BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

 

The Nominees Are:

• The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club


• God Sleeps In Rwanda


• The Mushroom Club


• A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin

 

Erin’s Pick: The Mushroom Club

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: The Mushroom Club

Cheri’s Pick: God Sleeps in Rwanda

Anushka’s Pick: The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club

 

The Winner Last Year Was: Mighty Times: The Children’s March

 

Arbitrary rules, for me at least…

 

And now for your brief Olympic report:

 

Wildcane: Skeleton is like Luge except you sled on your stomach face-first (in Luge, you sled feet first on your back)

 

Bobsled: It’s weird to me that the United States is being discussed as a possible medal contender. Back in 1994 (the first year I watched Bobsledding on TV; my friend Sam and I kind of played along using the footstool in the family room), even the Jamaicans placed ahead of the U.S. By the way, there doesn’t seem to be a Jamaican Bobsled team this year, which is kind of sad. However, the brakeman on the Canadian four-man team used to be on the Jamaican team, so there is gonna be a Jamaican there.

 

Ski Jumping: This isn’t one of my favorites, but has anyone noticed the interesting noises that can be heard as the competitors are shooting down the hill? It reminds me of the DeLorean from Back to the Future.

 

Men’s Super G: Bode Miller got disqualified again. Why am I not surprised? By the way, what’s the difference between Super G and downhill?

 

Women’s Combined: The woman from Croatia whose name I can’t spell won the gold medal even though she’s been suffering from “flu-like symptoms.”

 

Speed Skating: Shani Davis became the first African-American male to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Following his win, he gave the NBC reporter one-sentence answers to all her questions. He seemed annoyed about something.

 

How To Piss Off Koreans: According to the NBC folks, all you gotta do is say your favorite athlete is Apolo Anton Ohno. Apparently, they hate him with a passion.

 

Short Track: Well, the result of the Men’s 1000m and the Women’s 1500m ought to please the Koreans, since they won gold and silver in both events. They almost swept the Women’s 1500, but the third-place finisher was disqualified so the Chinese skater got the bronze. Apolo Anton Ohno got the bronze in the Men’s. I didn’t really like him during the Salt Lake City games, but now he’s all right. I’m not sure what brought about the change of opinion.

 

That’s all for now. Tomorrow night promises a little bit of Speed Skating, a little bit of Bobsled, and more Ice Dancing (which means more REALLY cheesy smiles). By the way, did anyone else see last night’s “Today in Torino” on the late-night coverage? It was hilarious.

 

BEST EDITING

 

The Nominees Are:

• Cinderella Man


• The Constant Gardener


• Crash


• Munich


• Walk the Line

 

Erin’s Pick: Walk the Line

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: Crash

Cheri’s Pick: Cinderella Man

Anushka’s Pick: Crash

 

The Winner Last Year Was: The Aviator

 

Of course, the category I may claim some expertise in has no nominees that I’ve seen…

 

 

Okay, onto Olympics:

 

First some brief notes about last nights (i.e. the night I missed due to the power outage). I discovered that NBC does not repeat ALL of the primetime stuff during late night. They end up cutting the first half-hour or so. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until after I had taped over the tape I had been recording on earlier, so I no longer have some of the men’s long programs in figure skating. Yevgeny Plushenko won gold, which pretty much everyone predicted. Johnny Weir (who looks like a gay Johnny Depp, sort of) ended up 5^th place. Evan Lysacek finished ahead of him in 4^th (I think). Chris’s recommended skater of choice, Brian Joubert (AKA James Bond on ice), couldn’t seem to land any of his jumps (plus he skated to this weird Irish jig-type music) and ended up in 6^th place. My skater of choice, Daisuke Takahashi, ended up 8^th, but the commentators all said that he could be a big star in Vancouver four years from now.

 

They also showed women’s skeleton last night. This is the sport in which Granville native (re: town Denison is located in) Lea Ann Parsley won silver four years ago. However, she either didn’t qualify or chose not to go. Maya Pederson of Switzerland won the gold medal. There was also a German woman who competed even though she’s two months pregnant. My mom thought this was a bad idea.

