(?) her husband is a therapist, so he takes her to the woods to an isolated cabin to work through it all. Unfortunately, a bunch of unpleasant things happen. The film starts off beautifully, with slow-motion black and white footage of the child's demise intercut with graphic, hardcore sex. The next 45 minutes or so are a totally logical, devastating, straight-forward story. The next 45 minutes is rife with symbolism and artsiness and every time I thought I knew what was happening, I was wrong. The film succeeded in shocking me and surprising me and making me wince. There is more genital mutilation in this film than I've seen in a movie, ever. But I guess that's not saying much. I was engrossed and grossed out throughout. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone and I didn't enjoy the experience, but it was interesting nonetheless.

The second was "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs." I've read the short book several times to my kids and I really enjoyed it. The movie trailer came out a few months ago and I was angry because of how different it was. It seemed like a totally different story with one element kept it; food falls from the sky. Well, I was right about that much, but after it got universally good reviews I took the family to see it in 3D. The 3D was negligible, but it enhanced the "falling from the sky" effect. The movie was really fun. There were more than a few moments that I found genuinely funny and clever. It was fast and crazy with a few token "learning moments" but I really enjoyed it, much to my own surprise. The last 20 minutes or so was so completely bugnuts bizarre, my wife looked over at one point and physically lowered my hand from my forehead. I couldn't believe the absolute weirdness they took the climax to. But overall, I wouldn't say it deserves any awards, but it was a really fun experience.

The third and final film of the weekend was "Synechdoche, NY." There was nothing fun about this film. It was depressing as all hell, and I was enthralled by it. Like Antichrist, I didn't know exactly what was going on, but the emotional aspect of it came through really strongly. I would have to say it's about a man's struggle to understand life and come to grips with his own eventual death. It is completely unrealistic by design, but I found it to walk JUST outside the line of making sense. I kept watching it going, "that was symbolic of something...not sure exactly what, but I understand the basic gist." For example, one character's house is always on fire, but nobody seems to care and it's never explained. David Lynch is a director who uses surreal touches to heighten a mood, usually nothing else. This film felt totally sure of its structure and I felt like I missed a good deal of the director's intent. With all that said, I was thoroughly engaged and emotionally moved by it. By contrast, Francis Ford Coppola's recent film, "Youth Without Youth" was another surreal, artsy story about life, but I felt completely bored by it. Synechdoche, NY is a film I would highly recommend to those with daring cinematic tastes.

This video is exactly the kind of thing I would have loved in High/Middle School. It's a simple fable with cute animation and some truly bizarre and imaginative character design.
It also reminds me a bit of the film "Everybody Rides the Carousel," which I saw in High School psychology class. That film was also animated and explained the eight ages of human life and used different animals to symbolize fear, independence, love, etc. I admit part of the reason I liked it was the simplistic symbolism made me feel smart. But I asked my teacher for a copy of the tape after class and I still have it.
This is a lot less subtle, and I doubt it's meant for children, although children were treated with a lot more respect and less coddling back then, so who knows? Plus, it's blatantly anti-war, and I can't imagine that would be promoted in schools.

A GLORIOUS DAWN

This is beautiful and wonderful.
"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."