Wow, apparently writing the Oscar live-blog took a lot out of me – is it really Wednesday afternoon already?  I’m still pretty groggy, too; I’ve quickly moved from insomnia to CFS.  Not much going on in Chillyville at the moment.  Going to see some Big East games tonight, my first ever college hoops experience (never went to a Navy game, since I there after the David Robinson glory days).

We watched The Reader on HBO On Demand last night.  I wasn’t expecting much, I’d previously seen a preview for the movie while the channel was muted.  Based solely on the silent trailer I saw, I assumed the movie would contain the following, at a minimum (some spoilers, some not):

1. Some books
2. Some illiteracy
3. Someone uttering the following sentence: “Are you a good, a good….reader??”
4. Someone crying as they are being read to
5. Someone laughing hysterically as they are being read to
6. A short biography of the guy who invented the PDF format
7. Gratuitous Kate Winslet nudity
8. Lots of baths
9. Bad accents
10. At least one suicide

I realize this is a little dated, but the movie pretty much sucked – I didn’t really get the connection between any of the characters.  Hooking up with someone when you are 15 – much less a really bitchy someone – doesn’t make them your lifetime lobster.  (Yes, I’m using an analogy that may be inaccurate as my source of information was Phoebe from Friends).  And the twenty minute epilogue felt really out of place, like the director said “shit we’ve only got 100 minutes here, to be taken seriously as a Nazi love story, this needs to be at least two hours long.”  The bloopers after the credits were fucking hysterical, though, and really redeemed the rest of the film.  The best post-credit bloopers I’ve seen since Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire.

I know everyone comes here for reviews of movies that came out like two years ago, so, once again, I am all over it.  Maybe next I will review The Empire Strikes Back (with spoiler tags, of course).  It’s important to keep the momentum rolling.

RIP, Corey Haim I haven’t checked any online death pool sites, but I’ve gotta imagine that Corey Haim was pretty high up the pecking order, didn’t seem like the dude could shake the hard stuff.  He was slightly outside of my demographic, since I had just turned 29 when The Goonies came out.  I do recall some bizarre videos that had surfaced a few years back showing him to be pretty delusional about his career prospects.

I have to wonder what would’ve happened to the “death montage” at the Oscars if this had happened last week?  They probably would have just snubbed Patrick Swayze a la Farrah.  Still pissed about the Farrah omission – I get that her most notable body of work was in television, but she made enough movies, and was at one point a big enough star, to get two seconds of screen time.

Skweezy $kweez If you are somewhere where foul language and adult content are acceptable, I highly recommend this video.

500 words is pretty good for a lazy Wednesday – later,

Chilly17

8:10 PM:  Getting a bit of a late start.  Joining me for this intimate oscar party is an old friend and fellow decorated veteran: General Tso.  Will also be working through the three opened bottles of wine left over from last night.  Think I’ll start with the Yellow Tail, it really accentuates the flavor of chinese food.

I watched some of the pre-show on E!, that Juliana Rancic is fucking annoying.  Good to see the Twilight kids are gonna be here tonight; I was worried that they wouldn’t find work.  And how tall is Kathryn Bigelow?  Compared to Seacrest she appeared to be roughly as tall as Na’vi Jake Sully.  She needs a nickname; I think K-Bigs works pretty well.  Good luck, K-Bigs.  Heard Meryl was either being a bitch or pretending to be a bitch, have to check the twitter.

8:50 PM:  Fucking technology.  I just lost 40 minutes of stellar live blog commentary.  Now you’ll have to settle for this junk.  Have to try and recall some of the tidbits.

Taylor Lautner looked like he was gonna barf when Alec Baldwin mentioned his name – SO wisely recognized that as the same fear you get when the comedian is talking to you at a comedy club.

Waltz wins Best Supporting, huge shock.

Surprised that they brought out NPH for the musical number, that’s gotta be Adam Shankman’s idea.  I love NPH, but I think I just maximize the Baldwin/Martin goodness.

