Your Brief Oscar Rundown

Well, I am back from vacation and the business in my life has just continued.  I know I promised you a full Oscar rundown post, but vacations and work got the best of me.  Here is a somewhat brief rundown of the movies so you can at least get my basic views of what will go down tonight.

Let me start off by saying that I genuinely liked all ten movies nominated.  Sure, there have been years where all the movies ranged from good to decent, but this is the first time that I have really liked all the movies since the first year I made the effort to see all the movies nominated before the awards show.  That year was 1997 when I enjoyed Titanic, As Good As It Gets, L.A. Confidential (which SHOULD have won), The Full Monty, and Good Will Hunting. 

So, with that in mind, it makes it tough to rank the ten movies in order of preference because that means putting movies I liked on the bottom of a list.  But, it has to be done so here we go.  Keep in mind, this is NOT the order in which I believe the movies are deserving of the Best Picture award.  This is simply the order in which I enjoyed the movies.  So here we go with very brief reviews...

10. Winter's Bone - It is tough putting a movie you like in the bottom spot, but it had to happen to someone.  It is even harder for me to put this in the bottom because it had two VERY good performances.  Jennifer Lawrence was amazing in the lead role and I really felt her pain and struggle in trying to find her father while dealing with the shady characters around town.  And John Hawkes in the supporting role was AMAZING.  He truly deserves the supporting actor nomination that he received and is unlucky to get nominated in such a tough year full of outstanding performances.  Not bad for a guy who, until this movie, was best known to me as liquor store clerk, Pete Bottoms, from my favorite film, From Dusk til Dawn!

9. Toy Story 3 - Pixar really did it again with another outstanding movie.  The thing is though, I don't know if I would consider this one any better than the first two Toy Story films and certainly not better than Up from last year.  The movie is a touching movie about growing up and moving on and it provided plenty of laughs to keep me entertained.  But as for getting nominated for Best Picture, I am still not sure why it is getting so much love and in some cases, what people think should WIN the award.  Again, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I would have preferred if something else like The Town had taken its place.

8. 127 Hours - What a great one man show by James Franco.  He put on an outstanding performance and is truly coming into his own as a top actor in the industry.  I would have never predicted that when Jess and I used to be glued to the TV watching him on Freaks and Geeks.  And visually, the movie is gorgeous, no doubt aided by the beautiful location in was filmed in.  In the end though, I found myself waiting for the arm cutting scene and just wanted them to get to it, even if it signaled the end of the movie.  Still, a very good movie about an amazing experience.

7. The Kids Are Alright - Now we are getting down to the truly difficult in the ranking of films.  This movie only makes in to #7 and I LOVED it.  With outstanding performances, great humor, and enough dilemmas to make you question what you would do if in the same situation of the characters, this movie really touched me.  As Jess and I have discussed, it really did a great job of portraying just how awkward a meeting like this would be in real life.  The faces and uncomfortable silences were so genuine and believable, no doubt aided by the great performances.  I especially liked Mark Ruffalo in this film, but again, he is in that tough Supporting Actor class where the competition is more fierce than ever.  I actually felt very sorry for him and found him to be the most likable character in the bunch.  I really liked this film.

6. The Social Network - Now you are asking me to choose between my children!  Wow, I never imagined this movie would be all the way down at #6.  I mean, I loved this film and the writing on it may be the best out of all the nominees.  The acting is top-notch (Timberlake can actually act!) and the story is full of so much humor, drama, and intrigue, it is easy to see why this is one of the front runners.  It's a wonderful film.  I also love the dark look the film had.  Overall, this movie is just outstanding and it annoys me when I hear people say that they don't want to see it because "...a movie about Facebook is dumb." It is SO much more than that and the film could have been about any start up company.  Top-class.

