Rachel Getting Married - 7.0

Bullets!!

• This puppy was cringe-tastic. Steve Carell has nothing on Anne Hathaway. I was in look-away-look-back-look-away-again mode for at least 5 or 10% of the movie.
  
• I wish I had musical friends, but ...
• ... I'm really glad I don't have a million random super-hipster friends.
• A wedding at home could be cool ...
• ... as long as it isn't very much like this random-ass wedding.
  
• Good acting all around. I might actually have liked Hathaway here more than Winslet ... or maybe not, definitely closer that I thought though.
• Reminds me of In The Bedroom or The Hours or The Movie Where Javier Bardiem Kills Himself.
• Long Summary: It's a good, but not fun. Have it in the back of your mind for when you're wandering Blockbuster (or the internet) with nothing to watch, but don't rush out to rent it or anything.
  
• Shorter Summary: It's a 7 if I've ever seen one.
  

Oscar Picks

Update: Crap! Why did I pick the song?! I didn't even know which Slumdog song was which. Oh well, 9 out of 10 ain't bad.

Everything about these Oscars is dull. How dare they nominate good movies?! How dare they actually consider letting them win?!!?! At any rate, here are my dull picks sitting there in all of their dull glory like that room of golden cups at the end of the last good Indiana Jones movie.

Bold - My Pick (This will win)
Green - My Choice (This should win)
Grey - Didn't see it.

Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
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
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

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

Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Best Original Screenplay
Frozen River
In Bruges
Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Wall-E

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Animated Feature
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

Original Song
"Down to Earth," Peter Gabriel, Wall-E
"Jai Ho," A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
"O Saya," A.R. Rahman and M.I.A., Slumdog Millionaire

If by some act of God you're still awake after looking through all of those, feel free to leave your own picks in the comments. You can then mock me mercilessly when you inevitably do better than I do. Also, feel free to stop by Sunday night for some live-blogging, or at least some twittering, for the 12 minutes of the show I manage to watch before gently slipping in to a coma.

Two New Blogs

OK, since I am a useless non-posting dash-using son of a gun these days, here are two friends who have recently started blogs that are a) better than this one and b) updated more than once a week.

Joanna is writing a "Joanna Blog" in her usual wry, self-effacing*, NY-times-published, kind of way, and of course, it's great. I just spend an hour reading all of her posts, and highly recommend you doing the same.

Roni is a gringo friend from Santiago, who is now, I think, locked in a Bolivian prison. His blog is sometimes about his travels and sometimes about politics, but there is always, always a strong under-current regarding his ungodly love of the O.C.

(* - Joanna makes me strive to use terms like self-effacing, even though I only have the vaguest notion of thier meaning)

Quick Reviews

Ghost Town - 4.5 - Saving the worst for first ... Ghost Town was a decent, but not especially memorable, comedy from last year starring Rick Gervais from the British version of The Office and Extras. More chuckle-occasionally funny than laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Searching for Bobby Fisher - 8.5 - I love this movie, but realize that it isn't fully rational. I'm just glad it didn't succumb to the dreaded Goonies effect when I rewatched it last week. I didn't realized it had such a deep supporting cast until this viewing (Laura Linney, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsly, Laurence Fishburne, William H. Macy). Unfortunately, it still stars Joe Mantegna though.

In The Heat of the Night - 8.0 - This was a pretty awesome mystery (although it wasn't exactly ideal Valentine's Day fare). Excellent performances from Poitier and the evil general from Mars Attacks. I just wish they had set up the resolution a tad bit more.

Jean De Florette + Manon des Sources - 9.0 - Remember how I hated Days of Heaven? That's because it wasn't this. The two films share a similar style, but this is how a slow, scenic movie should be made. Agustin pointed me at this pair of French films from the 80s. They are definitely deliberate, but they also have the story and the acting to back up the four hour run time. The movies really are a pair; you can't, or at least shouldn't,watch them separately, but together, they are definitely worth checking out. Highly recommended.

Pictures from the Farm

Here are some pictures from our trip to the farm near Curico last weekend.
(Full Photo Set Here)



Thanks again to Pitingo, Las Victorias, Francisco, Tete y everyone for having us.

25 Things

OK, so here goes nothing ... 25 things about (or at least tangentially related to) me.

1. I've been making silly lists for years, but this is the first time I have ever filled out a meme.
   
2. I lack favorites. No favorite color, number, movie, song, band. Nothing really.
   
3. My friends have been arguing about who gets to stand where in my wedding party for approximately 5 years. Alexa and I are leaning towards just doing 1 best man and 1 maid of honor just to piss them off.
   
4. I've had lots of nicknames in my life, but they aren't worth listing here.
5. I played soccer in high school for 3 years, but was only ok at my best. I scored one goal. A penalty kick that I hit straight at the goalie and dribbled through his legs.
   
6. In high school, I used to drive Alicia and our next door neighbor to school. Even though I was driving, my mom somehow dictated that we had listen to my sister's bad music 2 days a week. Fortunately, my mom never made a ruling on who controlled the windows, so I would turn on child-lock and roll down their windows in the middle of the winter to try to enforce good musical taste.
   
