I'm absurdly pleased by the fact that I called Alan Arkin. And also totally happy for him, obviously.

Missed a few others, no big deal, although I'm not happy that Children of Men didn't win cinematography. I liked Pan's Labyrinth a lot, but no. Children of Men. That movie was GORGEOUS. Should have figured that the Dreamgirls songs would cancel each other out, and I wanted to call Lives of Others because I'd been hearing the buzz on that over Pan's, but all in all, not a bad ballot this year.

Oh, Marty. I totally cried you guys. And even though I missed BP, it's okay, because The Departed was FTFW, and I'm so glad that in either its case or LMS's, they were movies that were good at what they were. LMS was a great comedy, Departed was a great gangster action flick. And that you don't have to make a deep, important movie about important things to be the best movie of the year.

I like when movies win, not films. There is a difference.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes available on YouTube and Google Video. There's a lot. Most I haven't seen. I found this page tonight, and have since been occupied finding the necessary programs to download stuff from YouTube, convert it to .avi files, and burn them onto DVDs. The DVD part may be prohibitively too cumbersome--I can't burn them, UT Laura would have to, and that's a lot of shlepping of files back and forth--and I may just burn them on CD to watch on the computer. But still. If I can't get them on DVD (WHY WORLD, WHY NOT ON DVD, ALL OF THEM), then that would be the next best thing.

Is it can be no more grading times now plis?

My official Oscars prediction list:

Picture: Little Miss Sunshine
Director: Martin Scorsese
Actress: Helen Mirren
Actor: Forest Whitaker
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson
Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin
Editing: The Departed
Score: The Queen
Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine
Adapted Screenplay: The Departed
Cinematography: Children of Men
Foreign Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Costumes: Marie Antoinette
Art Direction: Pan's Labyrinth
Song: Listen, Dreamgirls
Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth

We'll see how I fare tomorrow. I'm very excited for the Oscars this year. Last year kind of sucked, as I hadn't seen a lot of the movies and wasn't really pulling for many people strongly; I feel more invested this year. Plus, I would totally be happy if three of the five BP nominees won (Departed, LMS, Queen), which is HIGHLY unusual. And since those are probably the top three going in, I hopefully won't be shocked and appalled (CRASH). I've resigned myself to Hudson winning, which still irks me, but whatever. I am going with Arkin, because I think LMS has the momentum and the guilds (PGA, WGA, SAG), and winning just BP and probably screenplay (unless The Queen sneaks up) feels a little soft. One supporting win will be more substantial, and Murphy's weaker. I also kind of wish O'Toole could grab this one, just because he's so amazing and this is probably his last chance, but Whitaker's been almost as much a juggernaut as Mirren.

Speaking of which, I saw her at some function this weekend wearing heavy plastic stacked heeled hooker shoes. She's amazing. I want some kind of Ocean's 11 movie, except with women: Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, Meryl Streep, Mary McDonnell, Cate Blanchett, Emma Thompson, etc, etc. Would that not be the most beautiful thing ever?

It is 83 degrees in Austin today.

EIGHTY-THREE DEGREES, THREE DAYS BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY.

*stabs Austin, kills it with fire*

This will make sense only to my sister. To borrow a word from the TWOP Pixel Challenges: "THEFT!"



The only rivalry you're going to have, Hugs, is the one with yourself, trying to top that outfit.