Some post-Oscar sentiments 2011

Voilá, a more or less brief summary of the thoughts than ran through my mind in the Oscar Night.

(It turned out to be 'less brief'. So, if you're still dying to get inside my head, proceed by clicking below.)

The Academy just doesn't get it

One of these days the Academy will get it right. Sooner or later there will be a year when everyone agrees with me and I won't have to moan about anything. Meanwhile, I won't be holding my breath, and instead  just give a quick account of my last night.

On Saturday I put my 'grand plan' on action and stayed up until four in the morning, thinking it'd then help me survive the following night. Well, as wondefully clever the plan was, it fell flat as I was up and ready to go at ten the next morning. So, with a poor night of sleep behind me and my inexplicable inability to take a nap preventing me from properly preparing myself, I swigged down a can of energydrink and hoped the Oscar ceremony would once again prove to be the best drug. It did! After the shortest six hours of the year were over, sleeping felt like the worst idea ever. I was even hoping for an early lecture to attend to. There weren't any, unfortunately.

So I had to force myself to sleep a few restless hours. But only a few. Which is why I won't be writing a proper post about the ceremony and the results today. I'm simply not capable. Only thing I'm capable of is staring at the clock and hoping it'd be ten already, so that it'd be okay to go to bed. The post will have to wait until the weekend, I'm afraid. There is just too much of everything right now. And not only too much time before bedtime. (I realised today it the last day of February. Which means that, according to my New Year Resolution, I should see Mulholland Drive today. However, I'm not stupid enough to do that, so I excuse myself for violating my own rules and see the film some day when my head isn't so hazy to begin with.)

One or two words about the Oscars, however. I was quite happy about the results, and felt the great minds were really thinking alike this year. Then two of the most important awards went where they shouldn't have gone, so that's that, the Academy clearly doesn't have enough great minds in their midst. Unlike majority of people, I liked both Anne and James. There were quite a few funny moments and I'm still giggling thinking about Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin's "You just got INCEPTIONED!" and Twilight the Musical. There we some really nice dresses, I think Scarlett Johansson and Hailee Steinfield's were my favourites. It was an awesome night, and next year is way too far away.

Oooh, not long before ten o'clock, now. I will sleep so well you won't believe it.

Photos from dailymail.com.

Some pre-Oscar sentiments

Tonight's the night! And I figured this might me a good time for me to wake the blog up from its sudden hibernation. Life's been a bit of a roller-coaster recently... February was a bit weird from the beginning, and as if my poor head wasn't already spinning badly enough after the news that I'll be spending the fall in the U.S., the next day my grandfather passed away and my spirits were hurled from extreme high to extreme low in a split second. So I took a little break from blogging. But life resumes. And so does blogging.

Now, the Oscars. I don't feel as well prepared for the big night as I sometimes have been, and as I should be. I hadn't even had the time or the mood to feel excited until yesterday, when I was planning tonight with a friend and I realised how cool and awesome it will be once again. I haven't seen as many of the Best Picture nominees as I was supposed to, as I've only seen six instead of the possible eight: didn't go see True Grit because of all the recent mayhem and Black Swan won't come to my local cinema until next week, damn it. Winter's Bone will probably never even make it this far and frankly, I don't give a damn about The Fighter. I haven't seen many boxing movies but I've seen enough to know they're not for me.

I also forgot to print the Oscar ballot from IMDb, so I scribbled my predictions down on a piece of paper. And no, I will not share them with you, at least not yet. I think this year my goal with the predictions is to get none right. I mean, of course Toy Story 3 will win every single category it's nominated in, right? (Well, it'll win some. But not all. Though it damn well should, says I.)

Some positive things. 1) Due the said lack of time and mood, I also haven't been following the experts' predictions as much as usually. Which I've found quite nice! Maybe some of the results will even surprise me a little. 2) RDJ will present! 3) Tonight I get to stuff myself with food until I bloat, because that's a significant part of the Oscars. 4) I was able to stay up late last night, so tonight should be a piece of cake. Not that it's ever been particularly challenging. As soon as the show begings, sleeping is the last thing on your mind.

