an oligatory oscar post

watching the oscars made me wish i had cable. jon stuart and the daily show sure beat npr as a source for entertaining news.

i only saw two of the five films nominated for best picture: good night, and good luck and crash. in my opinion, good night was the superior film, but crash probably had greater impact on moviegoers. personally, i thought the film was a bit too obvious. it walloped me on the head with a big fat anti-racism plank. the racism in crash was so blatant that it was hard for me to relate, and i was afraid that people who engage in more subtle (and perhaps more common) racism might miss the point and walk blissfully away without a thought to their own prejudices. but let's be optimistic, maybe if you hit someone hard enough, they just might change their mind.

and, to you english majors, do you think the 'affective fallacy' is a legitmate basis for critiquing film? and how do you spell 'critiquing'?

and, speaking of prejudices, i just saw pride and prejudice this evening--a good film, but isn't it the same as sense and sensibility? jane austen was such a hack. anyway, speaking yet again of prejudice, one of the previews on tonight's film was for brokeback mountain. unfortunately, the preview probably ruined any chance of my seeing the film. no, i wasn't offended by homosexual innuendo, but i was a bit peeved at the background musical score. it sampled unapologetically from the shawshank redemption. and when i say 'sampled,' i mean note-for-note, it was the same (i.e., identical) swelling orchestration that guides us through shawshank. i guess i'm just frustrated by the oddest things--agggggh! jane, i apologize for what i said earlier; it was just a simple misunderstanding. at least you had the decency to steal from yourself...

i guess that leaves me with munich and capote. i figure that capote might even be a good study movie for the upcoming gre.

andrew david 'quiet' puerto vallarta, mexico. day 1.
pictures from my laptop never look the same once i post them on the internet. i'm interested in whether this picture will look too washed out. it might be better as a black and white image.