Yeah, you're all gonna be in this experimental film
As I'm planning out what I feel like writing about this evening, I think it will all be summarized as so: films, gays, Ewan McGregor.
I watched the Oscars tonight, all of it. I love the Oscars and Golden Globes, though perhaps without good reason given how those award shows can be. I just love good movies. Anyway, I really liked how they did it this year! Hugh Jackman is likable and I loved his opening bit, about how he "stayed up all night in his garage" to come up with crappy, pizza box-adorned sets to sing about the nominees. I especially loved the part asking how come superhero films never get nominated, and that the whole part for The Reader was about how Hugh didn't actually see The Reader but meant to and had nothing to do with the actual movie. A million bonus points for ending the song with Jackman belting "I'm Wolveriiiiinnnee!"
Big kudos to the how the awards were organized this year, so that they paralled the pre- and post-production steps actually taken in making the films. It made it a lot easier to sit through the three-plus hours because it made sense and we could follow along, rather than having it be a seemingly random procedure. I liked how they worked the sets and stage for it, too. I watched the show with my mom and brother and we all loved how they presented the acting awards with five previous winners in that category, and then each nominee was spoken about personally. It's exciting to see that much talent amassed on a stage. Also how the show integrated the Best Picture nominees with previous winners and films of similar themes in a montage was really effective and well done.
I was pretty indifferent to to the actual nominees this year (of the nominated, I've seen only Milk), but I'm pleased with the recognition that Slumdog Millionaire received. I'm especially happy for Danny Boyle, the man responsible for my favorite movie Trainspotting and several others I really like, and it's nice to finally see him and a movie with no big celebrity names get such praise over here in America. I'm happy about Sean Penn's win for Milk and his acceptance speech to the "commie, homo-loving sons a guns." He mentioned some signs of hate he saw while coming to the theater -- were anti-gay people actually there protesting? Oh, get lives already you douchebags. I was really... proud? inspired? by how Penn gave specific mention to the supporters of Proposition 8 and spoke of "the shame in their grandchildren's eyes." That was really beautiful, because it was a sentiment so certain of people's hope rewarded. And finally, Danny Elfman had a Best Score nomination! I hadn't known about that, so it was a nice surprise to see the score for Milk come up, especially because I noticed how good the music was while watching the movie. (Actually at first I was like, "Gee, those strings sound like Big Fish... oh duh it's Danny Elfman.")
I watched the prevews for the 2009 moves during the credits and noticed good ol' Ewan McGregor in some of them, which makes me happy because I love him but he hasn't seemed to be doing much lately, at least not anything good. He's going to be in Angels and Demons, which will no doubt be terrible but at least we'll get to see him act with Tom Hanks. I imdb'd Ewan to see what else he'll be up to, and one upcoming project is a movie called Men Who Stare At Goats with George Clooney and Kevin Spacey. Oh how happy that casting makes me! He has another movie coming out that I first heard about the other night on IFC when they did a segment about the Sundance premiere of I Love You Phillip Morris staring Ewan and Jim Carrey and okay, honestly when I first found out that they were gonna be in a movie together I might have exclaimed "HOLY SHIT!" I mean come on, aside from being a crazily unexpected pairing, it's my 3rd-grade crush in a movie with my 11th-grade crush! AND THEY PLAY LOVERS AND TOTALLY GAY EACH OTHER!! It's like some great and horrible fantasy my brain crafted during a fever.
Finally, I watched The History Boys the other night. It was interesting and I liked it, and its soundtrack included the Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen, New Order, and the Cure, but it needed more gay with this guy and not this guy. Because you see, I have only the highest standards regarding films, obvsly. I'd like to read the play and be able to digest the dialogue in my own time, plus I'm sure it goes much more in depth. Speaking of plays and the stage, as a final note of things no one else cares about, I finally gave a listen to the OBCR of Sping Awakening. It's supposed to be sooo great, but I didn't like it. The music bored me, and the booklet did a poor job of listing which characters sang which parts, so I couldn't follow their development. I've listened to it only once, maybe another go would make it appeal to me more, or actually seeing it on stage. I'd like to read the late-1800s German play this was based on, too. I bet that would be good, all of the confusion and frustration and repression of teen sexuality minus the songs. Apparently between this and The History Boys I have some kind of thing going lately for schoolboys? Oh yay.
