Sign This

OK, so I’ve been woefully neglecting this blog, yet again.  I didn’t want to get caught up in the political maelstrom of the past several months with ineloquent blog posts.  I’ll be brief by saying that I’m less of a cynic today than I was yesterday.

On to this post.  I’ve been awed by sign language for most of my life.  When I was a kid, we would learn sign language for Sunday school choruses (we had a resident ASL teacher who came to my church) every once in a while.  In elementary school, our big chorus performance one year was “Love in Any Language,” complete with the signing (I was a featured signer).  We had a copy of The Joy of Signing and Beck and I would try to learn ASL in bits and pieces.  Like most childhood fascinations, it was brief.

I did learn the ASL alphabet enough to cobble together the odd sentence now and again.  When I was an anxious teenager, you might have seen me “finger spell” now and then…it was my weird, nervous habit that popped up out of nowhere.  I would rapidly spell out my thoughts to calm myself down, especially in situations where I was really nervous.  Think Thing from the Addams Family.  If you never noticed, I was slicker than I thought.  If you did and never said anything, thanks, you are a true friend.

Sometimes I have trouble sleeping (shocking for someone with anxiety), and waiting for Ambien to kick in I watch youtube videos.  I usually stick to live performances of artists that I really like, or old school music videos.  Somehow tonight, I got sidetracked into a whole youtube subculture.  The awesomeness I stumbled upon is signing to music.  You may not find this particularly interesting, but it provided hours of entertainment for me tonight.*

Below, some of the highlights:

 

*I also spend way too much time watching college a capella groups perform r&b and classic rock songs on youtube…but that’s a whole other post.

My Picks

So, here are my official selections for the 80th Annual Academy Awards.  Use these picks with caution, as it has been a few years now since I have won any type of Oscar pool (I blame it all on that travesty Crash from 2005).*

•  Best Picture: No Country for Old Men. I still haven’t seen TWbBlood, but having seen the other BP nominees and given the steamroll of awards it has accrued, NCfOM is hard to go against.  Luckily, there are no stinkers like Crash to come out of nowhere and wreak havoc.
• Best Director: The Coen Bros., NCfOM. Like their juggernaut of a BP candidate, they seem unbeatable here, unless people really want to heap some praise on Paul Thomas Anderson.  I think Schnabel is too hubristic for the Academy to encourage his megalomania (that said, they seem to always find awards for Jack Nicholson and his outsized ego, but he’s technically acting).
• Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, TWbBlood. Again, since I haven’t seen this I can’t be 100%, and even though I thought Clooney was transcendent (and much better than in Syriana for which he won Supporting Actor in 2005) in Michael Clayton, this seems like the type of performance that screams for an Oscar (ala Denzel in Training Day).  Plus, maybe if Day-Lewis wins an Oscar for a showy performance, he’ll go back to doing quieter, subtler work again.
• Best Actress: Julie Christie, Away from Her. This is the one award I’m really passionate about this year; the work Christie does in this film is amazing, and the polar opposite of Day-Lewis’ actorizing.  Christie is absolutely heartbreaking here, matching the excellent script and directorial tone set forth by Sarah Polley (how great is she, btw).  If Cotillard wins, I may body slam my television; her performance was cheap mimicry masked as bravura.  Additionally, I loved Linney in The Savages, but she doesn’t stand a chance in this race.
• Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, NCfOM. Runaway winner.  He’s good, but I really liked Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Brad Pitt (granted, that was more on a co-lead); however, he creates an iconic character in a prestige film that will provide fodder for spoofs for decades to come.
• Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton. This seems to be the most hotly contested major category.  You have Amy Ryan who won a bunch of critics’ awards; Cate Blanchett for bending gender and channeling Dylan; and Ruby Dee who is old and has never been nominated for an Oscar before.  I like Swinton here, because this race is easy to split; Ryan is too much of an unknown (and she did fine work in more than one film in ‘07); Blanchett won in 2005 for impersonating, er, “channeling” a different icon (plus, it seems like she will be awarded in the leading category in the future…since she has been lauded as the new Meryl, can she conceivably have more Oscars than La Streep?); Dee might fall victim to the Lauren Bacall syndrome of ‘96 – lots of attention, at least 1 major pre-Oscar award, and then someone who really deserves it pulls through.  This year, I think it’s Swinton, who takes a truly supporting character (not a near cameo like Dee, or a co-lead like Blanchett) and makes the character believable, credible, and sympathetic.  That scene in the bathroom stall is the finest 30 seconds of acting I’ve seen in a while.
• Best Original Screenpaly: Diablo Cody, Juno.  Not much to say here – this feels like it’s already been decided given her press tour and all.  Personally, I thought The Savages was amazing and is truly deserving, but it has no chance.
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Coen Bros., NCfOM. Same explantation as BP and BD.  Big novel, big author, frontrunner film.  Again, I thought Away from Her was amazing, but it’s a one Oscar type of movie.

