It's 9am, and Eagles woke me up to catch his train back to Kingston, I don't really feel like writing paragraphs that connect to each other, so I am just going to write scattered thoughts.

- If everyone who conducts interviews on the red carpet got hit by a truck, I don't think I would care. I would love to see an SNL skit where they have someone on the red carpet asking hard hitting questions, mixed in with the vain retarded ones. "Oh and what are you wearing tonight?" "Do you think Heath Ledger's death was a suicide?" "Is it true you just got out of rehab?" Eventhough I hate these people they should get one of those douchebags from TMZ to do this.

- The Dark Knight got snubbed for Best Picture and Best Director nominations. I really liked Frost/Nixon, but it shouldn't have gotten a Best Director nomination. The acting was what made Frost/ Nixon great and Howard had nothing to do with that as Langella/Sheen acted in the play, which was not directed by Howard. If there was a quantitative way to measure this and I could bet on it I would bet 10k on TDK having a much better legacy than any other nominated movies this year. When TDK first came out I thought the best picture hype was ridiculous, because there were tons of other movies that had yet to be released. However after seeing a lot of potential Oscar Candidates get panned critically, I assumed TDK would be a lock to get nominated.


I am going to watch Milk later today, so my opinion might change, but Rourke got snubbed. Rourke was fantastic in The Wrestler, which was imo the best picture of the year. I have heard a lot of people say The Wrestler is over the top and melodramatic, but most of those people are ignorant about wrestiling. The plot of The Wrestler is slightly exaggerated, but it is basically what happens to 90% of wrestlers when they retire. The story is very real and it is only real because of Rourke's incredible performance. I keep hearing that Rourke is playing himself in The Wrestler, that is bull**** and it really marginalizes his performance. He is playing someone with parallels to his life, but Ram isn't very similar to Rourke. Ram is a much different character than Rourke and if Rourke quit acting to go into another craft outside of boxing, no comparison would be made. The comparison is that Rourke and Ram were both washed up, Rourke and Ram both participate in combat sports, Rourke and Ram both love their craft. It's cool to create a narrative about how Rourke is playing himself and he is getting the comeback Ram never got, but it just isn't true. While this doesn't make his performance better or worse his speech would have been legendary so they really should have given it to him for that.

- I think the biggest snub of the whole night was The Wrestler not getting nominated for best song. Slumdog gets nominated for two ****ing songs and The Boss can't get one ****ing nomination, game is rigged yo.

-It would have been awesome if they gave out technical the same way they gave out acting awards. Having some fat, pasty special effects wizard standing up there giving flowery praise to the sound editing nominees would have been awesome. "The majestical splendor that was the sound editing in your film Wanted, really lifted this film from an ordinary blockbuster, to the brilliance of cinema that America has grown to love, just as we have grown to love you, Wylie Stateman"

- All the acting nominees must have felt pretty awesome to have a legendary actor like Anthony Hopkins fellate them in front of hundreds of millions of people.

Slumdog didn't deserve best picture. I think The Wrestler, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon and Man on Wire all deserved it more. Slumdog is a nice movie. That is all. Slumdog benefited a lot from voters who used the narrative fallacy. Instead of judging the movie they personified it, Slumdog is the little Indian indie film that could, it keeps on trucking just like Jamal Malik and yesterday it found it's Latika. This type of narrative is retarded. Art should be judged by it's merits not the circumstances under, which it was made. If it was filmed with actors from a city that wasn't Mumbai it wouldn't have gotten the buzz that it did. It would have been a cute indie film like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine, that people would love, but it wouldn't be a best picture winner. The following has actual spoilers in case you haven't seen the movie ( I still recommend you see it, it just wasn't best picture caliber)

At no point in the movie did I empathize with any of the characters. The whole love story is incredibly contrived and it makes no sense that they love each other. It felt as if a lot of the shots and cuts were just showing off what they were capable of doing. The plot itself is very gimmicky and if you eliminated the Who Wants to a Millionaire framework and it being filmed in India it just becomes a very good romantic drama. I liked it but it wasn't best picture worthy.

- Note to everyone in the media stop making retarded puns. I am not a Joker, but I Doubt that many people wrestled with the decision. They wanted to have a tall glass of Milk, but did not want it to be a Dark Night for Slumdog Millionare.

diaf

- Love Sam