Here I Am!

Because I couldn't resist after seeing it at FourFour. HERE I AM!

You big baby!
Uploaded by RichJuz

Here I Am!

So, my day has been interesting. Here's an equally interesting (...) rundown.

I woke up at 10 and went to the shops to buy a paper. There was a funny article about Germaine Greer. Doesn't she ever shup up? Don't newspapers get sick of writing about how she never shuts up?

At 11.30 I went into town with my friend Hannah. I had to film her getting her ear pierced for, like, the tenth time. She got one done and I was all "Is that it?" and then the piercer (Clare, she's really nice) brought out a big motha of a needle and said there was a second one. It was huge. I wasn't too crash hot on the filming thing in the first place, and then I saw what I was filming (my friend likes to keep the... memories) I closed my eyes. I have a big thing against medical stuff. Like, I could watch countless ultra-gory horror movies, but once there's things that are like surgery I just can't handle it. Needles being injected? Ugh. Hell, even the piano wire sequence in Audition was unbearable (other than that movie just being woeful in general). I can't watch any medical shows on TV like ER or RPA (well, except Grey's Anatomy, strangely). I couldn't even listen to my friends discuss disecting a frog in High School. And it's not because I have a history with hospitals. I've never actually been a patient in one. It just makes me queasy.

Anyway.

After that we ran into our friend Agi and we went to lunch at this organic restaurant and met up with Emma. It was nice, I suppose. Why are organic restaurants always so tiny? The focaccia I got was good, but had too much beetroot. Like, hold the freakin' beetroot! Some of it is nice but not an entire garden.

After that we saw Notes on a Scandal (2006, dir. Eyre), which was sort of hilarious. Judi Dench was brilliant. Cate, not so much. I just loved the completely over-the-top melodramatic lunacy that ensued. You know what else there was a lot of? Lots of shots of stairs! Upwards, downwards, sideways, under, over, any which way. Richard Eyre really liked filming characters walking up, down, sitting on, looking up at and standing underneath stairs! They were everywhere! Turn around and, oh look! Another flight of stairs! Turn around again. Ta-dah! More stairs. It was frightening the amount of stairs there were! Still, it was enjoyable. By the last half hour I was laughing my arse off. "HERE I AM!! HERE I AAAAMMM!!!!!" What a hoot. "You're not young!" Talk about LOL. Shame that Phillip Glass' score was ridiculously omnipresent. It was like the stairs. I almost can see them saying "No scene shall not include the score turned up to 11!" Anyway. I think I'm gonna scream "HERE I AM!!" everytime I enter a room now for the next few days. B.

While we were at the cinema we saw all these posters for Pan's Labyrinth!!!! Hannah and I were going to head up to Melbourne just to see it (before the oscars), but it's out as of tomorrow. All the posters had big signs attached reading "STARTS FEB 22" which is tomorrow! OMG. So, naturally, we're seeing it tomorrow. Can't wait. Agi was totally pumped to. She and her boyfriend were also going to go to Melbourne just to see it.

Anyway.

Then I came home and Blogger finally asked me to swap over to the new thing. Everytime I tried it told me I couldn't, but now it did. So... yay? I dunno. Am I gonna have to go through and add labels to every post? Oy...

Award Nominations - PGA, SAG, Scripter

Scripter
From OscarWatch

The author-screenwriter teams behind "Children of Men," "The
Devil Wears Prada," "The Illusionist," "The Last King of Scotland," and
"Notes on a Scandal" have been named finalists for the 19th USC
Libraries Scripter Award. Scripter is awarded annually by the University
of Southern California Libraries to honor writers for the best
achievement in adaptation among English-language films released during
the previous year and based on a book, novella or short story.

So happy for Children of Men and The Devil Wears Prada. I'd be happy for the others, but I haven't seen them. Nice that The Illusionist got some play though. Hopefully Alfonso Cuaron and team can get an Oscar nomination for Children of Men. Cuaron already has a screenwriting nomination for writing Y Tu Mama Tambien. My only worry is that the writing branch will look down on a movie with five writers. Hmm.

