My Oscar Predictions

I haven’t seen all the movies that have been nominated this year but that’s not going to stop me from predicting a few winners and sharing some thoughts about this years nominees.  So don’t give me any crap about it. :)

BEST PICTURE

Will go to either Avatar or The Hurt Locker.  Personally, I think it should go to The Hurt Locker, but I think there’s a good chance it will go to Avatar.  I think Avatar was a great movie, very enjoyable and groundbreaking but not a Best Picture.  The Hurt Locker was a great movie and is very deserving of Best Picture.

The Blind Side and District 9 were also great films but not Best Picture material.  Up was very good, too, but I feel a little bitter that it gets a Best Picture nod while Wall-E, last year, did not.  I thought Wall-E was far better and should have received the nomination.  Up will probably win Best Animated Feature, though.  The other Best Picture nominees I haven’t seen but I feel comfortable saying that they will not win this Oscar.

BEST ACTOR

The only nominee whose movie I’ve seen is Jeremy Renner and I think he’ll be more than happy with his nomination and the award will go to a more seasoned actor.  I feel like Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela is inspired but my guess is that George Clooney or Jeff Bridges will take it.

BEST ACTRESS

I feel even less knowledgeable about this category but my guess is Sandra Bullock or Gabourey Sidibe will take it.

BEST DIRECTOR

James Cameron.  Everybody else, thanks for coming.

Review of Where The Wild Things Are

I blogged a little while back about how much I was looking forward to this movie.  Well, I finally saw it and was very pleased with it.  I think that the film version of Where The Wild Things Are is the best possible movie that could have been created from the book.  That being said, you have to remember that the book had only 48 pages and somewhere around 330 words.  A feature-length film adaptation is bound to have an effect on the essence of a book that takes less than 5 minutes to read.

The thing about such a short book is that it leaves a lot of room for each individual to imagine and elaborate on the story.  The film is Spike Jonze’s imagination and elaboration of the book and, as such, it will not match up with everyone else’s imaginations.

As it turns out, my siblings, with whom I shared the experience of reading the book as a child, were hoping for a much happier product than Jonze provided.  I agree that it wasn’t an overly happy film and it focused a lot on negative emotions.  But I think that is part of what made the movie so impressive to me.  It shined a light on what I see as the simple and limited worldview of a child – not every child, but many children – of a striving for pleasure and avoidance of punishment.  Max’s interactions with each character in his imaginary world symbolized his interactions with himself or someone else in the real world.  It was not always a pleasant result for the viewer, but for me it was often poignant and meaningful.  And for me that’s where the power of the film was.

Another important result I perceived of the room for elaboration within the book is that I enjoyed the book, the movie and the trailer for the movie more or less equally.  Each was different in important ways and provided different, yet similar, ways of understanding the story.  The book is endearing in its simplicity and nostalgic of childhood, the film is symbolic and meaningful, and the trailer provides an image of a real world in which Max and the monsters exist without interpreting the story for me, all while The Arcade Fire’s song, “Wake Up” inspires me and enlivens my imagination.

Ultimately, I don’t blame anyone who read the book as a child for disliking the movie.  It should be unsurprising that not everyone would envision the story of Where of the Wild Things Are in the same way as Spike Jonze.  But as I said, I think it was the best kind of movie that could have been made from the book while still being, unavoidably, different from the book.

My New Obsession

Some of you might know this about me: I love trivia and I love memorizing things.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Ken Jennings, but I certainly enjoy the feeling of just knowing things.  When I was about eleven years old and had dreams of becoming a world famous chemist I came across the periodic table of the elements in my parents set of encyclopedia that I just happened to be browsing through and I thought to myself, “How great would it be if I could memorize all these elements?”  So by age twelve I could name all the elements by symbol.  And speaking of trivia, the only magazine that I’ve ever read every article, cover to cover, is Mental Floss, a magazine of pure trivia.  It’s such a fascinating publication.  I would recommend it to everyone.

Now that you know this about me, I’m ready for you to know what I’m obsessed with these days: Sporcle.com.  I think I might have mentioned it briefly earlier in my blog.  But if you haven’t heard of this website please go ahead and check it out.  It’s a website full of little quizzes.  Everything from naming all the presidents of the US to naming VH1′s top 100 songs of the 90s.  Even if you’re not a trivia buff and even if you don’t fancy yourself very good at remembering things it’s a great pastime and a great way to hone your geography or history skills and so much more.  Maren and I will often do quizzes together.  We compete on some and cooperate on others.  Since I’ve started my Sporcle habit I can now name all the US states and their capitals, I can name all the countries of the world (with a blank map in front of me) and all the flags of Europe.

So go check it out.  In addition to the ones I’ve already linked to above here are some quizzes that you might enjoy:

Car Logos. 90s Video Games. Guess The Language.   The “A” Game. Time’s Top 100 Novels.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs!

My brother, upon viewing my Where The Wild Things Are post, made me aware that yet another of our beloved childhood books was being made into a movie: Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs!  This fall is gonna be awesome!

Where The Wild Things Are!

Do you remember this book?!  They’re making a movie out of it!!  I remember that it was one of the books that I would check out of the library over and over as a kid.  I’m excited to see what kind of movie they make of it!  Check out the trailer.