On thebiglead.com, the commenters argue about the hotness of practically every fucking chick in the world – there are even people who debate the hotness of Sophia Vergara!  But the consensus opinion is that Helen Mirren is hot.  She’s in her sixties.  She’s freaky, too; she was in X-rated Caligula back in the 70s.  (I do not recommend this film for the non-squeamish – some scenes depict alternative uses for appendages that are definitely non-erotic.)

I thought you had to have some dramatic chops or extremely strong mainstream appeal to be an Oscar presenter?  Ryan Reynolds?  Cameron Diaz also seems a little weak.  Scratch that – Miley fucking Cyrus?!?!  And Amanda Whatshername?

Up and Up In The Air should join forces and try to win Best Picture as Really Long Movie About Upness.

Over/under for mentions of the Cameron/Bigelow marriage?   I think four, currently at one.

Young Kirk introducing District Nine?  That’s kind of ironic, as it was widely thought that either D9 or Star Trek would get the final Best Picture nod.

If this fucking computer screws me over again I’m gonna throw it outside.

9:11:  Commercials are pretty lame, I thought they used to bust out some Super Bowlesque ads?  So little drama this year, advertisers probably collectively said “fuck it.”

General Tso punched me in the gut, feeling woozy.

Nice job by RJD and Tina Fey.  I’m picking Inglourious Basterds in a slight upset.  Boal wins for THL!  First of many, I suspect.  Nice quick speech, too.

Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick?  Must be a John Hughes tribute.

9:29:  Hughes tribute was solid – amazing how prolific he was in the 80s/90s and the high quality level he maintained.  Some all time classics in his oeuvre.  I might have to fire up a little Ferris Bueller tonight.  Can’t figure out what Cusack was in of his though?  Nice Baldwin clip.

Why do they make a fuss over the short films?  This should be like the “best key grip” awards that got cut from prime time – nobody has seen/heard of any of these short films.  Except maybe for that Wallace and Gromit one.

So far, this has been pretty dull.  The Yellow Tail is gone, have moved over to some Spanish red that was brought over.  Not as tasty as Tail, but will do for now.  God I hope I don’t have to resort to white wine.

Best Documentary Short?  That’s 50x less relevant than the category I was just dissing.  It’s not like people are generally sitting around going “you know what I could really go for right now?  A documentary.  But nothing too long, is there a theater showing a bunch of thirty minute documentaries?”

Were those short doc winners having a fight onstage?  I couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on, I thought the fat lady was translating, but then it seemed like she might’ve been Kanye-ing.

Ben Stiller in blueface?  Could somehow be residue from the collective kissing of JC’s ass, but I don’t approve of this sci-fi minstrelsy.

Come on Star Trek – the makeup award ain’t no joke!  Yes!  Fuck that Best Picture omission!

9:49:  Best Adapted Screenplay coming up, I’m 1/2 so far but expect to get the rest of my picks right.  Nice little dose of Naughty By Nature there, I didn’t really expect to hear “OPP” tonight.

Does Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire have the most awkward title ever?  And as I typed that, it won!  Wow, that’s a major upset as Up In The Air was thought to be a heavy favorite.  I’m gonna have to check out P:BOTNPBS, but I will have to be in a very specific mood.  This guy seems like he might not make it through the speech, he might collapse.  I’m somewhat shocked, I thought I would only get one pick wrong.  Other upsets ahead?

Queen Latifah has really not wasted potential.  Jesus, I was listening to some “hip hop of the 80s/90s” playlist on napster and heard her on a song with Moni Love from 15 years ago.  Now she’s introducing the honorary award at the fucking Oscars.  such UNwasted potential.  I’m gonna put this wine down and turn my life around.

I guess maybe I’ll just finish the wine, makes no sense to waste it.  It’s from Peru.  Or Spain.  Somewhere else.

Maybe my “Who’s had the better career: Robin Williams or Steve Martin?” debate has been settled tonight.  Steve is co-MC and RW is introducing best supporting actress.  It would be a major shocker if Mo;n>’q:que didn’t win.

Jake and Maggie pronounce their name “jill in hall”?  I always thought it was “gill in hall”?  That’s my worst pronunciation error since I found out it’s “key osk” not “kai osk”.

