Come What May....

Yesterday was a pretty lazy day after an EPICALLY SUCCESSFUL installment of Summer in the Country (the keg was kicked, so that means success). It was kind of rainy and dreary, and I did a 3.2 mile run (my longest since the half, kind of pathetic, I know) and went to the grocery store and then pretty much came home and did nothing for the rest of the day.

I was flipping the channels after the Sox loss to Atalanta, and Moulin Rouge! was on so I stopped for a bit. I wasn't really planning on watching it, and the next time I looked at the clock over an hour had passed. It was the first time I'd seen it in a long time, and honestly forgot how uniformly excellent it was. Baz Luhrmann created an extraordinary film, and one that holds up well over time and repeat viewings. The barrage of color, camera angles, the incredible production and costume design, the soundtrack(!!), everything comes together to make one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen. Yes, the first 20 or so minutes is pretty intense and has the potential to induce motion sickness, but if you can stick it out past there, you're in for a cinematic treat. And I haven't even started on the cast. Nicole Kidman gives a heartbreaking performance as the doomed courtesan Satine and Ewan McGregor gives, IMHO, the performance of his career as the love-struck poet Christian. Their chemistry is explosive, and the "Elephant Love Medley" is wonderful; they both have surprisingly strong enough voices to carry off the vocal demands quite well. They're supported by an excellent cast including John Leguizamo as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jim Broadbent as Harold Zidler and marvelous Richard Roxburgh as the evil Duke. It was amazing the way Luhrmann was able to take what on more than one occasion looked like mass chaos and turned it into one of the sexiest, romantic films ever. Look no further than "Elephant Love Medley" for romance, and "Tango de Roxanne" for blistering sexuality. And of course, it reinforces what everyone knows, the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.

When Moulin Rouge! opened the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and opened world-wide in the coming weeks. It was met with unanimous acclaim and Luhrmann was praised for the reinvention and rebirth of the movie musical (Rob Marshall, I hope you sent him a thank-you note after Chicago won all those Oscars in 2003). It was named the #1 film of the year by the National Board of Review and was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The two glaring omissions? A Best Director nod for Baz Luhrmann (leading host Whoppi Goldberg to quip "apparently Moulin Rouge! directed itself" during the ceremony) and a Best Actor nomination for Ewan McGregor. It picked up two design awards (Costumes and Art Direction) and lost out on Best Picture to A Beautiful Mind...full disclosure: I was a HUGE fan of A Beautiful Mind when it was released and was stoked for it's win; it's currently my least favorite of the nominees that year, which included Moulin Rouge!, The Lord of the Rings, Gosford Park, and In the Bedroom (Blackhawk Down should have been in there, but that's a different blog entry for a different day). In short, yesterday was a pleasant surprise, like a visit from an old friend.
Grade: A

Saw two other films recently that were kind of meh, Away We Go and The Hangover. I was really excited to see Away We Go, as I'm genuinely excited for anything by Sam Mendes, and the cast looked pretty good...but it was a disappointment. Long and short, a couple (Mya Rudolph and Jon Krasinski) travel the country to find the perfect place to raise their expectant child. The script was a little too clever for it's own good sometimes, and the metaphors were a little too blatant. I was also disappointed that the supporting characters (the more interesting ones) weren't fleshed out, there really was a lot more that could have been tapped into that wasn't. On the other hand, The Hangover pretty much was everything I thought it was going to be. A decent, mindless waste of an hour and a half. I'm going to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of those types of movies, and by "those types" I mean Old School, 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, I did/do however, very much enjoy Knocked Up and Wedding Crashers, so I went into The Hangover with low expectations. There definitely were some funny parts, and times where I did laugh out loud, but it suffered from giving away 90% of the best parts in the trailer. I'd recommend it though, it's "that" movie of the summer (soon to be usurped by Brüno I'm sure), the one that everyone is talking about. And you know you want to be one of the cool kids, right?
Grades: C (Away We Go)/ B (The Hangover)

And another thing

Since it's a pretty slow Thursday at the MOS (and I'm looking for any and every excuse to procrastinate), I've been checking various sites for reaction to yesterdays AMPAS announcement I blogged about earlier. One of my favorite sites, Awards Daily had a great rundown. They also had the trailer for Richard Kelly's (of Donnie Darko (excellent) and Southland Tales (hot mess) fame) new pic, The Box, and it looks like a return to form.



