Just Sayin' Stuff

I reminisce about the times when half term was essentially extended play time. Nothing to worry about, wake up when I want, sleep as late as I want and so on. Last week was half term. I don’t feel rested, I barely do any lie-ins, it was like college-but at home. I was given 3 tasks to do; revise for a maths mock and write two essay. I thought logically about this and decided to finish the essays than do the revision. The essays took the whole week! I didn’t get to revise until after I returned to college and I think this will be reflected in my results. The test was today, I think I scraped 50%. Oh well, there’s next time (meaning the real exam).

I was motivated by this incident. I currently have no work to do so I decided to revise for the upcoming real exams. I actually got some revision done, then, I could work no more. I think my attention span is getting shorter and shorter. I played some Wii games then started to write. No, I tell a lie, I finally started writing my review for No Country For Old Men, then I lost inspiration and gave up. I think I’ll got and enjoy what I left of my day. Goodbye horses.

Virgin stole my Oscars

We all know that yesterday (well, this morning if you live in the UK) was Oscar time. I, being the movie nerd I am sat up to watch it from one thirty. I set the recorder just in case I fell asleep. Okay, so I'm watching the Oscars Javier has won best supporting actor, the Coens have won best screenplay and I'm simply beaming. As the show goes on I type my summary article for Helium, that's dedication for you. Anyhoo, they're announcing the best cinematography (and Cameron Diaz can't pronounce it), I quickly write down that the expected winner is Roger Deakins and guess what happens. The TV says that the channel is off air. Damn you Virgin Media. I didn't get to see Daniel Day-Lewis or the Coens accept their Oscars. It’s not like Sky movies comes off air at 4 because, on Sky Movies Drama, The Departed was still on. Branson, my opinion of you isn’t getting any better.

Oscars Summary

The carpet's out, the stars made up and the winners pre-decided. That's right, the 80th Academy awards have finally come our way. We were unsure as to whether there would even be a ceremony; there was, and it was splendid. Each year, the ceremony gets bigger and this year was not exception.

Naturally, we open with a few jokes with our host, John Stewart. No topic was ignored he touched on the writer's strike, the election and the increasing darkness of the academy.

Achievement In Costume Design
Presented by Jennifer Garner the award had many impressive designers, the classic French work for Vie En La Rose, the period piece, Atonement. Alexandra Byrne won her first Oscar for Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Previously, Byrne had been nominated for Hamlet.

George Clooney gives us a short intro about notable moments in Oscar history showcasing a plethora of key moments. This is the first of many montages featured throughout the ceremony including a tribute to bad dreams (included solely as a joke of course).

Best Animated Feature
Anne Hathaway and Stave Carrel, naturally entertaining presented the award. It was the film everyone expected to win, Ratatouille by Brad Bird.

Achievement in Make-Up
And the award goes toNorbit, only joking. The Oscar was won for the amazing work put into La Vie En La Rose by Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald. It took great effort to convincing turn Marion Cotillard into Edith Piaf.

Achievement of Visual Effects
The award went to Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood for the Golden Compass.

Achievement in Art Direction
Many impressive works were in the category, the grim and fantastical Sweeny Todd, the classic, Atonement and the magical Golden Compass. The Oscar went to Dante Ferretti (Art Direction); Francesca Lo Schiavo (Set Decoration) for Sweeny Todd

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
The first acting award of the ceremony this was one of the awards everyone thought they knew the winner would be. The predictions were correct and Javier Bardem won his Oscar for his role as the psychopathic and terrifying Anton Chigurh. Included in his speech were a few phrases in Spanish for his mother.

Best Live Action Short Film
Presented by Owen Wilson was one of the lesser awards. The Oscar goes to Le Mozart Des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets) a tale about two crooks who take a young mute boy into their care.

Best Animated Short Film
The Oscar went to Peter and the Wolf by Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
This is most certainly one of the more unsure awards. Many had their eye on Cat Blanchette for I'm Not There. As predicted by the BAFTAs Tilda Swinton won the ward for her role in George Clooney's Michael Clayton.

