I looked over the winners and was really glad to see Gravity won Best Directing. It definitely wasn't the best movie of the year, but man were my eyes glued to the screen during that movie. Anyway, based on most of the other winners, I have a lot of movies to watch from last year. Rush is another one I need to see. I wasn't the biggest fan of Cinderella Man, but Ron Howard has still made plenty of good movies in my mind.
BaD Day, BaD Weather, Now I'm MaD + Oscars & Stuff
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 On 03/03/2014 at 12:59 AM by Super Step See More From This User » |
Today was not great for me, either. I fell asleep early in the morning again, after watching last year's Rush at midnight, getting done at 2:30am or so, and finding out there was a long-as-hell line at the Whataburger when I tried getting those 76 more grams of protein I needed via a Chop House Cheddar Burger and two large fries with spicy ketchup.
I'll get to Whataburger in a second, as I always do, but first, I really wish Rush were at least nominated for Best Picture this year because holy shit, Ron Howard, director of my favorite film of all time, Cinderella Man knocked it out of the park again by following that Depression-era boxing movie about J.J. Braddock with one about Formula 1 racing rivals James Hunt and Niki Lauda in the 1970s. I have never once sat down to a broadcast of either sport for more than a few seconds and am not a huge fan of sports movies, yet these are two of my favorite films I have ever seen. That should tell you something. Even if it means nothing to you, I am in awe of Ron Howard's ability to direct such incredible films on topics I never thought I cared about.
It's also the source of today's inspirational as well as demotivational quote, both in italics below the poster
James Hunt: "The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel. It's a wonderful way to live. It's the only way to drive"
Niki Lauda: "Happiness is your biggest enemy. It weakens you. Puts doubts in your mind. Suddenly you have something to lose."
Incidentally, my favorite quote from the movie is Lauda's wife's retort to his demotivational line: "If happiness is the enemy, you've already lost."
In fact, both men become decently happy World Champions, but through entirely different means and mentalities that oppose yet complement each other. Another quote from Lauda pretty much sums up the film's theme: "A wise man can learn more from his enemies than a fool from his friends."
Hunt is an English playboy that everybody likes and who wins by taking risks, while Lauda is a superb engineer who betrays his stuffy businessman father in order to take out a loan and enter Formula 3 instead of join the family business, and who pisses everyone off with his critiques of their "shit cars," including the Ferrari people he signs with at first.
The relationship between these two is more interesting than and focused on more than the actual racing for the mostpart, but the racing is incredibly well shot as well. The cliche "on the edge of your seat" really fits here, especially in the final race in the harsh rain of Japan.
Both men learn from each other, Lauda to enjoy life and Hunt to be a bit more focused, and they push each other to be better while also being total assholes who are very much aware of their differences and what assholes they are.
See it as soon as you can, it's awesome and worth it and available at Red Box, which is how I got a hold of it.
As for Whataburger afterwards, I would just like to say that it is still delicious, infinitely superior to In N' Out Burger (which isn't really saying much, Chris/Californians, In N' Out is pretty standard 
) and people ride horses to get to it
I can understand why!
Ketchup so good it's sold in stores! That are nowhere near me ... 
Anyway, that was all before I went to sleep this morning. As for my game today, it was just Sonic CD on my phone again, which is a game I've beaten thousands of times by now and have talked ad nauseum about on here. My impressions of it are the same as they've always been: I appreciate what they were going for and admire the gimmick, but it's too short and easy and I really only play it because Sonic games just work well for when you want something mindless to occupy yourself while waiting on whataver it may be. Which is why I really wish I could get the original trilogy, which I like a lot better than CD, on my LG Optimus V, but oh well.
If I had a personal dictionary, this image would be next to the word "middling."
I guess the most interesting thing I can say is that I'm always wary of games being given good scores because they're "addictive." You don't necessarily get addicted to or play a game all the time because it's great. Sometimes, as in this case, it's just because it's mindless and easy and ever available. I've tried to click on Duolingo instead as often as I can when I'm in something like a waiting room and pull out my phone, and I might even argue that I get more of a "game" feel out of Duolingo, despite the fact it's simply a language learning aid. What I mean by that is there's virtually no risk of my failure or my caring about failure in Sonic CD, but it's entirely possible for me to flub in Duolingo and I actually care when it happens.
In my personally created dictionary, this would be next to the term "shit."
Moving on, I woke up at 4pm or so and immediately regretted not waking up earlier to do all those things I told myself I would. I saw online that the Oscars started at 7pm Eastern time and though "shit, now I don't even have time to wacth Don Jon" before it starts ... which I thought until exactly 90 minutes before the show, when I looked to the right side of my Oscar ballot and saw that it said the show was starting later? Then I realized, "oh goddammit, they meant that's when the Red Carpet coverage starts." This was annoying for two reasons: I couldn't watch Don Jon in time and I couldn't return Don Jon and Rush to Red Box in time.
