Last night was the OSCARS, the biggest night of the year in Hollywood. Oh and we’re just so happy that the writers strike is over… (sarcasm)
I though Jon Stewart did all right as host, but I enjoyed Ellen more, and would love to see Billy Crystal do it again.
I wasn’t too excited about the OSCARS. I haven’t seen most of the contenders yet, due to being dreadfully behind in my movie watching, so I didn’t have many strong opinions… except for best song.
There were 3 songs from “Enchanted” by Steven Schwartz and Alen Menken. But percentages weren’t on their side, and the small indie film “Once” took home the award (deservedly so). The song “Falling Slowly” is simply intoxicating. I never get sick of hearing it. It is brilliant simplicity.
It was also ‘international’ night at the OSCARS. All four acting awards were given to actors born outside of the US. But beyond this headline grabbing first, it is important to note that the design categories and music were also dominated by foreigners. The only awards where ‘americans’ had an edge were in the technology and ‘nerd’ awards. Sound, effects, editing, etc.
What does this mean for Hollywood? I’m not totally sure. Is is a result of our society’s marginalization of true artists (as opposed to products like Britney)? Is it because we aren’t fostering enough art and encouraging our artists as much as other countries are?
I also love the song “Falling Slowly” In fact, I loved all the music from Once.
I just wanted to give you a little more info on how we played Pictionary which I think made it more fun than the orig. We used one of the big rolling chalk boards at the church (I think a whiteboard would have been better) All we used from the boardgame pictionary was the cards. Before we started the game we chose one color from the cards and that is the only color we played the whole game. So the person who’s turn it was grab a small stack of cards 5-10 from the box and tried to draw and have their team guess as many as then could in the alotted time (we used one of those hourglass sand timers)It was fun because the drawer couldn’t look ahead at the next word and start thinking about how to draw it, which is the benefit of using only one color, hence only doing one word per card. I had some of the hardest words like drought, religion, and some other really hard one that I can’t even remember now, I totally got the shaft.