Aw, it'll be awesome. I just hope The King's Speech won't win the Best Picture.

Why Anne and James will most probably rock the Oscars

Instant reactions to the Oscar nominations, 2011

15:24 I'm assuming that the nominee announcement will begin in five minutes. I'm not sure, because I'm too lazy to bother my head with the time zones. We'll see.

15:30 Yay! It's began! There are two dudes introducing us to the announcements. 6 minutes...

15:33 They're asking people what's their favourite film of 2010. One answer: "Harry Potter, because it's good to know that there're other magical people in the world." Woo! I love weird people!

15:35 Anne and James. Aww. She's so sweet. And I don't mind him either.

15:38 Okay, here we go.... Monique!

15:43 That was fast. Let's see now. Here are my random thoughts on some random categories:

Documentary: If Exit Through the Gift Shop wins, who will collect the award for Banksy? He's still not showing his face in public, is he? Wouldn't it be cool if he appeared with one of those hats, which cover the whole face, those that bank robbers wear in movies... Can't wait to see this documentary, by the way. Banksy is one of the few things in art that I dare say I really like, and kind of understand, too.

I never understood the difference between Sound Mixing and Sound Editing...

Original Song: Randy Newman! I don't remember what that song from Toy Story 3 is like, but he is awesome.

Animated Feature Film: Again, like last year, this is a bit silly. Only one of these films is also nominated for Best Picture, so I wonder who'll win here... Sure, it's the right one. It'd be so badass if Toy Story 3 won both categories... I'll keep fantasizing...

Best Writing: ... Aaron Sorkin is missing from the list in IMDb. Fix it, dudes! He should be there, unless my eyes and ears were not working during the annoucements and the world (=Academy) has gone mental.

Directing: Now, where is our man Chris Nolan? (Maybe they've really gone a bit gaga.) Poor thing, He would've deserved at least a nomination...

Supporting Actor: Another name missing. No Andrew Garfield! Damn! Well, he'll be back. Still... Damn. A big and annoyed DAMN.

Best Picture: I still think it's silly that there are ten nominees here.

 To sum... The King's Speech got most nominations (12), followed by The True Grit (10)... And Inception and The Social Network both got eight, right? I've so far seen only three of the Best Picture nominees, but that'll change soon enough. I will very eagerly go see The King's Speech on Sunday, and 127 Hours, Black Swan and Winter's Bone just as eagerly as soon as they make it to our cinema. And The Kid's Are All Right is already on DVD, so that'll be easy. I'm not really interested in The Fighter, so I'm not that bothered about seeing it, and I'll maybe keep avoiding The True Grit for now (even though I probably shouldn't, with all those nominations, damn...), because I'm just not a Coen girl.

One month to go before the most exciting night of the year! (Is it a bit sad to say that? Does that mean that my life lacks excitement? Oh well, let's say it's a figure of speech and really all my nights are much more exciting.) And I'm invited! According to the poster. Yay.

Golden Globes 2011 and my two (or three) cents

As for the results, I won't comment much. I leave the profound analysis and stabbing critique for the Oscars (just wait for it. Haha.). This time I'll keep this short and simple... Here are my two, or three cents.

1) The Social Network has a lot of friends. Including me! Since my number one of 2010 is apparently too animated to win anything other than the award for the best animation (YAY, though), I have my two thumbs up for David Fincher, Aaron Sorkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and co. Though I want Inception to win something as well (something other than techinical awards would be nice too... Music, maybe?), I'd be happy to see The Social Network win the most important awards. (Black Swan might still make me change my mind, but I wouldn't count on it.) I watched the trailer again the other day (while waiting for the DVD that's all I can do...) and damn, it could win some award just for that.

