I’m at the halfway point — two weeks (and two days) since the Oscar nominees have been announced; two weeks (and a day) before the actual ceremony. So how’s my Oscar Challenge going? Well.
Looking at the big six categories: I’ve only seen one Best Picture nominee…and, therefore, one Best Director nominee (Slumdog Millionaire); one Best Actor nominee (The Wrestler); one Best Actress nominee (Rachel Getting Married); two Supporting Actor nominees (The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder); and one Supporting Actress nominee (The Wrestler again).
So of the 15 movies that comprise the top six categories, I’ve seen seven. Two more — Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Best Supporting Actress) and The Visitor (Best Actor) — are here from Netflix, so those’ll probably be knocked out today. And I’m hoping to go see either The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or The Reader this weekend, either of which would get me up to ten of fifteen, which is not a bad ratio to go with two weeks. I can do five movies in two weeks. (I think.)
To the greater tally of Oscar nominees, you can add WALL•E, In Bruges, and Iron Man to my list (which gives me two Original Screenplay and one Best Animated Film nominees, so it’s not a bad showing).
What’s tempting is the more obscure stuff. A theater near here is showing The Class and Waltz With Bashir, two Best Foreign Film nominees, and another theater is running this week only all ten Best Live-Action and Best Animated shorts. I really want to see all of those, but I don’t know if it’s worth sacrificing movie-going time that could be used for one of the remaining big six nominees to go to them, so we’ll see.
Each year, when the Oscar nominees are announced, I set myself a challenge to see as many of the nominees as I can before the awards are given.
I never do particularly well with this challenge — for example, of the 44 films nominated last year, I saw only 12. But this year’s nominations have been announced, so once again I’m going to give it a try. It’s a little easier this time in that there are only 36 films nominated this year, and I’ve already seen five of them.
Will I be able to see 31 movies in the next 31 days? Almost assuredly not, but I’m going to give it my all.
(For the record: the five I’ve seen are The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Rachel Getting Married, Tropic Thunder, and WALL•E. Not a Best Picture nominee in the bunch, but at least I’ve knocked out two Best Supporting Actors, a Best Leading Actress, and a Best Original Screenplay…)
This was the line that awaited me when I got to my local polling place at 6:40 this morning:
It was as long again inside before reaching the actual voting room. I haven’t voted in all that many presidential elections yet, and this is my first one at this polling place, but still…this is the first time I’ve had to wait in any kind of line to vote. And it is awesome.
I love seeing this kind of involvement. And I love it when people bring their kids with them, like the little boy in the yellow jacket apparently trying to scamper away above. Giving their children any kind of awareness about the process is undoubtedly a Good Thing.
(There was also a kid, had to’ve been in high school, standing outside the “no electioneering” zone handing out flyers, and he said he was there all day. Young people who get involved are the best!)
All this is to say: yay, voting! Yay, America! And, because I’m not trying to be partisan here, yay Obama!
Ford Motor Company is introducing an innovative new technology – called MyKey – designed to help parents encourage their teen-agers to drive safer and more fuel efficiently, and increase safety-belt usage.
…
The MyKey system allows the parent to program any key through the vehicle message center, which updates the SecuriLock™ passive anti-theft system. When the MyKey is inserted into the ignition, the system reads the transponder chip in the key and immediately identifies the MyKey code, which enables certain default driving modes…
What type of default driving modes? A seatbelt reminder system that keeps beeping at you and keeps the audio system muted until you buckle up; earlier low fuel warnings; preventing safety features from being deactivated; and of course, the concern of anyone with a teen driver, fixed upper-limit speed (80 mph) and audio volume control (44 percent of total volume).
I can see why this is a neat idea, but if I were still a teenager, I’d be sooooo annoyed by those features.
I wonder what the security implications are for this?
(Ah, the ’90s…such an inspired time for creating new comics characters…)
Okay, so I kinda forgot how to log into my blog… But I’m back, baby! And the login page is bookmarked! And I wrote down my login and password! So let’s see if I start posting again…
So anyhow… Coming up: I finally answer the meme that Rob spread to me almost — lordy! — almost a month ago (that one’s about ready to go, so should be up tonight); I give you my top 12 (and, so far, only) movies of 2008; and…I had something else in my head, but I don’t remember, and probably shouldn’t get ahead of myself anyhow.
