Post-Oscar Haze

Motivation:

"Do, or do not. There is no try."~Yoda

Diary:

D: celery, carrots, dressing, popcorn, 1 twizzler, at Oscar party - later a pita with turkey and mayo
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B: eggs and sausage links
S: protien bar
L: lean cuisine, vitamins, xs
S: mixed salad, deli ham & cheese
G: eliptical 1.77 miles, 355+ calories, walk 1 mile.

Notes:

I re-read Friday's notes, and I must admit that even I was utterly confused with my blog, so I can understand if you were confused as well. It reminded me of a line in Planes, Trains and Automobiles "You know next time you tell one of you're stories, here's a good idea - have a point - it makes it so much more interesting for the listener."

I have lined up a virtual interview for the next three days, so starting tommorow, we will get back to the basics of the 2006 Challenge by discussing Carbs, Protiens, and Fats. Then on Friday, we will have a wrap-up for the last three weeks and get ready for new measurements and calculations.

Today, however, more random rantings. Last night I saw the Oscars, and I have comments. The president of the Academy again gave us a pitch to go watch movies in the theaters. His pitch was full of folly and my peers were quick to point out that we don't attend movies as much because of people on cell phones, talking during the show, and punks who are rude. The other reason that I don't watch movies in the theater as much is because Hollywood and the Academy of Motion Pictures has a skewed attitude on what movies are and the role in society for them.

I was not excited about any of the movies that were listed in the Best Picture category. Somewhat becuase I have only seen one (Crash), and didn't really care for that movie. It was too fragmented, and the camerawork was difficult to watch, let alone enjoy. It also tried to hard to portray it's "message".

Hollywood thinks that a good movie, one that would make a Best Picture list, needs to have some deep message or philosophy, or some artsy-fartsy leaning to beat us over the head that we need to think outside of the box. Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, and Munich might have challenging, thought provoking subject matter, but they made ZILCH at the box office. What they don't understand is that mainstream America, including me, just want to see a fun movie that takes me on an adventure. If it has a deep cultural message that is ok, but first and foremost it must be FUN. I don't have deep pockets, so I want to make my experiences exciting.

So Academy, here is my response to your plea to get me back in the theater: Make movie-going FUN again. How can you do this? By praising the fun movies. Why didn't the Academy have the following movies in their Best Picture list? These were the movies that we watched and enjoyed. Here are my Best Picture nominees, with ballot-worthy entries in bold:

• King Kong
• Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
• Batman Begins
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
• Cinderella Man
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith
• Wedding Crashers
• The 40 Year Old Virgin
• Hitch
• Red Eye
• The Skeleton Key
• Mad Hot Ballroom
• No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
• Robots

And the winner is ..... Cinderella Man. This was a FUN movie that had cultural themes like hope, poverty, holding on to family values, and overcoming obstacles. Sorry, no gay cowboys in this movie, just good clean fighting.

Two other thoughts about the awards.

a) Kudos to Reese Witherspoon for winning and having a classy speech. She focused on the type of person she saw in June Carter and that she was just trying to be somebody who mattered. That was refreshing.

b) Also Kudos to "Three 6 Mafia" who won the Oscar for winning for best song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." I am personally glad they won, becuase I voted for them and that vote put me over the top to win the most picks! Funny thing, though, these rap artists were a huge underdog, and were laughed at constantly by others. Two notes about Three 6 Mafia.

1) Amidst the joyful jumping and incoherent blabber, they thanked Jesus. When they said this, I was a little caught off gaurd and dismissed it, but looking at some of thier lyrics, I see that in one of their other songs, the lyrics start with "Ask Jesus for forgivin' For all the sins that I did". It is interesting to me that none of the other winners recognized God in any way, in fact one of the winners thanked his LAWYERS, which is a comment of where Hollywood has really gone. This may be one of the reasons that the mainstream has lost interested in movies. The winners don't act like classy winners (except Reese, as I mentioned above).

2) Jon Stewart had to mention that Three 6 Mafia was the most happy, overjoyed he had seen anyone after winning an award. Wouldn't it be great if every winner was this blown away with excitement that they couldn't help but let themselves free to jump and scream. Again, it was refreshing.

Those are just my thoughts, as I am a farmer's boy, and somewhat conservative. I see most things that Hollywood does to be ridiculous and self-serving, so I have a different take on these award shows.

One more note: I recently received an email reminding me that the distance from Nazareth to Jerusalem was 80 miles. I have been invited to relive this journey during Lent by walking this distance over the 40 days of Lent. I am planning on doing this, which should be easy, as I usually go over 2 miles during the weekdays. However, this will mean giving up my "leisure weekends", so for the rest of Lent, until April 17th, I will be walking 2 miles on Sat and Sun. This will ensure that I will walk 80 miles in the next 40 days.

Remind me, if I forget, at the end of the year, I will calculate how many miles I have walked/run in 2006 as part of my workouts. I will be interested to see how far I went. (From LA to NY?)

more later..

Chazz