Category: Entertainment

Oscar 2020

oscar

Sunday is Oscar Night.  They’ve moved it up because of A.S.F. (Award Show Fatigue.)  Apparently, this is a real thing.  People just get bone-ass bored with Hollywood during their Give-Me-A-Trophy season.  (Who knew?)  It makes sense though, after the Golden Globes, the Baftas, SAG, Critic’s Choice, Sundance, TFI, AFI and an endless stream of the usual suspects, wearing enough money to feed a Malawi family for a year, striding up to the microphone and telling the rest of us to quit voting for Trump and drinking soda pop with a straw … God, take a breath, Fyfe!  You’re going to hurt yourself … It’s no wonder people tune out.  I’m probably going to watch, though, because a) I’m a dinosaur b) the Academy will do a decent tribute to Kirk Douglas (more about that later) and c) despite all my complaining, I do believe movies are important.

Movies give us something we can’t find anywhere else.  For example, every person on this planet has a least one movie that they simply don’t share with anyone else.  It’s not secret, but it’s kinda private.  It’s personal.  It’s a cozy connection.  It’s a few tears or a lotta laughs – just because.  It’s an old lover who shows up on a stay-at-home Friday night and says, “Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable and make some popcorn?  This evening’s just about the two of us.”  And for a couple of hours, you totally relax because you know everything about them (including the dialogue) and they’ve seen the holes in your underwear.  These movies aren’t necessarily the best or award winners or the critic’s choice, but they belong to us.  They occupy a place in our psyche that we can’t explain.  They are the tales of intimate strangers told to us, alone in the dark, like important whispers we need to remember.

I have several movies like this.  Yeah, believe it or not, I wasn’t always the party animal you see before you.  I’ve had my fair share of stay-at-home Friday nights.  I’ve sailed El Carib with Captain Ron and danced with Marlene Dietrich on more than one occasion.

So, on Sunday, after the Red Carpet, I don’t really care if some guy in a tuxedo scolds me about my promiscuous use of plastic.  I’m there for the movies.  And when they eulogize Kirk Douglas, along with Spartacus and Paths of Glory, I hope they remember 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  It’s a remarkable tale of an ocean adventure, told to a kid from the North American prairie who’d never seen the ocean.

Elsa And Jack – Frozen III

I just saw Frozen II.  It’s a good movie — not as good as the original, but sequels rarely are.  Unfortunately, Disney, you screwed up!  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this is the movie the whole world wants to see!

frost 1

frost2

frost5

frost6

frost7

Frost

 

 

I Wish — The Home Game

i wish

There’s a dinner party game we’ve started playing at our house.  It very simple.  Everyone gets a candle, and everyone gets a bunch of grapes — red grapes in a stemmed glass work best (nudge, nudge/wink, wink.)  You light the candles and turn out the lights.  Then each person, around the table, makes a wish and takes a sip of their grapes.  There are only two rules – 1) After “I wish,” you can’t use the word “I” again and 2) You can’t use anybody else’s wish (not even reworded.)  The first couple of rounds are pretty ordinary – people wish for wealth, health, an end to world poverty – and there’s very little discussion.  However, as the evening wears on and the regular wishes get used up, people start to get creative.  This leads to explanations, questions and some very lively discussion.  Plus, it helps a lot when you have to open a second (or third) bottle of grapes.  Here’s a few recent tidbits — in no particular order.  They’re just ones I remember (somewhat edited) to get you started.

I wish people would stop using the word “authentic” to mean “I’m better than you are.”

I wish Social Media had different levels and a test so all the assholes had to stay with their own group and couldn’t bother the rest of us.

I wish liars would actually have their pants on fire.  It would certainly make elections a lot more interesting.

I wish dogs could talk.  But only when you wanted them to and not like telling the neighbours you pick your nose or haven’t changed your underwear.

I wish celebrities had to tell the truth when they’re interviewed, so we could find out which ones are actually nice, or stupid or whatever in real life.

I wish they’d put warning labels on people the way they do movies.  “This person contains a surly attitude, a malicious disposition and a juvenile sense of entitlement.  Vigilance and avoidance are strongly advised.”

I wish someone would write a decent ending to Game of Thrones.

I wish you could teleport your personality into the microwave so it cooks everything just the way you like it.

I wish college students would pull the stick out their ass and act like kids again.

I wish “iconic” wasn’t even a word.

And finally:

I wish some fictional characters were real — so you could hang out with them and find out what they’re really like.

FYI – If you haven’t guessed already, this is just a drinking game for smart people.