And the nominees for the Best Picture are...

With the Oscars nearing its date with the Kodak Theater everyone that enjoys the Hollywood realm is turning their eyes to the news and media outlets to get their latest information about the nominees and the films. As for myself with the the weeks having wound down to only one more, I am left having to go through a flurry of film watching with friends and family to make sure I know all the titles that will be appearing in the ceremony this weekend.

The ones that you could say are the 'most important' of the nominations is that of the 'Best Picture'. While I might give a simple rating when it comes to the movies I watch, I thought it might be nice to give a little more meat to that rating for those that might not have had a chance to watch these films.

Argo:

I might not have actually known anything about Iran Hostage Crisis, but this movie was really able to engage me while working through the steps that led up to the breaking point of the crisis. It gave you a very surreal feel about the animosity of the country towards Americans. Once it came out though, many people argued that it is a very 'Americanized' version of the crisis. So take it as you will, I will take the facts of this film with a grain of salt and just consider it a very good work of film as it is, not some historical reenactment.

 Django Unchained: 

Tarantino films have always had a little bit of starkness to their often hard to swallow form. You would be hard pressed to find someone that is unable to name an additional Tarantino film if they already like one of his movies. Django Unchained follows suit with this. You are transplanted into an era where slavery is rampant among the nation and a recently 'freed' slave is working with a bounty hunter. You get to see a collective collage of excepts from their time together over the winter, but the real meat of the story comes out when Django and Dr. Schultz are trying to get Django's wife from another slave owner. The grit of some of this movie is hard to watch when Tarantino showcased his ability to make gore realistic enough to make even me turn my head away some.

 Les Misérables

With a penchant for musicals, I had my doubts about what this movie rendition could possibly do in comparison to the likes of the stage variation. Even more so was the fact that they were letting the 'actors' sing live. While watching it though, all of that dissolved. It was a beautiful rendition, and the actors were able to call forth a lot of the emotion that is found with their stage comparisons. It made me cry just like the stage version does, so if you are looking for an emotional film, by all means take the time to see Les Misérables.

Life of Pi:

Life of Pi transplants the viewer into the life of Pi Patel. Imagine you are on a ship with your entire family trying to find a new home in Canada from India, now quickly swipe that entire image away due to a shipwreck. Once you do that you are properly in Pi's shoes. You get to see the struggle of making it into a life boat along with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a Bengal tiger over the passing hours. Without going too much into the immediate pieces after this I will tell you that it is a beautiful story along with some of the best shots I've seen in a movie for quite some time. If you liked movies like Castaway where most of the dialogue is the single actor on this journey, I'm sure you will enjoy this film.

 Lincoln:

I didn't expect this film to be so....interesting? I guess you could say. I love historical films when it is about history I find interesting, but something about the last couple months of Lincoln's life didn't sound appealing to me. I was quickly absorbed into the story and the family life that seemed tumultuous at times considering his wife wanting to keep their eldest son out of the war due to a previous son's death. It takes you through history that you may or may not know, but all of it is leading up to the changing of the law to abolish slavery once and for all. His final act before his untimely death at the Ford Theater.

 Silver Linings Playbook:

This is very surprising to me that this film is in the Best Picture category, that is not me saying that it is a bad movie though. I've never seen a film that is RomCom material almost as a nominee before so it caught me off guard. That being said it is a very good film since it explores some of the darker mental health side, most of this arising due to the fact that they had to deal with some heavy personal issues from the start so that lets the viewer get more of a feel for two main stars of this film. Jennifer Lawerence and Bradley Cooper played their parts very well and made for some quirky chemistry that I didn't believe would pan out very well at the beginning, in the end I was cheering for them.

 Zero Dark Thirty:

Zero Dark Thirty is another one of those films that got a lot of flack for being the 'Americanized' version of a piece of history since we are namely seeing it from out side of the camera. Beyond that though you get to watch the steps taken by agents to get intel from prisons after the 9/11 attacks. It was an interesting story for the most part since you got to see the lead actress take herself through a number of dangerous situations to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden. Working off a lead she had acquired over the years before she is able to give the correct location for where he has been hiding out. Ultimately it plays out in an outline of what most American's know as fact due to the news.






