The Guesswork

Times are bad (overused words but hey, it’s apt), but even when things are going slightly off balance, there is still a moment to give recognition to the people who have worked hard in their respective areas. Case in point: ME. This I say without an air of arrogance. This time round I am thankful for the people responsible for promoting me a level higher, at a time when my heart feels like putting my best foot forward and leave this place. Yet I believe a change has to come sooner than I expected. Just to inform the few who are hanging around here, I might be on a year hiatus to pursuit the dream of obtaining another qualification, though I am pretty sure it might just be a passport for me to aggrandize my remuneration and get into better places with real people possessing real creative senses.

There must also be a moment to honour the best players in the film industry; an industry which I’m hoping to venture into someday soon. Predicting winners of tomorrow’s 82nd Academy Awards proved tough as the nominees are amongst the best we might have seen thus far, and not to mention the additional 5 films in the Best Picture category, which seems redundant at first look but are actually sensible for the fact that there are indeed a number of incredibly good works to be recognized and not merely looked upon as possible candidates. The inclusion of mainstream and independent flicks is a smart move on the Committee’s part to increase viewership and gain the interests across all types of viewers. Yet I do believe that it’s effortless to predict the top 5 films judging by the 5 directors who are given nods for their excellent craftsmanship. These are the heavyweights of the show: Avatar (9 noms), The Hurt Locker (9 noms), Inglourious Basterds (8 noms), Precious (6 noms) and Up in The Air (6 noms).

Last year’s 17/24 outcome was the best I’d done in predicting the winners. This year’s guess according to my gut feeling goes like this:

Best Picture: “Avatar”
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, “Precious”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Up In The Air”
Best Original Screenplay: “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Art Direction: “Avatar”
Best Cinematography: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Costume Design: “Nine”
Best Film Editing: “District 9”
Best Makeup: “Star Trek”
Best Music (Original Score): “Up”
Best Music (Original Song): “The Weary Kind” ~ “Crazy Heart”
Best Sound Editing: “Up”
Best Sound Mixing: “Avatar”
Best Visual Effects: “Avatar”
Best Animated Feature Film: “Up”
Best Foreign Language Film: “The White Ribbon” ~ Germany
Best Documentary Feature: “The Cove”
Best Documentary Short: “China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province”
Best Short Film (Animated): “French Roast”
Best Short Film (Live Action): “Miracle Fish"

Let’s talk music. I, for once, will jump with joy if Hans Zimmer won for Original Score. Don’t ask me for reasons, but I just dig the awesomeness that soundtrack exudes. The whole album is a fucking variation on a theme of Holmes or Watson or whoever and whatever. It's a bloody “Danny Elfmanish-sort-of-way” brilliant. On the other side, Giacchino’s Up looks promising, simply because it’s a typical Oscar-winning score sound-alike. James Horner’s "Pandora Soundscapes" was forgettable and Desplat’s Fox was too whimsy for my liking. While the score for The Hurt Locker had the intention to provoke various moods of urgency with it's narrative structures, it somehow turned out ordinary for my ears. Those aside, I find it incredibly difficult to predict on all major categories, with two exceptions: Supporting Actor and Lead Actress, which are sure to be (just by the amount of awards they won) Christoph Waltz and Sandra Bullock respectively. My guess is as good as yours, but I’ve been wrong on many occasions. I would probably act with weird looks on my face if Streep took the stage – yes, she’s pretty much good in everything, but I'd rather watch a whole lot of Bullock speech.

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The Winners (Live Update):

Best Picture: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, “Precious”
Best Adapted Screenplay: "Precious"
Best Original Screenplay: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Art Direction: “Avatar”
Best Cinematography: “Avatar”
Best Costume Design: "The Young Victoria"
Best Film Editing: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Makeup: “Star Trek”
Best Music (Original Score): “Up”
Best Music (Original Song): “The Weary Kind” ~ “Crazy Heart”
Best Sound Editing: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Sound Mixing: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Visual Effects: “Avatar”
Best Animated Feature Film: “Up”
Best Foreign Language Film: "El Secreto de Sus Ojos"
Best Documentary Feature: “The Cove”
Best Documentary Short: "Music by Prudence"
Best Short Film (Animated): "Logorama"
Best Short Film (Live Action): "The New Tenants"

Fun-fact: This is my 82nd post, which happens to be on the 82nd Academy Awards. No, I didn't plan.

