Ten best films of the year 2009

Might as well get it out now, since I do this annually. Here we go.

1. UP IN THE AIR

dir. Jason Reitman (USA, Paramount Pictures)


2. STILL WALKING
dir. Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan, IFC Films)


3. IN THE LOOP
dir. Armando Iannucci (UK, IFC Films)


4. FANTASTIC MR. FOX
dir. Wes Anderson (USA, 20th Centry Fox)


5. AN EDUCATION
dir. Lone Scherfig (UK, Sony Picture Classics)


6. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
dir. Quentin Tarantino (USA/Germany, Universal Studios/Weinstein Company)


7. THE HURT LOCKER
dir. Kathryn Bigelow (USA, Summit Entertainment)


8. UP
dirs. Pete Docter & Bob Peterson (USA, Pixar Studios/Walt Disney Pictures)


9. SUMMER HOURS
dir. Olivier Assayas (France, IFC Films)


10. DISTRICT 9
dir. Neill Blomkamp (USA, TriStar Pictures)

IFC Films makes three appearances and Jason Reitman tops my list for the second time since 2007 (JUNO). THANK YOU FOR SMOKING retroactively makes the top ten for films released in 2005. Where were Fox Searchlight and Focus Features this year? Distributing pseudo-indie-hipster-pandering clichés like (500) DAYS OF SUMMER and AWAY WE GO? Sure.

5 Least favorite: Bruno, Watchmen, Humpday, Invictus, Antichrist -- in that order.

Soon, the 2010 releases I highly anticipate!

No bells or whistles

I'm writing a fairly straightforward blog entry this time around because I wish to document those bands I saw at Club de Ville tonight. Because in all honesty, I'm bound to forget who they are. Danny Malone, Crawling with Kings...

Two others whose names I've already forgotten. Thankfully, my friend Caitlin'll have them.

In other words, I get Mad Men Season 1 Discs 1&2 in the mail later today (Monday, Jan 11, 2010). I cannot wait for them to arrive. Much of my time these next few days will be spent with my laptop, Jon Hamm, January Jones and some wonderful production design.

The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson's not too well-received adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel, is in store for me in the near future (Tuesday the 12th). I'm glad I'll be at a screening for it because I'm not sure I'd pay to see it in theaters. The novel, which I had hoped to read before watching the film, sits beside my left foot untouched for many many months in a shelf full of all the other books I haven't read yet. One day, I will. At the moment, I'm catching up on my film/television.

I think that after Tuesday, I'll be ready to compile my favorites of 2009.

Tomorrow Morning means Golden Globe Nominations

And I have no clue what's going on with that. For the past four years of my life, I have been on top of awards season, ready with my predictions, formulating my own upsets. What happened to me? I know nothing. I've seen a mere 7 films released this year.

1. District 9
2. 500 Days of Summer
3. Star Trek
4. Watchmen
5. Drag Me to Hell
6. Bruno
7. Me and Orson Welles

This semester -- no scratch that. This YEAR has been too damn busy. This winter break, I must catch up. Hopefully, I will also be able to make a Top 10. We will see.

Seems like we may have our first female Best Director in Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). I will be previewing her work in the next couple of days too. Jason Reitman is 3 for 3 now with Up in the Air, starring a Best Actor-worthy George Clooney. Many great animated films this year as well -- The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Ponyo, Up!, The Princess and the Frog, Coraline, etc. And Mo'Nique may have a new epithet in a couple months -- "Academy Award winner Mo'Nique" -- thanks Lee Daniels's Precious.

Enough musings. For now, I must run to HEB to buy Sunkist in preparation for my apresentação português amanhã.

December is the Ultimate

Ultimate, not meaning the greatest but the last.

The last of many, many things. It's the ultimate month of this decade. It's the ultimate day of school (excluding finals of course). It's the ultimate minute that I will get to see some great professors.

