Oscar Update

Okay, so here are the nominees again:

• Avatar
• District 9
• Up
• The Blind Side
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds*
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up In The Air

Scott and I saw Avatar, Up and District 9 before the noms even came out. Last week we saw Up In The Air. It was sweet and sad and it reminded Scott a lot of when he used to travel monthly for work. In Business Class the lucky bugger. Strangely that aspect of the movie got different reactions from the both of us. It made me want to travel and it made Scott happy he was promoted and gets to stay home.

Over the weekend we saw The Blind Side. It was sweet but not Oscar-y at all. No angst, no tragedy, nothing terrifying... it just was. It could have been a television movie-of-the-week. But again, it was sweet.

Over the holiday I found a website where you can watch tv (even here in Canada so suck it, Hulu). Upside; it has movies. Downside; it only plays about an hour at a time, then cuts out for an hour before you can watch any more. Don't tell Scott but I sneakily watched nearly an hour of Inglourious Basterds. What can I say, my mouse finger slipped. Heh. Anyway, when it cut out at Chapter 4, I felt super guilty so didn't have the heart to watch the rest without him. I have no intention of telling him when we actually rent it. This is how we stay married. Do not knock it, do not judge.

Frankly I was grateful for the movie's interruption. I spent the whole time holding my breath, stressed and terrified. How scary was the Christophe Waltz? He deserved his Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, that's for sure and I haven't even watched the whole thing.

So we're not sure which movie is next but I'll keep you posted. You know I always do.

kxx

The Matrix

In case you were one of the 2 people who were stumped by yesterday's quiz, the answer is The Matrix. And if you were stumped, I suggest you never play this game again. Some of them are impossible to guess.

So on to new business, yes? With much fanfare, the Oscar nominations came out yesterday. In the Academy's infinite wisdom, they increased the Best Picture nominees to 10 movies from last year's 5 effectively preventing the regular joe me from seeing them all before the really big show.

In years past, my BFF Kathy and I used to see all the movies together. When she sadly became unavailable, Scott took her place (as best he could, poor lamb). Seeing five movies in 6 weeks was difficult but not impossible. Expensive but doable. Ten movies is approaching the ridiculous. Going to that many movies in over a month would mean both mortgaging our house and entitling us to thorough head examinations.

So Scott and I have decided to go see the few that look the least boring and rent any that we can on DVD. The rest of the movies are SOL (shit outta luck). Not having seen all the nominees will take some of the fun out of the Oscar telecast but if I think about it the show isn't quite meant for us plebs anyway. It's for Hollywood insiders and rich movie mucky-mucks. They couldn't care less about me on my leather couch with my bottle of red wine, my Snuggie and my knitting staying up way too late to watch them accept their precious awards. Hmph. Remind me why I'm doing this again...

Anyway, the nominees for Best Picture are:

1. Avatar ***seen it
2. The Blind Side
3. District 9 ***seen it... as of today having seen only 3 of these, this is my choice. AMAZING
4. An Education
5. The Hurt Locker
6. Inglourious Basterds
7. Precious
8. A Serious Man
9. Up ***seen it
10. Up In The Air

See you at the Cineplex.

kxx

Oh what to do?

I've been to the Unemployment Office, written up resumes, called for information at a local college, cooked a needlessly complicated dinner, baked, cleaned the house and done all the laundry. I've even gotten a new cell phone. Don't worry, the previous one was so old the battery charged completely in 15 minutes and died within 24 hours. The only extra feature it had was a dial tone. Anyway, it seems to be thumb-twiddling time. And I'm not talking texting, baby. Well maybe just a little. It's either that or clean out the garage and that ain't gonna happen.

So today I think I'll watch some DVDs. I have a pile where I collect the ones I had planned to watch eventually. Frankly it seemed like I'd never get to them when I had a job, now I can put a dent in it. These are the ones I have in my "pending" pile:

• Barbershop
• Serendipity (which I've seen in the theatre but not at home)
• Balls of Fury
• The best of Star Trek: The Next Generation
• The complete first season of Wonder Woman and;
• Season 2 of Dexter

I also have PVRed copies of The Thomas Crowne Affair and an Indian movie (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna starring the yummy Shah Rukh Khan) that I've been meaning to watch for ages. Incidentally I've been watching Bollywood movies for years waaaaay before the Slumdog Millionaire bandwagon rode into town... but I digress.

It may well be time to invest in some bonbons. I'm going to randomly choose one of these DVDs and watch it guilt-free. Maybe 2 of them (unless I choose a tv season, that is). Or maybe I'll just ditch them all and watch Auntie Mame; a movie I've seen easily 8 times. I've been thinking and talking about it a lot lately and I think it's time to check it out again.

What do you guys think, my "little loves"?

kxx