Airtight

I forego February. One lonely post was all I need to paint the allusion that I am simply not interested, or perhaps the scale of events are far too great no words should be ascribed at this moment in time. Imagination still ticks as and when I deem relevant, and work goes on rather smoothly but without any satisfactory inputs. There are tasteless decisions to be relished at every silly turns. Only the sound of keyboards being punched by pathetic workaholics who are on Group B corticosteroids kept the air at its right temperature. The mood turns somber and bright like a symphonic tone-poem changing keys. The thing I'm looking forward to everyday is discovering gems from the accidental canvas of creativity – which is basically not much to even brag about. Besides that, I am numb to the point of no escape. Bottomline, I’m expired. But the sun still shines and there are bills to whine about – so yes, as everything remains monophonic and tightly plugged to its original equilibrium of the universe’s survival tangents, I am still breathing heavily to the tunes of Ravel’s Bolero chimed in reverse, sounded by an accordion and two giant harmonicas playing the side-drums parts. What other open spaces require my attention now? What might be the next offering to be projected on a medium not known to mankind? Who shall maintain this bridge between reality and illusions? Are expectation meant to be devaluated as you aged? Or have we grown immune to the templates of distorted truths? I am hungry to know. I am ready to go.

This brain is too fragile for such thinking, so please do not push me to the brink...

The End Is Nigh

I would like to believe that the end of LOST is ultimately the end of serialized TV in general (copycats like Heroes and Flashforward don't seem to have that pull factor for me). Spending almost six years theorizing, speculating, rewatching through the flashbacks, flashforwards, finding constants, seeking variables, jumping back and forth through the years and back again, it is time to be rewarded with the 4,815,162342 questions that are still pending to be answered. OK, maybe not that many. But from the get go of the first episode in this final installment, it's clear that this is the season of answers. 18 episodes more and that is that. Concluding one week before my birthday, I hope it would be a solid, satisfying end, if not a brain-twisting one. LOST is a mythologically rich piece jampacked with great character studies, where the themes of good versus evil, science and faith flows through the central vein. A drama not confined to one specific genre, where each episode focuses on specific threads to weave a piece of abstract fiction - this is clearly TV at its top form. It has been said that LOST is too deep for the casual viewers. My nonchalant reply is: Confusing meh? (*Apple and the Apple products are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Montage by Madally Wurlpiz, 2010)

On A Treble Note

Late-night ruminations brought me into suspension, threw me off line and back to the cleft I once preside. There are troubling sections that are curtained from view (not hiding the fact that they might be characterizing a block of runes, but what do I know?), so further analyses depend on the introspective slants of my mental ingenuity, if indeed I am lavished with one, which I doubt. Keeper of the past shall remain in the whittling vacuity, but its hard to dispose such role; yet to leer pass beyond the unfolding pool of events will only make me look daft even if the desired intention are within scopes of reasons. Let’s not delay this progress; let’s not fill this cavity with fear. I have plenty of sensible wits to enrich the state of existence, luxuriating with thoughts of good hope and savoring them with the present acquirement (as if). Going with the flow shall be the motto to follow, but the guiding light will never be out of sight, hypothetically speaking. The catalyst of change is the constant ambition that exists in one's attitude to make tomorrow better than what was today. To surmise, the smears in former times are just life's happenings too sombre for this farce. But move along I must. Fast. Without fuss. And while the going gets tougher, I am harboring the thoughts of preserving the many startling moments I terribly adore. Especially those that involve you, Baby.

Our three parts story continues right where we left off. But let's stay in the middle a little longer, OK?