There are two films I have yet to see in the Best Picture category so I can't really go into detail about those...aside from maybe the reason why I haven't had a chance to watch them. The people that I like to typically watch films with apparently don't like crying and since both movies have mentioned a little bit of tear shed from audience members those are a no-go with them. Once I am able to catch them later this week I'll be sure to update about them.

Assigned Entry #2

This Week / Last Week

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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The simple mention of Fox News is able to conjure up images of their very heavy bias when it comes to the Republican ideology. This bias for all things regarding the Republican party has become almost a joke of sorts among some people, so much so that Jon Stewart himself often has a little cracks to make mention their reporting. In this video he shows direct cuts between the Fox News teams broadcast when it comes to talking about both the RNC and DNC. While it might not seem like a big deal when looking to the fact that they lean heavily in the direction of the Republican party, it is this kind of blatant favoritism that may skew the view of fresh new viewers to politics or voting. Whether someone partakes in the Republican side or the Democratic side, Fox News favoritism could easily bleed over and give an unseemly light to the Democratic party for some new viewers due to the stark difference between how the RNC is praised in comparison to the DNC.

For a channel that promotes their 'Fair and Balanced' motto often you would think they are a very credible source, but when it comes to these things their credibility starts to go to the gray area of 'opinion' vs 'facts'.

Short Films

Have you ever watched a short?

A short is a short film about any number of things. This most often depends on what the creator is trying to express in the short amount of time that they are given. There are actually a couple rules to actually be considered short film. Anything that runs shorter than forty minutes with the credits included is viable for being known as a short. Featurettes get a similar treatment but they are usually between twenty to forty-four minutes and tied into movies most often, but because of their length they are not exactly a short and not exactly a feature film entirely. The last of shorts is the smallest variety and are called short-shorts, they are films that are under three minutes in length.

I went on a little shortscapade this weekend with a friend, leaving some of the short-shorts out of the list since they are just too short to be considered worth labeling for myself. With this little journey though I got to see that once you dip outside the realm of the Disney or Pixar inspired works you soon come across a variety that look very different in comparison to the picturesque dreamy realms that are usually painted up by the animated featurettes. Disney and Pixar usually try to give some moral to their stories, like don’t give up and true love can be found, or even you can choose the outcome of your own life if things are trying to say different.

When you visit other kinds of shorts you get to see a grim side to reality at times since they are packing so much into such a small time frame. A good example of this is two of the new recent shorts.

Disney’s Paperman:

Stanley Pickle:

From the very beginning of Paperman you know it is going to be about a pair of individuals that are somehow destined to be together and you are swept up in this whirlwind of chance happenings. On the other hand you have Stanley Pickle, he is a the quintessential form of a Neil Gaiman short practically. Lonely and spending his time with wind up people and animals that he created from living things that once were alive in his house. Not that I am knocking either of the two types, it just goes to show that there is more outside of the cute little animated world of shorts that most movie goers are typically introduced to. Have fun looking at some of the shorts this year when the Oscars air. ♥

Assigned Entry #1

Blogs are wonderful little things that can either be helpful as well as useful or they can be entirely mind numbingly wasteful in eating up our time. It allows for an entire community of people to connect while inviting people that wouldn’t be privy to such chances normally, but it also offers the exact opposite of this by giving users the ability to be entirely anonymous if you really wish to do so. Personally I do spend a great deal of time online and have enjoyed when the Webby Awards come around because it gives me a chance to see a lot of sites that I have never really heard of from the year before. With it comes a collective of new writers or webcomic to follow and grow to love. Some of the 2012 Webby nominees and winners that I in particular enjoyed are:

Hyperbole and a Half:
This site won the first place title for both Most Humorous Weblog and for Best Writing on a Weblog. Part of the reason can be found in the fact that she writes and draws her comics about things that have happened in her life. When I first came across a comic of hers I remembered just laughing throughout it entirely. Upon rereading through it nothing has changed from that level of hilariousness. I actually had to make myself stop from reading her stuff when I was left sitting with tears streaming down my eyes from laughing so much and waking my sibling up as well. If you want to laugh for a while you should look through some of her stories.

