I am updating my Oscar nominations post, scratching out films as I see them. (and I’m crossing my fingers that Austin makes the 50 city cut for Magnolia and Shorts International’s distribution on February 15th.) I am trying to see these films in the theater as time/availability permit, but (I’m old and) weeknights aren’t really good for movie-seeing, so many of these are coming down from the meta-web-pipes. (My sister says I should make my own version of an I Pirate Movies t-shirt — which is totally unfair since I own 650+ DVDs — warning 3.6 MB — and average about 1.5 movies per week.) Here’s a quick set of reviews for what I’ve seen so far:

• Atonement – a beguiling downer of a story with excellent cinematography — and I’m not just talking about Keira Knightly soaked head-to-toe in a slip with no other undergarments. James McAvoy is a beautiful man, too, but the camera work, scenery and direction almost outshine the leads. The artistic pinnacle of the film is an uncut 10 minute segment that is a clear homage to the scene in Alfonso Cuarón’s Chlidren of Men where Clive Owen is escorting the pregnant girl through the wreckage of conflict, only this scene is an attempt at an accurate portrayal of the evacuation at Dunkirk. As for Atonement‘s actual chances for Oscars? Best Musical Score is their only hope as the film is generally just good enough to be nominated but not good enough to win. The use of typewriters as musical instruments may be challenging for Oscar voters, but if there is a category that is most open to experimentation, this is the one.
• The Assassination of Jessee James by the Coward Robert Ford – the legends in our family of a traceable relation to Jessee James or Cole Younger are too thick for me to be truly objective about this film. Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt and so does a passable job at portraying Jessee, but it is the script and direction that I think do an incredible job of portraying the real James as he has never been portrayed before (and in his picture heavy review Eric James, relative of Jesse James and the President of the “James Family Preservation Trust”, agrees with me.) The two parallel characters in this story of two very different kinds of crazy are powerful enough that the first cut of the film was rumored to be over 4 hours (although the director admits that the length was unwarranted.) Pitt is the paranoid manic but it is Casey Affleck as the sycophant Robert Ford that first shifts the film into Academy territory. His mannerisms and affectations are so amazing that it is hard to imagine him as anything else. I can’t imagine how they determined he was a “supporting actor”…maybe before the cutting room massacre his role was relatively smaller. (It is odd that the wonderful Mary Louise Parker has such a small role when her presence is so distracting.) The way this film was shot is flawless and the artistic minds that assembled it have created a heart-achingly gorgeous set of celluloid. Oscar chances? No, sadly Affleck and the Cinematographer made an award-worthy film the same year as No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.
• Eastern Promises – another predicament of illegally downloading movies is that you may miss important subtitles. We don’t know exactly what was said during the Russian scenes of this hardcore film about the intersection of a nurse’s desire to give a better life to an orphan baby and the Russian mafia, but Viggo Mortensen had us believing that he was the real deal. If mob movies are your thing, you should rent this. Oscar chance? Again, I feel sorry that Viggo had to make a film the same year as Daniel Day-Lewis.

sidebar #1: I have now seen four of the five Cinematography nominees and it is a great year for cinematography. I can’t wait to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly since any film that sits in the same bin as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Atonement, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood has to also be beautiful.

sidebar #2: The studios have finally taken a good approach to DVD screeners. Most the ones you will find online are 1.33:1 (instead of the original film versions which are usually 1.78:1/widescreen or 2.35:1/even-wider-screen) and flip occasionally in/out of black and white. It’s enough to give a good sense of the movie, but encourages movie fans to seek out real copies.

Last night, sometime between 7:00 and 8:00, while I was playing Assassin’s Creed,
my Xbox 360 emitted a horrible grinding noise from its optical disk drive. The game gave a couple of audio glitches, but the drive quieted down and everything seemed fine, and I was happy to pretend like I wasn’t in for another repair process.

Today, on starting up the console, the drive made several funny noises and refused to read the disk or any other disk. I logged on to the Xbox support site to request a repair and got this:

Oh the consumer rage.

It was short-lived though. After calling the support center, I was told that my repair would still be covered under warranty. I will believe it when I see it, but I will never again scoff at a “the warranty must have just expired” joke.

