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Monday, March 8, 2010

Oscar the Grouch


Last night, I celebrated the watching of The 82nd Annual Academy Awards with cocktails and girlfriends.

There were so many movies nominated this year that were phenomenal. I've seen both Inglourious Basterds and The Hurt Locker, both of which were fantastic from the score to the visuals, the acting and everything in between. I haven't yet seen Crazy Heart, but who doesn't love Jeff Bridges?! I've got the rest of the nominations patiently waiting in my Netflix queue, and yes, I'll probably even watch Avatar eventually.

From the start, I was very anti-Avatar, though I have not yet seen the movie. Why was I so against it? Well, for starters, because I'm not a huge fantasy or sci-fi fan, I've always been a little annoyed that based on special effects alone a movie would be nominated for Best Picture when the actual story-line wasn't all that revolutionary. I mean, Pandora as the name of the planet where valuable minerals are protected and not to be harvested by humans? Really? Wow, that was super-original! And, while I'm sure one really doesn't have to do with the other, the main character is an injured Marine who goes to a planet of Navy people. Oh sorry, I mean Na'vi. Coincidence, or was it possibly a subliminal messaging propaganda video?

I remind you, I have not seen the movie, so you may find me gushing later, but right now...just too much hype for something reminiscent of the Blue Man Group or mythology 101; the redux.

I thought Ben Stiller's entrance to the stage as one of the Na'vi was hilarious, and I loved the double-kick that Kathryn Bigelow, who was the first female to win Best Director with her film The Hurt Locker, was sitting in front of ex-husband James Cameron and beat him in both Best Picture and Best Director categories. I'm sure they've got a perfectly amicable relationship, but it still gave me some warm fuzzies, that will probably come back to bite me in the shame-on-you karma department.

Because we stayed drinking Pineapple cocktails (Pineapple infused vodka with pineapple juice) until midnight*, today was rough! I got to bed at about 1am, then after a couple of mid-night treks with H back to his bed, I was up for good around 7. Thanks to Alex, who motivated me to join her, I went to the Y at 11 to make up for my missed run on Saturday.

It. Was. Not. Pretty. About 1.5 miles into it, I had to walk for a minute to re-group. The next time I wanted to walk, however, I decided to just put the towel back over the display and with the start of the next song, (Hot 'N Cold, thank you Katy Perry!) I bumped the speed up .5 miles and ran at that pace for the length of the song. By the time the song was over, I was in a new groove, and it felt like a relief to run okay jog at my normal pace...definitely a trick I'll use again.

*In the interest of full-disclosure; No, I did not drive intoxicated. I had my last of two cocktails at 9:30 and drove at midnight. But thanks for your concern!

2 comments:

Susan Lindgren said...

I am not one of those cool people who didn't see Titanic. I was young and liked it and if I can go back in time I'd stop myself from seeing Titanic so I could be one of those "I've never seen Titanic" cool people.
Avatar is my Titanic redemption and God as my witness I will never see Avatar and one day I will be cool!

Sally HP said...

that's funny because we were talking about Titanic last night, in that we all liked it for what it was, but agreed that it probably did not deserve best picture. So much hype around avatar as his first film after Titanic...I think that also adds to my resentment of it.