in the mood to draw

After doing Doctor Who/Sherlock/Downton Abbey, my latest illustration trilogy is for my favorite three Wong Kar Wai movies:

the impossible wins

The Academy Awards are tomorrow.

Here are my predictions and preferences for the more major categories.  Now most of these movies I have not even seen, so in some cases my preferences are just because.  The one I am rooting for most of all is Naomi Watts for The Impossible.  I know she doesn't really have any real shot going into tomorrow.  Oscar politics dictate that it's really a race between Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain, but I love Naomi Watts and I love that movie.  So let's pray to the Oscar god (you know, first cousin to the football god and third cousin of the lottery god) for an upset!

Nominees for Best Picture
1. Argo - will win
2. Beasts Of Southern Wild
3. Zero Dark Thirty
4. Lincoln
5. Les Miserables
6. Life Of Pi - my choice
7. Amour
8. Django Unchained
9. Silver Linings Playbook

Nominees for Best Director
1. David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
2. Ang Lee, Life Of Pi - my choice
3. Steven Spielberg, Lincoln - will win
4. Michael Hanneke, Amour
5. Benh Zeitlin, Beasts Of The Southern Wild

Nominees for Best Actor
1. Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln - will win, my choice
2. Denzel Washington, Flight
3. Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
4. Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
5. Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Nominees for Best Actress
1. Naomi Watts, The Impossible - my choice
2. Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
3. Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook - will win
4. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
5. Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts Of The Southern Wild

Nominees for Best Supporting Actor
1. Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained - my choice
2. Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
3. Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
4. Alan Arkin, Argo
5. Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln - will win

Nominees for Best Supporting Actress
1. Sally Field, Lincoln - my choice
2. Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables - will win
3. Jackie Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
4. Helen Hunt, The Sessions
5. Amy Adams, The Master

Nominees for Best Original Screenplay
1. Flight
2. Zero Dark Thirty
3. Django Unchained
4. Amour - will win
5. Moonrise Kingdom - my choice

Nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Beasts Of The Southern Wild
2. Argo - will win
3. Lincoln
4. Silver Linings Playbook
5. Life Of Pi - my choice

Nominees for Best Foreign Film
1. Amour - will win
2. No - my choice
3. War Witch
4. A Royal Affair
5. Kon Tiki

Nominees for Best Original Score
1. Anna Karenina, Dario Marianelli
2. Argo, Alexandre Desplat
3. Life Of Pi, Mychael Danna - will win, my choice
4. Lincoln, John Williams
5. Skyfall, Thomas Newman

Nominees for Best Original Song
1. Before My Time from Chasing Ice
2. Everybody Needs A Best Friend from Ted
3. Pi's Lullaby from Life Of Pi
4. Skyfall, from Skyfall - will win, my choice
5. Suddenly from Les Miserables

the promise of every cobbled alley

I have never read On The Road.  I think that's what I should tackle next.

you forgot you have to try

Listening to Fiona Apple's Dull Tool, I feel as if she were writing about me.  And that's not a good thing. I'm afraid I've become a dull tool over time.

You, you don’t kiss when you kiss
You don’t f*ck when you f*ck
You don’t say what you mean
You don’t talk loud enough
No pulse in your impulse
Celebration’s impossible 

You forgot the difference
Between equanimity and passivity
You forgot you have to try
You have to try, you have to try
You forgot that glorious feeling
That you get when you get the truth
So tell that girl you don’t love her
And if you do, tell her two times

Cause you’re more likely to get cut with a dull tool, than a sharp one

pop some tags

Top ten songs I am listening to:

10.  A Tattered Line Of String - The Postal Service
9.  Bigger Than Love - Ben Gibbard with Aimee Mann
8.  She's Got Something - Greg Holden
7.  Brutal Love - Green Day
6.  Blue Ice - Shout Out Louds
5.  Stay - Rihanna
4.  Gone Gone Gone - Phillip Phillips
3.  Dull Tool - Fiona Apple
2.  Retrograde - James Blake
1.  Thrift Shop - Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

