oca 2007

picks! for Sunday! i don't know! why am exclaiming! i haven't seen much yet! but i have most of them! most likely i'll watch them! after winners are announced! perhaps! i think i would miss the opening sketch! but there's always YouTube!

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)
Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” (THINKFilm)
Peter O’Toole in “Venus” (Miramax, Filmfour and UK Council)
Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children” (New Line)
Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond (Warner Bros.)
Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role:
Penélope Cruz in “Volver” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)
Helen Mirren in The Queen (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)
Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” (20th Century Fox)
Kate Winslet in “Little Children” (New Line)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role:
Adriana Barraza in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Cate Blanchett in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)
Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Rinko Kikuchi in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)

Best animated feature film of the year:
Cars (Buena Vista) John Lasseter
“Happy Feet” (Warner Bros.) George Miller
“Monster House” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Gil Kenan

Achievement in directing:
“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage) Alejandro González Iñárritu
The Departed (Warner Bros.) Martin Scorsese
“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.) Clint Eastwood
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada) Stephen Frears
“United 93” (Universal and StudioCanal) Paul Greengrass

Best documentary feature:
“Deliver Us from Evil” (Lionsgate)
An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics and Participant Productions)
“Iraq in Fragments” (Typecast Releasing)
“Jesus Camp” (Magnolia Pictures)
“My Country, My Country” (Zeitgeist Films)

Best motion picture of the year:
Babel (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.)
“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

Achievement in visual effects:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Buena Vista)
“Poseidon” (Warner Bros.)
“Superman Returns” (Warner Bros.)

Adapted screenplay:
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
“Children of Men” (Universal)
“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
“Little Children” (New Line)
“Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)

Original screenplay:
“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.)
“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

gone fishing.

big j

that's my first encounter with an ugly american.


yeah i know its a toy. its called a "Big Trak", and based on Google searches, there's still a lot of former kids out there who profess a love for this electro-mechanical wonder that came out back in 1979.


so why is the concept of an "ugly american" involved in this post? ah, well, back in those days, our landlord's relatives came to visit from America. i used to play with the landlord's kids, and with their new fandangled American cousin(s) in tow, they had to show off stuff to the dirt-poor child who lives in the ground floor. first among which would be this Big Trak, which made beeping sounds and followed commands input in the keypad.

their big American cousin (the male one), whose name is the same as the one of my best mate on the sidebar, also had to show off his karate moves to me, or rather with me as the tackle dummy. and the landlord's kid, who's dumber than a rock, cheered his cousin on, forgetting that when the guy returns home to America, he'll be begging me to play with them again.

so i wonder where the hell is that cousin of theirs now? i never saw them again, up until we left the place and transferred to our current home in Cagayan. he's probably collecting bottle caps and beer bottles for the 5 cent refund he can get from each. or maybe the jerk's a damn CIA agent now and he's monitoring blogs for anything nasty said about him.

darned kids.

you can resist!

taken from a link in a post in our other blog ... but hell yes, can't i eat my Ritz in peace?

Grammy picks '07

ok here i am with my picks for the next hour's Grammy jammy awards. most of my picks will be wrong anyway, but ah what the heck. obviously, my picks are strictly subjective and i'm going with what i listened and liked. which means, i am not picking Biatche. i'm not picking JT because sexy never left. and i'm not picking James Blunt because he thinks he's f**king good enough for Petra Nemcova.

watching? am i watching? hell no, i'm going to pop in The Godfather and check my selections in the morning.

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal
My Humps - The Black Eyed Peas or
Is It Any Wonder? - Keane

Best Pop Vocal Album
Back To Basics - Christina Aguilera or
Continuum - John Mayer

Best Rock Album
Try! - John Mayer Trio or
Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs

Best Alternative Music Album
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys or
St. Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley

Best Female R&B Vocal Performance
Be Without You - Mary J. Blige or
I Am Not My Hair - India.Arie

heaven forbid Biatche wins.

Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
Heaven - John Legend or
Black Sweat - Prince

Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals
Family Affair - (Sly & The Family Stone), John Legend, Joss Stone With Van Hunt or
Beautiful, Loved And Blessed - Prince & Támar

Best Urban/Alternative Performance
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley or
Mas Que Nada - Sergio Mendes featuring The Black Eyed Peas

Best R&B Song
Black Sweat - Prince, songwriter

Best R&B Album
The Breakthrough - Mary J. Blige or
3121 - Prince

Best Contemporary R&B Album
Kelis Was Here - Kelis

shit. i ain't picking Biatche.

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
Waiting On The World To Change - John Mayer or
Bad Day - Daniel Powter

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera or
Stupid Girls - Pink

Best New Artist
Imogen Heap or Corinne Bailey Rae
(but Imogen was playing with Frou Frou for awhile now so i should pick Corinne)

Song Of The Year
Not Ready To Make Nice - Dixie Chicks or
Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

Album Of The Year
Taking The Long Way - Dixie Chicks or
Continuum - John Mayer

Record Of The Year
Not Ready To Make Nice - Dixie Chicks or
Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

back to the L

since i've ignored the league ballers since the MSG Brawl, i need to get up to speed post-SBXLI. so here's 10 things i learned about Mr. Stern's (not Howard) playground 2007 edition.

1) i'm still weirded out by this and apparently, it doesn't work.


2) LeBron should already own the league by now, and he doesn't. stop doing those commercials already.

3) Hibachi!


4) so long, Pau Gasol-era in Memphis.

5) the AK-47 has finally broken down. also, will somebody give Jerry Sloan the Coach of the Year award before the guy retires?

6) the Pacers have quietly rebuilt, while the Warriors should blow up with Don Nelson's brand of alchemy. KG meanwhile, is slowly dying.

7) Isiah Thomas is still alive. why????

8) Toronto is on top of the Atlantic Division. Toronto!? oh, yes, its the Atlantic Division.

9) Joumana Kidd, husband-beater?

10) Meech (Orlando Magic '99) is gay. not that there's anything wrong with that.

post-mortem

congrats to Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy and the Colts for winning SBXLI.

with this development, among those who are gnashing their teeth this morning are:
- the city of Baltimore, who used to have the Colts franchise until the team sneakily moved to Indianapolis one snowy night in 1984
- superstar running back Edgerrin James, who took the free agent money to Arizona, and was easily replaced by rookie Joseph Addai
- the New England Patriots, who finally witness their nemesis hoist the Lombardi Trophy after years of preventing such an occurence

speaking of the Patriots, does it seem weird that their (sort-of) decline coincides with the Bush Administration's downfall? 2001, soaring presidential approval ratings and the Patriot ascension seem so long ago.

and with football season is over. time to switch over to the NBA.

XLI

... eeeeehhhh.

so finally Peyton Manning made it. and Rex (Gross, Man) made it too, despite all the heat he got from the press. one's about "not getting to the big dance even if you play like that", and the other's about "not getting to the big dance if you play like that". so now the press just got shut up. for maybe 30 seconds.



who am i gonna go for? don't know. on one hand, we could root for anyone playing against Manning. except for the AFC championship series, where i rooted for him to shut up Sith Lord Belichick. now, i could still root for the Colts to win, just so to get it over with. better yet, i could root for either coaches, because they're such classy individuals.

either way, its just an excuse to be a couch potato (like when did that not happen?) this Sunday night with chips, spaghetti and beer.

added bonus: a whole new slew of funny commercials and of course ... the resurrection of Prince!!!