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
On of the awards that we weren't sure about the winner, the nominees all seemed to have an equal chance. The Coen Brothers took their first award for No Country For Old Men based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.

Best Sound Editing
Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg took the award for best sound edition for the swift and cool, The Bourne Ultimatum

Achievement in Sound Mixing
Another sound award for the Bourne Ultimatum taken by Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis.

Best Actress in a Leading Role
This award was bit of a wildcard; the winner became less and less clear as time passed. Although the BAFTAs were right again, surprisingly, the award went to Marion Cotillard for her unrecognisable performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie En La Rose.

Achievement in Film Editing
Yet another award for the Bourne Ultimatum. Christopher Rouse won the award for achievement in film editing.

Best Foreign Language Film
The films within the foreign language category were more certainly not the most well-known foreign language films of the year. The award went to the Austrian film, The Counterfeiters set during World War Two.

Best Original Song
Although nominated for three of the five films with the best song category fail to win any awards for enchanted. The winners were for the song "Falling Slowly" in Once.

Achievement in Cinematography
There was a strong consensus that Roger Deakins would win the best cinematography for either The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford or No Country for Old Men. As they say, the best things come to those who wait and after 7 nominations Roger Deakins finally won the Oscar for No Country For Old Men.

Best Documentary Feature
For the dark documentary centred around an Afghan taxi driver beaten to death in U.S. military the award went to Alex Gibney and Eva Orner for Taxi to the Dark Side.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Guess. The award everyone was 99.99% sure about the winner. Shock, horror (!) Daniel Day Lewis wins his second Oscar for is powerful role as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
As time went on, people gained more and more faith in Juno, an arguably small film. Like Sidney Lumet said about actors there are also no small films and the award deserving went to Diablo Cody, writer of Juno.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original Score)
The second academy award nomination for Dario Marianelli who won it for the grand score for Atonement.

Achievement in directing
The first directing team to win this coveted Oscar since 1961; the crowd goes wild as Joel and Ethan Coen received the award for No Country for Old Men.

Best motion picture of the year
The big one. A reward received by such films as In the Heat of the Night and The Godfather, the ultimate reward for any filmmaker. This was the fourth award of the evening for No Country For Old Men.

It was clearly No Country for Old Men's Night it received some of the most prestigious awards in the film industry. Not so lucky films were Atonement nominated for seven award and There Will Be Blood, nominated for eight awards. Each received one award.

Play or Fold

Just sitting in my secondary office (the living room), watching the screen after winning a game solitaire, St Elmo's Fire plays in the background and pondering the meaning of life. Gotcha! Like I’d ponder such a thing, why waste time on a question that has no definitive answer. Everyone’s life has a different meaning and we have the choice to determine what that is. We blame life for dealing us a crappy set of cards when the chips are down, but when something great happens, we love to say how great our achievements were, we’re black jack kings, queens of poker, we weren’t just in the right place at the right time.

We nearly always continue to play. Hit me. Hit me. Hit me. Sure, the cards are chosen at random, but we have to choice to fold. And when we lose, then what?

Woah, that almost sounded wise

Counting to Sleep

You may have noticed that I insalled these little counter things on my blogs to see if people are actually reading them and by golly they are! I'm in shock, I really thought I was talking to myself and occasioally, Rae Charles. I compared the amount of readers I get from all of my blogs and it appears that people read Amateur Critic Reviews the most, even nore than this. They'd rather read critcal analysis of works of art than me simply talking drivel? What is the world coming to. The website I went on to is very good, there's even a nifty option to see where my readers are from, this is the one from Amateur Critic Reviews simply because it's the most impressive:

"I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" 

MySpace, A Tale of Obsession

This was travelling around Digg



I don't think I need to say anything

Oh my Coen Brothers

Well I did it. I finally saw No Country For Old Men. It is a master piece and I would go so far as to say this it was effing awesome. Oh my gosh the lighting. Oh my gosh the sound. Oh my gosh the acting. Oh my gosh, that’s how it ended. Wow. I’m not too sure how to convey how great the film was in words. It is my intention to review it at some point, naturally, during the course of the film my little review points made into my head. I got home and put my white board to use. See below:
Roger Deakins is the king of cinematography. I just need to see Juno, There Will be Blood and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly to gauge what film, in my opinion, was the best picture of 2008. I know what you’re thinking-didn’t she write her Oscar predictions including best picture already? Damn right I did, but that is very easy to do without watching the films. I must say that watching No Country For Old Men has made it even harder to predict a winner. I don’t think I’ve given No Country… enough time so I will get back to it tomorrow. The sister want to use the computer.

