For Holly: BSG S2 soundtrack. Speaking of which, where are you in the show? Let me know when you're up to Pegasus, okay?

On that note, Catherine, have you watched Yesterday's Enterprise yet?

You know what makes typing really hard? Wearing a wrist brace. I think I might have some carpel tunnel going on; my left wrist starting hurting on Thursday, pretty much in the middle of the day, without cause so far as I could tell. And I was whining and carrying on, like, why does my wrist randomly hurt? Then last night, I picked up a cross-stitch, and the very second that I grasped the fabric just so with my left hand to start work, pain shot up through my wrist like a bolt. So I think I'm going to lay off the stitching for a little bit, see if that helps. I had been trying to finish this project for my cousin-in-law, whose due date was Friday (I finished Saturday!), but she still hasn't had the baby.

Laura and I went to see Sherlock Holmes again. I know Giacchino's going to win the Best Score Oscar for Up - which irritates me on several levels, not least of which is the fact that I thought his own score for Star Trek was better - but I wish that Hans Zimmer would win for SH. It's a beautiful score, it really is. Right now, I'm guessing the movie will win for Production Design. I was idly thinking as I watched this time around, since I didn't have to pay as close attention to the plot, that steampunk would be a good choice for future home decoration. You've got the Victoriana, the fun gadgetry, but also the room in which to incorporate a lot of Neoclassicism. I've already thought about how to recreate some of the stuff from the film on a budget. Yes, this is how I spend my daydreaming driving time.

ETA: Eh, I did okay. Starring the ones I got right, as well as a few notes.

Oscar nomination predictions! In the tradition of Oscar Watch, I will make some No Guts No Glory picks, and will mark them accordingly. I don't feel tremendously confident in making picks this year, because I haven't really followed the race like I have in years past. Ah well.

Best Picture - 7/10
Avatar*
The Hurt Locker*
Inglourious Basterds*
Up in the Air*
Invictus (This went to An Education, which is fine.)
Up*
A Single Man (I picked the wrong man! They liked the Serious one!)
Precious*
The Blind Side*
Star Trek (NGNG) (Wrong SF film. :( Post on this to follow, because I'm sad.)

Best Director - 5/5
Kathryn Bigelow*
James Cameron*
Quentin Tarantino*
Lee Daniels*
Jason Reitman*

Best Actor - 5/5
Jeff Bridges*
George Clooney*
Morgan Freeman*
Colin Firth*
Jeremy Renner (NGNG)*

Best Actress - 5/5
Gabourey Sidibe*
Meryl Streep*
Sandra Bullock*
Helen Mirren*
Carey Mulligan*

Best Supporting Actor 4/5
Christoph Waltz*
Woody Harrelson*
Christopher Plummer*
Stanley Tucci*
Anthony Mackie (NGNG) (Hurt Locker support not as crazy as I thought; went with Matt Damon.)

Best Supporting Actress - 4/5
Mo'Nique*
Anna Kendrick*
Vera Farmiga*
Diane Kruger (NGNG) - (Shut up Penelope Cruz I blame you grrr.)
Penelope Cruz (this is the one I think is most likely to miss out since Nine tanked, but she did just win and this is kind of a weak category this year)* (Although yay for Maggie Gyllenhaal! Stupid Cruz, your movie sucked and now Diane has no nomination.)

I don't feel like doing the other categories. Avatar will be nominated for every tech category, the writing noms will likely follow the Writer's Guild nominations pretty well - switch out Quentin and Inglourious Basterds for The Hangover in original screenplay, Nick Hornby and An Education and Bright Star by Jane Campion (Bright Star totally shut out! Too bad.) for Julie and Julia and Star Trek in adapted. I don't even know which foreign films and documentaries are eligible this year, which is...weird. Eh. (I'm still getting up to watch the nominations, though, so I'm not that apathetic.

Did I, or did I not, call Christoph's acceptance speech for the SAG awards? For his Oscar acceptance speech, I'm assuming that he'll talk about what it means to be a part of an Academy dedicated to film, and how in some ways the cast and crew that made Inglourious Basterds is like the Academy, with Quentin as the president; everyone working to glorify film; etc, etc.

