Don’t forget, secret killer: Sandy Bullock and The Blind Side. Sleeper hit! Older ladies (parents I know) raving about it! Bested New Moon! It’s Precious’ Christian cousin! I bet Bullock gets a nom and this sneaks into Best Picture.
Cocktail Napkin Nominations
Teeeehee!! I think these will get nominated (this is not about justice, people. If there was justice then Goodfellas would have beat ‘DANCES WITH WOLVES’ . OMG How did ‘Dances with Wolves’ beat Goodfellas?). HAH! Art, it’s so kRzy y’all. In no particular
1. Up
2. Inglorious Basterds (HAI THIS SHOULD WIN A THRILLION TIMES)
3. A Serious Man
4. The Hangover (OK! Here me out, I think the Academy screwed the gold-dipped pooch by not including Dark Knight last year and that’s why they broadened the category —there are a thousand other reasons that have to do with money and PR- but I think there’s def a Dark Knight effect going on. ANYWAYS, they have to nominate one comedy with ten slots. I didn’t like the Hangover but critics and box office patrons lovvved it).
5. Hurt Locker (I will also accept this as a winner)
6. District 9
7. An Education
8. Invictus (OOOOF THE OSCAR BAIT ON THIS ONE. )
9. Precious
10.
NineDARK KNIGHTDARKNIGHTUPDATE: OMG, I forgot about Bad Lt. Do you guys think it stands a chance to get the nom?
This list is way too cool! I bet Oscars are going to skew more for old people (the biggest voting block?).
Up in the Air is “current” and features “nepotism.” It’s got a little Billy Wilder woven into its DNA. It’s in! (I like it a lot if I look at it as a very downbeat criticism of the soulessness/separation world today…and then I read Jason Reitman’s texts and I think he thinks he made another movie.) That said, rare and awesome roles for females in this one.
A Single Man has such good acting and is so pretty. (Even if it’s fair to argue that it’s over-stylized.) What’s going against it is that it’s very similar to A Serious Man in its title. Wouldn’t doubt if this ended up being a Florida-esque fustercluck, considering. With confused voters. I think the Coens are out in this case; nihilism with a schlemiel at the center lacks the cool/Tommy Lee Jones-factor of No Country For Old Men.
Hangover or District 9. Not both! I think.
Don’t forget The Last Station, which is classy and features old people doin’ it and Russians who write literature. And Helen Mirren! In for sure.
Julie & Julia or 500 Days could take a slot, perhaps?
The Oscars are sort of fun. I’m already quite sick, however, of all this internet coverage of Every Single Critics Group Award, Christ it is boring.
When I make my own list (soon!), this will most definitely be right up near the top. I can’t recommend it enough.
Need to rewatch SO BAD. Lonergan’s second film, Margaret, has been held up in limbo hell for YEARS. Doubtful it will get any sort of release in this climate. (A recent interview with a director yielded this quote, on movies that aren’t about toys: Nobody can make any sort of movies anymore. It’s over. It’s done.“)
Also, oh god, Jay Carr. Super hack who I saw at screenings in Boston. He gave Boys and Girls starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jason Biggs with a bleached blond terrible surfer look 4 stars. Film reviewing! It is a dicey career.
I admire how sensible this speech is. It’s very sad that it couldn’t get beyond other’s prejudices. I don’t understand why people can be scared of something that’s rather reasonable. Hopefully the next generation can get these people out of office and make some change.
The outcome wasn’t too surprising; I’ve heard secondhand horror stories about the ineptitude of the NY State Senate (vote them ALL OUT) and have had an AWOL boyfriend for the past month (he had to miss out on HALLOWEEN for work) as a result. These people are scumbags.
Red Hook, I love you, and you remind me of Somerville.
I’m looking forward to 2009 being over. Since May, I would say, it’s been a fairly difficult year; family health problems, my own health worries, laden with psychology and symbols and childhood trauma, the difficulties of being in Year One Plus of a long distance relationship and hoping beyond hope that ends soon, writing that is more a chore than a joy, not having a magical book deal to pull me out of this magically.
And I can see the difference in my face. There are some pictures on my computer that are cute, from the beginning of the year. I’m happy, healthy, and wise. The end of the year? Good lord, I mostly look exhausted.
I’ve been mentally planning a happiness plan, to be put to hopefully unannoying usage on this blog, but I don’t have the time tonight. Have to get to bed soon if I want eight glorious hours of sleep.
And, well, if I’m tired, you should see my dad.
What editors do for writers is mysterious, and does not, contrary to general belief, have much to do with titles and sentences and “changes.” The relationship between an editor and a writer is much subtler and deeper than that, at once so elusive and so radical that it seems almost parental: the editor was the person who gave the writer the idea of himself, the idea of herself, the image of self that enabled the writer to sit down alone and do it.
This is a tricky undertaking, and requires the editor not only to maintain a faith the writer shares only in intermittent flashes but also to like the writer, which is hard to do. Writers are only rarely likable. They bring nothing to the party, leave their game at the typewriter.Didion. “After Henry”
I miss consistent, strong, thorough editing. First thing to go out the window in internet-land. I need a Maxwell Perkins.
Captain Bob (I think?) in Rockport then mentioned that American sailors hitting the shores of Japan had died from holding these shells up to their ears.
I’ve been awaiting the new book by Julie Powell, author of Julie & Julia, with bated breath, so when an advance copy of Cleaving landed on my doorstop, I was pretty ecstatic. I harbor a not-so-secret fascination with butchery, and have been begging The Brooklyn Kitchen to let me into their always-full pig butchering class (WARNING: graphic content after link) for months now, and I imagined that the book would be full of interesting tips interspersed with quick-witted storytelling, much like Powell’s previous effort.
To my immense dismay, this was not the case. Powell’s foray into butchery is a heavy-handed metaphor for the destruction of her marriage as a result of her affair with a man called only “D.” The segments on butchery were overly detailed even for me - and I’m fascinated with the topic, so I can only imagine how someone less carnivorously-inclined would feel - but it was the rest of the book that really got to me. It made me…well…angry. And perhaps this is because I felt like it was really cruel of Powell to chronicle the intimate details of her affair with another man for all the world to see, especially given that she claims to genuinely love her husband, but I suspect that it’s just because I found Powell’s obsession with sex surprisingly infantile. I felt like I was reading Twilight (boys boys boys boys boys) for the married set…and that’s just not what I was hoping for. I found Powell unlikeable and irredeemable, and by the end I just wanted her husband to tell her off and run away with Gisele or something, because frankly, he deserves it for putting up with her for all those years.
Everyone in the world is going to buy this book this Christmas - and hey, it’s entertaining enough - but I just want to warn you: Julie & Julia Part Deux this is not.
I’m so curious about this book. It’s fascinating that the original publication date, which would go along with Julie & Julia the film, was scrapped, partially due to the fact that the affair aspect made JP unlikable. And in the film, of course, JP’s an American sweetheart played by ever-adorable Amy Adams, but JP seems a saltier figure. Those who like Joss Whedon stuff are.
Wish I was there.
Important Things From the Night Before
1) Book titles that are really very good: Mom Dad Me, My Feelings. (I was at a poetry reading where the poet made jokes about these two book titles - apparently he had come across My Feelings as a poetry chapbook sample. Yes that makes it way funnier. This poet is so good that sometimes I feel like he should be dead, so he can be appreciated.)
2) Also: says the poet, “New York is filled with rapacious capitalists dressed up as hipsters.” This, of course, being a reply to a question that started with “How do you abide Texas?”
Signs You're Secretly Mad
When you’re resorting to passive-aggressive behavior on facebook.