 

Now for tonight’s events:

 

Ice Dancing: Of the four events in figure skating (Pairs, Men’s, Ice Dancing, and Ladies’), Ice Dancing is my least favorite. It’s actually kinda boring, because it’s basically ballroom dancing on ice. Tonight was the compulsory performances, which is the most boring of the three nights of Ice Dancing, because each couple skates the EXACT same dance to the EXACT same music. Tonight’s compulsory dance was a waltz of some sort, and all the couples seemed to feel the need to have really cheesy smiles plastered on their faces. At least the music didn’t sound like a Lawrence Welk polka, like it did a couple years ago. Like all the events in figure skating, the Russians are the favorites, but currently there’s an Italian couple in the lead. It was kind of funny because they had never skated under the new scoring system and they were the last people in the entire arena to realize that they were in first place. It took them forever to find out.

 

Snowboard Cross: Lindsey Jacobellis is going to go down in history for making one of the DUMBEST moves in Olympic history. She had the gold medal all wrapped up, and then in the final hill, she decided to show off, fell down as a result of it, and the second place person glided past her and won the gold. Hopefully Jacobellis will be able to make up for it in Vancouver. It reminds me of those football players who start celebrating their touchdown when they’re still on the third or fourth yard line and then they fumble or get tackled or something (this sort of thing happened A LOT at my high school).

 

Hockey: Well, Sweden, in a major upset, defeated the U.S. in a shootout. In all likelihood, Sweden is now gonna get killed by Canada in the gold medal game.

 

Now, I’ll leave you with a somewhat funny dialogue between me and my mom.

 

(I’m trying to explain Skeleton to my mom while it’s being shown on TV)

MOM: “So it’s like luge except face-first?”

ME: “Yeah, but there’s no such thing as Doubles Skeleton.”

MOM: “Except for the woman who’s pregnant.”

BEST MAKEUP

 

The Nominees Are:

• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe


• Cinderella Man


• Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith

 

Erin’s Pick: Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Cheri’s Pick: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Anushka’s Pick: Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith

 

The Winner Last Year Was: Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

 

Well, since this is the only category Revenge of the Sith is nominated for…

 

No Olympics report today, because I have to wait for the late-night repeat to see most of it (though I saw enough of it to see the German woman who’s competing in skeleton even though she’s pregnant). The reason for that is also the reason why I’m late posting Oscar Picks. A little after nine o’clock tonight, we were having a small thunderstorm (nothing huge), when all of a sudden the power went out (this was followed by a rumble of thunder several seconds later). I was the only one in the house near a flashlight, so I had to rescue my parents from the living room (they never did get to see the rest of CSI, although they said it was a repeat). The lights started flickering, and we heard a weird humming noise coming from outside. My mom and I looked out the window, and the power line across the street from our next-door neighbor was sparking and on fire (and it was making that clichéd electric zapping noise; NOTE: there was no transformer on this particular line, just a fuse). The lights came back on for about two minutes, then went out again for good. Meanwhile, the rain put out the fire on the power line. However, someone had apparently already called 911, because this what showed up about five minutes later: a police car, a fire truck, and two ambulances. For a while the cop and the fire fighters kind of stood around looking up at the power line that had been on fire. My dad went out to talk to them before they left, and they told him the fuse had blown and that they had notified the electric company. Pretty soon, it’s 10:30 and the electric company STILL hadn’t shown up. I called the automated outage reporting line just to “refresh” their memory, only to be assured that our power would be fixed by 3:25 AM. I then resigned myself to reading by flashlight and listening to a tiny battery-powered radio for entertainment. FINALLY the electric company showed up about 11:45 (for some reason, I was reminded of the “Master Luke’s come to rescue me” line from Return of the Jedi). After some fiddling around with the cherry picker, the guy started poking the power line with a stick (the first time he did this, it made a loud ZAP noise, and I was sure he was gonna electrocute himself). Somehow, this resulted in the power coming back on. I missed what he did after that because I had to help my parents turn off the lights downstairs and reset the clocks. Another truck from the electric company showed up about ten minutes after the first truck left, and then about 15 minutes after that, another truck drove by but didn’t stop. I’m not sure what all that was about.