PGA
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

No offence to Babel and The Queen, but how were they more worthy of this title than other films from this year. Stuff like United 93 was an effort to get on screen. Films like Borat! and The Devil Wears Prada managed to become huge successes in the face of conventional wisdom. Hell, Pirates of the Caribbean grossed one billion dollars. And Babel what? Didn't make back it's budget. And The Queen? Well, it's good and all, but what is challenging about getting it made and making it a success? Not much.

SAG
Best Actress
Penelope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children

I got 5/5. I still don't feel comfortable having these as the Academy's top 5. I just think this year was too good for actresses to have the same top 5 throughout the entire season.

Best Supporting Actress
Adriana Barraza, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

I got 3/5 here. I thought I'd only nominate one of the Babel women, but I'm glad Kikuchi got in. I still don't understand the love for Barraza, but 'tev. I also predicted that SAG members would be angry at Blanchett for taking so many roles, but alas - Blanchett is Blanchett.

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole, Venus
Will Smith, Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

4/5 here. I had Sasha Baron Cohen over DiCaprio. So much for actors having a funny bone, idiots. With my alternate I got 5/5 though.

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Honsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

3/5 here. I got Murphy, DiCaprio and Haley. I thought they'd go for the more populist choice of Steve Carell in Sunshine (Arkin was my alternate) and I thought Ben Affleck would in over Hounsou. I sort of want to see Blood Diamond so I can actually hate it, but I really can't be bothered. Instead I'll just hate on it because others say it's so bad and I really hated The Last Samurai. Hopefully Brad Pitt's snub calls an end to his absurd Supporting Actor bid. That makes no sense at all.

Ensemble
Babel
Bobby
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine

3/5. I thought out of Babel and The Queen that the latter would get in. Alas, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett worked their magic and The Queen only got one nomination. Hmmm. I made a little aside about knowing I should predict Bobby but, well, it turns out I should have. I thought they'd go for The Devil Wears Prada in a big way though. I mean, this is the same group that gave The Birdcage their Best Ensemble prize for crying out loud?

Which begs the question...

WHY WAS SAG SO UNKIND TO COMEDY IN 2006?

The lack of Prada and Borat love was disappointing. I suppose they just prefered the pleasant chuckles of Little Miss Sunshine, eh?

National Board of Review Predix

I don't really care that much, but I thought I'd throw my own seriously misjudged predictions into the ring alongside people like Adam and Kris and, ya know, all the rest. Did I say I was gonna be seriously misjudged?

[edit - I just realised that I didn't predict them to award Little Miss Sunshine anything. Probably quite ridiculous, but atm I'll keep it that way - except for the young performer awards which they may or may not award]

BEST PICTURE
Notes on a Scandal

TOP 10
Babel, Children of Men, The Departed, Dreamgirls, Little Children, Notes on a Scandal, The Painted Veil, A Prairie Home Companion, The Queen, United 93

BEST DIRECTOR
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

BEST ACTRESS
Helen Mirren, The Queen

BEST ACTOR
Forest Whitake, The Last King of Scotland

(What a royal acting duo!?)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal, Babel, The Good German (??)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Pedro Almodovar, Volver

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Todd Field, Little Children

BREAKTHROUGH ACTOR
Sasha Baron Cohen, Borat!

BREAKTHROUGH ACTRESS
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

BEST DIRECTORIAL DEBUT
Ryan Fleck, Half Nelson

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Happy Feet

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST
Bobby

BEST DOCUMENTARY
An Inconvenient Truth

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Volver
(although I really wanna say The Lives of Others just cause they like to mess around with us, ya know?)

TOP 5 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Lives of Others
Pan's Labyrinth
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
Volver

BILLY WILDER AWARD
Clint Eastwood for directing Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Guillermo del Toro for Writing/Directing/Producing Pan's Labyrinth
or
David Lynch for Writing/Directing/Producing/Distributing Inland Empire

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARD
Sasha Baron Cohen, Borat!

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT
Judi Dench - for acting
John Williams - film film composing

and I think they might throw the next category in for this year (they've done it before)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A YOUNG ACTOR
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

And they've sorta stopped doing the tech categories so I won't predict them. And... I'm done.