Blogging the Oscars

I am going to post here often during the ceremony with my instant responses (probably at the commercial breaks). This will be my first experiment with live blogging, and I am doing it all from Jim's comment the other day.

5 Best Pictures; 1 Best Day

So we did it, and there was no sleeping or anything. I will definitely go next year, and I will bring as many people as I can with me because it was fun. Seeing best picture nominees in a sold out audience full of people who really enjoy movies was probably the best possible way to see them. We laughed and we cried and we gasped and we communed, and by the end of the very long day, we had formed a community of sorts.

The facts: 12 and a half hours from start to finish of films, but we arrived early in order to get good seats, so we were in the theater (sitting) for 13 hours and maybe fifteen minutes. Three large bags of popcorn between the two of us (though we did dump the crumbs on all bags), and five large sodas (but there was some dumping of them too). There were two fifteen minute breaks, one forty-five minute break, and one twenty-five minute break, and we stayed in the realm of the movie theatre the entire time (other people did not). Too many trips to the restroom to count (thank goodness I had already seen two of the films and that Sara had seen one, I didn't miss anything). We got a totally nerdy backstage/VIP pass on a lanyard that we were instructed to wear all day, but Sara and I had already decided to wear it all day no matter what.

After several trips in and out I finally figured out why the theater seemed so strange, every single cup holder held a movie soda cup. It was very odd in its uniformity (we were all provided with a cup and a bag as we entered), cool though.

The movies themselves were as follows:

Babel: Could also be titled "People Are Stupid in Every Language" or "Stupid People are Boring in Every Language." The movie was fine--definitely the "Crash" of this year except since it is almost an exact copy, it much less exciting and interesting. There are come very nice performances and moments, but, in general, it is messy with lots of slow bits. After watching the whole, I thought it was kind of interesting, but I don't know if I would have gotten through it had I not been in a theater. I would've gotten distracted and changed the channel or turned it off.

The Queen: This movie is really funny, and I never would have thought that it would be from all the reviews/press/previews I had seen. It was quick and interesting, and Helen Mirren is exquisite in it. James Cromwell and the woman who plays the Queen Mum are awesome too. I would say that you shouldn't miss this film; it is well worth the watching.

The Departed: I flat out love this movie, and I have seen it three times in theaters now, and I still love it. It is my favorite for Best Picture.

Letters From Iwo Jima: Touching movie, but it suffers from the Clint Eastwood storytelling factor. It takes a very long time to get anywhere, and after you are there you wonder what the hell they were doing for half the movie. However, the fact that I knew very little about the Japanese side of WWII kept it from being as painfully slow as "Million Dollar Baby." I liked it, and I will probably see "Flags of Their Fathers" someday soon.

Little Miss Sunshine: A way, way, way better film when seeing it with and audience and for a second time. The anticipation of the ending is hilarious the second time around. I still hate the father character with a passion, so that makes me crazy, and the ending stops being funny and starts being weird (for me) precisely when Toni Colette gets on stage. Her energy really changes it and kills all the funny that is there before. Steve and Alan are brilliant though!

AMC hosted this party (for a fee), so you KC types should see if there is one in your neck of the woods next year.

In Preparation

I am going to get new glass next week, in advance on losing my pier one insurance. I may also go to the dentist.

I will also spend today psyching up for my best picture movie theater marathon tomorrow. Five movies, one theater, one day. There will be packed lunches smuggled in, as well as candy, and maybe a water bottle. But I will get all the pop and popcorn I can eat and drink at the theater.

The big question will be, after a week of terrible sleeping, can I stay awake through all of the films? Since I have already seen the last show of the evening, will I wuss out and go home early? Stay tuned. Will Sara Jo stay awake for all the movies remains to be seen as well, but there is strong suspicion that the subtitles of Letters From Iwo Jima will be her undoing.

I have a job

That's right. I have a brand new job, and I start in a week and a half to two weeks. It is my roommate's old job (she actually has it right now, but is about to be promoted). I will be a receptionist and office helper at a screenprinting company. They seem fun and informal (I will get to wear jeans and a t-shirt to work, yes!). It is a little bit of a raise which is good, and I will qualify for my new benefits in thirty days.

BTW, this makes Renee my hero of several weeks.

I have a job interview

It is tomorrow for my roommate Renee's current job. It will mean a pay increase, and regular hours if I get it. It will also be actual office job credentials, so in a year (more or less) I could parlay this into a real office job downtown with much better pay. We shall see. Wish me luck.