 

And that was my adventure for the night.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

 

The Nominees Are:

• Brokeback Mountain


• The Constant Gardener


• Memoirs of a Geisha


• Munich


• Pride & Prejudice

 

Erin’s Pick: Memoirs of a Geisha

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: The Constant Gardener

Cheri’s Pick: Munich

Anushka’s Pick: Memoirs of a Geisha

 

The Winner Last Year Was: Finding Neverland

 

John Williams has two nominations this year, and I’ve gone for one of them (Memoirs of a Geisha). He won the Golden Globe, so maybe he’ll actually win this year.

 

And now, the Olympics:

 

I didn’t watch any curling or hockey today (c’mon, I wasn’t about to sit through six freakin’ games in a row). Instead, I went to the downtown library with my mom, where I got out War of the Worlds and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on DVD. I also reluctantly got a couple more dime novels (though it was easier with my mom behind me going “Hey, if it helps you make money”), and not-so-reluctantly found an out-of-print Anne McCaffrey book that I’ve been wanting to read. Then my mom insisted on stopping by the library gift shop where I ended up facing an awkward moment involving the music BLARING out of the CD player. Oddly enough, my mom didn’t say a word about it.

 

Okay, call me dirty minded, but who came up with doubles luge? It just looks…bad. Oh, Al Roker and Matt Lauer should NOT wear spandex. Ever.

 

I mostly paid attention to the speed skating and short track events tonight. The US men did not advance in the team pursuit, but the men in the short track events did real well, especially Apolo (God, I want to add another “L” SO badly) Anton Ohno. Has anyone else noticed the asymmetry of the US speed skating outfits? Why is there a gray circle on the inside of the right thigh and not the left? Oh well, they’re still better than the Russian team uniforms. Note to the Russians: Two-tone floral designs are very distracting (not to mention they make my eyes hurt), especially in speed skating.

 

One thing about the short track relays that I find amusing is the way they pass off to the next person. In swimming, the next swimmer dives into the pool as soon as the previous one touches the wall. In track, they pass a baton. In short track, the previous skater places both hands on the next person's ass and SHOVES them forward.

 

In men’s moguls, Jeremy Bloom didn’t deliver, but yay to Toby Dawson, the bronze medalist.

 

That’s all for now.

 

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

 

The Nominees Are:

• “In the Deep” from Crash


• “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow


• “Travelin’ Thru” from Transamerica

 

Erin’s Pick: “In the Deep”

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: “In the Deep”

Cheri’s Pick: “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp”

Anushka’s Pick: “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp”

 

The Winner Last Year Was: “Al Otro Lado Del Rio” from The Motorcycle Diaries

 

Wow. Only three nominees in a category that normally has five. Then again, last year wasn’t the greatest year for movie songs (though I think the new song from Rent should at least have been nominated, and critics are surprised that The Producers wasn’t). “In the Deep” wasn’t spectacular (at least, not the 30 second preview I got on iTunes), but, since I usually don’t go for rap or country, it kind of got picked by process of elimination. And in other news, “Believe” (one of last year’s nominees) just won a Grammy. Weird.

 

 

And now, your brief Olympic update:

 

Again, there was a LOT of curling and hockey during the day today. I still don’t understand curling. In hockey, USA beat Finland 7-3. For a while, it looked like it might be a close game, but the USA got back in the game during the third period. Men’s hockey starts tomorrow, so I suppose we’ll have a bunch of NHL egos to deal with then.

 

I missed the women’s luge finals because I actually ate dinner with my parents, but they insisted on having the news on instead of the Olympics.