5. The Fighter - A feel good sports film that really delivers.  In fact, this is my favorite sports film since Miracle.  It is a wonderful story than is taken to a top level film by its wonderful performances.  I have never seen Christian Bale do better.  He literally WAS the character his role was based on as evidenced by the footage during the credits.  If he ends up winning tonight, which I think he will, he truly deserves it.  Leo and Adams were also amazing in the supporting female roles and Walhberg had one of his best performances as well.  Everyone likes a good feel-good sports movie and this one took it to another level as it is much more than just a sports film.  Much more.

4. Inception - Hard to believe that a movie that I rated a 10/10 back when I saw it would only make it to number 4 on my list.  I mean, I LOVED this movie.  Visually, this movie is something that needs to be seen to understand and the story and complexity of it (even if it may be based on a Scooge McDuck comic) are just beyond belief.  The first half of the movie with the planning of the heist is full of intrigue and when the second half rolls around with the actual heist, I found myself on the edge of my seat the entire time.  And that ending, that final scene, was one of the best I, personally, have ever experienced.  A truly entertaining science fiction film.

3. True Grit - There really is something magical about a good Western film.  Not any Western film, but a truly good one.  This easily falls into the category.  Although I have, unfortunately, never seen the original and have nothing to base it on, I feel like this was a perfect Western.  The performances by Bridges and Steinfeld were absolutely outstanding and there was not one single moment in this film where I was bored or ready for them to move on.  I am guessing the film was about two hours long and when the ending did come, it felt like one of the quickest two hours in recent memory.  I wanted more and couldn't believe we were already at the end of the adventure.

2. The King's Speech - This was the last of the films that I saw (just saw it last night), and I almost saved the best for last.  This is a truly outstanding film.  For one, the performances are simply out of this world.  Firth truly deserves the Oscar he is going to win tonight and Rush, while I don't feel he deserves it over Bale in The Fighter, also put in a top notch performance.  The thing with Rush is, he is SO good, it almost looks effortless for him, like he isn't even acting but just being himself.  I am still not sure why Carter was nominated for this film however as, while she was good, didn't think she did QUITE enough to warrant a nomination.  Storyline-wise, I was drawn in from the beginning, an achievement for a simple film about a guy trying to get over his stutter.  But it felt like a good sports film in terms of feel good achievement.  At the end of the film when he is delivering his speech to the nation, I felt as on edge as I have with any good sports film.  It was that great of a feel-good moment.  A truly remarkable piece of filmmaking. And by the way, this is probably winning tonight.

1. Black Swan - Beautiful.  Honestly, I could end the review there.  That is a one work description of the film that totally gets the point across of how I feel about this film.  I came out of this movie drained because it takes so much out of you.  Portman was at her all-time best and makes this movie what it is, but the other supporting performances were also superb.  The movie really messes with your mind and although it is obvious that so many of the visuals are simply symbolism and not what is actually happening, the film still oozes with WTF moments that both amaze and creep you out at the same time.  And it all leads up to the finale which is one of the most beautiful scenes and endings that I have ever seen put on film.  The music, the performance, and the story all came to a head that ended in a denouement that left me absolutely breathless and almost tired.  It was just that powerful and has to be seen to believed.

And with that, there is my BRIEF Oscar rundown for tonight.  When I started this post, I had every intention to predict every winner for each category, but I have gone on long enough.  Jess and I always compete so I will simply let you know later how I did as I usually do pretty well.  If you are still reading at this point, thanks for sticking along and ignoring any typos because at this point, I am not going back and proofreading this monster!

Quick, and I mean, QUICK post!

Leaving for Disneyland in about 9 hours.  Disneyland is SO my happy place!  But first, the last two pictures of the day...

Spooky, but cool, antique clapping monkey.  I want one!



Today was friggin' beautiful outside.  And it was also much needed after being such an ugly week.  A sign of things to come?


That's it...I am outta here!

The King of Bunco

February 18th, 2011 - Day 49

I was a sub tonight for the ladies' Bunco night and guess what, I actually came out on top as the big winner! Technically, I won two of the four prizes, but as they have a rule that you can only win one, I took the prize that paid out the most money!