Holy shit that P:BOTNPBS clip scared the shit out of me.  M:o’n*i)q%ue with the expected win.  She does not come across as being very hilarious for a comedian.  She seems angry, more like a contract killer than a sitcom star.

10:04:  JC Penney with the prime time advertisement.  I own some JCP shares, they have been on fire recently after shitting the bed.  Keep up the strong work, retail pick of mine (with some help from the sellside analysts who put it on their “lock of the year” lists).  I’m gonna go there tomorrow and see if they have any adult sized garanimals.

Chilly Trivia:  I’ve never owned an iPod.  I was an early mp3 adopter and have used both legal and illegal versions of napster since.  I almost got an iPod touch last week when my POS Zen finally died, but instead went with the Sansa Fuze. I foolishly would rather pay $15/month for library access that I rarely use instead of paying $1 for a song to own forever.

Damn, some of these speeches are fucking sad.  This dude who worked on Avatar was told he was gonna die 13 years ago?  I’m getting depressed – get some happy fuckers up there who just want to get drunk and stuff.

I keep forgetting about twitter.  I’m gonna do some twittering too since I’m “working” tonight.  chilly_17, ya’ll.  I have one follower, which is pretty awesome.  I cannot put that twitter button on this site when I only have one follower – that might indicate lameness (no offense, Flint).

Way to throw Twilight into the horror film montage.  Wow – I have twitter open in another tab and someone said the same exact thing.  There are no original thoughts.  Actually, there are no original vapid thoughts.

10:25:  Sound Editing.  Getting to the big boys.  THL with the win!  I’m expecting a sweep of the top two here.  Cmon K-bigs!  I’m gonna check twitter to see if that nickname is taking over.

K-bigs is not taking the world by storm.  Dammit.  Giving nicknames is one of my strongest attributes, along with foosball and getting people to go for long lunches.

Ryan from The Office and Naughty By Nature!  A special night indeed.  If only Ryan and the rest of the namesake crew in IB had been in the frickin movie.

I’m at almost 1400 words already?  Time flies when you are drinking wine, half watching something and typing, while simultaneously trying to digest some lumps of battered and fried chicken-type product and checking the market futures.  Damn, I actually sound somewhat busy.  I should call my parents.  They think I’m one of those silver statue of liberty guys at central park and living in a cardboard box.

You know what rules about a live blog?  I don’t have to really worry about editing it.  Homophone errors?  Too late to worry about that.  Or should I say: to late two worry about that?

Tribute portion – Swayze in the first slot.  That’s it?  He got fucked.  That’s bullshit.  Karl Malden closes out the montage?  I love me some Streets of San Francisco, but come on.  Ghost, Point Break, Dirty Dancing, etc – they should’ve recognized.  Mild applause for Michael Jackson was also surprising, seemed like Brittany Murphy evoked one of the biggest reactions.

10:49:  Is it just me (and SO), or are there some So You Think You Can Dance fuckers on this medley?

Yep, that’s definitely Kayla.

I’m sure that breakdancing dude’s mom has been giving him shit his whole life, and now he’s doing a three minute solo at the Academy Awards.  Yet unanother example of unwasted potential.  After I finish this drink, I am seriously done with all this tomfoolery.  Time to dedicate myself.

I just realized, no Farrah in the death montage???  That thing was seriously wrong – they fucking almost omitted Swayze and then they did omit Farrah.  Does no one remember Logan’s Run?  What about Dr. T and The Women?  Okay, Dr. Tsucked, but still she was in movies and she was at one point the biggest star in the world.  Same does not hold true for Karl Malden, despite my love for American Express.

11:03:  It seems like the hosts are not really all that involved in the show.  I was expecting a bit more, really.

How long is this gonna last?  I’m getting bored, just spent the last seven minutes trying to figure out why T’s comments always go to moderation.  It’s possible that my computer has recognized him as some kind of anarchist banker, as Railbird’s comments do not go to moderation.  Computer, does railbird get a free pass because she’s a girl?