 

In skiing, Bode Miller got disqualified in men’s combined (getting nervous yet, Nike?), but Ted Ligety (sp?) won the gold medal.

 

In men’s figure skating, Yevgeny Plushenko is in the lead as expected (You know, with Michelle Kwan gone, it’s quite likely that Russians will win the gold medal in all 4 figure skating events?), and Johnny Weir is in second, but I missed his performance. There was a LOT of music that I recognized this year. It started last night, with Pang and Tong skating to “Phantom,” and the Russian team (can’t spell their names) skating to “Romeo and Juliet.” Tonight, the competition opened with the lone skater from Japan, Daisuke Takahashi (Wow, my spell check is NOT having a problem with that name), skating to “El Tango de Roxanne” from Moulin Rouge (but it was only the instrumental part, so no Ewan singing, unfortunately). I also heard Samuel Barber’s “Adagio For Strings” sometime during the competition. I also found what has to be Chris’s favorite figure skater, French skater Brian Joubert. He skated to James Bond music, and his costume was a suit (sort of) with “007” written on the back. My mom thought this was dumb, but earlier there was a Belgian skater with a bunch of sparkly arrows on his costume and the word “Exit” written on his back, so the “007” didn’t seem that bad in comparison. Joubert is currently in 4^th place.

 

I have Jay Leno on in the background, and wow, does Paul Reiser look old.

 

Anyways, that is all for now.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

 

The Nominees Are:

• Badgered


• The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation


• The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello


• 9


• One Man Band

 

Erin’s Pick: Badgered

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: 9

Cheri’s Pick: One Man Band

Anushka’s Pick: Badgered

 

The Winner Last Year Was: Ryan

 

Yeah, we’re being arbitrary again. For my part, I just went for the one that sounds most likely to be a Pixar cartoon.

 

 

Now onto Olympics:

 

Even after (kind of) watching two curling matches today, I still don’t understand it, though it kind of reminds me of bocce ball (Bowls to you non-Americans). The United States (both men and women) lost today. In women’s hockey, Finland beat Switzerland, but I can’t remember the score.

 

There were a lot of crashes today. American women in both skiing and luge had pretty scary-looking crashes in their events. Then in pairs figure skating tonight Zhang Dan (sp?) fell badly on her knee while attempting a throw quadruple salchow. I think it’s awesome that she had the will to get back up, block out the pain, and finish her program (and finish it rather well). They deserve their silver medal. It’s too bad Inoue and Baldwin weren’t able to repeat their throw triple axel. It also kind of sucks that Pang and Tong didn’t medal, because at the last second I decided to root for them. Of course, that mostly has something to do with the fact that their music of choice was “Phantom of the Opera” (Yay!)…

And congratulations to the Americans who won the Men’s 500m speedskating and the Women’s snowboarding half-pipe. I just learned that the woman who won the silver medal in that event was born in Toledo. Weird…

 

That’s all for now.

 

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

 

The Nominees Are:

• Ausreisser (The Runaway)
  
• Cashback
  
• The Last Farm
  
• Our Time is Up
  
• Six Shooter

 

Erin’s Pick: The Last Farm

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: Ausreisser (The Runaway)

Cheri’s Pick: Ausreisser (The Runaway)

 

The Winner Last Year Was: Wasp

 

As I’ve said the past three years, none of us frequent short films, so we’re just being arbitrary, picking the one with the most interesting title. By the way, Marisa’s sister Anushka will be joining us soon so you can look forward to that

 

Right now I’ve got “Unchained Melody” with just a touch of the beginning of “You Raise Me Up” stuck in my head. Mostly “Unchained Melody” though. I don’t know why.