I watched the Oscars tonight, all of it. I love the Oscars and Golden Globes, though perhaps without good reason given how those award shows can be. I just love good movies. Anyway, I really liked how they did it this year! Hugh Jackman is likable and I loved his opening bit, about how he "stayed up all night in his garage" to come up with crappy, pizza box-adorned sets to sing about the nominees. I especially loved the part asking how come superhero films never get nominated, and that the whole part for The Reader was about how Hugh didn't actually see The Reader but meant to and had nothing to do with the actual movie. A million bonus points for ending the song with Jackman belting "I'm Wolveriiiiinnnee!"
Big kudos to the how the awards were organized this year, so that they paralled the pre- and post-production steps actually taken in making the films. It made it a lot easier to sit through the three-plus hours because it made sense and we could follow along, rather than having it be a seemingly random procedure. I liked how they worked the sets and stage for it, too. I watched the show with my mom and brother and we all loved how they presented the acting awards with five previous winners in that category, and then each nominee was spoken about personally. It's exciting to see that much talent amassed on a stage. Also how the show integrated the Best Picture nominees with previous winners and films of similar themes in a montage was really effective and well done.
I was pretty indifferent to to the actual nominees this year (of the nominated, I've seen only Milk), but I'm pleased with the recognition that Slumdog Millionaire received. I'm especially happy for Danny Boyle, the man responsible for my favorite movie Trainspotting and several others I really like, and it's nice to finally see him and a movie with no big celebrity names get such praise over here in America. I'm happy about Sean Penn's win for Milk and his acceptance speech to the "commie, homo-loving sons a guns." He mentioned some signs of hate he saw while coming to the theater -- were anti-gay people actually there protesting? Oh, get lives already you douchebags. I was really... proud? inspired? by how Penn gave specific mention to the supporters of Proposition 8 and spoke of "the shame in their grandchildren's eyes." That was really beautiful, because it was a sentiment so certain of people's hope rewarded. And finally, Danny Elfman had a Best Score nomination! I hadn't known about that, so it was a nice surprise to see the score for Milk come up, especially because I noticed how good the music was while watching the movie. (Actually at first I was like, "Gee, those strings sound like Big Fish... oh duh it's Danny Elfman.")
I watched the prevews for the 2009 moves during the credits and noticed good ol' Ewan McGregor in some of them, which makes me happy because I love him but he hasn't seemed to be doing much lately, at least not anything good. He's going to be in Angels and Demons, which will no doubt be terrible but at least we'll get to see him act with Tom Hanks. I imdb'd Ewan to see what else he'll be up to, and one upcoming project is a movie called Men Who Stare At Goats with George Clooney and Kevin Spacey. Oh how happy that casting makes me! He has another movie coming out that I first heard about the other night on IFC when they did a segment about the Sundance premiere of I Love You Phillip Morris staring Ewan and Jim Carrey and okay, honestly when I first found out that they were gonna be in a movie together I might have exclaimed "HOLY SHIT!" I mean come on, aside from being a crazily unexpected pairing, it's my 3rd-grade crush in a movie with my 11th-grade crush! AND THEY PLAY LOVERS AND TOTALLY GAY EACH OTHER!! It's like some great and horrible fantasy my brain crafted during a fever.
Finally, I watched The History Boys the other night. It was interesting and I liked it, and its soundtrack included the Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen, New Order, and the Cure, but it needed more gay with this guy and not this guy. Because you see, I have only the highest standards regarding films, obvsly. I'd like to read the play and be able to digest the dialogue in my own time, plus I'm sure it goes much more in depth. Speaking of plays and the stage, as a final note of things no one else cares about, I finally gave a listen to the OBCR of Sping Awakening. It's supposed to be sooo great, but I didn't like it. The music bored me, and the booklet did a poor job of listing which characters sang which parts, so I couldn't follow their development. I've listened to it only once, maybe another go would make it appeal to me more, or actually seeing it on stage. I'd like to read the late-1800s German play this was based on, too. I bet that would be good, all of the confusion and frustration and repression of teen sexuality minus the songs. Apparently between this and The History Boys I have some kind of thing going lately for schoolboys? Oh yay.