My Oscars 2009 Prediction

Right, this year, unlike other years, I have not exactly kept myself up to date with some of the best movies of the year. Most of my time being taken up by Senior Design in the early half of 2008, graduating, summer trip and moving off for a new job and a serious lack of a quality art theater near where I stay now has prevented me from my favorite activity, catching quality cinema. Instead, I resorted to BitTorrent for some, which may have limited my appreciation for some of these fine works.

The past 3 years or so, I would have seen most, if not all, of the movies nominated for major awards to make an informed opinion on who should win and who is likely to win. For my friends reading this for the first time (I had deleted my Facebook account at one point, so I was not able to recover my earlier entries) I make my pick in 2 ways. 1, my personal pick, if I were a voter and could vote, that's what I would vote. 2, most likely to win is my 'prediction' of who's likely to win, since my thoughts sometimes may not necessarily be how others view the pick.

Here it goes.

Best Animated Feature Film of Year
My Pick: Wall-E
Seriously, has there been an impressive animated movie as Wall-E in the recent years? Bolt and Kung-Fu Panda are good, but Wall-E is on another level. If it were up to me, I'd nominate Wall-E for best picture too.
- Most Likely to Win: Wall-E

Best Foreign Language Film of Year
My Pick: Vals Im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir)
This will give Wall-E a pretty good competition if it was up against each other. It goes for a Persepolis styled visuals and effectively conveys the raw emotions felt through the movie. Entre Les Murs may have a shot.
- Most Likely to Win: Vals Im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir)

Best Documentary, Features
My Pick: Man on Wire
Man on Wire was just simply, amazing. Encounters at the End of the World also had impressive visuals, but didn't captivate me as much as Man on Wire.
- Most Likely to Win: Man on Wire

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
My Pick: Slumdog Millionaire
Can't disagree, bringing a book to life is hard, but can't quite out-do an already interesting tale.
- Most Likely to Win: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
My Pick: In Bruges
In Bruges was charming, witty and enjoyable. Colin Farrell did a great job of bringing that out. On the other hand, making Milk also took a lot of effort and deserves the nomination and maybe the award ahead of In Bruges.
- Most Likely to Win: Milk

Best Achievement in Directing
My Pick: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
As I mentioned, a fun script, but bringing that to life takes a lot of effort, creativity and genius. Danny Boyle nailed it. I would have thought Christopher Nolan will be in the running, but even if he were, he wouldn't stand for a good fight against Boyle.
- Most Likely to Win: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
My Pick: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona
Penelope had only few hours to read through the script and decide if she wanted the role. Thank god she did, because the role seemed perfect for her. She was crazy, she was hot and she made me believe she was her.
- Most Likely to Win: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
My Pick: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
OK, I really would like to beg the question, because it seems like it's a sin if you don't automatically give out this award to him; would he have been an automatic choice if he hadn't died? I'm in support for giving out the award to the best, not posthumously. Yes, his portrayal of The Joker was simply perfection, but I feel bad for all the others nominated because they simply don't stand a chance of winning now.
- Most Likely to Win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
My Pick: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Kate always showed streaks of brilliance in some of her other works, but she managed to keep it alive for the entire movie in The Reader. Meryl Streep gives her a good competition for this award, but I see Kate pushing through for the win. And Sarah Hawkins from Happy Go Lucky should be in this list.
- Most Likely to Win: Kate Winslet, The Reader

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
My Pick: Sean Penn, Milk
I think Sean Penn nailed this role. He was enigmatic, convincing and made the character alive again. But then again, Hollywood and America loves the underdog or the rags to riches story. In which case, it will end up going to Mickey Rourke, whose career was considered pretty much over. He did pull off a man man show though, props to him. I just preferred Sean Penn over him.
- Most Likely to Win: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Motion Picture of the Year
My Pick: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Most people would be shocked, offended, because Slumdog Millionaire was so good. I don't deny that, it was great. But I personally think The Curious Case was a masterpiece in terms of overall quality of a movie. I for one, think Slumdog Millionaire is slightly overrated. Great, but not 'oh my god' great. Curious Case had the intriguing story, the characters, Pitt, Blanchett, cinematography and the overall package of what makes a best movie of the year. Both are great movies, I think Curious Case is slightly better. But as I mentioned above, we know what people love. So it's going to Slumdog Millionaire.
- Most Likely to Win: Slumdog Millionaire

Honorable Mentions
Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino
Seriously, how was he not even nominated for Best Actor?

Check out the list of nominations and see for yourself.