 

Scrappy and Scruffy

Although that sounds like the title of a new kids show you might find on Nickelodeon, the title actually refers to the two new pictures of the day. 

The first picture shows that one man's trash can end up being another person's treasure of a picture.  Jess was busy making a cool autograph book for a child's first trip to Disneyland and was left with a ton of colorful scraps that were just going to go in the garbage.  I wish I could take credit for coming up with the idea, but it was actually Jess who suggested that the scraps would look cool in a picture.  She came up with it, and I made it happen!



For today, I chose to document Winston's first haircut.  He's about 5 and a half months old and it was about time for a haircut.  He was getting so scruffy and full of matted hair so it was pretty much a necessary thing.  He looks like such a different dog!  He's still cute, but a different kind of cute.  Love that dog!

The Shire

February 15th, 2011 - Day 46

"Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

When I first saw this drainage area and thought to shoot it, I thought it would look like a cool, spooky photo. I figured it would come out looking creepy. Then I took the picture, came and looked at it on the laptop, and it gave me a COMPLETELY different feel. It looks almost peaceful like and it kind of even reminded me of the visuals from the Lord of the Rings movies of the Shire. I could almost picture a little Hobbit coming out of there like it was his home. Funny how the feel of a picture can change so much in just a short amount of time.

The Hectic Life

First post in a week.  Man, I am just SO busy lately.  Granted, the first few days after my last post, I was out of town, but since returning, I have been one busy guy.  Catching up on work, catching up on processing of photos, and catching up on life sure keeps me busy.  But life is good so I can't complain.  Plus, a week from now, I'll be in Disneyland!

So what have I been doing?  Well, Tuesday, we went down to the Central Coast to go visit family.  It is just so relaxing for us there and the added bonus of having such a great family down there makes it a doubly wonderful time.  Really, if we could move there, we would.  My cousin, Jeremy, likes to collect unique instruments so I took the opportunity to take a picture of his Oud, an Egyptian guitar.  I could have taken a wide view of it so you could see the whole thing, but I felt this was more unique.  I am pretty happy it came out like this since I was pretty tipsy on tequila when I took it!



The following day was ocean day.  We went and had brunch on the pier - love me some fish 'n chips.  We walked around Morro Bay and then followed it up with a drive to Pismo.  We saw the Monarch butterflies and their yearly migration and then went to the beach.  This was Winston's first time on a beach and he LOVED it!  I took a bunch of pics that I absolutely love, but this one won out in the end for my favorite.


But like I said, I am in love with the pics I took and there was much more than just 1 good one.  Check out the slideshow here.  I promise you, you'll find some cool pics.

Thursday was the return trip home, but the fun continued a little upon our return when my folks came over so my dad could try my new tequila.  While I was waiting for him to come over, I took a quick shot of the bottles.  Looks like an advertisement should the company wish to contact me.



Friday was a reminder that vacation was over as I put in an extremely long day at work.  I keep this up, I am going to need a recharge in my batteries.



Saturday was an awesome day.  It started bright and early with a Manchester United game at 430am.  Why didn't I just TIVO it?  I have no will power not to look up a score of a game when I know it has already been completed.  But they won this HUGE game and it made waking up SO worth it!  The awesomeness continued throughout the day and concluded with a nice dinner downtown with Jess.  It was Second Saturday so there were people everywhere, both normal and SO not normal.  I went out of my box for the first time and photographed a complete stranger, with his permission, of course.



Sunday was filled with watching soccer and working on pictures.  I finally got all the wedding pictures done and as a side note, the mother of the groom, called me to say she couldn't be happier with them.  That made me feel so good.  I still have a blog post coming on the experience.  Anyways, time got the better of me and by the time I thought of taking a picture, I was in no mood for something artsy.  I opted for something quick and fun instead.  I call it, "Incognito."



