Back and gone soon

 

Back from a fast trip to the prairies... wait, I guess I do live on the prairies. But when I think of them, it is the long stretches of field that surround my hometown in Saskabush (a term of endearment for the mother-land). It is a town, well, city actually, that has changed a lot since I grew up there. Whole neighbourhoods with spacious mansions have sprung out of the ground - houses that were bigger than anything from the time I lived there.

Still, what I like is not so much the buildings, it is what surrounds the city - those flat fields, which even snow covered tug at my nostalgic genes (truthfully, I love them better in the summer, full of wheat, swaying in a strong wind).

It was a fast trip as I had to get back and get ready for the next one. A long awaited trip to New Mexico. Everyone I have talked to, speaks of the mystical quality of this place - and it has been on my list of destinations for a long time. My first exposure to the landscape was in the art of George Herriman (Krazy Kat) - I thought what wild imagination thought up these vistas? And then I hear that's what it looks like down there.

So in my head I imagine driving into a 2 dimensional landscape in bright oranges and reds, with backgrounds of deep black. I will be looking for flying bricks. (Go check out Krazy Kat if yuo have no idea what I'm talking about.)

Oh, and Elegance of the Hedgehog - my goodness, what a book. Highly recommended if only to contemplate the singular beauty of a moment in time.

Elegant

Reading a great book right now - The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Don't want to say a lot about it just yet, I will say more when I finish. Just that it poses some wonderfully deep questions, and it does it in a very readable way, hooking into some great characters, and plot... not a lot of plot, but just enough.

Highly recommended (already)

Coffee Money!

Well my prediction came true, I did win the Oscar pool, and have just over 20 bucks jingling in my pocket. I missed a couple - not sure why I picked Franco to win Best Actor, maybe because I wanted to see his acceptance speech. True Grit was robbed of cinematography. I mean Inception was very very cool, but the photography in True Grit was stunning.

As hosts, I loved Franco and Hathaway - kind of goofy, and Franco did look baked for a lot of the evening - but hey, younger demogaphic and all that., dust the cobwebs off the show I say.

For me, as always, it was the screenplay awards that I pay attention to the most. Sorkin was a lock, and he is a damn fine writer - but I didn't know the story of the King's Speech writer, being a stutterer and all that - so he gives the best acceptance speech of the night, by a writer, who would have guessed it.

Oscar pics and the pool

Well lets see how my pics do this year:

Best Pic - Kings Speech

Director - Same as above (Hooper)

Adapted Screenplay - Social Network

Original Screenplay - Kings Speech

Actor - Franco for 127 hours

Actress - Portman Black Swan

Supp. Actress - Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit (why not?)

Supp. Actor - Bale for the Fighter

Animated - Toy story 3

Cinematography - Definitely True Grit

Art Direction - Alice in Wonderland

A bunch of the tech award - Inception

Song - that Tangled One

Foreign - That Danish one

Winner of this years pool... Me?

Fill your hand!

Finally, and in the nick of time, I saw the Coen's latest before it went out of theatres (though a few oscar nods may mean it is re-released).

Not sure if True Grit is amongst their best (See: Fargo, Big L., No Country and Blood Simple), but any Coen movie for me is at a level far above most movies. Yes, I am biased, and from the time I saw Blood Simple (three times in the theatre), I knew I was going to be hooked on these boys. When I first talked to my agent, he said that my novel sounded like a Coen Bros. movie written by James Ellroy. Obviously, I like my agent a lot... a real lot!

When I write, I don't think of the Coens - but there is something in the way they tell stories that hits me where I live. I watched a lot of John Wayne movies as a kid, though he rated second or even third to The Man with no Name and Trinity. In later years, when I finally watched the Searchers, I saw levels in Wayne that I had missed when he was spouting and swaggering. But one movie that fascinated me was True Grit - and watching the remake last night, by my favorite film directors no less, I had some parallel experiences going on.

Watching Bridges say some of those iconic lines ("I can't do anything for you son." "Fill your hand you son of a bitch!) made me love the dude all over again. Combined with that was a deep sense of nostalgia - sitting in the back seat of the car at the drive-in, perfectly situated on barren prairie, and watching Wayne yell out the fill your hand line. As my eyes got wet, I knew I was beyond the movie and thinking about my childhood. Maybe that is why I love Westerns so much, they take me back to the time of drive-in movies, mom and dad in the front seat, me hunkered down with popcorn and foil wrapped burgers, the tinny speaker hanging off the window, I loved it all.

So this isn't so much a movie review - I mean, face it, I'm biased... it's the Coens! - as much as wonderful remembrance of things past. But if True Grit doesn't at least pick up the oscar for cinematography... then FILL YOUR HAND YOUR SON OF A BITCH!

(Had to say that).