Movies and Stuff

So, its Oscar time again. I feel bad because I haven't seen many of the nominated films, even the ones I've been wanting to see. I saw Eternal Sunshine, which I can safely say was robbed in several categories of a deserved nomination. Not the least of which being Jim Carey who offered the performance of his career. A lot of blockbuster actors just rest on their paychecks and don't worry about Oscar recognition, but here is a guy who is genuinely out there looking for interesting and different films, trying to prove himself as an actor, and he just gets no credit. He easily outacted Kate Winslet (no small feat) in that film, and its a shame that she got a nod while he remains unacknowledged.

I also just saw The Aviator and was appropriately impressed. Its not Scorese's best, but its definetly one of his better films. Its a grand ol' spectacle and DiCaprio puts in a wonderfully nuances performance. He really communicates Hughes' decent into insanity and his wildly divergant personalities in a coherant way. It all felt like it was coming from the same place, which was a nice achievement.

Basically, that's it. I did manage to spoil myself for Million Dollar Baby just because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and I had no interest in seeing it given what I knew about it, so no harm. I get the fuss, but it also makes me suspect that the film could have been manipulative of the response it would elicit. Indeed, I wonder if the contraversy is creating a circling of the wagons as Hollywood rushes to protect the film by honoring. [editing note: to be clear, I do not think the film was made to manipulate contraversy, but rather that the marketing and specifically Oscar marketing seems so; at least judging from how often people in the industry keep bringing it up as a reason to vote for it] I want to see Sideways, don't really care about Finding Neverland (when I read about how much basic factual information was tossed to create a more pleasing story, I lost a lot of interest; didn't like Monster for similiar reasons)

I guess I'm not really looking forward to the awards as much as I think I have in other years. Mostly I'm dreading the inevitable award to the fat-baiting documentary "Super Size Me" which is just a total pile of BS. It takes a lot to be unfair to McDonald's, but I guess some MTV producer managed to find a way. All while duping people into think he's some sort of sainted martyr and not the lying carny he really is. [note: and let me just thank the Academy for proving my concerns wrong]

Other than that, I did get to watch the first season of The Office and loved it. Really excellent, funny show. At least I thought so.