(no subject)

[brokenrecord]

So, for the most part, these were good! The winners were all either my choices or ones I could deal with. I was too lazy to post predictions, but I made them for the acting categories, picture, director, cinematography, score, and screenplays, and I got 10/10! Which doesn't really mean much considering I didn't post them beforehand, so I can't really prove that I did, but... take my word for it, I guess? Not that it really matters. I pretty much only predicted the categories I had a good idea of and/or was most interested in. I can't tell sound editing and mixing apart, and I definitely wouldn't have gotten those right. And foreign language I would have gone either with The Class or Waltz with Bashir. But yay for getting the main categories!

The changed ceremony was... interesting. I don't know, a lot of people have been saying they loved it, but I don't think I was a huge fan of it. For one thing, I really like seeing clips of the actors in the movies they're nominated for before they announce those awards, and I like seeing clips of the nominated films, so it sucked they did away with that. Well, they kind of did it for pictures in the best picture montage at the end. That was actually the best montage they did, so I'd be ok if they continued with that. The previous winners presenting was... I don't know. Hit and miss. Some of the speeches were really sweet and moving, like Shirley MacLaine's for Anne Hathaway (oh man, Anne Hathaway looked so thrilled and touched that Shirley MacLaine even knew who she was), or Marion Cotillard's for Kate Winslet, but others were pretty lame (I'm looking at you, Nicole Kidman and Adrien Brody). Also, it took up a lot of time that could've been spent on each original song nominee getting their own time to do the song rather than that medley. And I didn't really like the clips of the past nominees winning right before they entered because, I mean... I've said I love the montages they do normally, and I do, but I like seeing clips from actual films. I don't really care to watch old clips of people winning, for the most part (although if there were a clip of James Stewart winning for The Philadelphia Story, I would be all over that. But I'm assuming such a clip doesn't exist because television did not exist at that point). If they had done clips of the winning actresses/actors in their actual winning performances, then I would have loved that.

My absolute least favorite thing of the entire broadcast, though, was the In Memoriam segment. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? I'm fine with Queen Latifah singing over it (it was nice and respecful, I thought), and even though I find clapping for your favorite dead person kind of disrespectful and irritating (especially since they said they wouldn't be airing the clapping over the broadcast) I'm used to that so I can deal with it, but WHAT WAS WITH THE DIRECTION DURING THAT SEGMENT? The camera was swinging all over the place! I couldn't for the life of me see the names of the people or, especially, what they had done! I saw one guy and on the side it said "Rear Window" and Rear Window is one of my favorite movies ever and I would have liked to see how he was involved with the movie, but I couldn't read it! The only good thing is that there's a version on youtube that has just what was on the screen that the camera was shooting, so you can actually read the names and what they did. But god, that was awful. I wanted to slap whoever made that decision, because seriously. Ridiculous.

Also, the musical number in the middle was ridiculous, and for me to be saying that, well, that's something. Especially because I'm someone who absolutely adores musicals, AND I have a rather ridiculous crush on Zac Efron, so I'm all for him singing on my screen normally. But that went on way too long and it was just pointless. In fact, all the genre movie montage things were pointless. I guess when I say I love the montages in the Oscars usually, I mean I love the montages where I can spot clips from old movies that I love or movies I've just discovered, you know? I really don't need to see clips from You Don't Mess with the Zohan or Space Chimps. I guess what I really love is like... you know the ads for TCM 30 Days of Oscar? Those are pretty much my favorite things ever. I would love if there were clips like THAT during the ceremony. But I didn't like the ones showing this year. And yeah, so I guess the musical number was supposed to represent the musical genre, but it just went on too long, and was really pointless. So that was totally unnecessary.

Edit: OMG I totally forgot, I LOVE JANUSZ KAMINSKI. I mean, the Pineapple Express parody with James Franco and Seth Rogen watching clips of movies was pretty amusing on its own, especially them laughing at The Reader and Doubt and James Franco putting his arm around Seth Rogen when they were watching the clips from Milk, but then they added Janusz Kaminski and I totally cracked up. And then he went on stage and said "Suck it" to I forget who and it was awesome. I've loved him since I found out he was the DP for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and he was just so adorable and amusing!

Anyways, some of the awards by category:

Best Picture/Director: These were pretty much the same to me. Even though my favorite film of 2008 wasn't nominated (Wall-E), Slumdog Millionaire was my second favorite (just barely beating out The Dark Knight, which totally should have been nominated over The Reader. And In Bruges should have been nominated and Wall-E. ...ok, so my top 5 doesn't quite match the Academy's nominations, but still. I did like the nominations except for The Reader and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button!). And I'm glad Danny Boyle won, as well.

