Stream of Consciousness Oscars

Ok, so this week was finally a week in which nothing happened worth talking about, and the most eventful thing was that I spent wayyy too many hours working on my paper for integrated practice (thank God, I finally finished a draft a few hours ago), so I thought I would do a running commentary of the Oscars as I watch them, as I (unexplainably) watch them every year.

First thought--Oh my God, the stage is set up like American Idol. It's infiltrated everything. Plus Hugh Jackman is singing. Please tell me there aren't three judges, one grouchy, one gangster, and one drunk/high.

I'm pretty sure I'd rather see Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing/Wolverine.

Is that Anne Hathaway's real voice?
What is with the weird techno routine?
Please, Hugh, stop singing. Really. Just do a good action scene.

Tilda Swinton is one odd bird. Also, how did she win for Michael Clayton? That was the weirdest/dumbest/most boring movie ever. Or at least in the past few years. At least Anjelica Huston hasn't aged in years and is a very good actress. And I'm glad Whoopi is back, and referencing Sister Act. Holy crap, Goldie Hawn needs a larger dress.

Penelope=Best Supporting Actress. Darn it, I wanted Viola Davis to get it. Plus I think Penelope may pass out or have a collapsed lung.

Tina Fey + Steve Martin= two of the funniest people ever. Except when Steve Martin is trying to imitate Peter Sellers. HAHA jab at Scientology. Take that, scifi weirdos.

Best Original Screenplay= Dustin Lance Black (Milk). This kid was like, 26 when he wrote this. He looks about 15. And he's crying. *Awkward* Also, this is not a place for political speeches.
Best Adapted Screenplay=Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionare. Hurray, I loved this movie so much.

Jennifer Aniston + Jack Black seems like an odd pairing.
Movie yearbook? Is that their hip new concept to get more people to watch the Oscars? That music is certainly annoying.

Best Animated film=WALL-E. Hooray. It would have been a shame if it hadn't won, really.
Best Animated short film=La Maison en Petits Cubes. This looks weird. Where do you even see these?

This set change, for production design, is quite interesting. I quite like it.

Best art direction=The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think this is deserving, the art direction was really well done in this; it had a very distinctive look.
Best Costume design (my favorite award): The Duchess. Yay!!! I was so afraid it was giong to be Milk, since it's so political. But the Duchess's costumes were amazing.
Best makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This was deserving, but why were there only 3 nominees for this?

Also, I can see how they're trying to shorten things--each presenter is presenting 3 or 4 awards. Interesting. I wonder if people got ticked off since less people got asked to present. They do seem to have more montages, so maybe that's where they're making it up.

Romance movie montage: Finally, recognizing check flicks. It's about time they talked about more than serious movies.

Ok, I'm glad other people think Joaquin Phoenix is being ridiculous. Ben Stiller's imitation is wayyy too apt. Haha, Hasidic meth lab.

Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire. Hooray again! This movie deserves every award it gets.

Ahh what is with the really brief presentations and then breaking to commercial?
And why did the comedy montage include a whole bunch of serious clips?

Best Live action short film: Toyland (Germany). Again, how do you get to see these? Also, 14 years for 12 minutes???

Oh no, more singing. I get they're trying to honor musicals. But this is a seriously confusing montage. Hugh Jackman is not equal to Gene Kelly. Sorry, Hugh. At least Beyoncé is an actual performer. And Zac Efron. Mostly. Hmm, created by Baz Luhrmann. I should have suspected.

Best Supporting Actor: Once again presented by 5 past winners. What happen to the winner the year before doing it? Where's Javier Bardem?? Also, is it just me, or does Philip Seymour Hoffman get nominated in something every year?

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger. It would have been a serious tragedy if he hadn't won, and I'm pretty sure if anybody else did, they would feel eternally guilty. Everybody in the audience is crying or on the verge of it. Which of course has set me off. I'm amazed that none of his family started crying.

Best Documentary: Man On Wire. Never heard of it. How do you see THESE? What is up with all these movies winning things that the world at large has never seen? And why is one of the winners doing magic tricks on stage??

Best Documentary Short Subject: Smile Pinki. This looks to be about a girl getting cleft palate surgery in India, but I can't be sure.

Outstanding visual effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I get that this was tricky, to have so many Brad Pitts, but I think Dark Knight deserved it--you never questioned all the crazy high tech stuff that happened in there.

Outstanding sound editing: The Dark Knight. I kind of think WALL-E deserved this, since most of the movie was sound effects.

Best Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire. I don't really get what this means, so I don't really have a comment on it.

Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire, again. I think this is deserved; they incorporated so many different scenes, between Jamal's childhood in the slums, his job as a "chai boy", and while he was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. And it was all very seamless.

Jerry Lewis gets an award: Again, thank goodness we're finally honoring comedy.

Best Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire. Again, I'm glad; I loved this soundtrack almost as much as the movie, especially "Latika's song" and the song at the end, "Jai Ho", where all the main characters did a Bollywood dance.