"Wait a sec," you say, "you totally had time to drop off your movies or watch Don Jon, at least one of the two." You would be correct, except for one fact: my car would not start.
I initially thought that it was due to not having enough gas, but even after I went out in the ... COLD?! WTF Texas?!
Dallas is my hometwon, I'm currently in Nacogdoches for Grad school, but the point is
Texas has no seasons, just Mother Nature's unpredictable periods
and going to buy then finally getting the goddamn screw cap thing off my gas can with a butter knife, so I could use the worst-designed "no spill" (it spills) EPA-approved gas can I have ever had the displeasure of having to spend time fucking with
which vaguely looks like a sex toy, which is appropriate cause it really fucked me
I was displeased to find that my car still would not start if it idled for too long or I shifted in reverse. Meaning it might be something I need a mechanic for ... right when that $300 deposit for the L.A. trip is about due and I wanted to start budgeting. Gee thanks Son of Nazareth Jared Leto. Really appreciate that ... congrats on your Oscar though, that was well-deserved.
Thus, I said fuck it and decided to just accept the $2 or so in Red Box fees and will return them tomorrow. My friend Austin is giving me a ride assuming nothing shuts down due to weather, which would be cool, but is very doubtful. I did just do laundry at his place while I watched the Oscars ...
... after having to run over with my open-holed sack of clothes in the freezing rain. Also it was my fault for being a dumbass, but I almost got hit by a car earlier cause I ran to my car on a road where almost no one is usually driving, but not the case today.
So today could have been better.
As for the Oscars, I enjoyed Ellen's monologue. Sure they're being really obvious with the whole "playing it safe after Seth McFarlnae" thing, but she's funny even if not outrageous ... or outrageously funny, in my opinion. Still, she had good one liners and the ordering pizza and handing it out to the actors thing was kinda funny for a few seconds.
In my dictionary, she is next to the phrase, "I see why people like her ... got nothing against it, really, I guess.
Her joke about "12 Years a Slave will win Best Picture or you're all racist" is probably along the lines of what the Academy was actually thinking, so no suprise it did in fact win. It was one of 6 picks of 24 categories I actually got right on my ballot. I have only seen two of the Best Picture nominees, Wolf of Wall Street and Dallas Buyers Club, but I did miss some things that should have been obvious anyway, including:
Gravity sweeping all of the technical categories, though to my credit I correctly predicted it winning for VFX, Best Director, and Cinematography.
The Great Gatsby winning Production Design ... hell, I've even seen the movie and totally agree with the decision, but for some reason thought the Academy would go with American Hustle cause it was the better-reviewed movie.
Dallas Buyers Club winning for Best Makeup ... don't know why they'd give an award to Jackass: Bad Grandpa, but they decided to play it safe and I don't know why I didn't predict the Academy acting predictably. You should always predict the Academy acting predictably.
Frozen winning for Best Animated ... yeah, I thought Miyazaki never won this category before, but he has and that should have made this reeeeeeaaaaaallly obvious, but I thought they were gonna give it to him for it being his last film. I'm not very bright sometimes, as you can tell by my sentence structure throughout this blog, including this sentence, where sometimes should be the first word but fuck it, I need this out before midnight and it's 11:55pm as I'm typing.
Jared Leto winning Best Supporting Actor also should have been obvious, but I said the Somali pirate guy from Captain Philips, cause I heard good things. Anyway, Leto was good in that flick and deserved it.
The rest I did not predict at all, like McConaughey winning Best Actor over the 12 Years guy, but again well-deserved.
I never knew what Blue Jasmine was before tonight, so I was surprised by Cate Blanchett beating Bullock for Best Actress.
The rest I either got right or had no idea one way or the other.
Edit: This blog was posted at 11:59pm CST, may the record show. The record also shows another awkwardly structured sentence. Good deal.
Anyway, other Oscar picks I got right included:
Best Original Screenplay going to Her, which I haven't seen, but expected to win.
Best Original Song going to Frozen for "Let It Go." People have been talking about it a lot and it was definitely more recognizable than its opponents. I missed my chance to see the movie in the Student Center this weekend, sadly. Oh well, if it's playing there it means it'll be on DVD soon, and it'll look better projected from my laptop onto my 32" than it will projected from their DVD player onto the dark Student Center screen anyway.
As for choices that upset me, I wish Wolf of Wall Street won something, but even Adapted Screenplay, which I had it down for on my ballot, went to 12 Years a Slave.
And that's my take on the Oscars 2014. I'm watching Jimmy Kimmel and they said a few minutes ago that 2/3 of Americans didn't see any of the Best Picture Nominees. I believe it. I consider myself an avid movie lover, and only saw two of them.
Apparently, I really wanted to watch movies involving Sexually Transmitted Infections this year.
As always, your comments are appreciated and you can feel free to give me suggestions for what media I should consume next as well as opinions on anything in this blog.
Have a good one, y'all! I'm off to watch Don Jon.
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