Fuck Avatar.  Although I enjoyed it, my expectations were supremely low (and it was raining in Florida, so what else were we gonna do?  A whale had just killed someone, so SeaWorld wasn’t happening).  The Hurt Locker.  K-Bigs.  Let’s do this.  One for two will not suffice.

11:25:  This is longer than the Super Bowl.  I should definitely have bought more wine.

Remember when Julianne Moore didn’t wear any pants or underwear when she was ironing in Short Cuts?  Robert Altman was a great director.  One of the few extremely long movies I enjoyed.

Are they gonna intro all the Best Actors with a panel of colleagues?  This shit might last until 2:00 AM.  Vera Farmiga sounds like an entree at an upscale Italian restaurant.

Godammit, second technology fuckup of the night.  DVR cut off and we somehow missed the chat up about Jeremy Renner.  How does Colin Farrell even know that guy?  I’m pissed right now.  Cmon JR.

Bridges with another expected victory.  I’m starting to get a little worried about the blue men taking the end of the night.  So many bad omens so far.  I like Bridges, and he definitely seems either drunk or high.

Wow, Oprah and Forest Whitaker?  Star power for the Best Actress testimonials.  Wait, Whitaker directed Hope Floats?  Really?  If Bullock wins, it’s gonna be a combination of her broad appeal and sustained career, not for any real substance.  Not quite a career achievement award even, because she doesn’t have that much substantive “work”.

If the vote was done right now, Oprah might swing the vote.  Gabby seems like a real cool person, and comfortable in her own skin, but she needs to lose a few elbees, for health’s sake.  Jeebus.

I’m running a 15k later this month, not sure if I mentioned it on here yet.  If I was less fat, I would run faster.  But eating is one of my hobbies.

I feel a little bad for Stanley Tucci that he got nominated for such a despicable role.  I listened to The Lovely Bones as I drove cross country, and it pretty much sucked.  But the killer of Susie Salmon was a pretty bad guy.  I like guys like Stanley who can play like 7-8 different races.  He was awesome in Big Night.  (Actually, the food was awesome in Big Night, that movie introduced me to risotto.  I’m from the South, there spaghetti is exotic.)

Sandy with the win.  Snooze.  Although she’s pretty likable, and Jesse James was one of the few tolerable people involved with the last Celebrity Apprentice.

K-BIGS!!!!  Solid win.  Let’s hope Best Picture doesn’t slip away.  Is she boning Jeremy Renner?  I heard he might play Green Arrow in a Justice League movie.  Or maybe it’s Hawkeye in an Avengers movie.  He’s being considered for one of the superhero archer roles in a team movie.

Tom Hanks does not fuck around, I guess because it was 11:59.

The Hurt Locker does not bomb at the Oscars!  (Witty writing – free of charge).  How tall is K-Bigs, like 6′7″?  Glad to see things work out like they were supposed to.  2300 words on Sunday night.  I’m done for a day or two.

Sincerely,

Chilly17

I used to be quite the movie aficionado, before the internet came along.  I recall driving an hour to see Crash – the weirdo David Lynch movie, not the lame-assed, heavy-handed, inexplicable Best Picture winner of a few years later.  I rented the Red, White, Blue movies from that Polish director.  (They sucked).  I watched a lot of indie crap (and a lot of Parker Posey), occasionally finding a diamond in the rough like Shallow Grave or Walking and Talking.  I didn’t give a shit about the Oscars.

But as I got older, the Oscars got releventer and releventer.  That, or I got more interested as people started having Oscar parties.  I enjoy occasions where alcohol flows liberally and people withhold judgment about what is acceptable behavior.  (Although I wouldn’t recommend going to an Oscar party with film school students; I attended one such affair at USC in 2002 – the level of jargon used was bankerish.  ”The grip work on that tracking shot in Unforgiven was sooooo amazing.”)  The last Oscar party I attended had only five guests; it was not a rousing affair.  In 2010, I’m going to step things up by hosting my own Oscar party.  Who am I inviting?  Nobody, except Mr. Yellow Tail.  And Mr. Computer.  I had such an enjoyable time live blogging the Super Bowl I’m gonna do the same thing for the Academy Awards.  Also, it’s much easier than just thinking up a real topic for a post.  Plus it will allow me to spend some time trend-following on Twitter.  Exciting.