Sitting on the chair in my room...wastin' time

Okay, it the first day of half term, I intended to do so much today. Star off with some maths, do a bit of a sociology essay, then some psychology revision. I did some maths then sat in this chair to star typing the essay. I haven't even opened Microsoft Word. I'm meant to be going to the cinema at five to finally see No Country for Old Men. So, the day is practically gone. Shame on me.

I haven't really done nothing. I've written one blog (see below) and completelr re-vamped one of the other blogs (Amateur Critic Reviews ch-ch-ch-check it out). That took considerably longer than the re-vamping of this one.

Time to get ready. Goodbye Horses.

The Most Overrated Films of all Time

Every year people throw quotes around like “the best film of all time”. Are they really? So many films get an overwhelming amount of credit for being great when they are in actuality, average. These are the films overrated films. I shall name a few of these such films, please don’t hunt me down.

Titanic

James Cameron’s deviation from the sci-fi genre is a film that many take great pleasure in. Its greatest strength is in something that James Cameron is great with, the aesthetic. The film is visually stunning; at no point does the audience not believe that they are on the Titanic. Unfortunately this strength does not outweigh the crushing disappointment that is the other aspects of the film. The focal point of the film is the love story between Jack and Rose, a story we have seen many times before; boy meets girl, they fall in love, they can’t be together but they try to be. So very unoriginal. This was the point in Leonardo DiCaprio’s career where he was often in films to make young girls swoon. His performance was acceptable but not tremendous. Kate Winslet is an amazing actress but Titanic is most certainly not her best performance. A combination of satisfactory acting, an okay storyline and an unoriginal love story line make Titanic a greatly overrated film.

High School Musical

What happened to this world? Disney’s live action musical took the world by storm prompting sequels and tours. My main question is, why? High School Musical is clearly a musical for children yet many attempt to dress it up as something more profound. The storyline is almost non-existent. From the beginning of the film to the end there is hardly any character progression and at no point is the emotional tone at a low. Like any musical, High School Musical is reliant on the songs; this is one of the biggest flaws. The songs are mediocre. The dance sequences are impressive and this is one of High School Musical’s saving graces, the choreography is amazing but does it cancel out the lack of storyline and tremendous amount of cheese, I think not.

Crash

Number 156 in imdb’s top 250, winner of the academy award for best picture, Crash. A film that at the time of it’s release and still is, depicted as an enigmatic story about an untouched subject. The story is not enigmatic at all, to be fair, it’s quite simple and to say it is complicated or enigmatic is to insult the audience. The untouched subject? Racism. Shocking isn’t it. A film about racism; never heard that one before. American History X, Do the Right Thing-aren’t they films about racism? So why did everyone make such a fuss about Crash, a film that pales in comparison to the named examples. Crash’s clear lack of originality and shocking amount of credence makes Crash one of the most overrated films of all time and the most overrated film of 2004.

Bring in the Gimp

Now, back to my usual drivel. I changed my browser from Internet Explorer (crap) to Opera. I was going to go for Firefox but I prefer Opera more. And….I have no more drivel. Ooo, noticed the new layout? It took me 15 minutes to design the title image but an additional 20 minutes to get it to fit inside the frame thing. I ended up using Gimp (not the guy from Pulp Fiction) to simply shrink the image. Duh (!) Gimp is what I like to call free Photoshop. It’s got loads of the features of Photoshop and you can even download new brushes. I’ve only really succeeded in using it for reasonably simply tasks but I’ll continue to play with it and become a master, yeah boi.

Podcasts was it?