I give this blog a rating of: ♥♥♥♥

The Bloggess:
Jennifer Lawson was one of the nominees who were in the Best Writing Weblog category. It’s very easy to see why she is here upon giving it more than just a precursory read through. Additionally this isn’t entirely surprising considering that she is actually not just a blogger and has written a book called ‘Let’s Pretend This Never Happened”. It’s a memoir of sorts that she has written over the last eleven years of her life. She is kind of similar to the writer for Hyperbole and a Half just without the webcomics attached to showcase the story, leaving that to the reader with the way that she paints a situation to make them laugh out loud to themselves all the while. If you want to stroll through her hilarious accounts, give her a little gander and amuse yourself for a while. The good thing is that I’m not the only one to feel likes this though. She has amassed quite a collection of fans, some including other amazing writers like Neil Gaiman, who said:

“The Bloggess writes about stuff that actually is laugh-out-loud, but you know that you shouldn’t be laughing and probably you’ll go to hell for laughing, so maybe you shouldn’t read it. That would be safer and wiser.”

I personally give this blog a rating of: ♥♥♥♥

XKCD:
This is purely a webcomic that makes use of a science background along with math and other satirical situations. It was nominated for the Most Humorous Weblog category which is definitely well placed considering all the comedic value that can be found just going through the day to day doodles put up. Now if you are one of those people that wind up feeling like Penny from Big Bang Theory you might not enjoy this collection of drawings as much as others.

That being said it is definitely worth checking out since it does carry quite a few gems in it about things that are outside of the science field entirely. Dipping into other nerdy behaviors like gaming, computers, and politics, as well as insights for dating among the science community at times. The writer also has a thing for charts and graphs that are both accurate and hilarious once you actually pay attention to how things change over time.

I give this blog a rating of: ♥♥♥ (since I know that it is a niche comic and not all will enjoy)

An Introduction of Sorts

Hello to all~! I’m just going to take a little moment here to introduce myself to everyone. Hi! I’m Stephanie. I’m not originally from Phoenix, Arizona even if it’s a place I've called home for longer than anywhere else in the world.

My hometown origins are situated in Heavener, Oklahoma. Never heard of it? Well neither has almost anyone else unless you’re actually from there. The biggest claim to fame this town has is the Runestone Park, which is mostly just series of trails that'll lead you through the forest or mountains for climbing from time to time, the focal point though which is found within the name of the park is the carvings of runes in the stones there.

When it comes to hobbies, honestly it is hard to say... I spend most of my free time on my computer when I have it. While I am on my computer though you'll usually find me chatting to my friends since a good majority of them have moved out to Seoul. That along leaves me sleeping at some pretty odd hours so that we all keep up with one another. Additionally I love music so I try to take a little extra time to attend concerts for artist that I enjoy. Most often they will be either SMTOWN concerts or Korean/Mandarin ones in general, but I do go to a few metal festivals when they come through town. Looking forward to the Ed Sheeran show in a couple weeks personally.

Following close behind music is my love for movies. I will watch pretty much any and all genres of film for the most part. Some of my favorites though would have to be reside in the horror or musical fields. Be it B-horror, Classics, Foreign, I will rarely turn one down if it is offered to be watched.

Lastly for hobbies I would have have to say gaming. My XBOX and I have been inseparable since Call of Duty: World at War. I tend to really stick with FPS and occasionally RPG ones...and if they incorporate a little of both in it, I'm sold. Dead Island and Borderlands have ate up a large portion of my time if I'm not on COD.

School takes up a lot of my other time, it's been almost a maze since the start. Take few steps down a path and finding out it was a dead end in the end and quickly reworking it so that I find another pathway. I initially had wanted to go for my teaching degree because it had always been in the back of my mind that I would some day go to Seoul and live out my days in South Korea teaching while getting to sight see during free time. Once I got over that though I decided to stick with what I had wanted to do since I was actually sixteen. I'm heading in the direction of becoming a nurse. Specifically I want to work on the Neonatal side and maybe someday get a Nurse Practitioner's degree.

As for my interest if you can't tell by now already, I have a great deal of interest in Korean culture. I've been lost among the catacombs of the culture for a little over eleven years now. Everything about it fascinated me and I while I did have those aspirations of one day living there, I'm happy with just watching from afar. I plan to visit one of these summers and staying for a couple months during a break.

I'm looking forward to this new year as well and getting a chance to meet all of you.