Prestige

It’s getting to be that time of year again…the prestige films vying for Oscars and the holiday box office prizes have approximately 7 weeks to roll out and stake their claims.  Because I’m a total dork, I obsessively read about these films and their handicapped chances for award-season nominations and wins – it’s never too early to prognosticate.  I’ve been known to do well in Oscar pools in the past, do in part, at least, to paying attention to the hype and murmurs and getting myself to the theaters to see for myself.Now, I’ll join in on the fun and make a few lists of potential Oscar nominees.  Since it is so early in the game, and I have seen less than 1/4 of the films listed below, I’m going to have 7 choices in each list; I’ll narrow them down in a month or two when I have more to work with.

Best Picture:

• No Country for Old Men
• There Will be Blood
• Sweeney Todd
• Atonement
• The Kite Runner
• Once
• Away from Her

 Best Director:

• Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men
• Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will be Blood
• Joe Wright, Atonement
• Sarah Polley, Away from Her
• Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
• Sean Penn, Into the Wild
• Marc Forster, The Kite Runner

Best Actor:

• George Clooney, Michael Clayton
• Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will be Blood
• James McAvoy, Atonement
• Denzel Washington, American Gangster
• Josh Brolin, No Country for Old Men
• Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
• Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd

Best Actress:

• Keira Knightley, Atonement
• Julie Christie, Away from Her
• Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
• Nicole Kidman, Margot at the Wedding
• Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
• Jodie Foster, The Brave One
• Keri Russell, Waitress

Best Supporting Actor:

• Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James
• Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
• Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
• Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men
• Paul Dano, There Will be Blood
• Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
• Ben Foster, 3:10 to Yuma

Best Supporting Actress:

• Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd
• Vanessa Redgrave, Atonement
• Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
• Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
• Saiorse Ronan, Atonement
• Amy Adams, Gone Baby Gone
• Jennifer Jason Leigh, Margot at the Wedding

MSCL Addiction

I’m addicted to My So-Called Life. It’s not unsual for me to get really into TV shows every once in a while; so into them, in fact, that I kind of stop functioning outside of their realm. For instance, two summers ago I Netflixed four seasons of Gilmore Girls, in order to get caught up for the final season, which I ended up not watching. For that summer, I could do nothing but think about those overly verbose and caffeinated Gilmores, tackling life in the tiny burg of Sleepy Hollow. I digress…

MSCL first stumbled into my life my junior year in high school (way back in ‘94), when it was a ridiculously popular program amongst my peers at school. I didn’t think much of it (I was firmly ensconced in Seinfeld and Friends at the time), and when there was mass hysteria when the show was cancelled (Kobain-like), I thought that my peers needed to get so-called lives of their own.

Fast forward a year or so, when MTV (geniously?) starts airing the all-too-brief 19 episodes of MSCL in marathons, pretty much every weekend. I am a total sucker for TV marathons (I will watch pretty much anything in marathon format if it will completely eat up my day and I can lay on the couch/bed in my pajamas, snacking). So, I started watching the show to see what the fuss was all about. While I didn’t fully relate to the show (many of the typical “teen” problems on the show were outside of my realm of experience…I was pretty dorky and introverted), I envied Angela, Jordan, Rayanne, and Ricky like I envied high school peers of mine; I watched their lives happen around me from the comfort of my own little sphere, largely unaffected but more than entertained. I watched…and watched…and watched. I fell in love with MSCL like so many others.

MSCL re-entered my life a few weeks ago, when I purchased the complete DVD series. Made by the same company that created the Freaks & Geeks DVDs (another brilliant, too-short-lived show), these DVDs include commentary, a book, and just about everything a complete nerd would want. As I watch the episodes again (I’m trying to go through them slowly, maybe an episode or two every couple of days), I can now look back through a haze of nostalgia at my high school years using MSCL as a model; the show really does brilliantly capture an era, where the tail end of Generation X was dealing with their folk hero’s suicide met the typical trials of adolescence all dolled up in (admittedly, come on) terrible mid-90s fashion.

I can now truly identify with a character on MSCL – Mr. Brian Krakow. While I was nowhere near the academic superstar that Brian is, I can definitely relate to his inability to go after what he wants for fear of personal rejection. When I watched the show before, I pitied Brian for his pathetic, often petulant behavior as he tried to comprehend how life had happened all around him while he was stuck in the past, lashing out at his childhood friend/unrealistic crush for using him in times of convenience. Now, I see a shadow of my adolescence, as I recall some seriously socially awkward moments from my teen years, and my inexplicable (to me then, at least) anger at friends for going out and actually having lives.After all these years (12 since the show was cancelled!), it still holds up.  Netflix it and enjoy the pain of adolescence from a whole new perspective.