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Probably the best lyrics ever?

So there's a song by Radiohead that I'm just addicted to, and I can't go on with the day without listening to it. It's called 'Let Down' and it's even better that their most well known song, 'Karma Police' follows right afterwards and is also preceded by 'Exit Song (For a Film)' in OK Computer.

Here's the lyrics, and this can be interpreted in many different ways... Truly brilliant lyrics.

"Transport, motorways and tram lines
Starting and then stopping, taking off and landing
The emptiest of feelings disappointed people clinging onto bottles and
When it comes its so so disappointing

Let down and hanging around
Crushed like a bug in the ground
Let down and hanging around

Shell smashed, juices flowing wings twitch, legs are going
Don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel
One day I'm going to grow wings
A chemical reaction, hysterical and useless hysterical and

Let down and hanging around
Crushed like a bug in the ground
Let down and hanging around let down again

You know, you know where you are with you, know where you are
With floor collapses floating, bouncing back and one day
I am gonna grow wings
A chemical reaction, hysterical and useless hysterical and

Let down and hanging around
Crushed like a bug in the ground
Let down and hanging around"

Back from the hiatus

Not like it's going to be a big news, but I'm back in the blogosphere. I'll explain more as time progresses, but now that I'm done with the hard part of my college life, I thought this would be a good time to get back to blogging.

Big news for now - Thierry Henry's moving to FC Barcelona! This is going to trigger a set of chain reactions - Arsenal may swoop for Newcastle's Obafemi Martins, who we found out this week has a get-out clause for 13 million quids, and if ex-Thai PM gets his way with Man City, then the likely manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson will be tempted to get Michael Owen, who also has a clause for 9 million pounds, which will leave our strike force depleted.

Fret not, I have confidence in our new gaffer Sam Allardyce - apparently he's planning a swoop for ManUre's Alan Smith, or Sevilla's Freddy Kanoute.

Joey Barton, Mark Viduka, David Rozehnal and Smith/Kanoute?

Hmm, summer's off to a good start.

I made a mistake

I made a serious mistake in not posting consistently in 2006. It has been probably the most instrumental year in my life. The last 5 months or so has been a true testament of what made me who I am - I'm realizing that I am human afterall. Those simple words cannot convey accurately the things I've gone through, the knowledge I've picked up, the friendships I've forged. I'm changing - constantly. I'm feeling, allowing myself to be influenced and not influence. I'm thinking in ways I've never thought myself. As this year comes to a close, I'm becoming a different person again. The line from The Verve's 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' 'But I'm a million different people from one day to the next' couldn't be any further from the truth.

Updates

I thought I might as well put in some bits and pieces of what's going on with my life, considering I didn't write anything at all in the last few months.

- I finally saw Goo Goo Dolls live in a concert. However, I was left a little disappointed as they opened for Counting Crows (I thought it was the other way round, as it was the Goos that had a new album) and played a really short setlist. Left out many of the other songs I considered to be good.

- GT vs No. 2 Notre Dame was probably the biggest game I was a part of. We lost 10-14, but we made the Irish look really bad. I still haven't gotten over the tight loss.

- I'm in the 2nd half of my college life. The summer was rough. I took maximum classes and never worked so hard before. And after all that, I still made average grades, which really sucks. I pulled off a string of 3 all nighters in a row which I swear never felt like it was going to end. I'm back working until December, but taking 3 online classes, so I'm going to take a break.

- I'm thinking of graduate school already. Let's leave it at that.

- I won't be travelling too far this winter. There was a plan to go to Bangladesh, as I hadn't been there since 2000. Then that plan was replaced by a plan to go to Kyoto. That was also discarded a week ago.

End of the road

Unfortunately, it seems I won't be able to update as much as I'd like to. Balancing school, work and extracurricular time takes up more time than I have.

It's been a good run of 3 years blogging here. I've not made up my mind as to whether I should just leave this blog, or to archive it somewhere and remove this from the web. Until I've decided what to do with this, I'm just going to leave this here for now.

One

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other

Carry each other

I'm too busy to blog

Just a note: I've not left the blogosphere. Taking 16 hours of classes, which is the maximum allowed, is no mean feat. Plus with the World Cup going on, I hardly have any time to blog. When things have settled down, or maybe after the end of the summer semester, I'll start blogging again. I'm sorry for the inactivity.