  Ah, the Oscars.  This year feels a lot like the 1996 awards, which coincidentally was the last time the Coens had a major threat (Fargo, how I love thee). That year, though, The English Patient was the big kahuna (Atonement is very EPish, but didn’t get enough love outside BP and the tech categories): BP, BD, BSActress – I see NCFOM as the parallel here with BP, BD, BSActor.  I like this analogy: Day-Lewis is very Geoffrey Rush-like with a showy, attention-grabbing performance that was also unstoppable. I already alluded to the BSActress races being similar (Binoche:Bacall::Swinton:Dee). The big difference here is the BAcstress category, when Frances McDormand won for her darkly comedic turn in Fargo (perhaps there’s hope for Ellen Page?).  Wow, I need to get a life.

That all said, my favorite movie of 2007 is not found in any of the nominees in the above categories.  The Bourne Ultimatum was the most enthralling, engrossing, and entertaining movie of ‘07 (it’s nominated for some tech awards…here’s hoping is pulls out a few wins).  I watched this movie again last night, and all of my fond recollections from watching it this summer were confirmed.  Matt Damon, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, and Julia Stiles (Stiles! a piece of cardboard used to be able to out act her!) are a dream cast in a smart thriller with amazing visuals.  Done deal.  I’m so not a sequel guy, but the Bourne movies keep on getting better, and I have to say that I cannot wait for the next one, whenever that will be.

   

 *If you don’t have a life either, click on the links in this post, as I spent some time selecting appropriate photos and whatnot.

  

Oscars!!

OK, so the 2007 Oscar nominations were announced last week, and I want to check back at my predictions made in November and see if I had any prescient skill at all.  I put together 7 possible picks for each category: 

•  Best Picture: Right – NCfOM, TWbB, Atment; Left out – MiClayton, Juno; Wrong – Sweeney, Kite Runner, Once, Away from Her — 3:7
•  Best Director: Right – Coen Bros., PTA; Left out – Reitman, Gilroy, Schnabel; Wrong – Wright, Polley, Forester, Penn, Lumet — 2:7
• Best Actor: Right – Clooney, Day-Lewis, Mortensen, Depp; Left out – TL Jones; Wrong – Brolin, Denzel, McAvoy  – 4:7
• Best Actress: Right – Christie, Blanchett, Cotillard; Left out – Linney, Page; Wrong – Knightely, Kidman, Foster, Russell — 3:7
• Best Supporting Actor: Right – Affleck, Wiklinson, Bardem, Holbrook; Left out – PS Hoffman; Wrong – Foster, TL Jones, Dano — 4:7
• Best Supporting Actress: Right – Blanchett, Swinton, Adams, Ronan; Left out – Dee; Wrong – JJ Leigh, Redgrave, HB Carter  – 4:7

Not terrible.  Could you tell Juno was nowhere near my radar at the time?

Live and In Person

Since it’s December (albeit early-mid December), it’s about time for me to put together some year end Best of lists that I’m sure everyone has been dying to read

My first such list will be the best shows I’ve seen this year, if my memory serves me well (some shows just blend right into the next year, like Jenny Lewis’s 03/2006 show in Carrboro…that feels like yesterday).

Anyway, here goes, in no particular order:

• The Mountain Goats, 5/5/2007, Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
• Neko Case, 4/11/2007, The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC
• Chris Garneau, 6/12/2007, Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
• Grizzly Bear, 3/3/2007, Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
• Arcade Fire w/ The National, 5/2/2007, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Asheville, NC
• Of Montreal, 3/5/2007, Cats Cradle, Carrboro, NC
• Feist w/ Grizzly Bear, 6/14/2007, Carolina Theatre, Greensboro, NC
• Andrew Bird, 12/8/2007, Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA
• Lucinda Williams, 3/18/2007, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Asheville, NC

This is also a very accurate list of the most-played music in my itunes library. Go figure.