Looks kinda interesting~~~
Plus! Ewan! Pierce! Wilkinson!
Olivia Williams! And Samantha… I mean, Kim Cattrall…
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Tomorrow it’s nomination days!
My country is buzzing with anticipation of a possible Best Foreign Film nod for The Milk of Sorrow.
Anyway, I did Oscar predictions last year and I got about 85% of nominations right considering all of the categories, and nearly a perfect score in major categories of acting, directing and film. However, I don’t think I will be getting a score as good as last time.
I had seen a couple of commercials promoting Modern Family, which I thought were kind of funny, so I decided to look the series up and give it a try. It was a surprise to learn that each episode only lasts about 20min. (as a 30min. show, just to show you how much commercials American shows have), but those will be the funniest 20 minutes of your day.
Modern Family just tells the story of that… a modern-day family, starting with Jay (Ed O’Neil) and his second wife Gloria (Colombian actress Sofia Vergara), and her kid… old-soul Manny.
Then there’s Jay’s eldest daughter Claire (Julie Bowen), her loser husband but “cool dad” Phil (Ty Burrell), their 3 kids… not so bright Haley… not so bright Luke… and the one picking on them for not being bright, Alex.
And finally, there’s Jay’s younger son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), his “mother bear” boyfriend Cameron (Eric Stonestreet), and their newly-adopted Vietnamese baby Lily.
By the first episode, it had me literally laughing at the top of my lungs, which hasn’t happened for a long time. I had so much fun watching it over the weekend, that I’ve already caught up with the 13 first episodes, and I’m waiting for the remaining episodes.
Stonestreet, playing Mitchell’s boyfriend, is hilarious, even though he seems to be kind of normal compared to the rest of the nearly neurotic characters. He also brings balance to Mitchell’s snobbish butt by teaching him to shop at Costco, and is the pissed off gay clown saving Mitchell’s butt at the gas station. He’s my favorite character.
So this is one of the new shows you should be watching… you know, instead of like… Ghost Whisperer or some other bad show.
Well, color me surprised twice this weekend.
Taylor Swift just won Record of the Year, which doesn’t really upset me… but really? I enjoyed it, but that’s it. But to be fair with the Grammy, the album was the biggest selling hit last year… and to an industry that’s struggling with physical album sales, that’s possibly a LOT.
I wasn’t really supporting any particular artist this year, as I kept my year listening to Asian music. However, I really respect Lady Gaga’s live performance, despite my not really enjoying her albums.
As for Swift’s performance, she picked a bad day to sound bad. However, she wasn’t the only one with a weak performance. Right after a very strong beginning by theatrical queen Lady Gaga with some piano by queen Elton John, and pretty good performance by Beyonce — I mean, that Alanis cover did give her some extra points — the show pretty much went on the average road.
I was really disappointed with Pink’s performance, not because it was bad. It was technically fine, and not many would sing in-tune while spinning a la Cirque du Soleil. The performance, however, lacked any energy to pump the audience there or at home…
Moreover, the Grammy Awards have proved that there’s no Michael Jackson tribute without Janet. I must admit that Celine, Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood and Usher sounded vocally great, but the performance was nothing but lacking as a performance. Add to that pimping the performance as a 3D act, which wasn’t really 3D for viewers, but for people there — which prompted a 3d-glasses-wearing Beyonce, and others included Rhianna — but I doubt all the people there had 3D glasses at hand.
I wasn’t a big fan of Green Day’s 21st Century album, but the performance was okay-ish, since I do like musicals. However, I doubt old school GD fans appreciated it.
And there was too much Bon Jovi.
MTV owned Grammy’s MJ tribute, but MJ’s kids were kinda cute.
Music in the west was weak overall.
Check back next time…
I just ran into an interesting piece where Allison Loui-Garcia asked a bunch of kids about some stuff that may have defined their ten years of life. Some of those questions involve pop culture, news events, baby one more time, napster, dial-up, 9/11 and their fears.
We usually hate most children on this website, but the answers are interesting and somewhat adorable.
Also, what kind of mom buys her kid an ipod when he’s 2 years old? Lady, you’re supposed to get noisy headaches when you have children. You’re supposed to play tag and hide & seek with them and all those kids games.
This race is turning into an interesting one, as the Director’s Guild names Kathryn Bigelow the Best Director of the year for her film The Hurt Locker. Why this is pretty awesome? She’s the first female director to ever get it… which means she might be writing Oscar history if she wins that night. *crosses fingers*
Other winners are the directors of the documentary The Cove (omg, I really wanna be wrong on this one), Mad Men… and Modern Family.
Check out all the winners here.
uh huh!
Voting results are in! Which is exciting… and a bit surprising, I think xD
Anyway, thank you everyone who nominated their films on the first round, and thank you to everyone else who took time to vote… hopefully you all had taken time to watch all (or at least most) of the nominated films~ and discovered gems!
Among the love, there’s The Hurt Locker, Basterds, District 9, you know… the usual suspects, plus some love for Moon, Antichrist… and surprisingly enough, Watchmen. ;P
Here are the winners…
Aiya They Didn’t reporting that Chinese fusion singer Sa Dingding and Chris Lee were topping World music downloads on iTunes UK, Switzerland and Belgium prompted me to look them up on iTunes Canada.
And color me surprise, they’ve got the first 3 albums (sans EP) by Bibi! I was also able to find Chris Lee, Han Hong, SHE, Eason Chan, Leehom Wang, among others~~~
There’s no gain without Wayne, or there’s no pain without Wayne. I know it’s something like that. It’s been years since I first heard Wayne Isham saying that on one of those episodes of MTV’s Making the Video, back when making a video was very important for MTV.
Wayne Isham was another name that really popped up when I spent all day watching MTV. If I could describe Isham’s music video style with one word, it would be “woosh!” even though that’s not a word. His videos captured a very energetic vibe with fast cuts and, what I call fade-in wooshes — it’s when Isham would be focusing his camera on the singer/group and there would be a fade-in from one shot to the next one that made it seem like pushing in or away from the subject in a very funky way.
Of course, the best way to understand that woosh concept is to see it in action. For instance, those fast cuts are very prominents on Metallica’s video of I Disappear (from the Mission Impossible II OST) xD Continue Reading…
Two days ago I received my last batch of Spirit Awards screeners… which I’m almost done watching because my internet connection has been failing, so I took that time to watch some of those films, and catch up on my reading~
Anyway, I’m used to receiving screeners on white paper disc cases. They’re economic, and just easier to get and use… they don’t take extra space, and they’re easy to mail.
Obviously, a big company like Lionsgate can take it to the next level, and send their own (simple, but kinda pretty) screener for Precious. It’s all white, with the company’s name, film’s name and a “Consider This” title glossy embossed finish. Plus, they list all the categories they would like to be considered for.
The only problem I found with the Precious screener is that it doesn’t play on my bedroom’s DVD player. It does play in my computer, and in my older DVD player. I have no idea why. Over the nearly 300 DVDs I own, only 4 or 5 don’t play on my player.
The other 5 DVD screeners are for Amreeka, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, The Messenger, The Vicious Kind, and Easier with Practice — all which came on paper cases. The latter two are the only ones that list their Spirit Awards nominations, so we can actually keep an eye for them when we watch them.
In the end, how important are screeners packaging for a film? After all, isn’t it supposed to be all about the film? Yes, it should be about the film, its characters, and its story. However, it would be nice to know what we should be looking out for… be it with some small text on the DVD, or an extra paper insert, or an extra DVD screen menu with the info. It doesn’t have to be as fancy as the Lionsgate.