I may or may not have clapped my hands like a toddler when IB won Best Ensemble. That, coupled with Avatar losing the PGA to The Hurt Locker, makes me think IB has a real shot as a dark horse Best Picture winner, and that would be awesome. I haven't had one of "my" films win BP since ROTK.

Other than that, the SAG awards were nearly identical to the Golden Globes just six days earlier, which highlights one of my biggest problems with award shows (my biggest problem is genre bias): what I like to call the "Homecoming Queen" effect. When I was in high school, the so-called popular kids were outnumbered by the geek collective made up of band, drama, and FCA. We could have easily voted for our own when it came to dances, even making concessions to only choose the more popular of the non-populars, the cross-overs, the ones who stood on the boundary. But the super-popular girls always ended up nominated, which meant that the geek collective had to be voting for them, too. Which didn't make sense, because we didn't like them. But when you got your ballot, there didn't seem to be any point to vote for the trumpet player who was really nice or the stage manager who was really funny; they weren't going to win, so why waste the vote?

And I think this is what happens with the Oscars and related shows. Once the probable winners make themselves known on the critical circuit (which in its own way follows the same SOP and barring a few exceptions locks down itself within the first two weeks), everyone else pretty much follows suit. There might be a single acting category that could go either way, but even that is usually confined to an either-or between two candidates. And there's NEVER any feeling that all five are equally likely to win. So I've reached the point, as I do every year, where a lot of the fun is gone because we already know who's going to win 75% of the awards come Oscar night. :(

It's Christmas Eve eve! When I was a kid, and my year hinged around this time of year, this was the day filled with the most torment. I would make myself a countdown calendar to Christmas on Thanksgiving, and cross off the days - if I'd known that actual calendars existed, and not only did they count down to Christmas, but also gave you a piece of chocolate on each day? I don't even know. It's probably a good thing my parents hid their existence. But by the time I got to the day before Christmas Eve, I could hardly stand waiting anymore. You might think Christmas Eve was worse, being the day before and all, but we had a big holiday meal and I had opening a single present to look forward to; it was always this antepenultimate* day that tested my patience the most.

If things go as planned, I will go see Avatar today. Eee! Although not in 3D; I'm not ready to tax my eyeballs and brain in such a way, considering I still have a hard time with hand-held cameras and sometimes even just big screens. We had been talking about waiting to do a double-feature with Sherlock Holmes after Christmas, but those two movies don't really work for me, mostly because Avatar is so long. It would be like going to see another movie after watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies, unless that other movie was also one of the Lord of the Rings movies (I did two in a row, but never pulled off the whole trilogy, sadface).

Every time a big movie like this comes out, I wonder what the Drafthouse would have done for it, what special drink they would have concocted, what new item on the menu, whatever. For the second Pirates, they had a live Pirate band and tropical frozen drinks; for the Chronicles of Narnia, to enter the individual theater, you had to walk through a wardrobe with the back cut out, into which they put a bunch of fake Christmas trees, and they had Turkish Delight on the menu; for Hot Fuzz, they came around at the end of the show and gave everyone a free mini-donut. I really miss the Drafthouse.

*Did you really think I'd pass up a chance to use "antepenultimate" in casual conversation? What a fantastic word. Seriously, like, does anyone really need a word that means "next to the next to last?" At least just "penultimate" has legit reasons to occasionally pop up, you know? Oh, Romans.

New batch of icons; one set for a movie that came out three months ago, and another for a TV show that no one else watches except for me (and Holly (hi!)). Yeah!

Inglourious Basterds:

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

Beverly Crusher Star Trek:

20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

32. 33.

Yesterday we went to my Uncle Paul's to celebrate my Grandpa's birthday; we originally had planned a get together two weeks ago, after his actual birthday, but then my cousin Angela spent four days in the hospital because of a particularly virulent stomach bug, so they quite wisely canceled.

It was a nice, low-key affair, and it was nice to see everyone, as we only get together three or four times a year. My cousin Duncan's wife Heather is eight and a half months pregnant, so we had some fun talking about upcoming baby stuff. And my cousin Elliot's wife Tabitha is a serious crocheter, so we had a lot of crafting chit-chat.