In advance of that, here’s who/what I think will win the major awards.  I’ve seen most of the contenders with the exception of Precious – I’m saving that for a time when I find myself in a suicidal or homicidal mood, seems like it’s a real hoot – so I’m more than qualified for this.  That said, I think most of the big awards are pretty much locks, shouldn’t be much drama.  Unless Christina Hendrick decides to wear a halter top.

(I will also include Entertainment Weekly’s projection based on their insider information and shit – that’s called adding some fucking value.)

Best Supporting Actress

Looks like a strong role model

I say:  Monique.  Awards always favor one word artists: Cher, Madonna, CarrotTop, Snow, Houdini, Fabio, the list is practically endless.  Wait, she spells it Mo’Nique?  WTF…

EW said:  Mo’Nique, in a walkover.

Best Supporting Actor

I wonder why pipes like that are no longer in vogue?

I say:  Christoph Waltz.  He was delightful as the Nazi with the heart of gold.  (I still don’t understand how that movie ended though – those Basterds didn’t so much kick ass as accept a resignation.)  Also, what’s up with no “er” on the end of his name?  These Best Supportings have some weird first names.

EW said:  Waltz, in a waltz.  (Wordplay.)

Best Actress

The face of altruism

I say:  Sandra Bullock.  I haven’t seen The Blind Side, but I did read Liar’s Poker and I do wish the Niners had drafted Michael Oher, so I have a good feel for it.  (It’s the touching story of how some kindly Ole Miss boosters took in a gigantic homeless kid and paved the way for him to eventually attend Ole Miss and, shockingly, play football there.)  This is a lifetime achievement award for Bullock; she also probably benefits from Streep fatigue here.

EW said:  Bullock, by a nose.

Best Actor

He looks so soulful, as if he's had his share of ups and downs in life, but learned from them

I say:  Jeff Bridges.  I haven’t seen Crazy Heart, but apparently it’s a virtual clone of  The Wrestler, right down to the lead actor deserving some major awards.  Bridges has none of the personal legacy issues Rourke had and will finally score some gold man group.  Bridesmaid no more.  Did you know he was nominated for Best Actor for Starman?  Seriously?  Wow.

EW said:  Bridges, huge.  (I guess I’m just regurgitating their picks, but like I said, most of these are no-brainers.)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Don't fall for it, George - she's a bitch!

I say:  Up In The Air.  Everybody loves this movie, but it’s not gonna win many awards given the other powerhouses this year.  So it’ll grab the adapted screenplay consolation prize.  (I’m looking forward to seeing this movie without jackasses talking throughout; still bitter about that experience.  Went to see Avatar last week in Florida, and there was another family talking throughout.  I hate people.)

EW said:  Up In The Air, landslide

Best Original Screenplay

This scene comprises about half of the Basterds' screen time

I say:  Inglourious Basterds.  Cineastes love them some QT, it’s been 15 years since he won the screenplay award for Pulp Fiction.  He’s due.  Although I’m still pissed about that movie – it should’ve been called That One Girl The Nazis Didn’t Kill, The Suave Nazi and The Nazi War Hero.

EW said:  The Hurt Locker by a small margin.  (See, I’m not all chalk.)

Best Director

Lots of juicy subplots here

I say:  Kathryn Bigelow.  She’s actually made a bunch of awesome movies, she’s due for some recognition and The Hurt Locker was the shit.  Would be pretty sweet for her to be the first female to win Best Director and to beat her ex-husband, James Cameron, for the award.  It’s all happening.

EW said:  Bigelow over Cameron, pretty close though.

Best Picture

I need to watch this again

I say:  The Hurt Locker.  I finally saw Avatar last week and was pleasantly surprised (expectations were low).  But I can’t believe that it’s gonna overtake THL.  Too intense, too well-acted, too topical, too awesome.

EW said:  The Hurt Locker, close.

Special bonus investment advice:  Don’t short Apple.  Ever.

I will be live-blogging this bitch on Sunday,

Chilly17