No Direction Home

C - Natasha Haught-Fudge, who I still love and adore, even though she hated my favorite movie of last year oh so passionately. I would link you there, but I know she's embarrassed by it, so I'll spare her that.
L - Brown Brother's Gallery, where I spent a bit of my Friday being an extra for Nick Stenzel's four-one-nine. Sweet place... Gotta love that BL!!!
O - An Oscar, for Diablo Cody, Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, and Marion Cotillard. You all deserved it! Way to go!
S - Realizing that I'm losing friends left and right, and that eventually, I'll have to move back home and accept reality. Oh August! Please do not make haste!
A - Seeing three movies, in the theatres, over the course of 5 days. Haven't done that in a long while.
T - The Film Faculty doesn't care about you, or your films. Accept it, and you might do well. Forget it, and it'll break your heart.

So yeah, three movies. Here they are!

The Spiderwick Chronicles - Decent, fun, family entertainment. Scarier than I had imagined, but overall, something nice for the 8 year olds of the world to enjoy. I saw it cause my screenwriting prof saw it with his young'uns, and liked it. I liked it too.

Dan in Real Life - Yep, I went and saw it. Funny, really funny. Schmaltzy, of course, but genuinely entertaining. Steve Carell is pretty great, and I really do love Juliette Binoche. Vive la France!

Vantage Point - Meh. I cannot say that I wasn't entertained, because I was, BUT! they use a cinematic conceit more suited for television to tell their story. Let me explain: we all know the premise from the trailers which have played ad nauseum for the better part of 8 months (8 strangers, 8 points of view, one truth, blah blah). Well, every time the point of view switches, we get this lovely white fade out, and then we are subjected to a rewinding of the events we previously saw, and then a lovely clock, a la 24 shows up in the bottom left hand of the screen, telling us what time it is. It was nice, the first time, but the filmmakers decided, as I previously stated, to do it every time we switched perspectives! Thankfully, we only have to suffer through this brief lapse of judgement four times, but man alive did it get old fast. Still, all preposterousness aside, the film was a nice thriller, with a kinda surprising twist. I felt that, for the most part, this story would have been great as a 6 episode miniseries, where each episode was one perspective. Then, we could have gotten to know our characters more, and thus making it less one-dimensional. Oh, and also the film features the most AWKWARD bit of exposition I've seen in a long time, save for that news reporter bit in War of the Worlds. I shudder when I think about it. A nice rental on a lazy Saturday evening. Nothing more. I only paid $5.50, so I'm not complaining.

The Oscars were last night, and they were actually fun. I watched them live for the first time in a while, which wasn't as painful as it usually is. The speeches were nice and short, and there were some nice surprises, especially Marion Cotillard's much deserved win for La Vie en Rose. All those women were worthy of the prize, but she stood out to me big time. Oh, and Once winning best song, and seeing Colin Farrell get choked up presenting it was a nice tender moment. Oh, and don't forget Jon Stewart's lovely gesture of bringing dear sweet Marketa back on stage to give a very moving speech after Bill Conti (orchestra guy) oh so rudely interrupted her. Talk about classy. I don't know what it is about that film, but it raises my spirits in ways I don't think any other film has. As much as I loved No Country, I want more positive, hopeful cinema. It's why I dug Juno so much, I think: it took teenage pregnancy and didn't make it about parenting issues, or anything overly serious. Instead, it made us laugh, and it made the character's arc more about finding her identity as a teenager than her identity as a mother (which is often how those movies play out). It made me smile in the end, which was a welcome change. And no, Tash, that wasn't a jab at you and your blog. Really...

And, in other news, my senior project made it into the third round of production (yay!). No real surprise there, as I know that there's been little concern about it since the beginning (keepin' it simple!). But, not all is well in Zion. For you see, during our little meeting with the big wigs of the Media Arts department, I had a dark epiphany: There are two individuals on that committee would couldn't care less whether or not I made a film. I won't name names for privacy sake, but anyone familiar with our department should known darn well who they are. In fact, even those not familiar at all with our department should know one of them, but in a VERY different context. ANYway, the fact of the matter is, despite these person's place on the Project Review Committee, it is disturbingly clear after our last encounter that their interest in students and projects is at about 10%, which is probably a generous amount, but they do show up to these pitches, so I guess that accounts for something. I'm just fed up with it. I'm fed up with the lack of support. Instead of support, we have to jump over a billion hurdles, and then climb a few walls. THEN, we have to white water raft down a river with Kevin Bacon, gun firmly planted on our temples, all while singing the university's fight song (which no self-respecting Media Arts student knows, which makes this uber impossible). Yeah, it's that ridiculous. Misunderstandings, lack of communication, and a general lack of interest are all adding up to equal serious frustration on my part, while they couldn't care less. Really. It's sad, isn't it? Shouldn't they be supporting us? The people who pay their salaries? Isn't that what they should but don't do as professors? Seriously! It makes no sense to me sometimes.

A'ight, rant over. It really gets me going when I think about it.

Dang it. I'm exhausted. I'm sure I had more to say, but it all escapes me. Oh, let me just say this before I close: I am in love with Tina Fey. Absolutely in love with her. In fact, I'm so in love with her, I don't even care that she's supporting Hillary. The very fact that Tina Fey is living and breathing, and currently writing super awesome episodes of 30 Rock makes me giddy. She hosted Saturday Night Live this past weekend, and it was actually pretty grand. Tina was at her usually awesomeness, in spite of some pretty bad sketches. Other great moments were Bill Hader's spot-on impression of Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood (the Daniel Day-Lewis role), the Celebrity Apprentice spoof, the Annuele drug ad, and the cold open, which had me laughing almost too hard. Oh, and Tina's monologue with Steve Martin, and her Weekend Update bit: Awesome and awesome. And, in spite of himself, I'm much more endeared to Mike Huckabee than I was before after he so wonderfully spoofed himself. Pretty great. I'm stoked for our dear Ms. Ellen Page to host next week. She's a bundle of awesome as well, and probably a much healthier crush, as she's much closer to my age than Tina, and not married with a baby. A cute baby, but a baby nonetheless.... *sigh*...

See y'all later...