Could this be a case for the 10 Best Picture nominees? Maybe. Either way, it looks pretty awesome, and Frank Langella, in my book, can do no wrong. Ever. He should have gotten an Oscar nom for Good Night, and Good Luck.

The 2nd annual Summer in the Country is tomorrow night in Ashburnham, and it's going to be nothing short of epic. If you're reading this and you're around, you're invited.

And then there were 10...

You may or may not have heard, dear readers, that the AMPAS made a shocking announcement yesterday afternoon. I was going to blog about it then, but I was too taken aback to be able to form coherent sentences. Sid Ganis and crew made the announcement yesterday that starting in with the 2010 Academy Awards, there will be 10 Best Picture nominees. Yes, 10 nominees. There are currently, as faithful readers of ...this is home... are well aware, 5. I'm quite sure how I feel about this. One the one hand, back when the Oscars were first handed out, there were 10 nominees. On the other hand, there is the potential to lessen the prestige of a Best Picture nomination/win. On the other hand, it will give more genre-specific films (i.e. The Dark Kinght, Wall-E) a chance to compete for the big prize because, let's face it, there is a great cache that comes with being able to call a film "Academy Award-winning Best Picture". On the other hand, will there is the possibility that there could be a struggle to find 10 "worthy" nominees. There seem to be an equal number of pro's and con's.

I'm going to guess (and many bloggers/writers agree) that this is to try and appease the masses after the tremendous heat the AMPAS took in February for failing to nominate 2 of the most successful (critically, financially and publicly) films of 2008, the aforementioned The Dark Knight and Wall-E. There are a lot of other groups that have 10 nominees in their "Best of" year end list; National Board of Review, AFI, even the Golden Globes have 10 Best Picture nominees split into drama/comedy-musical category. This will hopefully give comedies more of a chance, as they're usually seen by the Academy as too slight, when in reality there usually is one or two each year that is quite good. Were there 10 worthy films last year? Course there were, my Best Picture nominees would have been

Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Waltz with Bashir
The Dark Knight
In Bruges
The Wrestler
Milk
Revolutionary Road
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Gomorrah

It's interesting that the other categories will still have 5 nominees, so the Best Director category is where the Academy will let you in on what film/who they're patricuarly enthusastic of in any given year. There are some folks out there in cyber-space that think this will be a one year test, but I don't think that it will. It will be interesting to see what they come up with for their 10.

Should we start a write-in campaign for The Hangover now?

I Gotta Feelin....

Thursdays seem to be appropriate days for blogging; let's start today's entry off with a recommendation - see Up. In 3D if possible. Reviews for Pixar's latest 'toon had been through the roof, and it should be noted that it was the first time ever that a 3D animated film opened Cannes. The buzz on the Croisette after the screening was deafening, and the audience was raving. A couple friends saw it the weekend it opened and also echoed the rapturous praise it had received from critics. I ventured up to Danvers to see last night (at 9:30 no less - those who know me know that's an extremely late night, ha) and, would like to add to the chorus. It was excellent and made it 100% official, Pixar is incapable of making bad movies. An old man and a young wilderness explorer scout go on an adventure in South America (they travel there via his house and about a million balloons) to see Paradise Falls. Of course, as has become the standard for Pixar films, there's a much broader, meaningful message than might initially seem. This one deals with endangered species, loss, families, outsiders...you name it, Up probably touched on it at some point. And, as in other Pixar films (at least, IMHO) the story takes a backseat to the breathtaking animation, and Up has some of the most sensational images I've seen. One in particular stands out- the house floating in the clouds. The shot lingers for about 10 seconds, long enough to let it sink in and enjoy the beauty and simplicity of the image. The colors, of course, are extremely vibrant, and clean, crisp lines dominate the animation, and the score was also quite good - I've been looking for it online but can't seem to find it. I would definitely recommend seeing it in 3D, I think it adds a whole other layer to the experience (yes, this is an "experience"). I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Up as the winner of the 2010 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. See it. In 3D. Grade: A