I am that kid

At work. I am that kid. I am the one that does all the crazy stuff. Like this morning when I climbed a ladder while carrying a barstool. I have a nifty science down for it. What I do is turn the chair upside down and put the seat on my head with the back down my back, and then I use one hand to climb the ladder and the other to steady the chair on my head. Some days, this is the only way you can get things done quickly, so I do it. I was trying to figure out how to climb a fixed ladder (on a wall) with a box of cushions , but someone came in so I just had them hand them up to me.

Everyone else thinks this is strange or funny, and they sometime worry about my safety. I think this is a result of my MFA. Well, I have been fairly phisically fearless for a while (not stupid, but I evaluate the risk), but animal class and Paul's class sort of pushed that to the extreme, so did McB. All that ladder climbing in capes makes me do silly things at work.

Happy Chinese New Year

So my wonderful friends Angie and Sara Jo braved the cold way down in Chinatown to watch the Chicago Chinese New Year's Parade. Like all Chicago parades, it would've been better if there were less people running for office in it.

It was fun. I liked the marching bands and the dragons (although there could've been more), but it was very cold. I lost my toes somewhere during the afternoon, and it would've been better warmer, so I don't think that I will go back unless it is like 75 degrees next February.

Sore

My thighs are sore in a weird way, and I am convinced it is from walking in the deep snow. There are crazy drifts and shifty piles I must cross to get to work, and to cross them you grip the ground with your leg muscles in a different way then they usually are used when you walk. They hurt and ache in that way that muscles do when they are being newly used.

I had some big philosophical question to ponder that I was tossing about at work, but now I cannot remember. Now I am being distracted by Ken Burns' "The West" just watched Sitting Bull get killed and the Battle of Wounded Knee.

I was actually naseous

During Grey's Anatomy, the drilling in the head business was kind of making me sick. I had to look away and let my roommate tell me when to look back. And (spoiler alert) I for sure do not believe Meredith is going to die no matter how much they want me to think it. She's not dying. Shonda, for real, you do not have me fooled. I am not even worried (though Derek and and McSteamy all being mcCuddly was seriously tugging at my heart strings). And ohs no Izzy did not just say that!!!!

Not much else happening here in my life. I am going to clean some room and do some laundry tomorrow. We shall see.

She made it

My aforementioned friend did in fact make it into Midway last night at around 9:30pm, which was only five and a half hours late with a detour to Tennessee. Not bad, I guess considering all of the crazy weather delays of yesterday and today.

Happy Valentine's day all!

Excercise in Futility

I did not go to the museum today because of the blizzard conditions, not to mention the small snow drift outside my door. This made me a little whiny and cranky, but I still had stuff to do. I agreed to go and meet my friend Angie at Midway today. There had been some delays and stuff at the airport, but by mid afternoon some flights were still getting in, and when I checked the Southwest website, her flight was in the air and early. It seemed crazy, but who knows?

I get all bundled up, and I go out. Walking in tall powdery drifting snow takes a lot of effort, and it is best to go at it fast and furious to keep your momentum built up. So I sort of power through three and a half blocks to get to the train, and I arrive soaked. I take the brown line all the way into downtown, and then switch to the orange line which I take to its endpoint at Midway. The whole trip is an hour and fifteen minutes, and I should be hitting baggage claim at the same time as Angie. However, the level above baggage claim, I check the monitors for information about her flight, and somehow in the last 85 minutes her flight went from being twenty minutes early to an hour and twenty-five minutes late. Great.

Down I go to baggage claim--which is crowded with all sorts of people--and I pull up a seat (because I thank goodness find one) and read my book. Her arrival times pass, and I am still curled up with Scandalmonger by William Saffire which is cool because I really need to finish it before it goes back to the library, and it is super long for how little I read now that I no longer ride the train to work. Then Angie calls me--from Nashville. She is stranded there with no idea what she is supposed to do since she no longer has a boarding pass (they took it when she boarded). They got rerouted there when they couldn't land at Midway. So, I turn around and take the long two train trip back to my apartment as well as the hard working hopping it takes to get home since more snow had accumulated in the two hours that my airport adventure consumed. I can't wait to walk to work tomorrow since no one here bothers to scrape their sidewalks (however the walking and the horrendous driving conditions did make me very happy that I didn't try to go to the stupid museum).

