Drop That Blonde Thing Clinging On Your Arm, Franco.

Thinky Thoughts And Random Opinionating Regarding The 81st Academy Awards
(Because everyone else is doing it)


1. Robert Downey Jr. looked gooooood! He also says something about his wife being his date for "the rest of this incarnation", which would have sounded impossibly cheesy had anyone else said it, but Robert Downey Jr. isn't anyone else, he is Robert Downey Jr., and because Robert Downey Jr. said it, that line is now Epically Awesome.

2. I am in love with Anne Hathaway and her freakishly huge eyes.

3. Dude. MILEY CYRUS IS EVERYWHERE.

4. Hugh Jackman! He sings! He dances! He Australianizes! He hosts! Yay!

5. Those kids from Slumdog Millionaire were mighty adorable! But Dev Patel was adorablerer. Just look at the LOOK on his face everytime the movie won something. Too precious.

6. I actually really loved the stage and the entire set-up this time around. So much smaller and very crowded together, which gave this sense of warmth and intimacy I never thought we'd feel watching the Oscars.

7. Tina Fey + Steve Martin = Awesomeness of Truly Unexpected Proportions. They should host this shindig every year for the rest of Eternity.

8. Penelope Cruz's acceptance speech was going just fine until she started blathering on about "Art" and how we should all work hard to preserve its integrity. That kinda made me cringe in a massive way.

9. Dude. BEYONCE IS EVERYWHERE.

10. The guy who won Best Original Screenplay for Milk has a really pretty name, really pretty hair, and a really pretty and genuine speech. I am already in love with him, and I haven't even seen his movie yet.

11. The abundance of Coldplay music accompanying at least two of the movie montages made me rather uncomfortable. Coldplay and Oscars don't mix together, man. Despite all the Gwyneth Paltrowing.

12. Heath Ledger. Of course by then everyone and their grandmothers already knew he'd win, but it was still lovely when he did.
13. Oh look. Reese Witherspoon. The 2 regular readers of this blog may remember her as Evil Blonde Byotch Who Stole-eth BAP's Boyfriend.

14. The Judd Apatow Stoner Skit.



I realize this is the kind of thing people are either going to love or detest, but come on. They were trying to smoke the damned Oscar statue! And they were cracking up all over The Reader! And there is no way you could possibly project even an ounce of hatred upon the stonerifically brilliant improvisation of the ABBA song. Too funneh.

15. How awesome was it to watch James Franco watch James Franco suck Sean Penn's face?

16. James Franco couldn't pronounce the title of the German film that won for Best Short Film or something. That made Seth Rogen giggle. Which made James Franco giggle. Which made me giggle.
I mean, The Franco goes to like, 8 universities and maybe has 247 degrees to his name by now, and he's probably read Anna Karenina backwards and forwards about 93 times, and he messed up his pronunciation on the Oscar stage. That just made him waaaay less intimidating. And gorgeouser.

17. The Franco cleans up good. I mean, really good. I mean like, reeeeeeeeeeeally goood.

18. MARRY ME, FRANCO.
( I'm sorry, but after the Judd Apatow Stoner Skit, anything that wasn't a Franco pretty much ceased to exist in my mind).

19. I hereby nominate James Franco as host of the Academy Awards for the rest of Eternity. Amen. And Seth Rogen should feel free to tag alongeth.

20. This new gig they have going on, where past winners come out and speechify about the present nominees was okay, I guees, but likely to get over dramatic after a while. Not much of a fan of this, me.

21. Robert Pattinson is creepy as heck. Did you see those faces he was making as he presented the video montage thing? And while he was sitting behind Mickey Rourke? Goodness.It's lucky the dude has divine hair.

22. Kate Winslet won Best Actress, which was Awesome (and so is her dad!). Danny Boyle won Best Director and literally jumped around for a bit, which was also Awesome. Sean Penn won Best Actor and talked a bit about human rights and Important Stuff in his speech, which was nice, but all I was doing was waiting for him to mention James Franco so the cameras would have an excuse to cut to a shot of the dude. Never happened. Didn't mention Teh Franco once. BOO you, Penn. BOO. You already have like, a gajibillion Oscars. Would it have killed you to indulge me a bit?

23. Oh and also, everybody cried when Heath Ledger won. Everybody. Every. Body. I'm a bit suspicious though, because they're all such great actors, y'know?


And Franco, I saw you on the red carpet. I did. You had something blond and skinny hanging off your very cerebral and intellectual arm. I shall be needing you to drop said blond skinny thing and come running in this direction with as many Tolstoys and Nobokovs as you can carry. Please, thank you, and amen.



Just a random black and white shot, people. That just happens to maybe possibly apparently have a James Franco in it.

You've All Missed Me Beyond Comprehension, I Know

So here. Have a double-barrelled post (even though the Cardinal Rule of Blogging - I forget who told me that - is to have only one subject per entry. Pfft)


Grammys 2009

The Stuff That Sucked

1. U2's opening performance.
I did not get this at all. I mean, in all seriousness, this was BAD. A lousy song to start with, and Bono prancing around, reminding us all that he is, in fact, God. Also the lyrics weren't all that inspired or catchy for them to be featured on a big screen behind Bono's still rapidly expanding noggin. Blah. And I woke up at 8 in the morning for this.

2. Katy Perry , and by association also the Banana Elevator
Is that the only form of humour this woman knows? The phallic-saturated kind? It was never funny to begin with and still isn't. I thought it would be impossible for her to get on my nerves any more than she already has, but how wrong was I? I wish she'd stop bending over (literally) to convince us of her so-called quirky, oddball, booger-picking , shameless sexual-innuendo-ing brand of extremely-not-funny-ness. That Banana Elevator had better make itself useful and like, kill her to death one of these days.