Growing up in B/CS, TX my family would often hang out with a few other families whose parents all taught at the local university. I haven’t really kept in touch with anyone, but have vaguely kept an eye on the set of brothers who happen to make films here in Austin. Their new movie, Goliath, is playing at Sundance and is getting some national press. From the trailer, David Zellner plays a working man’s William H. Macy, who is having a break down over the loss of his cat. The trailer has convinced John that we should be making full length films, and it’s convinced me that I should keep better track of childhood acquaintances in case they get all famous.

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All you dog-centric people can turn away.

This holds particular hilarity for me and mine, because both Cassie (our white cat) and Miss Hannigan (our white dog) like to try sitting on the pillow that Becky uses to cover her head when she’s sleeping.

Bump! (See my note below.)

I’ve got the Oscar Pick ‘Em page ready to go. If you have any problems, please, take a screen capture and send it to me so I can fix it.

Anyone who is a member at BPB can play, and anyone can sign up to be a member.

Before we get to the Oscars I hope to have a stats page showing the current vote count, and I will be updating the results live so that you can track your score and rank from the site.

If you’re in Austin and interested in a pool party — that is, an Oscar viewing party where we’ll all put $5 into the pot to see who can guess the most awards — send me an email and I’ll add you to our evite.

Note: Becky brought up a good point! I should let you know that you can start making partial picks now, playing around with the Pick ‘Em page, and change them up until the deadline — 30 minutes before the Oscar broadcast.

For Becky’s birthday last Thursday we went to dinner at Uchi with Connie Britton …well, we had dinner near Connie Britton. Becky claims she sees her in South Austin all the time and I guess since she’s here so often (filming “Friday Night Lights”) she’s decided it is so awesome she has to live here. (Sidebar: she’s not the first/only/latest actor who’s fallen in love with the best city in America.) We went to Uchi when they first opened and it was tasty and challenging sushi but the execution was for shite, so we decided not to return. After repeated pressing from various friends we have given Uchi another chance and it is now one of the most innovative sushi spots I’ve ever been to. Check out what we ate:

• Sushi
  • Bond maki – avocado and sundried tomato in a soybean paper that comes with a pear and bell pepper salad. place a couple pieces of the salad on the maki and yummo!
  • Endo maki – sea bass, snow crab and gold tobiko in rice paper that comes with a frozen red grapes and japanese cucumber salad on one side and a citrus fish oil on the other. dip the maki in the oil for a tangy smooth flavor, then chase it with some cucumber and sliced frozen grapes. delish!
  • Hotate – spicy scallop with avocado wrapped in fresh seawead. it sounds challenging, but the textures melt in your mouth.
• The desserts here are simply stunning.
  • Becky had the valrhona chocolate and wasabi fondant with pistachio ice cream & orange tuile; the wasabi is so masked that it takes a full minute for the rich chocolate to melt away and leave the hint of japanese green horseradish, and the pistachio ice cream is a subtly tasteful pairing — even my lactose-intolerance couldn’t keep me away…although I regretted it later
  • I had the black pepper sorbet with fresh strawberries; the deep sweetness of the sorbet is heavily lined with fresh black pepper making a flavor matrix that is hard to forget, then the strawberry cleanses your palate between bites

Uchi has definitely become the Austin sushi restaurant for non-traditional gourmet sushi, and I’m sure we will return often.

They live! (And yes, I am planning to micro-blog this year’s tomato crop.)

(First Post to BPB!)

I ordered a really cute shirt from Woot on 1/10. Johnny Rollerfeet already got his, so I checked the tracking on mine… only to find that my shirt has been on quite a US tour:

Carrollton to Austin – via LA and Jersey City? Is Woot using airline miles for shipping? It says it will be delivered on 1/28…I’ll keep you posted!

More wood for the high definition media format war fire. One of my weekly websites is High-Def Digest so I can see what new discs to buy. Check out the offerings for next week.

I’m still not saying that Blu-Ray is winning, but I think JT may attract more buyers than Zimbabwe. I’m even tempted to buy JT at MSG…that would be a fun dance-party disc.

