very simple

My normal morning routine involves listening to NPR, but this morning, stuck in the hotel, I turned on the Today show (hey, at least I could see pictures of home!). They’re doing the whole "who’s gonna win the Oscars" schtick, and the just had one of the talking heads outside asking questions (with the answers in envelopes). Anyway, the question was "what was the last comedy to win best picture?" And i was all, oh that’s easy, it was Shakespeare in Love…

The answer they gave? Annie Hall. I get that they were trying to emphasize what a long shot Sideways is, but really, it just makes their "experts" look even more stupid.

And SIL was definitely a "comedy" – it won the Golden Globe for that category (causing the big showdown that year at the Oscars between it and the drama that year, Saving Private Ryan).

Heck, I would even argue, although it was the GG Drama winner, that the following year’s winner, American Beauty, was very much a black comedy, and Chicago (2002 winner) wasn’t exactly a drama either. Oh, and Titanic was pretty damn funny too. But that may have just been the "acting".

I guess they had more important things to do than "research", what with all the time spent on the very important piece about Campbell Brown learning how to surf. I suppose that’s one way to write off your winter vacation in Hawaii as a business expense…

Things that pissed me off this weekend…

• So, the hot chocolate festival was completely lame yesterday – I stopped by, but didn’t even take any pictures because it was actually somewhat pathetic (and after all the hype!). The ice rink? was "synthetic ice" that you could skate on with ice skates, but was so small that you couldn’t fit more than a few people a a time. The "sidewalks piled with snow that would be imported in? was chunks of week old sidewalk snow from last weekend’s blizzard, that was impossible to play in. As I walked down the street I could feel palpable disappointment in the parents and kids that I passed. Oh, and for all the hype about the hot chocolate itself, City Bakery was apparently charging $2 for a sample-size cup. So I essentially walked by making like I was just going over to sixth avenue, lest anyone think this "festival" was my actual destination. I don’t know if they thought the blizzard would negate their need to import snow, or if it was a little too warm to make things work (it was actually in the mid 30s), but it was quite poorly executed. I’m actually mad at myself for telling other people about it.
• Thanks, New York Times, for giving away the "major plot twist" to Million Dollar Baby in the friggin’ headline. Hint: Don’t click on the link if you don’t want to know. And putting a disclaimer in the second paragraph of the article doesn’t exactly work when your headline is "Groups Criticize ‘Baby’ for Message on [XXXXXXXXX]". Some of us actually haven’t seen the film yet, even here in New York where it’s actually been playing.
• And in my personal life, I woke up this morning with what appears to be a stye in my left eye. Which really, really sucks. my eyelid is swollen and I look like I got punched in the face. And I’m stuck wearing my glasses, which also sucks because the lack of peripheral vision will give me a massive headache by the end of the day.
• Oh, and Fresh Direct forgot one of the boxes in my order last night. The one with all of the Diet Coke (among other things). And when I called them, they’re all "we can deliver it from 2-4 on Wednesday," forcing me to point out that the reason I’m scheduling deliveries at 10pm on Sunday nights is precisely because I work during the week. and then when we finally figure out a new deliver time for the missing $20 worth of groceries? The guy is like, "and we won’t even charge you for delivery!" in this tone that is totally like he’s doing me a solid. My response? an incredulous "well I certainly hope not, as you guys fucked up, and not only would charging me for a second delivery in this circumstance be unethical, I’m pretty sure it would be illegal as well…"

Wow. now I feel a little bit better.

I love days like today. Why? because it’s 3 in the afternoon and I’m still in my pajamas. The only thing that I have to do today is sit around my apartment and wait for my Fresh Direct delivery. And then watch the Golden Globes tonight. And the best part? that all of the errands that I theoretically could be running today (of which there are very few)? Can just get done tomorrow, because my office is closed for MLK day.

That’s not to say that I didn’t bring a little bit of work home with me, but it’s really only so that I can get a jump start on next week, more than anything that needs to get done.