I didn't get called in to work today, and Sarah was home sick, so we worked on blankets and watched TV together. The library got in the Angela Lansbury Sweeney Todd on DVD, and as you may remember, Sarah was obsessed with ST when it came out, so we had fun watching that. I'd seen a few numbers on YouTube, but I enjoyed everything a lot more watching it in context. Loved the set design; that kind of deconstructed, movable set is just about my favorite when it comes to theater. Speaking of which, watching that and listening to my parents talk about going to the local dinner theater in the next few weeks has made me decide that I definitely miss the theater as well. I'm not really in a position to act in anything, but I would very much like to at least go see something. I wish everything weren't so expensive, though. :(

Best Golden Globes ever, Y/Y?

I love movies.

National Board of Review announces Thursday, the critics awards will follow in the weeks to come, and the Oscar season will be underfoot! I thought it might be interesting this year to put out my predictions before we have any precursors, just based on buzz and my gut instincts; it's much easier to predict right before the Academy nominations come out, because you have the critics, Globes, and guilds to look at, and barring a few surprises, the actual Oscar nominations aren't that difficult to guess. I think I'm more interested in seeing how much the race changes from what a lot of people are guessing right now, than I am in trying to actually guess the nominations for reals.

Anyway!

Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Milk
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Kristen Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
James Franco, Milk
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader

I won't do all the other categories, but I think the techs will be dominated by Benjamin Button and The Dark Knight, and that screenplay and editing will, as per usual, mirror the films in Best Picture and the acting categories. I think Australia is definitely dead in the water and might score a tech or two, maybe sound, cinematography. Slumdog Millionaire will be your uplifting indie film of the year, a la Little Miss Sunshine or Juno, but won't gain anywhere near as much traction since the stars are Indian actors who don't stand a chance in hell of getting nominated.

People on this list I think are the most shaky: Taraji P. Henson, Robert Downey Jr., Melissa Leo, and Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't have much doubt that Kate Winslet will get a double nomination; the only stumbling block is if voters don't buy her as supporting for The Reader, and she cancels herself out. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Anne Hathaway fall off; she had a lot of early buzz, but it's been kind of eaten up by Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet, and it may be the kind of performance that ends up being forgotten later on, especially since Rachel Getting Married might score a supporting nod, but isn't likely to make it in any other categories except Original Screenplay.

It'll be interesting in a few weeks to come back, and see which actors have locked in after at least one inevitably storms through the critics' choices, picking up at least half of all mentions (like Helen Mirren, Amy Ryan, et cetera in years past).

I voted first thing today, and waited for five minutes. Ha. My vote honestly doesn't matter at all, as Kansas is obviously a red state (I think we were 66% for Bush in '04) and will be this time, as well, but my mom would have yelled at me otherwise. I will just say that, as far as media coverage goes, I wish there had been more mention of the fact that this is a historic election no matter the outcome: either we will have our first black president, or our first female vice-president, and I have seen very little about the latter.

Saw Changeling, which was good, although the third act dragged on far too long, and someone needs to keep Eastwood from "writing" his own music. Angelina was fab, though, and I hope she gets a nomination this year.

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23, Frederic Chopin, The Pianist soundtrack. Janusz Olejniczak, piano.

I finally finished the movie Grand Canyon, which I only watched because it has Mary McDonnell in it. She's wonderful in it, as per usual, but what a talky, pretentious movie. All text about theme, just...no one TALKS like that. I hate movies where every character has essentially the same viewpoint and they just expound on it in scene after scene where very little actually happens. Anyway.

What a day so far! This morning Laura and I decided to go in to Grandpa's, to maybe do the thrift store circuit or just hang out. About a mile from our house, on our usual route, I saw what I thought was a gray squirrel in the median of the road. It was a tiny kitten. We stopped and it came right up to me. Guys, it can't be more than six weeks old. We brought it home, and I think it's a done deal; this must be the year of Felicitous Pet Rescue and Adoption. The kitten was dirty and ate its weight in chow, but it seems healthy and active and if it had been dumped (which is our guess), it couldn't have been long ago. Gray and white, very cute. It's sleeping in a crate right now.