 

Thanks to everyone who stopped by yesterday and gave comments on my celebrity pictures. Yes, I tend to favor Asians and people of Asian descent (as I said before, I would probably have more males Asians in the list if there were more young Asian male celebrities, but there aren’t). I’ve always liked Asians, and there are times that I’ve joked I was born in the wrong race. I was the only non-Asian on the East Asian Club Exec Board last year, but by the end of the year the other members considered me an “honorary Asian” (mostly because I made Emi and Elaine happy by saying I liked Asian guys). But I digress. Oh, and the strangest notion popped into my head last night: That the two #7s should marry each other. I think it has something to do with a skating video from 2005 that I recently saw.

 

Okay, in the Olympics today...

 

...A lot of the American favorites have turned out really disappointing performances. Bode Miller, for all the talk about him, didn't do so well at downhill (though the French guy that won was awesome). Shaun White ("The Flying Tomato") had a close call, but at least he won gold. And then Apolo Anton Ohno did something really stupid and didn't qualify for the 1500m Short Track finals, then when he was supposed to be in the "B" finals for that event, he was late getting onto the ice, which was just bizarre. He looked like he was crying after the whole thing was over.

 

...In Women's Hockey, Canada beat Russia 12-0. They beat Italy yesterday 16-0. Either Canada has a phenomenally good team this year, or Russia and Italy really suck. Probably a combination of both.

 

...Michelle Kwan dropped out, which SUCKS, because now I have no one to root for in what's normally my favorite event, Ladies Figure Skating. Irina Slutskaya gives me a bad vibe, and I just can't whip up very much enthusiasm for Sasha Cohen, Kimmie Meissner, or Emily Hughes. I guess I'll have to pick an underdog from another country and go for them, then be bitterly disappointed when they don't win.

 

That's enough for today. I'll try to visit you all tomorrow.

 

WARNING: Image-heavy post...

 

BEST SOUND MIXING

 

The Nominees Are:

• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
  
• King Kong
  
• Memoirs of a Geisha
  
• Walk the Line
  
• War of the Worlds

 

Erin’s Pick: Memoirs of a Geisha

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Cheri’s Pick: Walk the Line

 

The Winner Last Year Was: Ray

 

I believe Sound Mixing refers to how all the audio tracks (dialogue, sound effects, music, etc.) are put together as a whole. This isn’t as favorable towards “special effects” movies as Sound Editing is, but they still do pretty well here, as do musicals/movies based on musicians (hence Ray’s win and Walk the Line’s nomination). I’ll just say now that I saw Memoirs of a Geisha last week and loved it (though I highly recommend you read the book before seeing the movie, otherwise there are a lot of details that will be lost on you; you can still enjoy the movie without reading the book, though).

 

Now I'll steal something from Chris that he stole from someone else. I'll probably get a lot of flack for it, but it looks fun (even though Chris only posted 12 pictures instead of 16). For me, it got a little challenging after the first five of each gender, but here goes:

 

Directions: List pictures of 16 celebrities that you find attractive. List 8 females and 8 males.

FEMALES

1. Michelle Yeoh-Star of Tomorrow Never Dies, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Memoirs of a Geisha

 

2. Ziyi Zhang-Also from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha

 

3. Lucy Liu-From Ally McBeal and Charlie's Angels (anyone else notice an Asian bonanza here?)

 

4. Okay, I'm done with Asians, and I'll show you Catherine Zeta-Jones:

 

5. Claudia Black-Star of Farscape and has a recurring role on Stargate SG-1 (and yes, since she played an awesome character with my name in Farscape, I'll forgive her for Pitch Black)

 

6. Remember when I said I was done with Asians? I lied. Here's Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi, my favorite figure skater of all time:

 

7. Michelle Kwan, who has one last shot at becoming the next Kristi, provided she doesn't pull out due to injuries:

 

8. And finally, Lea Salonga-You'll probably recognize her as the singing voice of Jasmine and Mulan. She's also been in several musicals including Miss Saigon and Les Miserables. She's also the reason I got into Wicked (I saw a video of her singing "Defying Gravity") and I would love for her to be in that as well:

 

MALES (There'd be more than two Asians if not for the fact that most male Asian celebrities are older and have pretty much lost their looks)