Angie did call me just a few minutes ago saying that she got on a plane in Nashville that should, maybe, get here tonight. She was waiting to take off.

A Couple of Things

Stupid cheating museum. Tomorrow is free day at the Museum of Science and Industry, and I was going to go for a couple of reasons. One of them was that the last time I went there was a small child in our party who wanted to run down the long sloping hallway to the U-boat instead of walk slowly and watch every second of History Channel-esque footage and read every word of all of the supporting material (in his defense he was in Kindergarten and maybe couldn't really read) about it. It kind of killed me to be forced to do that. Also, Bodyworks is showing there, and I thought wouldn't it be great just to pay the part of the admission for Bodyworks instead of general admission plus Bodyworks. However, stupid museum heads charge $18 to go see Bodyworks on free days instead of $9.50 which only saves $1.50 from seeing it on a regular price day. Stupid. Anyway, so instead I am going to see if I can get a museum pass from the library, so I can go see it some day that costs money (like this Saturday with my roommate and her cousin Rick) and get general admission free and then pay $9.50. Stupid museum. Can I say that again?

Had a wonderful time this weekend meeting Jeff Davis. Well, really meeting him. We have met very briefly a few other times, but this time we all hung out with Azar. He is hosting a double feature of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and "Newsies" at his house this weekend (which is in a high rise and has a very nice view).

Also, why is it we only have 'don't leave your house or travel unless you absolutely must' days on my days off when I want to do stuff? Seriously, weather? But, no matter what I will venture out to pick Angie up at the airport. I love that city life is the only place where 'picking someone up' from the airport has nothing to do with automobiles since what I am doing is taking the train to the train to the airport and back helping to pull rolly suitcases. Although with the weather being how it is, we'll see if they let Angie land.

Brilliance and not really

Final episode of season one of "The Wire" is pure brilliance. A complete and fantastic episode on its own while eloquently mirroring the original of the series bringing a degree of closure while leaving many, many doors wide open. I cannot wait for season two. (Also, Det. McNulty joins the parade of bad boys I have a hankering for of late because Dominic West is a fine man and a fine actor).

Saw a show at Steppenwolf tonight, Pinter's Betrayal. Two outstanding actors, one okay actor, and a show that was just fine. Nothing special, just fine. Too bad. Also, I am not sure that I would like an actual production of the play in its entirety, possibly ever. It is far too choppy and disjointed. Not bad, just abrupt in person, in a way that it isn't when I power through it reading it by myself. Anyone seen a good live version of it?

Oh, belated hero of the week, Herbert because I will miss him when he leaves Pier One.

Clearing things up

I am not quite as sad or pathetic as the boyfriend/potential husband gathering entry of the other day. It spiraled out of control with the Jenny and the Lauren not just mocking me as expected. Really mostly Jenny with the being serious when I was almost 100% sure she would be the most mocking (c'mon girl are you falling down on the job, did you retire?)because well that used to be what she does.

Tomorrow I get to spend all day with my favorite crazy Persian, and tonight I get to spend with the final episode of season one of "The Wire" which I have come to quietly love. As Lauren says, "They are all so brilliantly fucked up." They are. The ensemble is full of brilliant generous actors who revel in their characters humanity, and it is an unusual brand of humanity for television because everyone has flaws and everyone has beauties, and the writers don't allow any one side to be favored over the other. Neither the cops nor the drug dealers are heroic, but neither are they villains. They are people who struggle to do what is best, sometimes for themselves and sometimes for the greater good. Sometimes they just struggle.

All five Oscar nominated best pictures in one day, in one theatre

Yeah, so I really think this is a brilliant idea and I really want to go. It is $30 and it is all of them, plus free large popcorn and free large drink, refillable all day long. It is kind of my idea of heaven. Although I don't think anyone would go with me (well anyone who lives here, my friend Bryce would so go with me but he is in Olympia), and this seems just too nerdy to do alone. But really, all five in one day. Heaven, total and utter heaven!

So much stuff, so little time

I really don't understand how most of the rest of the world gets things done. I never seem to have enough time to really do things. Actually, I probably do, but I love tv and sleep and the internet too much to have a ton of extra free time. I was going to go to two museums today, but now I will only go to one. Plus I will hang out with my friends Sara and Kristy, so I guess that ain't nothin' but it is less then I had planned. Perhaps my plans are unrealistic? Or maybe I am tainted by my younger days when I did a ridiculous amount of crap--although that was before I had the internet and I almost never watched tv then.