We went in town, then decided to stop at Big Lots to pick up a little food dish and anything else we thought we didn't have on hand. Their beds were expensive, and I'd already grabbed food at Target, so we just got the dish. However, at the front of the store they have their DVD rack. Usually there's a lot of direct-to-DVD crap, old movies I've never heard of, and recent dreck, but every now and then you find a gem; I bought Breakfast on Pluto there about six months ago, and Laura picked up Goodbye Lenin in the last year.

Today, I bought: The Dark Crystal Collector's Edition, Little Women Collector's Edition with book, Sweet and Lowdown, Longford, Junebug, The Squid and the Whale, American Splendor, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Eight movies, at three dollars apiece, for a grand total of $24. Twenty four dollars for eight brand-new DVDs! Exciting times.

And the day's only half over! What else will happen?!

ETA: Say hello!

Grandpa is home! He came home earlier this week; his last doctor's appointment, they decided that just letting this drug work its way out of his system over at least a few months wasn't going to work, especially since his aches and pains and stiffness and swelling was getting worse. So, they put him on prednesone (me?), and it was a MIRACLE. Once his lab work checked out, he packed straight up. Since then, he's worked on lawnmowers, weed-eated, worked in his garden, drove hither and yon, et cetera. Very happy times.

I'm applying to some actual grown-up adult jobs. Keep your fingers crossed.

FINALLY saw Indiana Jones. I really, really liked it. Probably because Karen Allen is awesome and wonderful and beautiful, and I'm so, so glad they brought Marion back. But I also just liked the whole style of it, the retro 50s pastiche both in production design but also in plot, and of course the cinematography was gorgeous (Kaminski FTFW), etc, etc. CATE. Amazing. We saw a trailer for Benjamin Button and I am way stoked.

Thank God Memorial Day weekend is finally over. We had Marshall's high school graduation party on Saturday, which involved weeks of planning and preparation and much cleaning and cooking on the parts of me and Laura. (And not much from someone else; guess who!) Everything went well, except too many people showed up and ate too much food, so we had very few leftovers, which is always the reward when doing this type of thing.

It's getting too hot to have oatmeal for breakfast in the morning. I'm kind of stuck on what to switch in. I'm trying to cut high fructose corn syrup from my diet, so.

Still have not seen Indiana Jones. Laura has no interest in going, which means it will probably be just me and Sarah. Sometime. Maybe.

People, if I do not watch at least one of the new movies I checked out from the library, you have my permission to shoot me. Also, this is the third time I've checked out Rome S2D1, and I will watch at least one episode, so help me. I do not know what my damage is.

I am really, really excited for Indiana Jones, but Marshall's graduation party is on Saturday, so I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get to see it till next week. I need to see Cate as a Soviet dominatrix NOW.

Yesterday I had to scrape ice off my windshield. Today I went outside in short sleeves without a jacket. Oh, March, you crazy bitch.

I'm quite proud of myself for finishing act one of my Lizzie Borden screenplay, without deadlines or external pressure. I wrote this morning, and it's still just trucking along. I have felt very productive recently, which is a nice change of pace. After coming home in May, I've had extended periods of blah, and it's good to have some purpose. Part of it the last week, I know, has been because I just joined the Y, and am exercising again, which always makes one feel better.

When my mom and I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl, we did so with free passes to an advance screening she got from a friend. There, we met an older retired couple who have the inside track to all the free KC screenings, and have hooked us up. Tomorrow, I will hopefully (if I didn't RSVP too late) get to see Run, Fat Boy, Run. Laura can't come, since she has two midterms that afternoon :(, but I'm still excited anyway.

Saw The Golden Age on Friday; thoughts will follow. No real spoilers, but I'll continue after the next paragraph if anyone wants to stay purely unspoiled.

Lovely, beautiful fall weather last week and this week. We had a strange, very uncomfortable week of Indian summer in the 80s and brushing against 90 the first week of October, but everything's now seasonally appropriate again. KU had their Late Night (the first practice of the season, though it's more of an event and show than an actual practice) on Friday, so now basketball's on the horizon for real. And now we're just about up to Halloween, and I can almost literally feel my mood improving every day as we head into my favorite seasons of the year.