Best Original Song: My 2nd favorite category, because they perform them all. I didn't know John Legend sang the WALL-E song! John Legend, get out of "Jai Ho" and stick to your own song. Ok, John Legend DIDN'T sing the WALL-E song, it was Peter Gabriel, but he refused to come for some reason. Winner: Slumdog Millionaire, "Jai Ho". As I said, I really liked this song, although I would have liked WALL-E to win just for a change. This is 5 in a row for Slumdog.

Best Foreign Film: Departures (Japan), about an unemployed classical musician who gets a job in a mortuary. Ok.... I liked the director's speech, though: "I'm very very happy". Well, i'm glad.

In Memoriam: Great choice of song to have Queen Latifah sing (finally..i haven't liked the montage songs so far).

Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire. Well, I didn't see that coming. Not. At least he actually jumped up and down, since I'm pretty sure everybody wants to.

Ahhhh there are so many commercials. It has now been 3 hours. End already. At least I know how long my laptop battery can last.

Best Actress: Whoa, Sophia Loren looks rough. Can we say, Botox and implants?
Winner: Kate Winslet. I was really hoping it would be Anne Hathaway, but I like Kate Winslet too, even though I haven't seen (and really don't want to see) the Reader.

Best Actor: Adrian Brody, WHAT is wrong with your hair??
winner: Sean Penn, Milk. I think expected that, really. He called the Academy "commie, homo loving sons of guns". You said it first, Sean, you said it first.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. Yay!! This movie totally deserved it. A happy ending wins an Oscar at last.


A few closing remarks: I can't say Hugh Jackman "hosted". We saw him all of 3 times. Thankfully. I have to say I much prefer Ellen.
The new way they're doing actor and actress nominations (having past winners each present one nominee) is interesting. I'm not sure I like it.
Why the heck is this still so long??

And....
Weeks till Spring Break:2

On that note, good night.

Contemplations on the weekend

Thankfully, the days since Tuesday have been better. I got a new window on Wednesday (if this happens to you, I recommend Safelite to replace your glass). I've been trying to put this behind me, but sometimes I just get ticked off--whoever did this, for whatever reason, forced me to pay $200 for a new window (hopefully i'll get reimbursed by my insurance, but I couldn't exactly let my car sit windowless while I waited for them to work things out), which was several weeks of grocery money for me. Which just ticks me off; also, I won't get reimbursed for my GPS, which I had really started to depend on as a seriously directionally challenged person. Which means I won't get another one for a long time, if ever. BLAH STUPID THIEVES.

Moving on...

I had Friday off, from class and work (I was supposed to work, but I ended up not being needed), so I cooked dinner for Brian (stuffed shells and garlic bread, and homemade brownie sundaes), and then we watched Battlestar Galactica (ony 5 episodes left!!! They're FINALLY starting to explain some stuff. But I have no idea how the show is going to end). Saturday, Brian and I watched one of my favorite movies (which one of my lovely ex-roommates had the kindness to steal and now I have to rent when I want to watch it), Stranger than Fiction, which Brian happens to like too. I LOVE the part when Harold Crick (Will Ferrel) brings Anna Pascale (Maggie Gylenhaal) a box of little bags full of flour, and says, "I brought you flours". FLOURS, not flowers. Because she's a baker. Love it!!! As that movie is basically all about plotline and narrative voice, it's pretty much an ex-Engish major's dream. Sometimes I wish I had gone to grad school for English...

Then, we went to the Indian buffet at Tandoor, and then ice skating (they had free skate rental for couples...so it was a bit crowded for me. But we did run into my neighbor in New Bern and her boyfriend). I have to admit, when I saw a sherrif's car parked in the parking lot, I parked next to it. They would have to be REALLY stupid to break into my car then.

Today, I met up with Katie, who was the Best Buddies CBD after me, for lunch, and then we met up with Rachel, who was the CBD before me, to go to the talent show. It was great seeing everyone, but kind of weird not to be connected to a buddy. I was glad to see that my buddy, Cheryl, has a new buddy that seems to care about her as much as I do. But that was a little upsetting at the same time, to feel like you're replaceable.

As an aside, I'm also contemplating getting a 2nd (or I guess it would count as my 3rd?) job, at Barnes & Noble maybe. I'd rather not, but I feel like I need to be making more money and the Arc hasn't proved to be reliable when you're not attached to a client, as this past Friday proved. But i'm not sure yet.

Weeks till spring break: 3

What a Night

Tuesday seems to be my day to have adverse things happen in/to my car. Today was MUCH worse than last week, however.

I was at the gym, again--I went in for a class for 45 minutes, and when I came out there was a woman and a mall security guy standing there, and she said, "hey, is this your car?". And I said, "umm..yes". And then I realized why they had asked.