 2) Biggest. Thrills. Ever. (So far.) So, Chris Colfer did it, then. I can't tell you how freaking thrilled I am for this! When I found out I felt like screaming and crying and jumping, and I did all of those, but only a little, because I was in a public place. Chris didn't only deserve this as an actor, but as a person, too. I've never been so happy for him, but something tells me I will be even happier some day, because this won't be THE peak his career, no way. More about the subject (= more love for Chris Colfer) here.

3) Memorable Moments. Since I wasn't able to watch the show (damn you, Finnish TV companies!), I had to let someone else to gather some of the best moments of the night. Under the link there are a few things worth watching, like everything with Ricky Gervais (he's just so shamelessly rude, it's quite wonderful, really), one of the most inspiring acceptance speeches ever (I'm not only happy for Chris, I'm also happy for those kids who get the inspiration and encouragement they need out of this), and the bit with Robert Downey Jr. I'd almost forgotten how damn charming and charismatic he can be. Aw, make him host the Oscars next year or something!

The biggest movie event of the year is only five weeks away! I personally can't wait.

Globes 2011 nominees

The nominees for the 2011 Golden Globes just came in! Do check them here. Both Inception and The Social Network got multiple nominations, expectedly and deservigly. I still have a lot of films to see from the list, but I can say I want Andrew Garfield to get that award! And the golden dude, too, later on. No matter how awesome the other nominees might be...

P.S. I've been babysitting my nephew today, and we've watched Cars three times. And now I just put it on for the fourth time. I didn't want to, but he started to threathen the life of my Lost box set, so I gave in. That sneaky little boy.

Here are your hosts, Oscars 2011!

I didn't even realise they were already finding people to host the gala next year! Where has my head been? (Somewhere between a prose analysis and the latest episode of Glee, I guess...?) But yeah, the Oscars are approaching, fast! Yaay!

So, Anne Hathaway and James Franco will be hosting. I like Anne a lot, and her contribution to Hugh Jackman's opening number some years ago is quite memorable. And even though James Franco has never been in the top of any of my lists, I'm sure he can be pretty funny and he's easy on the eyes, alright.

I didn't too much enjoy Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin's double act last year (actually, I found them quite boring and stiff), but I dare to raise my hopes pretty high when it comes to James and Anne. If nothing too silly isn't written into their mouths, this might actually become quite a blast. Here's to hoping!

Lost lost / Damn you, Emmys!

Last night after 2 am I opened my laptop, because despite being tired I didn't feel sleepy at all. As you might know it was the primetime Emmy night, and I was happy to find some livestream material from the red carpet in IMDb homepage. So I watched that for a while, and when the show itself began (it was 3 am by then) I found myself waiting for the results and staring at a "backstage cam" at emmy.com. I finally made myself switch off my laptop when Lost lost in the first category it was nominated it. Good thing I did, I don't know if I could've taken all those upcoming disappointments so late at night, haha. Poor Lost. Hopefully you're a better loser than I am.

So, Lost left home empty handed. Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn have both won Emmys previously, so I think I can get over their losses. Matthew Fox didn't win either, but Jack doesn't care about winning, right? An Emmy for Darlton would've been nice, or for Jack Bender for directing... But oh well. At least they won some back in season 1.

There are some bright spots, too. Jane Lynch won, which was very cool, Glee is awesome and Sue Sylvester just pure genious. I'm not familar with Modern Family, which 'robbed' most of Glee's potential Emmys, so I can't really hold any grudge there. Now I only must swallow my bitterness and be happy for Mad Men. They did good, and deservingly so.

Jimmy Fallon hosted. He's pretty good, actually. I kind of like him. Here's the opening number, Glee themed, which of course is awesome. Also, Jon Hamm dancing and shaking his booty is something worth seeing, I can tell you...

Now I'll go lick my wounds and maybe watch today's portion of Lost. You'll always be the winner in my eyes.