GA thoughts: I really liked it, even though I kind of agree with all the points from the various negative reviews: it was overwrought, trying too hard to be "epic," the love story was less interesting than the politics and the rest, etc. But it was beautiful, and Cate was just amazing and luminous and wonderful, and she handles the mercurial extremes of Elizabeth's personality so deftly that even the fairly ludicrous scene of the Queen physically assaulting one of her attendants ends up working. I could have done with Raleigh, as he is far less interesting than Leicester, Essex, or even the regular courtiers. Samantha Morton was fantastic as Mary, Queen of Scots (although I was terribly thrown by her accent, as Mary was French), and I always love seeing Tom Hollander. Laura and I agreed that the Elizabethan hair and wardrobe really suited him. I'll probably try to see it again while it's still in theaters, because it just needs to be seen on the big screen (the Armada sequence is gorgeous). But this week is Nightmare Before Christmas, which I've never seen on the big screen and have missed the previous releases, so I'm very excited.

Ooo, a five minute trailer for Golden Age, which really isn't terribly different from the theatrical trailer, except more expand-y and delicious.

Laura informs me this is coming out the same day as Run, Fat Boy, Run, which is awesome. I haven't been to the movies since...Bourne Ultimatum? It's been awhile, at any rate, and so a double feature is supremely exciting to look forward to.

Speaking of Elizabeth, I love watching old movies or tv shows and then watching newer versions. Often because the newer stuff is more sophisticated and such, and it feeds the I think rather ordinary ego of feeling that one is living at the apex of civilization and technology, but also just as a way to watch more old movies that I wouldn't see otherwise. So I watched The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (or, more correctly, about the first half before I got tired, and then it had to go back to the library) with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn.

1. Errol Flynn is supremely hot.
2. Bette Davis scares me. Her EYES, people. They are going to EAT MY SOUL.
3. I love Technicolor. It has just such a specific look, and much the same way I have a hard time envisioning World War II being anything other than Black and White, I think of the past as being in Technicolor.
4. I don't ever want to see Bette Davis mack on Errol Flynn ever again. Kthx, Hwood.

Laura and I went over to our Gamp's house last weekend, I think, and watched a goodly half or three-quarters of The Dawn Patrol with Errol Flynn, and I tell you. I may have searched him on IMDB, and I may be checking some more of his movies out at the library shortly.

Did I tell people I'd started watching Rome? I have the last two episodes of S1 to finish, but it's really good. I, of course and predictably, ended up with a crush on Caesar. And may be thinking about searching Ciaran Hinds' filmography after I'm done with Mr. Flynn.

BTW, Heroes premiere reaction at PFTT.

Went and saw Zodiac today, which was AMAZING. Like, I seriously, seriously loved it a lot. It was two and a half hours long, and I was literally leaning forward and sitting on the edge of my seat (for reals, not for metaphors) for most of it. Also, Jake Gyllenhaal was supremely beautiful and I'm very happy that we will someday wed.

I found this website that translates things in and out of different languages and spits out the final English translation; like what we used to do with Babelfish, only a hundred times more ridiculous. I've been laughing at this all night. Here is the translation of that first paragraph of this post:

"It has gone to see that the animal has regulated today the ASTONISHMENT was. Axis, I have appreciate serious, seriously a lot. They were two and a half of the hours of the length and is supported to me literally in the front part and they are seated to me on the edge of my center (for the reals, not for the metaphors) for relative the greater section. Jake Gyllenhaal was ulteriorly beautiful supremely and I is very lucky that we wed one day sake."

Saw Breach last night, which I really, really enjoyed. It's from the director of Shattered Glass, so if you liked that film I'd recommend this one. Chris Cooper was excellent, the movie itself is engaging and interesting without being sensationalistic; it's all very grounded. I did a little research afterwards (okay, I got on Wikipedia), and it was far more based in fact than I would have assumed.

I'm so looking forward to Zodiac next week, you have no idea. And then, 300. And then, Sunshine. And much later, Hot Fuzz (OMG am I excited for Hot Fuzz).