My whole window on the driver's side was smashed out, and my GPS was gone. The GPS is not exactly essential, although I certainly enjoyed it, and I've felt so much more confident driving around with it (I had named it Charlotte--poor Charlotte). The window, however, will obviously have to be replaced post haste before I can go to work tomorrow. The mall security guy helped me clean up all the glass (there was a LOT of glass), and the police gave me a box to sit on so I didn't get stabbed with glass, (although I did cut up my hands). Apparently there was another break in a street over, which was probably by the same people. There was actually a girl going into another store in the shopping center who noticed something suspcicious looking (somebody pulled up perpendicular to my car), but didn't think anything of it until she got back out and saw what had happened.

The mall security guy told me that this has happened 18 times in 2 weeks at Southpoint, which I think shows that it is just a sign of the worsening economy. I like to be optimistic and think that this was someone desperate to get enough money to feed their family or get medicine for a sick child, and not using it for drugs or something. But I miss my Charlotte. And my car window.

Plus my stepmom told me that my dad's blood glucose and blood pressure are both out of control and the doctors haven't been able to get them back under control, and have added a new diabetes medication, to little effect. This, combined with the break in, and the fact that my ovaries have been extremely painful all week, just kind of sent me over the edge. I really need something extremely good to happen right now. Here's hoping.

Bad week, Good weekend

I think this is going to be a theme for quite some time. It's not that my week was bad (besides the event I mentioned in my last post), but I'm just so burnt out at school it's all I can do to drag myself there 2 or 3 days a week. I think I'm just being taught things I wasn't interested in learning, so i'm not invested in the readings or assignments, and thus am completely unmotivated to do anything related to school. This isn't exactly a good time to completely lack motivation, since I have more assignments due this month than any other month this semester. Blech.

But, I did have a nice weekend--it started out by my running into a bunch of Best Buddies while I was at work Friday night, which resulted in a lot of "Sarah! We miss you"s, which is always gratifying. Then Brian and I went to eat at Piazza Italia last night, in Brightleaf Square (Durham), which was very authentic (they even make their own pasta and gelato), delicious, and not too overpriced (it's about the same as an Olive Garden, and wayyyy better). Then we went swing dancing, at which Brian is surprisingly good. At the lesson beforehand, we had to switch partners constantly, which was icky for me because I got a lot of sweaty-palmed Dookies who were not so good at dancing. But once the actual dance started, Brian and I danced for a while, AND HE ACTUALLY ENJOYED IT!! He even agreed to go to another one! I'm shocked. He only stepped on my foot once. It was just what I needed to escape from the stressful freak-out state school was putting me in.

Weeks till Spring Break: 4

Freaky experience

OK, so I am so freaked out by this. I was on the highway, driving home from the gym (in the dark) wearing typical gym clothes, with my hair in a ponytail. And this car next to me was honking, and trying to get me to roll down my windshield. At first I just thought he wanted me to let him over ,but then we came to a stoplight and he kept doing it. At this point I thought, maybe he's going to tell me my headlight/taillight is out or something. So I roll the window down.

WRONG.

He goes: "Hey, you're cute. Are you single?"

I realize that doesn't sound sooo freaky. But he was probably early-mid 40s, and, let's be honest, in gym clothes I look about 16. GROSS. I said, "NO" and rolled the window up as fast as it would go. But he kept honking until we came to another light and he had to pull ahead.

I just feel...violated by guys that think it is ok to do this. It is not ok to try to proposition me at a stoplight. It is especially not ok when you probably think I am underage. BLECH BLECH BLECH.

Also, a random 919 number has been calling me almost every weeknight and not leaving a message, and I have no idea who it is. If it's you, please leave me a message!!

Hello, February

Well, I've made it to February..and I still haven't decided whether this is a good thing or not.

Reasons it's a good thing:

• Brian and I acutally get to spend Valentine's Day together (as opposed to most other years, when it was on a weekday and I couldn't make it to wherever he was).
• Lauren's 25th birthday party (swing dancing!)
• I get to go to the Alzheimer's Conference and see the brain bank at Duke. A brain bank! How cool is that? Even if it is at Duke...
• The conference is on a Thursday so I get to skip seeing clients that week. (It is bad that I think this is a good thing?)
• The Oscars are on.
• It's a short month.
  

Reason's it's not a good thing:

• I'm working every Friday night (3 for the Arc, one for JFS)
• I have at least one assignment due every week, if not two (2 presentations and 4 papers)
• I have to decide where I'm doing my internship next year and what classes I'll be taking.

So looking over this...it would be a good month if not for school/work. I don't mind the nights I'm working for the Arc, because I get paid and something hilarious always happens...but spending my Friday night at DUKE (for free) with grouchy Jewish elderly people who can never remember who I am does not sound like my idea of fun, to be honest. At least I've gotten the Shabbat blessings down.

I always felt a little sorry for February...most people spend their time wanting it to be over, so it can be March, and spring. Plus people who aren't dating hate Valentine's Day (plus some people who are dating. I don't hate it, but I think it is a little ridiculous. Plus I can't eat candy any more, so it takes a lot of effort to avoid all those huge displays in the grocery store). We'll see what the month brings, I suppose...

Weeks till Spring Break: 5.