In defense of the internet, I love the blogs I read daily. They make me feel like a part of a community--sometimes of strangers but more often of friends, the very friends who read this blog--and they are my daily news and entertainment. The movies I watch from netflix and blockbuster are important to me as well. I started watching copious amounts of movies in high school when I got my license. I rented every classic movie "Crazy Mike's Video Store" had (granted that was like 65 movies), and I watch lots of award nominess and critical favorites. My netflix queue is over 200, and that is only probably only half of the movies I want to watch. It has been a goal of mine to see and know as many movies as possible--focusing on critical favorites and classics and even cult classics. That may be a weird goal, but it gives me a great deal of pleasure, so spending my days off watching 6 hours (on average) of movies isn't a waste of my time. It is working towards a goal. Now watching 5 hours of City Confidential on A&E, that's probably a waste of time, but the voice over is so lulling I cannot change the channel.

Umm, so that above was probably for myself as much as for any of you. Shout out to Jim and Donad for giving me credit for my Nathan prescience. Also, I am very sad this week because Herbert and Kristy are both leaving me at Pier One. In the next week. Two of my favorite coworkers gone. It won't be the same without them. It should motivate me to find a more financially rewarding job, so that I can start actually paying off my student loans and be able to live my life at the same time. Actually if I had posted yesterday, it would've been a long post about how just when you start to get your life in order it gets all fucked up again. Or if not fucked up, it just runs right off the track you had laid for it. I just want it to be easier. I just want someone else to take care of everything for me, so that I can spend my days watching movies. This is perhaps too much to ask. Some days I wonder if I wouldn't be happier living back in the tri-cities, married to some good Catholic boy watching movies and Oprah, and occasionally teaching and directing for ACT and maybe CBC and Hanford High School? I am of course missing the good Catholic boy, but I hear David Bruce is still single. I don't actually think I want that, but maybe I should go on a date with one of the eligibles my mom and her friends think would be good for me when I go home this summer? After the date, it should pretty well clear thing up right? Most likely, I will hate the very idea of being tied to him all the time, or I will be head over heels and all problems solved. Or none of the above because quite frankly we all know life is much more complicated then that.

I wonder who (other then the Bruce) my mom and her friends would hook me up with? Lauren and Jenny feel free to post potentials in the comments that would make me laugh or be serious or both.

In a commercial

Not me, of course. But Brian Smith was in a Bud Light commercial during the freaking super bowl. For those who missed it or are unfamiliar with my fellow CMS Mule, Brian was the tall groomsmen in the Bud Light commercial who hired the auctioneer for the wedding. I went to school with him, he was my Benedick to my Beatrice in advanced acting in undergrad. He's a good guy and now he was on during the super bowl.

On a much angrier note, stupid Chicago CBS did not play the extra special good episode of Criminal Minds after the game. They played post-game shit because apparently they missed the part of the game where the Bears lost. Infuriating. I am writing my local CBS affiliate a nasty letter. Stupid, stupids.

Fuck it is cold!

That is really all I have got. It is cold inside our fucking house. It is cold outside, and there are major warnings to cover all skin if you MUST leave your house and limit time outside to less then thirty minutes at a time. Fuck me. I don't want to go to work ever again if possible.

What is the difference between nine degrees and nineteen?

One means your snot still stays liquid as it drips down your nose, and the other means it freezes or congeals onto the inside of your nose and there is stays on your walk to work. It is bitterly cold here, and it will only get worse this weekend (which means the frozen thermometer is the weather icon for Sun. forecast on my forecastfox). My plan is to not leave the house tomorrow. I will do my taxes, do some apartment cleaning, watch some movies, and basically wrap myself into a blanket for the whole weekend--my roommates have the same plan.

See you later, decorator? Seriously?

I cannot believe that that is their tag line for Top Design. It is so awful it hurts me a little in my heart, but I am so using it on crap-headed designers who come into our store and are meany-faces. Anyway, I hope that show gets better.

And Marcel (or whom I like to call Teenwolf--thanks to ALOTT5MA, my favorite blog) has lost Top Chef mostly because he cannot play well with others. That goes out to you Jenny, fan of the dreaded teenwolf (although Ilan is kind of a brat too, he just has enough social skills to not be a brat to people's faces, Marcel has almost no social skills).