The Tony awards were last weekend and as expected, Billy Elliot cleaned up winning 10 awards including Best Musical, Actor, Featured Actor, Director and Choreography. Next to Normal (my favorite musical of the past 10 years) fared well too, winning 3 awards, the most after Billy; Best Actress for Alice Ripley's heartbreaking performance as Diana, Best Original Score (a Billy upset, the writers beat Elton John AND Dolly Parton) and Best Orchestrations (a tie with Billy). Hair won Best Revival of a Musical, and Brett Michaels (yes, THAT Brett Michaels, from Poison) broke his nose when a fly hit him in the face. It was awesome. NPH did a great job hosting, complete with a great song at the end. Technically speaking, the show was a mess, the sound was terrible, botched camera shots - I did a better job directing OTV when I was in high school.

I had a session with a personal trainer yesterday at Planet Fitness that I was really excited about, until I found out that the "session" was one of the guys who works behind the desk showing me how to use the circuit training equipment. Excellent! However, I think that's really all I need to do, and working my core will help my running, it will improve my balance, stride and hopefully help me improve my time. He told me if I did the circuit training 3x a week (it takes about 30 mins to do) I should be good to go. Huzzah!

Trailer for Shutter Island is out and it looks pretty intense....could this be the role that Leo finally wins an Oscar? Probs not...

oh, and I have tickets to see Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. PUMPED!

Where do I go?

Greetings readers! Apologies for the lack of updates this week, I've been somewhat busy. I will, however take some brief time to offer a few random things I've been thinking about this week.

Got back into the running again - taking it easy for the time being. Getting up around 6am and going out and doing between 2 and 3 miles before work. I'm not going to push my self, and I'm going to get back into the rigorous training in mid-July. I'm also going to start core/weight training next week at the gym, now that I know they offer it. I know, I've been saying that for a while, but I really am going to this time.

DMB at Fenway last Friday night and it was glorious. Our seats were in the 4th row, about 10 yards from the stage. Went with Miss Alison Hay, Katie and Greg, and had a great time. He played a lot of stuff from their new album, and the encore of "All Along the Watchtower" was amazing. Their new sax player, Jeff Coffin (previously of Bela Flek and the Flektones), was unbelieveable - he had a solo riff in one of the tunes where he was playing TWO saxes - AT ONCE!! AMAZING! And the new album is pretty sick too.

Saw Sugar on Sunday at the Somerville Theater (my new favorite place to see movies). It was ok. I was actually a little disappointed. Basically, a Dominican baseball phenom gets drafted to a minor league team in the mid-west. Trials, tribulations and cultural barriers ensue. There were some really great moments, but was honestly expecting more from directors/writers Ryan Fleck and Anna Bowden, especially after their sensational debut with Half Nelson a couple years ago. The ending was pretty unsatisfying, if any of you out there have seen it, e-mail me, I'd love to have a discussion about it. Good things? Algenis Perez Soto made a wonderful debut performance as the titular character, and the cinematography was incredible - sometimes there is nothing like sunsets over the plains - not that I know first hand, but I imagine they're beautiful.

The PKP Foundation weekend starts tomorrow, and it's in Boston! Hooray! Have a meeting on Saturday with some of the folks from nationals about getting the Alumni association going again - I don't really want to see it die, there's been too much work put into it to have it fall by the wayside.

I got a 13.1 sticker this week! I found when I went to marathon sports on Tuesday.

That about wraps it up for today - I guess there really wasn't as much going on as I thought, ha...

Welcome to the big city Katie!