3. The whole awards ceremony was three and a half hours long and barely 10 trophies were actually given out during showtime. But I suppose I really shouldn't be whining. I have watched the Grammys before, after all.

4. Lame jokes that nobody laughed at.
Now those were painful. Justin Timberlake's "General Store" joke made me want to crawl under the coffee table and rot, it was that bad. Gosh they have some sucky writers over at Grammyland.

5. Miley Cyrus
She's everywhere.
I cannot stand it.

Stuff That Rocked

This. Because two-fifths of Radiohead + some random marching band = Awesomeness of mind-boggling proportions.



And that is how you boogie, Thom Yorke-style. Take notes, you undeserving peasants.

Gawsh. Jonny's hair is so Pretty. I want to touch it. So bad.

Random Uncategorizables

1. Coldplay's jackets made my eyes hurt, and not in a good way.
2. Although, at least Chris Martin's "We're limestone rock" quip was rather cute.
3. M.I.A got robbed! They should have let her sing the whole song, man.
4. Adele was making eyes at the Jonas Brothers during her acceptance speech, and I don't quite know what to make of it.
5. It is creepy how much Katy Perry and Zooey Deschanel look like each other. (Sorry, Zooey)
6. The Jonas Bros. have weird guitar-playing faces. I don't know what to make of this either.
7. John Mayer isn't funny anymore. He may be a jerk for life but at least his speeches used to be funny.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the last few months, you'll all know what this is about. An 18 year-old from the slums of Mumbai, Jamal Malik, joins the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and kicks ass until he is arrested and tortured under suspicion of being an epic cheat. Thus begins an alternating-timeline narrative of different chapters from Jamal's childhood and recent past that correspond to every question he has answered correctly on the game show. Because, as the tagline in the trailer says, "every moment of his life is a clue to the answers". Cool shit eh? Oh and naturally there is also a searching- for-lost-true-love storyline in there, which is actually very dominant. Based on the fabulous novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup.

What I Loved About Slumdog Millionaire

1. The soundtrack. Or the score. The whatchamaycallit. The music in this one is spectacular. Not just the obvious doses of Awesome from the incomparable M.I.A, but also and especially the original compositions. A.R Rahman has surpassed himself and kicketh proverbial arse in this department. And you can count on my word because I've had the man's music shoved down my throat by the Parental Units for the last 18 years.

2. Cinematography. I can sort of see why this matters now. There were some mucho wacky shots from practically every angle imaginable and every perspective in existence, even for the simplest of actions, but not in a way that was in excess or gave you a headache or anything. It just made regular stuff like running look like something new and magical that you've never tried before. And there was plenty of motion in this one. Fast motion, slow motion, reverse motion, downwards-looking-upwards motion, upwards-looking-downwards motion, but hardly ever no motion.
Or maybe Twilight was so crap that everything else looks good in comparison?
Meh.

3. Dev Patel. Such a blank , straight-faced dork! He was on Ellen just a few hours ago, and I was constantly Aww-ing at his sweet dorkyness. Of course, he's British, so he's more of a verbose, impressive-sounding dork, if there is such a thing. It matters not, though, for my brand of dork-love discriminates not.

4. They used Sigur ros in the trailer, and did not bastardize the song. One sure way to win my heart, that.

5. Subtitles! According to imdb only 25% of the movie's dialogue is in Hindi, but hey. I love them subtitles. They make me feel smart. Oddly.

6. The child actors who play Jamal, his lady love Latika and Jamal's brother Salim, at different stages in childhood and adolescence. Some of these kids were actually handpicked from the very slums this movie depicts,and for them to pull of such amazing performances is monumental indeed. Also, they are simply too adorable for words.

7. The little Bollywood song-and-dance number at the end credits. Too cute, people. Too. Cute.

What I Didn't Love About Slumdog Millionaire

1. Some scenes would have been way more powerful, with greater emotional impact, had the dialogue been in Hindi. In fact I sort of wish the whole thing was in Hindi. It would have seemed more natural, for one thing. But hey, the director's a Brit, and it was clearly made with a Western audience in mind. So I'm not really complaining, because it could have been a whole lot worse.

2. This is not exactly the movie's fault, but having read the book beforehand, I couldn't help but feel more than a little underwhelmed by the film itself. For one thing, it is my tendency to nitpick over details (like the fact that Salim isn't actually Jamal's brother, or that Latika is in fact two different characters rolled into one, or that Jamal's actual intentions in the novel were geared more towards murderous revenge than tender loving sentimentality, or the fact that his name isn't even supposed to be Jamal), and I also blame my imagination a bit. Sometimes it's just too vivid for its own good, and when certain scenes in the film didn't match what I had envisioned for myself in my head, it elicited nothing more than a "Blah" reaction from me. I didn't quite like what Danny Boyle chose to leave out, or add on, to ignore completely. And once, again, not the movie's fault.

The Verdict

10 Oscar nominations does seem like a bit too much, to be perfectly honest. It's not really the best movie I've seen, nor is it a "feel-good flick" in any sense, not when it contains some of the most disturbing scenes you'll ever witness on celluloid. Neither is it the kind of movie you'll be wanting to watch over and over again (not without a month's interval between each viewing) because it does get exhausting after a while. But it did give me some major warm fuzzies and sentimental blathering, and I can't quite explain it but there's just something about Slumdog Millionaire, much like Jamal himself, that gives you this insane urge to want to root for it, no matter what. Part of it is the appeal of the underdog, obviously, but there is also an intangible something else that this flick has got going for it. It's just so intensely root-able. All in all, definitely a movie you have to watch at least once, and you will end up either worshipping the ground it walks upon or hating its guts. Because I have yet to come across anyone who is even remotely neutral about it.