Which brings us to today, Valentine's Day.  I wanted to get Jessica's help so I woke up before six that why I could get her to help me before she left for her 12 hour shift at work.  For being half asleep, I am happy with it!



Whew...sorry for the lengthy post, but I had to catch up!

Busy, busy, BUSY

No posts for the past few days and this will be a fairly quick one as well.  Why?  What has kept me so busy?   A little bit of everything!

Saturday, I was a wedding photographer for the very first time.  There is too much to go into, but I will write a full blog post on it later.  I am still working on developing the pictures and it might take me until the end of the week.  For now, here is a preview picture which I used as my picture of the day for Saturday.



Sunday, I worked on developing some of the wedding pictures, and the went on to cleaning the house for our Super Bowl party.  We had a great party, but it was exhausting after being so busy the day before as well.  By the end of the day, Jess and I weren't the only ones in the house who were dead tired.



Today, I worked over 12 hours.  It was a crazy day and I wanted to get as much done as I could as Jess and I are leaving tomorrow for a few days to the coast to get away and see family.  I am going to need it too as today was crazy long and crazy stressful.  This is how I felt at the end of the day.



Hopefully, the next few days give us the relaxation we need...at least until we go to Disneyland in a couple of weeks.  :-)

The Darkness Below

February 4th, 2011 - Day 35

"But she dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful." -The Time Traveler, HG Wells

 

The calm before the storm and it has nothing to do with this picture.  Tomorrow, I am photographing my first wedding and I am pretty nervous.  I photograph for fun; I am no professional.  Still, people trust me and like my work so it should be interesting.  Please, wish me luck!

New Toys Are Fun At Any Age

I got a new toy today!  You may think that I may be too old to be getting excited about getting toys, but I am totally a kid at heart.  Check it out!



Yup, I finally got an external flash for my camera!  I am totally excited about it!  I HATE using the flash on my camera because a direct flash gives such an unnatural, washed out effect.  Now with this, I can aim the flash elsewhere and still get the desired effect.  Heck, once I get a diffuser for it, I will be even more in business.  Now I just need to learn how to use it!  :-) 

Straws Going Towards the Light

Quick post as it is late.  Pretty simple picture today, but I was happy with how it came out.  I grabbed a bunch of straws and since it was nice and sunny, held it up to the glass slider.  With one hand, I held the straws and with the other hand, held the camera.  It might have come out a little clearer if someone else had held the straws, but it might not have mattered as I softened the pic anyways.  Pretty happy with it.

Celebration Month!

February 1st, 2011 - Day 32

Today is the beginning of what promises to be an amazingly awesome month.  We have a trip to the Central Coast planned.  We have a trip to Disneyland planned.  And Jessica's birthday is this month.  Heck, we will BE in Disneyland for Jessica's birthday.  I thought to myself, why not start off a good month by eating a great food - burger stuff with bleu cheese and bacon.  I know you are jealous. 

What Lies Beneath

January 31st, 2011 - Day 31

“Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.”
-Pearl S. Buck

Sometimes, when you are looking for something beautiful or worthy of a picture, you have to look way down on the ground, move aside a few dead leaves, and you just might end up finding beauty in the most unlikely of places.

 And like that, we have finished the first month of my picture of the day, Year 2.  January went so fast and I am totally happy with how my pictures came out for the month.  I would have to think long and hard to decide on which one would be my favorite.  Now, if you are a fan of my photography on Facebook, you have a chance to win a copy of your favorite picture of the month.  Go there now!  All you have to do is go to the post and tell me what your favorite picture of January was.  If you are picked at random, you get that picture!  Easy enough!  I love my fans!