We just had a sending off for Dr. Charles Rossman, Joyce Scholar and UT English Professor. Great, great guy - super enthusiastic about Joyce, embracing of his students, and obviously loved by his family: two kids, one who graduated from Law school, the other with an MD, both of whom traveled from Houston to sit it on his ultimate day of teaching, documenting with a cute little point-and-shoot the ultimate hour that he will share with young minds the wealth of knowledge and the years of research he possesses on Joyce. And this woman, who I mistook for someone simply wanting to return to college for reasons that I presumed to be a desire to increase her literary knowledge -- well, it turns out that this is his wife. She sat through the entire class and read through Ulysses for the second time in her life just so that she can spend with him his ultimate semester as a Joyce Scholar at the University of Texas.

This is me being sentimental and slightly envious. Envious because - well, have you seen those movies? Wonder Boys, The Squid and the Whale? I wonder if student-professor relations actually blossom the way they do in these films. Not exactly the way they unfold in these films, of course. But I mean, do they bloom? Do students (particularly undergraduates) actually form long-term real relationships with their professors?

Anyways, this is one reason why I'm really glad I'm graduating with a liberal degree here at UT. How can a student really relate to a professor on things like marketing strategies? Or multi-variable calculus? Or fluorescent microscopy? Or MATLAB (say what!?)? I don't think a student can. Beautiful humanities.

I'm feeling quite sentimental right now. It's December. It's snowing like mad in Houston. Biting, cold wind here in Austin with all 750,000 residents hoping and wishing for but one snowflake. One little snowflake. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. before the sun rose and listened to The National. It's the ultimate day of the preantepenultimate semester of my penultimate year of college. And this is me documenting this morning. If I'm this sentimental now, I wonder what the ultimate day of the ultimate semester of my ultimate year here will be for me. Guess, we'll have to see.

Ultimately, I want to say that I'm very sorry that you all will not be able to take Professor Rossman's James Joyce course. My apologies indeed.

And as one ultimate reminder for all those who may stumble upon this entry:
Remember, Madam, I never eat muscatel grapes.

This is Just to Say

That this time of year, I'm usually prognosticating the Oscars. Sadly, my life has grown far too hectic for this kind of fun - or any general sort of fun actually.

Maybe I'll watch a few films during Thanksgiving break?

To name a few in which I find interest:

An Education, Precious, The Hurt Locker, Up (how could I have missed a Pixar?!), 500 Days of Summer, FANTASTIC MR. FOX (released wide on the 25th and receiving very positive early reviews), etc.

Ideas Overflow My Mind

I'm not sure what I'm doing at home on a Saturday night. It seems like it's the first night I've had off in over a week (9 or 10 days). So I think I'm just taking it easy. Sucks that I've got this thing looming over my head that I have to do before Monday. I mean, it's a super simple task but it still looms and looming's no good. Watch a couple films. Easy. Marketing/pre-distribution strategies. Not bad. Still looms.

I've had an awesome week and things seem to be going forward. But there's still something missing. I know what it is.

Much of it is tangible.

One, a blackberry.

I have a whole campaign that I've been working on to pitch to my mom regarding my investment in a smart phone. She adamantly opposes the smart phone. But I want/need one for these reasons.

1. To better connect myself with the world (never home, always out and about, current phone plan not so stellar - 250 txts/month. Really, mom?)
   
2. To increase my marketability in the job world (dependable, contactable, etc.)

Two, a good DSLR (Canon 5D, maybe?). I really want to launch a multimedia project this fall. But what's the point if I haven't got the equipment that I need to execute? Maybe I'll be able to check out equipment from the photo-j department again this semester? Let me make sure that I can before even attempting this project inspired by the Times. Maybe if I cut out all of my clips from The Daily Texan and present it to my parents all bound up and nice, they'll be overcome by sheer joy that they'd go out and buy me one?

Just kidding. These are missing from my life but it's not what I really need right now. Although, I'd still love to have them. We'll see.

In other words, Miyazaki's Ponyo is out in theaters now and it's receiving stellar reviews. Need to see it. Recently saw District 9. Social commentary very evident. Do not eat food while watching. Just a warning.