Right...podcasts. Ahhh yes. On the last most I made a little promise to talk about podcasts in this post. Good on me.I think i'll start off by defining what a podcast is. A podcast, according to pcmag.com 

can be defined as:

(iPOD broadCAST) An audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. The "pod" in podcast was coined from "iPod," the predominant portable, digital music player, and although podcasts are mostly verbal, they may contain music.  

Many make the mistake of thinking that podcasts were invented by Apple for iPods and iTunes; this is not the case. Podcast were availiable online before iTunes put the little Podcast tab on its left hand menu. Apple was very smart and decided to name these little audio broadcast after the iPod and adopt Podcasts as their own. Pure Genius.

I listen to quite a few podcasts, I think I’ve mentioned some before. The main podcast that I listen to is Movies You Should See from the interdependent podcast network, Simply Syndicated. I stumbled upon MYSS back in my hardcore Star Trek days. I was on the Star Trek message boards every day, my whole life was Star Trek. (It sounds like I’m in an AA meeting well, STA Meeting). Anyhoo, the people of Simply Syndicated left a post on the Star Trek message boards about their Star Trek podcast, Make It So. Being the Trekkie I was, I went onto their website and listened to the two Make it So podcasts they had done so far, one of which was about swearing in Star Trek. It was hilarious, much better than Treks in Sci-Fi but I’ll get onto that later. As Make it So was so great, I listened to Movies You Should See. They had podcasts on quite a few movies I’d seen. Movies You Should See was even better than Make it So shock/horror. Due to the humour, I say humour but I mean comedy that may leave you aching from laughing so hard I wouldn’t suggest listening to Movies You Should See or Make it So in public.

Another podcast I listen to from the Simply Syndicated network is The Definitive Word. This features Will Tristram, an occasional guest on many Simply Syndicated shows, as he and his guests discuss the arts, society, popular culture and life in the 21st Century. There many intellectual debates such as “Top Ten Cartoon Ladies”. The Definitive Word is none other than perfection in audio form. Despite the example that I gave, it is possible to learn quite a bit (largely from the Hong Kong law episode) as well as have a good old laugh.

Or do you think that’s just bollocks, well, do you? Or do you think that’s just bollocks is yet another podcast from the Simply Syndicated team. It stars “Ranting” Richard Smith the tech wizz of the group as he, as you may have guessed, rants about any topic he wishes. Some, I must say, are close to my heart such as the nonsense that is Virgin Media (stealing my Sky One). If you want to have a rant, you can even send in an audio file of yourself ranting and be heard on the air. Great.

In my list of podcasts I have three more from the Simply Syndicated network but I don’t listen to two of them very much. The final Simply Syndicated podcast that I regularly listen to is Left Field Cinema. It’s highly dissimilar from Movies You Should See. Left Field Cinema is hosted by Mike Dawson, who reviews and analyses films whilst analysing the film-makers as well.

A podcast that I used to listen to but can’t really be bothered to listen to anymore is Treks in Sci-Fi. Each podcast the host, Rick A Dostie gives a detailed episode commentary on an episode of Star Trek. It’s not the most exiting podcast, that the main reason why I seem to have left it for the other podcasts.

The ultimate podcast for the Geeks out there is GeekNights with Rym and Scott. Geeknights is a late night show for geeks, featuring anime, comics, gaming, sci/tech, gadgetry, and general geekery New episodes every weeknight Monday through Thursday. (I kind of stole the description from iTunes). I’m not really into anime or know anything about the kind of board games to Rym and Scott play so I don’t subscribe to the main feed. Each day on GeekNight has a different theme, Monday is Science and Technology, Tuesday Gaming, Wednesday is Anime Manga Comics and Thursday is a bit random, they may talk about anything, and they do. As each day has a different theme they put each day in a separate feed so it’s possible to only download the things that you’re interested in. GeekNights is very entertaining, It’s most certainly worth a listen.

