GREAT design work and fun, re-envisioning of posters for classic movies.

http://ollymoss.com/

How shaky is your house? And other good safety info to keep in mind.

Here.

Obama finds fans in the strangest ways...

Here, screenwriter John August rejoices in a particular aspect (I don't want to give away which aspect) of the punctuation of President Obama's inaugural address.

Long live nerdiness!

I'm Mad at the Academy

The Oscar Nominations are so paint-by-numbers this year. I guess this year the academy decided to forgo actually watching the movies that came out in 2008 and listen instead to the hype that was out before the movies.

I could have predicted six months ago that a paint-by-numbers Oscar year would be giving major nominations to:

Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire
Doubt
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Ron Howard for Best Director? The guy who thinks the main job of the director is to choose where to point the camera? Were the pickin's really that slim this year? Was there no one with vision?

Oh wait? Didn't visionary Christopher Nolan have a movie out this year?


What about PIXAR's Andrew Stanton? I heard he's had something on the back burner for a while.



I guess I shouldn't be surprised by now. The Academy has a poor track record when it comes to recognizing films of merit and artistry.

===

Things I'm happy about:

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon" (Universal)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.)

Achievement in art direction:
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.)

Achievement in cinematography:
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) [WALL-E should also have received a nod here. The painstaking detail the filmmaker's went to to create bring a "filmic" quality to this animated feature is astounding.]

Achievement in film editing
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) [Think of the briskness of the opening sequence. It would have been very easy to lose us during this or any of the other (numerous) action sequences in this film. Christopher Nolan and his editor Lee Smith don't let that happen. Bravo.]

Achievement in makeup:
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) [Heath Ledger's makeup is almost a main character in this piece.]
"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (Universal) [Del Toro deserves any recognition he receives in this area. He is visionary.]

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) [A lovely score from Andy Newman! Glad to see it recognized here.]

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"Down to Earth" from "WALL-E" (Walt Disney)

Best animated short film
"Presto" (Walt Disney)
A Pixar Animation Studios Production [I haven't seen the other shorts from this year, but the storytelling and technical execution on this one were top-notch.]

Achievement in sound editing:
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) [Ben Burt! The inventor of the light-saber's hum! Of Darth Vadar's breathing! Yes! Yes! Please please give this man an award! (Not to mention that this film's decision to reject dialog as the main form of communication made EXCELLENT sound design a must, and Ben Burt achieves that in spades. WALL-E essentially says one word over and over again [Evvv-a!], and vast the panorama of emotion that is displayed is a tribute to excellent sound design. Well done.).]

Achievement in visual effects
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) [One more push for this film here. Christopher Nolan's decision to take the hard road and go with as little computer-generated special effects as possible is praise-worthy.]

Original screenplay
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) [Yes! Yes! This would almost make up for your earlier snubbings! Please do honor this bold, non-dialog driven screenplay!]

Women of the future hold the big revelations.

And iTunes has the new U2 single.

So, what are you waiting for? Buy it!

I've decided that I'd like to do a little Christmas report.

Andy Whitman got to blog about Tolstoy and Bullwinkle. I want to share about my Christmas too. (Even though I'm pretty late.)


Okay, first, I'll tell you what I tell everyone when they ask if I had a good Christmas.

We got to see our family. Which, if know anything about the crazy Winter we've been having here in the land of salmon and Trail Blazers.

It was harder to see our cousins/aunt & uncle/grandma on my Dad's side than usual (we had to chain up 100 yards from their driveway; they live on a hill). But we got to see them, and I always like hanging out with them (and my aunt makes a good Christmas dinner).

After opening presents and playing some games, we headed over to do Christmas with my mom's side of the family. And that went great too. We tried a new seating arrangement for dinner (pushing the normally separate tables [i.e. "Kid's Table," "Grown-Up's Table"] together), and it felt more like a great big family dinner which I loved. (In fact, it's surprising that I noticed anything at all, because normally Christmas Dinner is just something to get through so we can start opening presents. This year was not like that. Congratulations, Aunt Lori!)

Okay: Favorite Presents:

My All-Time Favorite Present This Year (and maybe just in general over the past couple of years) was a black, tuxedo vest from my Mom and Dad.

Oooh man. I loved this thing. I cried when I opened it. I'm so glad I have it; I've wanted a vest for a long, long time.

Other great presents:

Don’t Do Anything, Sam Phillips
The Ringing Bell, Derek Webb (via swell gift cards)
There Will Be Blood
The Iron Giant
The Dick Van Dyke Show: Season One!
a pair of nike flip-flops like the old ones I had/have that broke.
my own external hard-drive (for movie editing).
Nice shampoo and conditioner. (For curly hair. )
a new backpack (with working zippers).
a nice-sized sketch pad (the bigger the better; 8 by 10 at the least.)

