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.