 

we can be heroes

Finally watched Perks Of Being A Wallflower - it's gotta one of the best from 2012.  I actually liked it more than the book.  And Logan Lerman is so good in this - makes me wanna rent Percy Jackson (ha)...Oh Oscar Pistorius - you were my Olympic hero.  I know nothing about the inner strength it takes to go from a boy with no legs to an Olympian track star.  All I know is that it's deeply inspiring and beyond my comprehension.  And then I know nothing about what it takes to, allegedly, fatally shoot your girlfriend four times.  All I know is that it's deeply monstrous and also beyond my comprehension.  I understand one should never expect too much from heroes, and really you still accomplished what you accomplished.  It's just that I needed you to be golden.  The lesson is, don't believe in idols.  And just believe in yourself...Christopher Dorner, ex-L.A. cop and fugitive, died in a shootout in a San Bernardino mountain cabin.  It's just like a crazy-ass movie - with a manifesto that name-checked Charlie Sheen and everything...I am not a fan of Rihanna but I love the song she did at the Grammy's - Stay.  And then I found out that it's written by Emeli Sande - no wonder.  She should've kept it for herself...The Niners lost to the Ravens in the last Superbowl - the Superbowl that I try to imagine didn't happen at all because the Pats missed it by one game.  I pray to the football gods that the Pats re-sign Wes Welker and the Gronk stop being such a lunkhead, but then again the football gods, like the other gods, rarely answer to me...Amazing Race is back this Sunday!!!...I am rewatching Veronica Mars.  I realized that post-popular, down-and-out Veronica Mars is so much sassier and smarter and tougher and cooler than popular, long-haired Veronica Mars.  Let that be a lesson to them young people out there - being unpopular builds character and makes you scrappier and more resourceful and ultimately more kick-ass, so don't try too hard to be popular...I am really enjoying Bunheads on ABC Family - yes. it's Gilmore Girls redux, but damn I miss Gilmore Girls!...Glee is like the worst show I watch.  I still watch it just because it's there.  But I've developed a real hate for Rachel and Kurt and most of the characters.  Good god the writers for this show suck.  They make every character behave in the most nonsensical way and do the most absurd things...Lady Gaga hurt her hip or something and had to cancel her tour.  Haha - I don't mean to laugh at anybody's misfortune, but for all her little monsters who make fun of Madonna being geriatric, I am honestly relishing in this turn of events.  Can you imagine the venom they would be spewing if it were Madonna who hurt her hip on tour?...Mark Kamins, the DJ who gave Madonna her first break, died of a massive heart attack.  Without him, we probably wouldn't have the Madonna we know today.  RIP, Mark Kamins, and thank you...It's Chinese New Year - year of the snake.  Why anyone would pick a snake is not clear to me.  Why not year of the butterfly, or elephant, or dove? Snakes are so slithery and evil.  Regardless I am trying to stay out of harm's way for the next few weeks.  Last year I had a car accident during Chinese New Year's week and then a dark cloud followed me all year long.  This year no cloud will follow me.

you can always go downton

Downton Abbey Season 3 finale is this weekend. I've been staying away from spoilers, but given that Dan Stevens is leaving the show - goodbye Matthew Crawley.

modern music of the city

Let the drunken masses work themselves into a lather with their Beyonces and Justin Timberlakes.  The music I am looking forward to this year are:

James Blake (Overgrown) and Vampire Weekend (Modern Vampires Of The City) are my top two for sure. 
Shout Out Louds - the more I hear Blue Ice the more I look forward to Shout Out Louds' Optica.
Phoenix (Bankrupt!) -  I can listen to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix forever.
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible, Funeral, The Suburbs are all instant classics - let's make it four out of four.
La Roux, Sally Shapiro and Little Boots - to fulfill my euro-disco jonesing.
Kid Cudi - to fulfill my hip hop quota.
Hurts - my new Depeche Mode + Pet Shop Boys.
MGMT - I heard it's experimental but I prefer Oracular Spectacular.
and Postal Service's 10th Anniversary Reissue of Give Up - would rather have a new cd but looking forward to a couple of unheard tracks nonetheless.