1. Ewan McGregor- 

 

2. Rick Yune-He's probably best known for playing the villain Zao in Die Another Day, though he's only attractive in the beginning of that movie, before the production designer and makeup artists did bad things to him (I'm sorry, but the bald/eyebrow-less/creepy bluish-white eye look just doesn't do it for me)

 

3. Nate Richert-He played Harvey on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and that's pretty much the only thing he's done (I hear he has a band now), but I think he kind of looks like a young Ewan McGregor. Or at least he used to (I've heard that he's aged a lot and gained weight since Sabrina went off the air, but I haven't bothered to confirm this), so I'm basing it off what he used to look like, I guess.

 

4. Garrett Wang-He was Harry Kim on Star Trek Voyager and apparently must spend his time nowadays at Star Trek conventions or something, cuz I haven't seen him in anything else.

 

5. Jonathan Frakes-A little on the old side nowadays, but he was fairly attractive when Next Generation was in its heyday (plus I wanted one of my picks to be a guy with a beard):

 

6. Tim Martin Gleason-You've most likely never heard of him. He played Raoul in the touring company of Phantom of the Opera when I saw it in 2003. He's currently playing the role on Broadway now, and was part of the cast for the historic performance when Phantom became the longest-running musical. Plus, he's a good singer:

 

7. Oh, what the hell. I'm feeling generous:

 

8. And finally, I'll go with Adam Pascal, one of my favorite Broadway actors. He originated the roles of Roger in Rent and Radames (sp?) in Aida, plus he played Roger in the movie version of Rent.

 

BEST SOUND EDITING

 

The Nominees Are:

• King Kong


• Memoirs of a Geisha


• War of the Worlds

 

Erin’s Pick: War of the Worlds

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: Memoirs of a Geisha

Cheri’s Pick: Memoirs of a Geisha

 

The Winner Last Year Was: The Incredibles

 

I think I can actually try to explain the two sound awards as best I can understand it. This category deals with the sound effects and other stuff that is put into the audio track in post-production. I mostly picked War of the Worlds to make up for the fact that I didn’t pick it for Visual Effects, but also because I haven’t seen King Kong, and I’m not sure how many sound effects Memoirs of a Geisha would have (besides a brief scene where there are planes flying over).

 

Hopefully, I’ll get around to visiting everyone in the next few days.

 

In other news, the Olympics start tonight!!!

Time for…

 

ERIN, MARISA, MANDY, AND CHERI’S OSCAR PICKS

 

I’ve done this on Xanga for three years, and I thought it was fun so I’ll do it again this year. I’m keeping “Marisa” in the title even though she still hasn’t emailed her picks to me (I’ll just start posting them once she does). This year, Mandy’s mom Cheri will be joining us as well. I’ll post the nominees for one category per day (although I’ll probably forget to post on occasion, and then I’ll have to double-up), as well as my pick, Mandy’s pick, Cheri’s pick, and Marisa’s pick (once she emails me). Keep in mind that our “picks” are who we would LIKE to win, not necessarily who we think WILL win, although it’s cool when the two coincide. Feel free to join in on the fun and let me know your pick as well. Like last year, I’ll start with the tech categories and work my way up to the “big” categories. So without further ado, let’s get started. Today’s category is…

 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

 

The Nominees Are:

• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe


• King Kong


• War of the Worlds

 

Erin’s Pick: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Marisa’s Pick:

Mandy’s Pick: War of the Worlds

Cheri’s Pick: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

 

The Winner Last Year Was: Spider-Man 2

 

First, let me say that it’s an outrage and a mystery that Revenge of the Sith only got one nomination, and of all things, it was Makeup (you’d think if it was only gonna be nominated once, it’d be in Visual Effects). I had a hard time choosing between Narnia and War of the Worlds, but I decided to go for the “more is better” philosophy for this year. (I still feel bad about being so one-sided, but I can’t exactly go into the others’ heads, so all I have to go on is what they tell me on instant messenger).