Istanbul

I spent last weekend in Istanbul in honor of a friend's completion of The Jesus Year. It was so surreal walking around the sleeping city well after midnight. I felt like I was caught up in a Cold War era spy film come to life.

As always, the photos can be found on the Flickr.

Academy Awards.... Bleh.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed The Hurt Locker. I thought the individual bomb diffusing scenes were very well done. I really enjoyed Jeremy Renner's performance. However, never once did I say to myself while watching- Self, this movie is pretty amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if it was nominated for Best Picture. So needless to say, I was surprised when it was nominated for Best Picture this year. I was even more surprised when it actually won.

Like I said before, I really enjoyed The Hurt Locker. However, this "victory" is just one more example of why I don't like the Academy Awards. I don't like how so many people's careers are made and broken by the political fancies and whims of people who may or may not have watched the films they are voting on. Nikki Finke summed up my feelings perfectly when she said the following:

So David slew Goliath. Or, to put it another way, Academy voters rewarded a tiny film that made no money just because almost everyone in Hollywood really dislikes James Cameron. This shows how out of touch the Oscars are with moviegoers around the world, who loved Avatar. But what can you expect from a bunch of mostly geriatrics who decide on the Best Picture by watching them on small screens instead of in the movie theater. Most of the 5,000+ voters only saw Avatar in 2D. So, of course, The Hurt Locker played better. And people wonder why I have nothing but contempt for the Academy?

Oh, and remember that the Academy wouldn't even let Nicolas Chartier who financed Hurt Locker (or his mother who flew in from France) attend the show tonight because he mass-emailed members and supposedly broke the campaigning rules -- even though he never even mentioned Avatar by name. That guy has to celebrate at a private party in Malibu tonight away from all the Industry accolades he so richly deserves. And people still wonder why I have nothing but contempt for the Academy?

Lebron Don't Fake The Funk On The Nasty Dunk

Lebron's dunk at approximately the 59 second mark of the highlights from last night's Cavs game against the Knicks was straight nasty. Seriously, he is not from this planet.

Lost Thoughts

So here is where I am at with the final season of Lost. I have really enjoyed the final season so far. I was worried that everything would feel rushed, as if I was drinking from a fire hose. It hasn't felt like that yet and I am happy. The methodical pacing has always been one of my favorite things about Lost and so far they haven't departed from that formula.

But what I really want to talk about now is an internal change that kind of caught me by surprised. For me, Lost has always been first and foremost about the characters. The mythology of the island has always come in second. Albeit a very close second. In previous seasons I would rush to the internets after watching an episode and spend hours scrolling through various recaps and message boards to gather little "bits and bobs" that would give me more insight into what the island was, or who the Dharma Initiative was, etc. I revelled in the mystery and loved to investigate the various theories and discover little easter eggs and peruse all the different screen shots to ensure that I didn't miss anything.

Now, I can't be bothered. It's not that my love for the show has diminished. It hasn't. At all. The first thing I do when I wake up on Wednesday morning is start the download of the the episode that just aired in the US a couple of hours before. I purposefully avoid many of my regular websites throughout the day to ensure that I don't catch any spoilers. I rush home from work and immediately watch the episode. So yeah, my passion has not declined. But when it comes to the mythology of the island, I don't really care anymore. I don't care what the island is. I don't care why it seems to have magical powers. I don't care what the smoke monster is. All I care about is the characters and their individual searches for redemption/happiness/meaning/love.

I think that is why I have enjoyed the last two episodes so much. I loved watching Locke in the sideways flash reality seemingly overcome many of the issues that have haunted him in the island reality. It was so enjoyable to watch Jack establish a meaningful bond with his son in his sideways flash reality and move beyond the troubled relationship he had with his own father. What I am saying is that for me personally, watching these characters succeed and evolve is providing enough satisfaction that the island and its mysteries are only important to me in the sense that they serve as the setting and backdrop where the stories of these characters play out.

Ultimately, I will be satisfied if many of the mysteries of the island go unexplained. This is blasphemy to many. I know. This is where I am at though. This is how much the characters have come to mean to me.

As a side note, there was an interesting explanation of the multiverse idea given by Marc Oronmaner at docarzt.com. If you disregard the portion about The Secret and focus on the video game analogy, it does a great job of shedding some light on the current season.

SD3D

Just saw the final version of the new trailer for StreetDance 3D. The grading is fantastic and the Tiny Dancer remix plays well. It will be showing in front of Alice in Wonderland shortly. The nervous anticipation around here is really starting to build. May isn't that far away now.

In the meantime, here is a behind the scenes look from an impromptu battle on the set. The dude in the black shirt with the long hair absolutely kills it and the guy who takes his shirt off but leaves his tie on cracks me up every time I watch.

**UPDATE**

Word on the street is that the link to the BBC website didn't work out so well for those readers in the US. In an effort to provide the same info the BBC link was meant to provide, here is a link to the IMDB page and a link to the first trailer via the YouTubes. Hopefully that isn't blocked in the US as well.

PS For those true cinephiles out there you will notice that the female lead - Nichola Burley - also had a turn in a little film you may recognize called Donkey Punch.

Peter Gabriel - Blood of Eden

I have been severely remiss when it comes to updating ye olde blogge lately. I have had a couple of things I have meant to post over the last few weeks but I just couldn't be bothered. Maybe I should change the name to "paisley for her displeasure," yeah?

I don't really have the creative fire to post anything too profound or lengthy right now so I am just going to post a YouTube of a song I have been listening to quite a bit over the last couple of weeks as I make my daily commute to work or my every other day or so sojourn to the Sainsbury's Local to buy some tikka masala to heat up for lunch. So without further preamble, I present Blood of Eden by Peter Gabriel. Enjoy.

They're Coming....