Best Actor: I was totally split between whether I wanted Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke to win. They both gave brilliant performances. I was tipped over to Mickey Rourke because of his amazing comeback and the fact that he had never won one before. Also because his acceptance speeches are amazing. But I was fine with Sean Penn winning, and I thought he would win just because... I don't know. The Academy likes Sean Penn, roles based on real people, and I just had this feeling they wouldn't give it to Mickey Rourke. I've seen some people labeling this as a huge upset, though, and it's 100% not. They were pretty much 50/50 going in and had been splitting the awards up to this point. It would have been an upset if it was anyone but those two, but not if it was Sean Penn. This was the only not 100% sure category of the night, really. Anyways. I am ultimately happy with their choice, even if I feel like this might have been Mickey Rourke's only real shot at an Oscar.

Best Actress: Kate Winslet! Yay! Well, my pick was Anne Hathaway because I really thought she was best out of the nominees, but my choice would've been Kate if she had been nominated for Revolutionary Road. But I do love her and she is way overdue for an Oscar, so I'm totally fine with her win.

Best Supporting Actor: Oh man, Heath Ledger. I'm still so upset over his death. I mean, I'm still not over the fact that he and Michelle Williams split up! I'm not even near ready to handle his death. But I am thrilled that he won. I hate that some people say he only won because he died. Maybe some people voted out of sympathy, but I saw all the best supporting actor nominees, and he BY FAR deserved it. And it's not like you could ever prove that he wouldn't win it if he hadn't died, so just get over it. He won. The speech his family gave was so sweet and touching.

Best Supporting Actress: I'm not really sure what my choice was, but I'm happy with it being Penelope Cruz. I think I was pulling for Marisa Tomei up until like a week ago, and then I was like "You know what? The more I think about it, I really liked Penelope Cruz in Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona." So yeah, that was good.

Best Original Song: I really don't care about this category because WTF WHY WAS "THE WRESTLER" NOT NOMINATED. BY FAR BEST SONG OF THE YEAR. WTF. I'm still upset about that. As it is, I like O Saya better than Jai Ho, too. I'm not sure what I think about Down to Earth. I like it, but I don't think I like it best in that category.

...that's kind of all I feel like going over.

The Academy Awards always makes me want to watch more movies. Well, I was already kind of in that mood, but now I'm in it moreso. I especially want to watch Paul Newman movies. The one part of the In Memoriam segment they did right was the end with those Paul Newman clips. I've kind of randomly been falling in love with him over the past few weeks after watching a few clips of him, and I have no idea why. I've only seen him in one movie (Torn Curtain), and while he was good, it's definitely one of my least favorite Hitchcock I've seen, so I'd like to see him in something good. Unfortunately I have no time to watch movies during the week. And I realized that on Friday I have to go to this German event thing after dinner, and then right after that I have a concert for Wind Ensemble, so I'll have no time to watch anything when I normally would on Friday. blah. Stupid real life ruining my fun. I'll probably try to either sneak something in during the week (like... Tuesday night, probably, since there's no TV I'll be watching, I think) or I'll have to wait until Friday after the concert.

Anyway, I'm really thrilled that last week is over. And it appears so far that it didn't go as badly as I thought. I got my German test back and I got an A, my stats lab (that I didn't think I'd do very well on) which I got a 94 on (although I still haven't gotten back last week's, which will probably be worse. I understand this week's much better, though, thankfully, and it's nearly done, so there's progress!), and, best of all, the research proposal for stats back which I got 100 on. So yay for that! On the other hand, we got our quizzes back from Differential Equations on Thursday and I got a 65. We still haven't gotten the second back, but I'd be lucky if I got over a 75. We can drop 2 quizzes, so hopefully I'll suck less on the rest of the quizzes this semester, because I really need to drop those 2. Especially the 65. =/

This week is slightly less busy than last week, but still busy. I have a stats lab due Wednesday (which is nearly done, but I still have some work to do on it), homework for RIP II tomorrow (I didn't do very well on the first one, so I need to put more effort into this one), a quiz in Differential Equations tomorrow (need to get an A because my previous two quizzes sucked), a test in RIP II on Thursday, and a test in stats on Friday. But for now I think I'll just waste time for the 20 minutes I have before Wind Ensemble and wait to do work until after dinner.