Catching Up On the Fun

Have to catch up on three days works of pics and fun!  Friday morning, I woke up and the fog was just unbelievably thick!  Even though it wasn't even 7:30 in the morning yet, I quick threw on some clothes and went to the park to try to take some pics of the foggy park.  My idea was that fog in a park with trees and stuff would give off a sort of creepy, eerie feel.  It was sure nice to have my pic of the day done by 8:00am in the morning!  However, I took a bunch of pics that I liked and wasn't sure which one to use as my pic of the day.  On my photography site on Facebook (I am pretty sure everyone reading this is a fan of the page already), I elected to post all 8 and put it to a vote of which one to use.  The following picture below was the overwhelming favorite.  Although you can't see the fog as well in a sepia-type tone like this as opposed to my color ones where it is very apparent, people loved the clarity of this one:



Yesterday, I started work on my tattoo sleeve.  I am planning on doing my whole arm in movie characters.  We started with Alien and Predator and after about 6 hours, we still didn't finish.  It is mostly done, but I have to go back in about 3 weeks for some shading and stuff like that.  I elected to have the pic of the day be, obviously, something tattoo related.  The following pic is the tool used to create my tattoos right before we "started" on the tattoo.


Why did I put "started" in quotations you may ask?  Well, besides being the pic of the day, this picture did double duty for me!  Some of my fellow bloggers have elected to bring back the Saturday Scavenger Hunt project.  Every week, someone picks a word and the goal is to take a picture that represents that word.  As this was the first week, the word, "start" was chosen.  I think I got the job done.

Today, I had a few ideas for the picture of the day, but then Jess was being cute and made the gesture you will see below.  I thought it was so cute, I asked her to do it one more time while I took a picture.  I am so lucky that she is such a willing participant in my picture taking!  Well, and lucky that I got to marry her!

Little Ones

"I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive."
~Gilda Radner

What an exciting day!  Today, we found out that my sister is going to be having a little boy.  Going into it, I really had no preference to whether it would turn out to be a boy or a girl, but when we found out and saw the little guy on the ultrasound, it was still such an exciting time!  I can not wait to be an uncle and spoil that little guy!

After that, as kind of a celebration, we went to Squeeze Inn for some good ol' burgers.  Seriously, how can you not like a burger that looks like this:

 

 It's heavenly.

After that, Jess and I took Winston (and Leia) for his first outing in the open.  Prior to today, he has only been inside as he did not have all his shots.  He finally got his last shot on Monday so today, he got to go see what the outside world was like.  He LOVED it!  He ran circles and circles at full speed at the park; playing with Leia like he just discovered what playing was.  It was awesome and so fun to watch!

 

 

Alone

January 26th, 2011 - Day 26

“To be alone is to be different, to be different is to be alone.”

 - Suzanne Gordon 

Something about this fallen mandarin on the ground that really struck me. So much color against a cold and desolate background.  Again, like yesterday, I struggled with what I wanted.  Do I want to take an up-close macro picture of the mandarin, seeing every little detail, but taking up most of the screen?  Or do I zoom out and focus on the mandarin, but leave a lot of empty space around it?  I decided in the end that to fully show the vast emptiness around the fallen mandarin, I needed to show as much around it as possible so it really did look lonely.  I love it, truthfully.

Beauty?

January 25th, 2011 - Day 25

"A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes."
-James Russell Lowell 

I was really torn on how to frame this one. I know I wanted empty space on the left hand side. That was the easy part. My dilemma was taking a picture semi-up close like this one with a decent amount of space on the left or zoom out a little farther so that the plant wasn't quite so close (and thus, not showing as much detail), but having the exaggerated empty space on the left be quite apparent. In the end, I went with a closer shot, but I still go back and forth.

In totally opposite news, the Oscar nominations came out today.  The 4 or 5 of you who are reading this blog nowadays know how much Jess and I love this time of year and how we always go to see every movie nominated for Best Picture.  I started this about 13 years ago and Jess a couple of years prior to that.  It was fairly easy before when it was only 5 movies.  Last year, they increased it to 10 movies and it became more difficult, especially since we only saw about 2 prior to the announcements.  With the announcements today, we have seen exactly half of the movies nominated.  5 out of 10 to still see isn't too bad at all so there is very little stress this time.  Once they have all been viewed, I'll be back to review them.  I haven't done movie reviews in a while and at this point, it is too hard to go back and review all I have seen since the last one.  But I promise to be better starting with the Oscar movies.  Stay tuned...