7. When bored on car trips, I would call Ben, Helen (as in Keller) and try to convince him he was deaf, dumb and mute.
   
8. My cousins Amy and Lisa CLAIM that I once peed in the tub when we were taking a bath together when we were little. I have never seen or heard convincing proof.
   
9. I've been to Vegas once (lost $300). It was depressing. If I ever go again, I pledge to remain intoxicated for every moment I am there.
   
10. My lowest grade ever was a 42 on my Spanish final my junior year in High School. And now I am living and Chile and (kind of) speaking the language, so suck it Ms. Rodriquez (which is almost definitely not my teacher's real name).
    
11. In my senior year in high school, I took molecular biology with my sister during the last period of the day. We just sat around in the class and did nothing, so eventually, I stopped going. Alicia went every day. In the end, the teacher gave me an A, because I was a senior, and Alicia a B, because she wasn't. It was one of the happiest moments of my schooling career.
12. Movie Miscellany: I like the idea of Will Farrel, but have never really liked one of his movies. Until yesterday, I thought Penelope Cruz was in Spanglish. Also, I think Adam Sandler is a really good serious actor, seriously. One summer in middle school, I watched Major League nearly every day. I think I could still very nearly recite it from memory.
13. I've seen every episode to date of 15 TV shows: Arrested Development, Sopranos, The Wire, 6 Feet Under, Deadwood, Freaks and Geeks, Rome, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Damages, The Office, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother and Veronica Mars.
14. There are apparently only 13 things to write about, because I am running out of gas here. Uhm, I now like the kind of music that I used to freeze my sister for listening to in #6.
15. Re: #8, places it is ok to pee: Women's Bathroom (if men's is occupied), my parent's front yard (at night), large bodies of water (oceans, lakes, etc). Places it is not ok to pee: Bath tub, shower, swimming pool.
16. I've been to approximately a dozen Pearl Jam concerts in my life and once shook Eddie Vedder hand at a Mudhoney concert in Chapel Hill. He said, "Hey, uh, good ta see you." I very rarely listen to Pearl Jam now, but still like them. Also I was taken aback today, when I found out that Eddie Vedder married a model and has an incredibly cute toddler now.
    
17. I lied in #1, my favorite word in Spanish is "desafortunadamente". I use it at least twice a day, here in Chile. Also, I thought that someone's older brother ("el hermano mayor") was the head of a town's government and treated him with a little too much respect for approximately 6 hours until Alexa informed me that I was (and am) a moron.
    
18. The hour it took me to run the last 6 miles of the marathon, were probably the most painful hour of my life. I finished the race in 4:01, 1 minute over my 4 hour goal, but I was too tired to care at the time.
    
19. I hated the taste of diet soda for 25 years, now I have to force myself to stop drinking it. In fact, I used to be a pretty picky eater. Now I will try almost anything. I still hate concentrated doses of pickle, bananna, mustard, mayo and ketsup, but thats about it though.
20. I've been in 1 true wreck (rear-ended someone when I was 16) and one or 2 fender benders (all before I turned 20, I think). Once, I got stuck in a ditch in one of Alicia's friend's front yard and when the friend called her mom, she said "Don't worry he called AA." Instead of AAA.
    
21. I once traumatized a very-sleepy Trafton for life by walking down my hall in college in nothing but a soaking-wet t-shirt at 4:30 in the morning.
    
22. I got laser eye surgery a few years ago. It's not the cakewalk everyone says it is (I walked around with a patch over one eye and one lens in my glasses for 10 days), but it was still absolutely worth it.
    
23. I've got great friends. Seriously, I do. They are so great that they will put up with the next item on this list.
24. Superlatives:
    Scariest --- I mean "Most Exciting" Driver - Alisha, hands down.
    Most likely to live in a hut - Sasha.
    Most ammusing person to live in a hut with - Also Sasha.
    Cruelest - Ted "Talk to your air conditioner" Zarzar
    Most offended by lesbian jokes and therefore most likely to be called a lesbian - Hi, Cuz.
    Most likely to have been seen naked by me - Ah, the Dubs.
    Most likely to simulate a sexual act - Roni
    Most likely to marry Spawn-creator, Todd McFarlin - Merl!
    Most likely to actually be in our wedding - Gotta go with Claire
    Most likely to be ignored midsentence (through no fault of my own) - Susan
    Most likely to not get too pissed off when I steal his change - My good ole' Roomie
    Biggest Ovaries - Not even going to justify this by writing the name down.
    Most likely to become wealthy by selling his soul to The Man) - See Ovaries, Biggest.
    Flukiest Fantasy Baseball Win EVER- ...
    Most likely to enter an old folks home at age 32 - ...
    Best Photographer - Actually, it's Ovary boy, I think.
    Person who I felt bad for, and had to write a non-sarcastic superlative - ...
    Easiest to write fake superlatives for - Jonathan Crisp.
    
25. Rapid Fire Grand finale: I'm a dog person with 2 cats. I've been to 6 continents, but have no intention of going to Antarctica. After 2 drinks, I tend to become egotistical and speak Spanish only in the first person present tense. I used to like crowds and roller-coasters, now, not so much. Like Debbie, I've got 2 degrees and no idea what I want to be when I grow up. I have no memory of dressing in drag when I was little, but I did. I'm really glad I managed to finish this up.