Any fans of Kevin Smith out there? If you’re really a fan you probably know that Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier have a podcast named Smodcast. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are the writer/director and producer of such films as Clerks, Mattrats and Dogma. If you like their humour, you’ll like Smodcast. It’s basically the two (occasionally with some guests) speaking about any topic with jokes throughout. Good Times.

Oscar? Who's Oscar?

Oscar predictions (I wrote this ages ago)

The Oscars are on their way so and despite worries there they may be no ceremony the prediction have begun. Like any year, a handful of films have dominated the nominations. No Country for Old Men, the Cohen Brothers' new masterpiece has been nominated for a staggering 8 awards along with Paul Thomas Anderson's violent tale, There Will Be Blood. Representing British cinema, Atonement is out win seven awards including best picture. Will Atonement be as successful as The Queen, we'll have to wait and see.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Johnny Depp has always been one of the critics favourites and has now been nominated for his third Oscar. However, this year, the Oscar will probably go the Daniel Day-Lewis the recipient of one Oscar already. His performance as the ruthless business man, Daniel Plainview, in There Will Be Blood.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Javier Barden lost out on his first Oscar to Russell Crowe in 2000, but that will not be the case this year. It's no secret that his performance in No Country for Old men has impressed most it is most certainly his year.

Performance by an actress in a leading role
We always say that actors and actresses in comedy film fo not get the credit they deserve and many said that Ellen Page should be nominated for an Oscar for Juno but few thought it would actually happen. Unfortunately for Miss Page, the winner of the award look like it's going to be Cate Blanchett for her reprise of her role of Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Young Saoirse Ronan conveyed a believable and moving performance as Briony Tallis in Atonement. The combination of her young age and acting ability that is beyond her years that should win her this Oscar.

Best animated feature film of the year

Ratatouille is a film that has impressed the critics. There is little doubt that this well crafted story of a rat in a kitchen will win the Oscar.

Achievement in art direction

Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer appear to be Joe Wrights go-to team for Art Direction. Everyone loves the aesthetics of a period drama and this is why the Oscar for Achievement in Art Direction shall go to Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer.

Achievement in directing

This is the award that seems to have the Coens' names all over it. They have really struck back with No Country for Old Men and it look like it will win one of the Oscars that Fargo did not.

Best documentary feature

Michael Moore may be the one of the first documentary makers that spring to mind but it is unlikely that he will get his hands in this Oscar. Charles Ferguson's depiction of the war in Iraq appears to be the frontrunner for Best Documentary Feature.

Best foreign language film of the year

Representing Austria, The Counterfeiters (Flscher, Die) illustrates the huge counterfeiting operation set up by the Nazi's during the war. It is more than likely that The Counterfeiters Will clench this Oscar.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original Score)

Dario Marianelli's score for a Atonement is one of those scores that is perfect for the film in very way. As a freestanding piece and score alone Marianelli's composition is striking.

Best motion picture of the year

Ooo, the big one. No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood are clearly the frontrunners. I honestly has no idea who will take this one.

Indeed

Procrastination and Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm sure that many may have a noble and respectable reason why they blog. I have no such reason. I have had no work to do for the past few days BUT, as soon as I received a piece of work (which must say I've put off for some time) I've started to blog again. My blogging is a means of procrastination, good times. It would be a bit more impressive if I said things a bit wiser than I actually do. I'll say something really interesting at some point. The next blog will be on Podcasts-I promise. (damn, now it's down in electronic ink). Seriously, a really good blog next time. Anyhoo, befor the end of the day I need to somehow write a psychology essay, complete around one months worth of work and answer some trigonometry questions.

As you may have guessed from the blog title, this blog has something to do with Daniel Day-Lewis. Why? Because he's cooler than liquid nitrogen, that's why. Mr Day Lewis just won the BAFTA for best actor which he most certainly deserved. Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't get nearly enough credit as he deserves despite the fact (yes fact) that Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best actors in Britain. So that's me, speaking of the greatness that is Daniel Day-Lewis. Could I say Daniel Day-Lewis any more?

Check out the new blog from Rae aka Rae Charles http://vodkachurchsatan.blogspot.com/. She's a psycho, really, meaning that her blogs a jolly good read.

Snoogins