Anyway, I’m off to go watch the Battlestar Galactica movie for the next 8 million hours.

It’s stuff like this that actually makes me feel like I should go see Sandra Bullock movies….too bad that they often suck.

I hadn’t seen a movie in a while, so I took myself to see House of Flying Daggers yesterday afternoon. It’s really the most visually stunning movie that I’ve seen in quite some time. And the story is so engrossing, that two hours later, when the movie ended, I couldn’t understand why the screen had gone black – I seriously thought that only half that time had gone by – I could have easily sat there for another hour or two.

The theater crowd, on the other hand, drove me up a wall. People around me kept talking, as if a subtitled movie means that no one cares about the dialogue, and there were at least three cellphones that went off in the middle of the show. Then, the woman in front of me actually made a phone call in the middle of the film. And these weren’t teenagers. This woman was around 40. I kicked her seat.

The other thing I didn’t get? The people who exploded in laughter at really inappropriate times. It was like, ooh, funnily dressed Chinese people – clearly a source a humor. I never understand when crowds have reactions like that. Do they not realize that they’ve gone to see a foreign-language martial arts movie set in the ninth century?

And while I’m at it, what’s with the people who roll into the theater after the previews start and can’t understand why the only seats left are in the front row? Apparently showing up late and talking through the previews isn’t just for old ladies anymore.

I got my DVD of (the extended version of) Return of the King today, which means that I’ve been watching it since I got home from work at 6:30 tonight. I think the hours of documentaries are going to have to wait for the actual weekend, as I’m now completely exhausted, since I’m also still hung over from the work-related holiday parties that I attended last night. For some reason I have, like, 7 of these things to attend this holiday season.

They picked the right name for this movie. I took myself to see The Incredibles this morning, and it was the most thoroughly enjoyable movie that I’ve seen in quite some time. Aside from the animation, which is extraordinary (the "human" characters were intentionally cartoonish, but at times I couldn’t tell whether the backgrounds were actually animated or a mix of live photography and animation), the story itself is what hooks you. I found myself emotionally invested in the outcome. Plus, it’s damn funny too.

Definitely a Superman. I was doing my last bits of packing before my car picks me up at 4:30a.m., and I came across the news that Christopher Reeve has passed away. I have an overwhelming urge to call my best friend from high school, who works with disabled kids, and who dragged me to Mr. Reeve’s book signing a few years ago in Bedford, but it’s 2 in the morning and I shouldn’t wake her up for this. My biggest memory from that day was just how incredibly genial and kind both Mr. and Mrs. Reeve were (she was obviously the one signing the books) to everyone who came through. Since that time, whenever I’ve heard some snippet about him, that’s what I’ve thought about, rather than any of his movie roles, and this just made me very sad…

I hadn’t planned on doing another entry before I left town, but, well, there aren’t a whole lot of people to talk to at this time of night…

Louis Menand in the New Yorker has a really good piece addressing the "accusations" that Michael Moore abuses the "documentary tradition" with the way that he shoots his films (inserting himself and his opinions into the middle of them). Essentially, people who make this accusation don’t actually understand what the "documentary tradition" is. In going through the actual history of the documentary film, in all of its fakery, reinactment and staging, Menard posits that "one thing that cannot be said about ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ is that it is an outlaw from the documentary tradition."

I went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban last night, and thought it was significantly better than the first two. With 1 and 2 I felt like I was watching a series of distinct scenes from the book being acted out, with limited emotion, and nothing connecting one scene to the next – when I left the first movie I remember wondering if anyone who hadn’t read the book would even understand what was going on in half the scenes.

But this third movie was great. Sure some of the kids are still a little limited as far as their acting skills are concerned, but for 13-year olds who were cast originally based on their looks and the fact that they were unknowns, I think they’re doing quite well. And Cuaron just made the movie flow so much more evenly (the very fact that it "flowed" in the first place is an improvement).

I’m kind of sad that he’s not directing the next one, but I hope that the next director takes this lesson (and the reviews) to heart.