An Oscars Post You Definitely Need to Read

Or, actually, you really don’t but I’m going to write it anyway! 😛

If it’s even possible, I think I’ve one-upped myself on Oscar obsession this year.  If this trend continues, what will I be like in two, five, ten years??  The answer is probably INSUFFERABLE.  It’s possible I’ve spent far too many hours wondering how A Star is Born has managed to NOT sweep every award show, listening to every podcast that even mentions the Oscars and rolling my eyes every time I remember Bohemian Rhapsody is nominated for Best Picture but If Beale Street Could Talk is not??  Let’s discuss.

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Best Picture

Who I Want to WinA Star is Born

Who I Think Will WinRoma

But I won’t be mad when Roma wins because what a masterpiece it is!

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Actor in a Leading Role

Who I Want to Win: Bradley Cooper

Who I Think Will Win: Rami Malek

Rami nailed the physicality of Freddie Mercury, but I don’t know, is imitation really as impressive as lowering your voice a whole octave, keeping up with Lady Gaga when you’re NOT even a singer and bringing new emotional depth to a character that’s already been depicted three times, all while starring and directing??

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Actress in a Leading Role

Who I Want to Win: Lady Gaga

Who I Think Will Win: Glenn Close

I saw The Wife and it legitimately made me so mad.  The premise of the film — that a wife could ghost write her husband’s entire canon of novels — is just WILDLY unbelievable.  She also puts a stop to her career because ONE female novelist advises her not to become a writer?  I can’t with this film and therefore with Glenn Close’s performance, which was fine I guess but lost in this nothing film.  Gaga forever!

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Actor in a Supporting Role

Who I Want to Win: Sam Elliott or Richard E. Grant

Who I Think Will Win: Mahershala Ali

Look, Mahershala is great, but he just won and I’m also sort of confused why Mahershala gets to be spared any of the Green Book controversy.  Did he sign onto this film like everyone else?  Anyway, no moment moved me like a teary-eyed Sam Elliott backing out of the driveway and Richard E. Grant is just a delightful human being who gave a superb performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me?

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Actress in a Supporting Role

Who I Want to Win: Regina King

Who I Think Will Win: Regina King

I feel teary every time I think of the sincerity and ferocity Regina put into this performance.  It was astounding.

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Miscellaneous Hopes & Thoughts

I’m going to be really excited when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wins because animated or not, superheroes or not, it was one of my favorite movies of the year.

I listened to the score from If Beale Street Could Talk at work on Friday and it is though I know NOTHING about music, it is seriously so beautiful.

Real quick just want to mention that Eighth Grade was such an amazing movie and it’s a crime against humanity that it wasn’t nominated for ANYTHING.  The end.

I am very nervous for Bradley Cooper to sing.  Please let it go well…

Mainly, I know the Oscars have been kind of a mess this year — I think they walked back literally every announcement they made — but look, there’s only so much you can do to make it a good show, the rest is out of everyone’s control.  No matter what, I’m excited to watch!

Are you watching the Oscars tonight?

Weekend Things

The first weekend of 2019!  Did you dig it?  Honestly, I sort of forgot it was the first weekend of the new year until my yoga teacher pointed it out, but it was a good one anyway.  It started with a spontaneous dinner out and ended with a wild Golden Globes show, that still has me feeling confused.  Let’s dive in!

We were totally going to eat free leftovers for dinner but my sister texted me as we were driving home asking if we wanted to go out for burgers and the answer took very little thought.  YES!  In exchange, we invited them to join us in seeing a movie, so Park & Co first, then off to the Mayan for If Beale Street Could Talk second.  Guys, this film is SO beautiful.  I felt so moved just watching Tish and Fonny, the two main characters, look into each others eyes.  It was truly astounding how love was evoked through this whole film.  The ending is sort of heartbreaking and not what you hope for, though maybe what you should expect.  I need to read the James Baldwin novel it’s based on now!

Saturday morning, we took ourselves to a new coffee shop, called Doppio for breakfast and to wrap our heads around the month of January.  After holiday chaos, this month looks blissfully empty.  Doppio was a-okay.  Into all the space they had, giant coffee mugs and decked out toast, but service was sort of weird and do I really need an extra piece of toasts that isn’t decked out?  Probably not.

The rest of the day was wide open.  We went on a noontime run and it felt wonderful and like it was maybe the first time I’d run outside since before the time change??  Whoa.  I also hit the grocery store and I cannot wait for everyone to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions so I can find a parking spot at Whole Foods again 😛  The Cowboys played that night, so I offered to make us dinner — Black-Eyed Peas with Cornmeal Dumplings, per tradition — then read while Joey watched the game.  They won, so I guess I’ll be doing this same thing next Saturday?

First things first, I woke up on Sunday and Joey told me he’d finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the night before, thus bringing his reading of the HP series to an end.  I cannot even tell you how much this means to me ♥♥♥  Mostly because I’ll cry!  This moment is 11 years in the making and I love him on a whole new level.

Post-HP recap discussion, there were pancakes and afterward, I ran to a different grocery store to get a few things we can’t get at WF — it was busy there too and people were straight up creating their own parking spaces! — before returning home to make granola, eat lunch and read some more before yoga.  The class was really full — is this a theme?? — but it was also really good and I made it home in time for Joey and I to type each other a letter?  Don’t ask.  Then it was Globes time!

Oh the Golden Globes, what can I say?  I thought the whole thing was somewhere between okay and totally weird.  I’m probably just idealizing but I kept thinking “hasn’t this award show been much better in past years??”  There were so many good films this year, but winners were so spread out among those films that it almost felt like no one film got quite the recognition it deserved.

I still haven’t seen Bohemian Rhapsody so it’s hard for me to really have an opinion on it winning Best Picture Drama but the reason I haven’t seen it, is because it looks really bad!  Also, I really loved Green Book, but I feel so conflicted between my original opinion, the opinion of everyone I know who’s seen it and (apparently) the HFPA’s opinion versus everything I’ve heard about it from critics, which is basically that it’s an inaccurate depiction or it’s an oversimplification of race relations in America or it’s yet another white savior narrative.  I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to think anymore.  I do wish there’d been more space to reward Bradley Cooper for A Star is Born though!

Did you watch?  What did you think?

If not, tell me how your first weekend of 2019 was! 🙂