I got some pictures e-mailed to me from Brenda of the 2008 Oscar Party. These are a little bit small, but I think you will get an idea of the glamor of the event. This event is also doubles as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.
I’m still waiting to get some more pictures from Jen, so there may be more pictures posted in the future.
I hope to have pictures up from the formal Oscar party at some point in the future, but until then, the thing that made me the happiest about the Oscars was a win for
Falling Slowly for Best Original Song. I can’t put into words how much I love the movie Once. I love this movie.
Below are clips of their acceptance speech and a performance of the song by The Swell Season.
Tonight was the big Rambo night. Below is a picture of the gentlemen that made their way to our local multiplex to view Rambo with me.
Pictured left to right: Jeff, Yours Truly, Scottie D., Jesse, Derrick, Jason Baier, Jay, Andree and Greg.
Not pictured is Russell. He finally relented to viewing Rambo despite contending that his “self respect was not expendable”. However, Russell took off immediately after the film and is not in the photo.
Preceding the movie was a dinner and Rambo discussion. Almost everybody shared a favorite Rambo moment from the past. I will publish those in due course, after I compile my own personal list of my ten favorite Rambo moments.
They announced the Academy Award Nominations this morning. These are the 5 Best Picture Nominees. I still need to see There Will Be Blood, but at that point I will have seen all the nominees.
Michael Clayton
There Will Be Blood
Juno
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
At this point in the game, I think my favorite would be Juno. My least favorite would definitely be Michael Clayton. Atonement has a great beginning, but I have no love for the way this movie ends. I would consider No Country for Old Men to be almost a perfect movie up until the last 15 minutes. Most people I know hate the ending. I didn’t love the ending, but I do love the movie.
I saw two new movies this weekend. These movies do make it necessary for me to reorder my Top Ten of 2007.
There are still a couple of decent movies from 2007 that I need to witness. I am planning on seeing THERE WILL BE BLOOD on Sunday. I would like to go see ENCHANTED if I get a chance. The Oscar nominations are announced tomorrow. I am excited to see what makes the cut.
I went to see The Kite Runner on Saturday night. It was an excellent movie, but what I’m posting here is a preview for a movie I saw before The Kite Runner. It is a documentary called Young at Heart and it is certainly on my list of must see movies now.
This is an awesome clip of the Coldplay song Fix You performed by Young at Heart. This is already a hauntingly beautiful song, but this performance really takes the song up a notch for me. Similar to the way Johnny Cash changed the NIN song Hurt for me forever.
I am a big fan of the 1976 science fiction classic Logan’s Run. So much so that I used the movie as the basis for the invitations to a birthday party a few years back.
I went to an Ames Jaycees meeting on Thursday night. I don’t care to report much of the meeting, except that there was one point during the meeting when it came time to discuss members renewing their membership for 2008. For some reason this lead to a brief period of time when some people chanted: “Renew! Renew! Renew!”
The Jaycees already remind me of Logan’s Run because in Logan’s Run when you turn 30 you are required to go to Carousel and renew. If you choose not to go to Carousel, Sandmen hunt you down and terminate you.
When you reach the age of 40, you also get the boot from the Jaycees.
The resemblance got taken up a notch by the “Renew!” chant. When you go to Carousel in Logan’s Run, the crowd chants “Renew!” as well.
One other thing that came out of the meeting is that I found a new home for the KU basketball calendar. It hung on my wall at work a full week. Then I decided that it might need a new home, so I deposited it where I think all KU things belong.
It turns out that the President of the Ames Jaycees has questionable taste in sporting teams and roots for Kansas. Eventually that calendar will be heading in her direction. She can enjoy the 3 pictures of Drew Gooden and the picture of the KU mascot that is clearly taken at a football game. In the week that the calendar hung on my wall, the corners were already starting to bend. They didn’t try too hard when they made this calendar. Maybe KU fans don’t demand or expect excellence like Iowa State fans.
Now seems like a good time to release a preliminary list of what I consider to be the ten best movies I saw from 2007. This is a preliminary list because I hope to see a few other movies in the next couple of weeks that might make a change in the list. I still need to see BUCKET LIST,THERE WILL BE BLOOD, and THE KITE RUNNER.
Top 10 Movies of 2007
10. Atonement
9. The Bourne Ultimatum
8. You Kill Me
7. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
6. Hairspray
5. Ratatouille
4. No Country for Old Men
3. Into the Wild
2. Juno
1. Once
I would consider making a list of the 10 worst movies of 2007, but I think that list would hardly be comprehensive. You see I don’t rent or go to the theater to see things that are obviously garbage. I’m certain that BRATZ, I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, HOSTEL PART 2, NORBIT, Good Luck Chuck or the HALLOWEEN remake are some of the worst movies ever made. I don’t know for sure because I haven’t seen them. The worst movies from last year I’ve seen are TRANSFORMERS and BEOWULF. I highly doubt they are worse than anything starring Dane Cook or was directed by Uwe Boll. I’ll change the list if any of the movies I still need to see warrant a changing of the list.
Masterpiece Theater is running a series of movies based on Jane Austen novels. In fact they are doing all 6 Jane Austen novels and a dramatization of her life. I’m kind of excited about this and it started tonight. The first movie they showed was Persuasion. This movie is about a 27 year old spinster who had to turn down her one chance at marriage when she was 19. By a strange twist of fate, the man that she had to turn down and the man she still loves comes back into her life. I found it interesting that 27 was considered too old for marriage and the large amount of cousins marrying each other. One suave guy asked the main character (and his cousin) to marry her by saying: “Anne Elliot. I think you should keep that name.” You see because they were cousins and they shared last names, so hers wouldn’t change. Yeah, gross. She didn’t end up with her cousin.
It was pretty good, but the highlight for the movie was the best description of being in love I have ever heard. “I am half agony and half hope.”
Today I also went to see Atonement. I have little doubt that Atonement will be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, but the movie didn’t do that much for me. It did for awhile. The beginning was great and then it slowed down and got less interesting. However, it was the surprise ending that completely ruined it for me. I can’t give away the ending because I don’t want to ruin the ending for anybody out there, but I take great umbrage with the belief that sacrificing truth was the proper way to end this story. I am a great believer in truth and believe that it is the most important thing in the world, so I don’t believe in the good intentioned lie that this movie endorses. That is also why I hate the movie Amelie and believe that the main problem with it is that the main character is evil and never gets a just punishment for the lies and deceit she spreads.
It is my belief that Film School has more or less been canceled. Jay has yet to confirm this fact, but I think it is safe to presume that it is so. So I’ll go back to writing brief movie reviews this way. However, they will be very brief. Thursday I’m going to see The Kite Runner with Teresa. 14 days from today it will be time for Rambo. I believe that already 6 people have signed up for this viewing. That number just might grow.
\I heard something yesterday that incredibly angers me, but that might be for a later time. Here is a new episode of film school about the movie Beowulf. Jay is getting pretty good at the editing. Now if only I were to improve we might have something here.
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