Back in School

So here I am, back in school for the summer semester. I'm taking maximum load allowed by a student for the semester, but I'm going to push myself for it. The end of a rough road is near. Anyway, it's been a rough prep to the summer, as I extended my work for an additional week, as my replacement could not come in due to some paperwork issues. Kinda makes me glad that I'm a permanent resident, I don't have to deal with all the paperwork problems, saves me the headache too. So it's kinda like since last summer, where I've basically had no proper break in between semester switches, but I guess I can't complain at this time. Courses for the semester looks good, and so long as I follow my plan, which is to stay ahead and be on top of stuff, I should be good. I've made several mistakes during my time here and I've learnt it the hard way. I'm determined not to let that repeat. It's only for 12 weeks and once that's done, it'll be another semester of work, so it's a good sacrifice.

I had to move into a new room, as everyone is expected to move out at the end of spring. It's basically a building right opposite where I stayed over the last year and not far at all from my new assignment after the summer. I kinda hate this room already. Due to impending increase in humidity and temperature in the coming months, Housing leaves the AC running in full to combat the growth of mildew or mould. And since I'm only one of the 4 or 5 people living in the floor, the whole floor is freezing. It reminds me of the times I spent back in the chilling environments of Chicago and it really sucks, as I'm living in a warmer part of the country, yet I have to deal with it as if I'm living somewhere up north. Worse still, Atlanta has unusually been chilly. Wind's somewhat cooler and the heat isn't as hot as it used to be, so I don't exactly feel like it's the summer as of yet. I'm sure it'll get warmer in the coming days, but at the same time, this winter hasn't exactly been that cold. As a matter of fact, it's been erratic, suddenly getting warm and then dropping over and over. The weird weather activity that we've witnessed over the last year or so is something to be taken seriously. There's been drastic change in weather patterns and weather strengths and intensity, there's something serious going on.

On another note, due to my heavy downloading spree and the depletion of my available space, I scouted for a good deal for a massive external hard disk. Eventually my brother found an excellent deal and I'm finally the owner of a 300GB external hard disk. I used to download movies then delete them once I was done, as it was rare that I'd watch a movie again, but from now, I will be storing it remotely, so that if a friend or someone else asks for it, I can access to them easily. Also, I've managed to find some really good torrent sites, so there's going to be a lot of downloading and storing of some nice files. I'm about to own the complete series of 'Friends,' something that has eluded me for the longest time.

Napster has deployed the experimental approach of providing whatever they have in their library for free, up to 5 times per song, as long as the listener views advertisements in the player window. ABC tried that just a week earlier, where they basically uploaded some of their hit shows a day after it aired on TV for free, the only stipulation being that the viewers must view a mandatory 30 second ad about 3 times or so, depending on the 'break.' I thought it was an awesome idea, but at the same time, had no idea how huge internet advertising was. I've grown accustomed to the junk that I see almost everywhere I go, so I thought it was useless to pay for online ads, as I assumed that most other people would ignore them too. But then when you think about the increase in online purchasing and whatnot, maybe it's not that surprising. Nevertheless, I get to enjoy their shows (most notably, 'Lost') and on-demand music at work or at school at no costs. There seems to be more upside to it if I just ignore the ads, but I think it's inevitable that I view these ads, and I think they're shooting more for awareness and exposure as compared to hard sales.

I probably did not blog this, but 2 weeks ago, I made some last minute arrangements to see P.O.D., as the tickets were pretty cheap and the venue not far from campus - within walking distance. Plus, I was getting tired for the semester and needed some serious venting, so attending a really energetic performance by the group was a well needed activity. Only problem was that there were way too many of the younger generation around, but then again, P.O.D. is a Christian band. It was amazing how many young kids there were, when the group asked for kids to get on stage for the song 'Youth of The Nation.' Then last week, I attended a Jason Mraz gig with another friend. It was held at the Tabernacle, which, in my mind is the best concert venue. Jason Mraz was definitely a performer, he played nicely and the atmosphere fit in well with the music. My only regret was that I hadn't exactly paid too much attention to his music prior to this, and as a result, only recognized few of his songs. If I had been more aware, I think I'd have enjoyed the gig much more.

Goo Goo Dolls announced another gig in Atlanta on Sept 3rd, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on Oct 26th. The RHCP tickets were selling really fast within 10 minutes of it going on sale, but I managed to secure 2 tickets. I'm not sure who wants to go at this point, but I'm sure I'll find someone, as I expect it's gonna be a packed event and a lot of people would want to go. Goo Goo tickets go on sale in June, and this time, I will not miss it, unlike the one I missed in April.

I guess that's all I've got for now.