I saw 82 movies in theaters last year. Which means that I know every single Fandango commercial by heart, I can pick the Regal Arbor employees out of a lineup blindfolded, and I somehow feel that I already saw (and loathed) the interminably-previewed “Vantage Point.” That also means that I feel just as entitled as any Owen, Roger or Manohla to carefully curate my own year-end film recap – and apparently force it onto an unsuspecting public (or blogosphere, at least)…

Top 10 of the Year
1) Once
2) There Will Be Blood
3) Juno
4) No Country for Old Men
5) Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
6) The Savages
7) Michael Clayton
8) Waitress
9) The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
10) In the Valley of Elah

Honorable Mentions:
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Knocked Up
Shotgun Stories

Biggest Disappointments:
The Ex
The Wendell Baker Story
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Most Cringe-Inducing Scene Involving a Snake:
Rescue Dawn

At BNAT this year the guy bedind me was wearing a Penny Arcade t-shirt whilst I was displaying my limited edition Achewood t-shirt lamenting the fact that I left my PvP blanket at home. My little geeky world of comics and video games is going mainstream. This week there was even mention of Penny-Arcade in Entertainment Weekly’s issue covering ways to survive the strike.

p.s. It’s the little woman’s birthday. She woke up to find 2 geek t-shirts on her keyboard. Tell her happy birthday!

Can you believe it’s that time of year already!? I’m sure you’re all as excited as I am about starting tomato seeds.

For those following along at home, or interested in seedlings, this year’s selections are: Cherokee Purple, Pruden’s Purple, SMicollum’s Surprise, Black Krim, Persimmon, Costulano, Stupice, Brandywine, Sungold, and Principe Borghese. I’m also trying some new peppers this year in hopes of getting something that will actually produce.

And it’s important to have a helper.

I first saw the Oscar Nominations at Ain’t It Cool. After the fold you can check out a rundown of what I consider the big 10 nominations, with commentary.

Before the fold I want to first mention that I’m unhappy with the availability of online Oscar pool applications so I’m building a Wordpress page for BpB users that will hopefully allow us to record our picks and compare results. (I hope to even do realtime updates during whatever Oscar show we are afforded during the writer’s drought.)

Oscar season is a busy time at my house; buying DVDs, going to the movies. The Academy is nice enough to provide a straight up list of all the nominated movies to help me with my list of things I need to see. Here is my list of feature films in order of importance (with the number of nominations, and number of “the Big 10” nominations.) If any of you see anything amiss — as in you just know I should reprioritize something you really liked — let me know. (Shorts are prioritized separately as a group, hopefully shown at Dobie or the Drafthouse in a bundle.)

1. Atonement (7/3)
2. Michael Clayton (7/4)
3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2/1)
4. 3:10 to Yuma (2/0)
5. American Gangster (2/1)
6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (4/2)
7. August Rush (1/0)
8. Lars and the Real Girl (1/1)
9. Away From Her (2/2)
10. The Counterfeiters (1/1)
11. Eastern Promises (1/1)
12. Transformers (3/0)
13. Gone Baby Gone (1/1)
14. The Savages (2/2)
15. La Vie En Rose (3/1)
16. I’m Not There (1/1)
17. In the Valley of Elah (1/1)
18. Beaufort (1/1)
19. Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2/1)
20. Taxi to the Dark Side (1/0)
21. No End In Sight (1/0)
22. Katyn (1/1)
23. 12 (1/1)
24. War Dance (1/0)
25. Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (1/0)
26. Across The Universe (1/0)
27. The Kite Runner (1/0)
28. Into the Wild (2/1)
29. Sicko (1/0)
30. Norbit (1/0)

Ouch…30 films…there is no way I will see them all in time. The last five on the list repel me so that really only leaves me with just 25 films…heh. By my count I saw over 75 films in a theater last year, and somehow I missed all of these.

AICN and the Drafthouse brought us an early showing of Rambo last night. If you have any reservations about the amount of violence, Sly Stallone’s minimalist one-liner dialog, or his HGH scuplted physique then you will probably find plenty to complain about. However if you appreciate (like me) a good revenge flick, or (like the guy who sat next to us) nigh-limitless amounts of exploding munitions and mutilating bodies then this film is exactly the over-the-top multi-violence that the doctor ordered. Stallone’s decision to help a Christian aid group go into Burma turns into a hostage situation that only John Rambo can handle, and he handles it exactly the way you expect John Rambo to handle things. I don’t remember First Blood that clearly but I remember how it made me feel and Rambo delivers the same feelings.

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Wow. For the most part I don’t like David Lynch’s films but I sure do like him after seeing this clip.