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...and I'm not really sure why. Yes, the light's still on across the street, which is why we're going to buy blinds (thank God), but I'm not sure that explains why I slept from roughly midnight to 10:30 A.M. Just overwhelmed by meetings and editing and whatever, oh my.
Last night I accidentally shut Cal's fingers in the door after he kept doing his usual "going to bed means I will pop the door out again and again" thing. He yelled vociferously about unfairness for two minutes straight, then went to sleep; hopefully, he'll take something away from that experience. I keep telling myself it was bound to happen sometime, but it doesn't really make me feel any better.
In other news, I've been thinking a bit about the idea of movies "deserving" Best Picture Oscar noms (or wins, for that matter). There's this received wisdom that the movie which gets Best Picture must, somehow, be morally/spiritually elevated as well as critically-/audience-acclaimed, when the standards and rules of the Academy actually don't call for it to be either. Take a look at the list of what's won sometime, and you'll see a whole lot of films that A) made a lot of money and B) won the respect of their peers, mainly by making a lot of money. Occasionally, you get truncated break-outs into three other categories: A) Films about the Holocaust, B) films people think make them look good for picking (usually because of subject-matter, critical response and/or the participation of actors and filmmakers they think should be cumulatively recognized for years of previous work) and C) zeitgeist flicks, which allow the Academy to acknowledge certain inequities or issues and throw those things a sop by publicly honoring films about them (see The Hurt Locker, which hit Not Enough Female Filmmakers and Why Is No One Making Movies About Iraq? at the same time; Philadelphia, aka Good People Die of AIDS Too and Some Gay People Look Like Tom Hanks; In The Heat of the Night, aka Racism Is Bad and Sidney Poitier Is Less Scary Than Melvin Van Peebles, etc.
Aside from a very brief flirtation with the idea of "indie" films, the bulk of Best Picture picks have hitherto been relentlessly mainstream. Weird stuff comes in in other categories, attached to writers, directors or (most often) actors. Now, the fact that they're still following a ten-nom model rather than a five-nom model this year does potentially allow for some weird shit importation--it's certainly what brought The Hurt Locker into contention, seeing that it made shit-all in release and Bigelow's Best Director Oscar hasn't exactly produced a flood of female filmmakers headlining Hollywood films, either. So I would expect to see some oddities in the mix, but I'm expecting the top five--let alone the actual Best Picture--to return triumphantly to norm.
My own expectations are pretty low, as always; the last time I was surprised at the Oscars was 1990, the year Silence of the Lambs won. But for myself, given the flood of crap released in 2010, I'd just just like it if all the Best Picture noms were well-made films with well-told stories--the idea that they should have "something to say", on top of that, is entirely optional.
Okay, enough of this! Back to Chapters Seven and Eight, aka Big Brawl Take One.
Last night I accidentally shut Cal's fingers in the door after he kept doing his usual "going to bed means I will pop the door out again and again" thing. He yelled vociferously about unfairness for two minutes straight, then went to sleep; hopefully, he'll take something away from that experience. I keep telling myself it was bound to happen sometime, but it doesn't really make me feel any better.
In other news, I've been thinking a bit about the idea of movies "deserving" Best Picture Oscar noms (or wins, for that matter). There's this received wisdom that the movie which gets Best Picture must, somehow, be morally/spiritually elevated as well as critically-/audience-acclaimed, when the standards and rules of the Academy actually don't call for it to be either. Take a look at the list of what's won sometime, and you'll see a whole lot of films that A) made a lot of money and B) won the respect of their peers, mainly by making a lot of money. Occasionally, you get truncated break-outs into three other categories: A) Films about the Holocaust, B) films people think make them look good for picking (usually because of subject-matter, critical response and/or the participation of actors and filmmakers they think should be cumulatively recognized for years of previous work) and C) zeitgeist flicks, which allow the Academy to acknowledge certain inequities or issues and throw those things a sop by publicly honoring films about them (see The Hurt Locker, which hit Not Enough Female Filmmakers and Why Is No One Making Movies About Iraq? at the same time; Philadelphia, aka Good People Die of AIDS Too and Some Gay People Look Like Tom Hanks; In The Heat of the Night, aka Racism Is Bad and Sidney Poitier Is Less Scary Than Melvin Van Peebles, etc.
Aside from a very brief flirtation with the idea of "indie" films, the bulk of Best Picture picks have hitherto been relentlessly mainstream. Weird stuff comes in in other categories, attached to writers, directors or (most often) actors. Now, the fact that they're still following a ten-nom model rather than a five-nom model this year does potentially allow for some weird shit importation--it's certainly what brought The Hurt Locker into contention, seeing that it made shit-all in release and Bigelow's Best Director Oscar hasn't exactly produced a flood of female filmmakers headlining Hollywood films, either. So I would expect to see some oddities in the mix, but I'm expecting the top five--let alone the actual Best Picture--to return triumphantly to norm.
My own expectations are pretty low, as always; the last time I was surprised at the Oscars was 1990, the year Silence of the Lambs won. But for myself, given the flood of crap released in 2010, I'd just just like it if all the Best Picture noms were well-made films with well-told stories--the idea that they should have "something to say", on top of that, is entirely optional.
Okay, enough of this! Back to Chapters Seven and Eight, aka Big Brawl Take One.