An American Revolution

Sometimes, I have to sit and wonder to myself, "What should I photograph today?"  Then there are days like today where you see something, the inspiration just hits you, and you pray your camera is within a reasonable distance.  Today, when coming home from picking up Winston from the vet (he got neutered today), I saw my neighbor's beat-up old Chevy in front of the house and was inspired to try taking a vintage looking shot.  I am actually quite pleased with how it came out.

I Love It When a Good Weekend Comes Together

I love good weekends.  Truthfully, the large majority of our weekends are good, but when Jess has the whole weekend off and we have a good mixture of fun things to do and relaxing time, it makes it all better.  Friday night, Jess and her friend Yvette had Bunco so Brandon and I had dinner and hung out until our wives were done.  Jess even won the most money for the night so that was a plus.  After, we all hung out and like most hang out nights, we were out pretty late.  I think we finally went to bed about 1:30am. I was back up at 6:45 to watch Manchester play soccer.  I tell ya, having your favorite team being about 8 time zones away really can be an issue at times!

Luckily, getting up that early and on a little over 5 hours of sleep turned out to be TOTALLY worth it as they ended up winning 5-0.  The lack of sleep was forgotten right away.  I followed that up with getting to play real soccer with my friends.  I have missed playing real soccer so much.  I played all my youth and then after high school, played on various adult teams both outdoor and indoor.  Hell, I used to be in somewhat decent shape!  But I hadn't played in over 5 years (except for the once a year alumni game) and I have missed it.  If you remember, a group of us gathered and played on Thanksgiving and we finally did it again on Saturday.  It was a tremendous amount of fun and I hope we occasionally keep doing this.  So where are the pictures?  Uh, yeah, I took the camera, but forgot the battery.  Fail.

After that, we went to my parents' house for carnitas tacos.  Seriously, watch soccer, play soccer, and then eat great food and all by 1pm.  I can't think of any more of a perfect beginning to a morning.  After that, we went and saw some friends' son play some youth basketball.  It was fun to not only watch, but to photograph as well (remembered the battery this time!).  Only tricky part was shooting high speed photography in a dark setting.  Still, I got some decent photos and this one was one of my favorites, which ended up being my picture of the day. 


Saturday night was poker, and well, that went pretty horrible, but there are nights like that.  Today has been great as well.  Most of the day has just been relaxing on the sofa.  We spent the afternoon doing a little shopping for a secret craft project we are doing together and then going out to dinner.  Overall, this has been a great weekend.  Today's picture was kind of impromptu.  I was originally practicing a different shot.  I like how it came out, but a change of a few things can make it look a little better.  Since I already had my camera out, I took a few snapshots of Leia who so graciously just sat there for me.  Such a good girl. 

In Rememberance

January 21st, 2011 - Day 21

This picture has more sentimental value than artistic value.  When I was a kid, my favorite cartoon was He-Man.  This guy, Orko, was maybe my favorite character and I even went as him for Halloween once.  I had the figure, but of course, sold him like all of my other toys long ago.  I liked him so much though, that Jess and I named our Schnauzer after him.  We loved that boy and were devastated when we had to put him to sleep last April.  He was a great boy; our son.  Sure, we have a new Schnauzer puppy, and he is wonderful, but we will never forget Orko.  The other day, I decided to buy on Ebay, the original Orko figure so that I can remember our boy whenever I see it.  I think it was a good decision. 

Be One With the Laptop

Today, I decided to do a little camera fun.  Reach into that laptop!



You would think this is Photoshopped, but there is no Photoshop at all in this picture.  Just a little trick photography.  Kind of fun.  Of course, the picture posted on Facebook was of lower quality like usual and you could see what I did, but thank goodness for Flickr posting higher quality images.