"Monday" is an adverb.

Put that in your hat and chew on it.

Shading

In writing and drawing, shading is my favorite thing.

Currently I am entrenched in having to make broad, sweeping strokes (outlining a story for a script I'm working on), and I'm having trouble with it.

That's okay, though. Drawings that I don't like at a first pass, normally find their feet while I'm shading. I just have to grit my teeth until then.

All right. I'm going back to it. Just thought I'd share that.

This is what my desktop looks like now...

And I think it's sweet.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

post-Christmas

I am very grateful for my new Sam Phillips album. Thank you, Mama and Papa.

I had a great Christmas.

I cried over one present. It was a vest.

I plan on watching my favorite Christmas/noir movie tonight.

I love my cousins. All of them.

I love Over the Rhine. I'm grateful for Jeffery Overstreet.

I don't know how to spell the name "Jeffery".

I feel the sadness a soul feels when it is flying over a large body of water.

Dear God, I'm so grateful for what you did. More to the point: For what's your doing. It's got to be in the present tense with me, doesn't it?

Emanuel, take me. I need home and your arms.

Advent

I know it's a little late, but, if you're interested, Slacktivist has put up a great Christmas meditation by Anne Lamott.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas. And thank God for Emmanuel.

My Favorite Movies of the Year

I haven't seen that many movies this year, but, well, here it goes:

WALL-E

The Dark Knight

Iron Man

Was Juno released this year? There Will Be Blood? The New World? I like those movies.

I still want to see:

Ballast
Man on Wire
Synecdoche, New York

Does anyone else have any recommendations from this year's movies?

Yay!

Understated, but it'll get you excited.

Q's preview of U2's No Line On The Horizon:

here.

I found this on Jeff Overstreet's blog and thought it was enjoyable.

"Whoever brought me here/ is gonna have to take me home."

Father, Dad, Creator, Guy Who Knows What’s Going On Here,

I give you the messy sea of who I am. I give you my tangled desires, my unwanted wants.

I give you my needs and my neediness. I give you my soul and my spirit. Whatever those are, the essence of me, whatever that might be.

I give you this beating heart. It’s led me wrong before. I give you analytical mind; it’s a crazy loop of best guesses and what-ifs.

Lord, you made me. You know what’s going all here.

Dear Heavenly Father, maker of the stars. I give you my sleepy eyes. My they see you, for they are starved otherwise.

My bare feet feel the fake carpet.

Jesus take my all, take all of who I am. It occurs to me that maybe there are people who ask this from a place of surrender. Of a kind of spiritual, die-to-yourself nirvana. Asking for it because they’re holy and they’ve got it all put together. I ask because I don’t have it all put together, because everything’s falling apart. Not dramatically, but in slow motion, like a house in an Andrei Tarkovsky film.

I ask it for purely selfish reasons. I’ve had this soul long enough and really don’t want it anymore. I trust you. You’re strong. And I thank you for taking me into your hands.

Thank you. And Love,

Grateful Tuesdays # 26

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the feel of the keys typing underneath my fingers. For the pressure and give and the creating of words.

Thank you for giving us the ability to create. To populate the white page. Thanks for wanting this.

You know, that’s hard for me to believe. It was hard for me to write “wanting” instead of “being okay with.” I wonder why that is?

Creating is your thing, God. You commissioned Adam and Eve to fill the Earth. To populate the white page.

You want us to work with our hands. To express ourselves. This seems selfish to me when I think about it (the idea of me sitting off, in my own little corner, essentially creating self-portrait after self-portrait). But, somehow — and I’m not saying I fully under stand this, this is a part of your plan. Me expressing myself somehow factors into the War of Heaven and Judgment and Hell and Heaven and Earth and everything in between. And even the business of Heaven long before. Which, I suppose that, if I have you in me, me expressing myself works out pretty well for you in the long run. And me.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for the concert last night. The beautiful music and the beauty of music. Thank you for the soaring, crying guitar, the words written in blood, the voice with so much fullness. Thank you for the fun of it all too, God. The interaction between the band members on stage and with the crowd.

Above all these elements of the evening, God, thank you for the people I went with. The joy that each one of them brings into my life. Thank you for the fun of getting dressed up and going to an event. The anticipation.

Thank you for these wood animals on my desk.

Thank you for the film in these canisters.

===

Thank you for this evening. For leading and guiding.

Amen.

I thought this was very creative...

Abram (Faith)