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Showing posts with label oscars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oscars. Show all posts

Thursday, June 10, 2010

All About Steve

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Apparently this movie was on the Razzie list of worst movies and Sandra Bullock won worst actress for her performance in All About Steve, but I, personally, enjoyed this movie. (Ironically she won Best Oscar for The Blind Side the same weekend.)

I rented it with Marcus over the holidays while visiting my family in Minnesota. My Mom watched it with us and we all just giggled.

It's not thoroughly thought-provoking. It's not Oscar-winning or even Oscar-nominated, but if you're in the mood for something simple, entertaining, and unexpected, get this movie on your netflix. Sure, it's a bit hokey. And while watching it, I remember thinking, I can understand why this movie wasn't super successfull. But still, it's sort of a cute movie.

If for nothing else, see this movie for the red boots. Because..."they make my toes feel like ten friends on a camping trip."

One last note. I just adore Sandra Bullock and not just because we share ethnic (slavic) heritage. Seriously. It's hard not to like her, am I wrong? In the midst of all of this personal shit with her marriage, she went on the MTV Movie awards asking that things to back to normal. She's not going anywhere, therapy's expensive, and let's just go back to everyone "making fun of me." That's what she said. Here's the MTV Movie Awards video, and below is a preview of All About Steve. (Two notes about the MTV Movie Awards: Tom Cruise's performance was pretty spectacular. Guess he's had so many meetings with these exec types that he nailed this character. Nailed it! The Sandra Bullock and Scarlet Johansson kiss was pretty hot. Pretty hot!)




Here's a trailer if you need a preview:




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Sunday, March 14, 2010

The Cove - Louie Psihoyos' Oscar speech & a guide on how to create change...

The Cove is a beautiful, brilliant and heartbreaking documentary well-deserving of this year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary.

The Cove is about the very inhumane killing of dolphins in a secret Cove in Japan. (Not giving anything away here because the doc mentions this Cove in the first 5 minutes of the film.) Anyway, if you’re like me and sometimes sensitive about seeing visual depictions of violence towards animals or humans, don’t let this fact deter you. Although there were times when I had to look away briefly from the screen, overall the filmmakers have done an amazing job of creating a film that, while telling the true story in full, visual detail, they also approach the problem of the film, how do we get visual and video access to this secret Cove? with zeal and, quite honestly, a sense of adventure and fun. Now don’t get me wrong, their cause is serious, heartbreaking and awful in innumerable ways, and while their ultimate goal is clearly to stop this and other atrocious acts against our oceans and the life they inhabit and sustain (which really is all life when you get down to brass-tacks), Louie and his band of renegade sea-lovers maintain a startling lightness as they embark on this mission impossible.

I commend The Cove director, Louie Psihoyos, his black-ops team on camera, and his behind-the-scenes documentary crew for making a film that is not only beautifully shot and edited, but is meaningful, moving, and while heartbreaking and tear-jerking, leaves viewers with a sense of how to tackle life’s most horrendous atrocities... With determination, compassion, fervor, and lightness fully in-tact. Oh, and with friends. (I feel certain the team from The Cove now all consider each other friends, if not friends as well as their own version of war-vets. Let’s call them mission-vets.) Anyway, Louie banded together crazy-talented and brilliant people who can dive and hold their breath for inordinate amounts of time, disguise cameras as rocks, are passionate about saving our oceans and marine-life, and go stealth like it’s a birthright.

But I was disappointed that Louie was cut-off during his Oscar acceptance speech. While watching, I could only shake my head and speculate that he was probably cut-off to avoid controversy or some such bulls#%t.

Undeterred and true to form, Louie created a video of what his Oscar acceptance speech would’ve been had he been allowed to complete it. His speech is poignant and succinct, and really, not so controversial at all.

Thanks, Louie. For creating a film and a team that not only brings to light an atrocity that the world must know about and stop, but for inspiring the rest of us to create change with compassion, lightness... and friends.




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Posted by Katie Strand at 4:05 PM 0 comments
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Saturday, March 13, 2010

The Cove - Louie Psihoyos' Oscar speech & a guide on how to create change...

The Cove is a beautiful, brilliant and heartbreaking documentary well-deserving of this year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary.

The Cove is about the very inhumane killing of dolphins in a secret Cove in Japan. (Not giving anything away here because the doc mentions this Cove in the first 5 minutes of the film.) Anyway, if you’re like me and sometimes sensitive about seeing visual depictions of violence towards animals or humans, don’t let this fact deter you. Although there were times when I had to look away briefly from the screen, overall the filmmakers have done an amazing job of creating a film that, while telling the true story in full, visual detail, they also approach the problem of the film, how do we get visual and video access to this secret Cove? with zeal and, quite honestly, a sense of adventure and fun. Now don’t get me wrong, their cause is serious, heartbreaking and awful in innumerable ways, and while their ultimate goal is clearly to stop this and other atrocious acts against our oceans and the life they inhabit and sustain (which really is all life when you get down to brass-tacks), Louie and his band of renegade sea-lovers maintain a startling lightness as they embark on this mission impossible.

I commend The Cove director, Louie Psihoyos, his black-ops team on camera, and his behind-the-scenes documentary crew for making a film that is not only beautifully shot and edited, but is meaningful, moving, and while heartbreaking and tear-jerking, leaves viewers with a sense of how to tackle life’s most horrendous atrocities... With determination, compassion, fervor, and lightness fully in-tact. Oh, and with friends. (I feel certain the team from The Cove now all consider each other friends, if not friends as well as their own version of war-vets. Let’s call them mission-vets.) Anyway, Louie banded together crazy-talented and brilliant people who can dive and hold their breath for inordinate amounts of time, disguise cameras as rocks, are passionate about saving our oceans and marine-life, and go stealth like it’s a birthright.

But I was disappointed that Louie was cut-off during his Oscar acceptance speech. While watching, I could only shake my head and speculate that he was probably cut-off to avoid controversy or some such bulls#%t.

Undeterred and true to form, Louie created a video of what his Oscar acceptance speech would’ve been had he been allowed to complete it. His speech is poignant and succinct, and really, not so controversial at all.

Thanks, Louie. For creating a film and a team that not only brings to light an atrocity that the world must know about and stop, but for inspiring the rest of us to create change with compassion, lightness... and friends.




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Posted by Katie Strand at 12:00 PM 0 comments
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