Academy awards follow-up, with tangent
Feb. 26th, 2007 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwI ended up watching most of it, although I often clicked away during the thank-you speeches.
I wasn't grossed out by any of the clothes, and liked a lot of them. Abigail Breslin may have regrets as a teenager looking back, but it was nice to see her wearing what might be a little kid ideal of a formal gown.
I thought the opening with the nominees was wonderful. I liked all the thematic montages, the shadow dancers, and the one minute description of what the Academy does. I wasn't surprised by the way it turned into a bigger, glitzier version of the daily Ellen show with some awards thrown in, but thought it worked pretty well. I liked some of the commercials, especially the American Express and JC Penney ones.
I remain unconvinced that "The Departed" was even a good movie, much less the best in any way.
I presume it was a foregone conclusion for Best director, though, because it was clearly a set-up having Coppola and Lucas and Spielberg be the presenters. It struck me watching the three of them smiling at Scorsese that it was a lot like the ghostly Obi Wan and Anakin and Yoda watching Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi.
Tangent begins here.
I'm reading "West of Jesus" by Steven Kotler. He mentions the fact that in the (2000?) Australian census, 70,000 people listed "Jedi" as their religion. Kotler doesn't think it was a joke, for the most part. He points out that the Jedi beliefs seemed to be based on Taoism (which was being popularized in the US in the 1970s by the writings of Alan Watts) with Judeo-Christian good vs. evil ideas added in. Kotler feels that George Lucas articulated the
way a lot of people feel, even though they might not term it religious.
I wasn't grossed out by any of the clothes, and liked a lot of them. Abigail Breslin may have regrets as a teenager looking back, but it was nice to see her wearing what might be a little kid ideal of a formal gown.
I thought the opening with the nominees was wonderful. I liked all the thematic montages, the shadow dancers, and the one minute description of what the Academy does. I wasn't surprised by the way it turned into a bigger, glitzier version of the daily Ellen show with some awards thrown in, but thought it worked pretty well. I liked some of the commercials, especially the American Express and JC Penney ones.
I remain unconvinced that "The Departed" was even a good movie, much less the best in any way.
I presume it was a foregone conclusion for Best director, though, because it was clearly a set-up having Coppola and Lucas and Spielberg be the presenters. It struck me watching the three of them smiling at Scorsese that it was a lot like the ghostly Obi Wan and Anakin and Yoda watching Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi.
Tangent begins here.
I'm reading "West of Jesus" by Steven Kotler. He mentions the fact that in the (2000?) Australian census, 70,000 people listed "Jedi" as their religion. Kotler doesn't think it was a joke, for the most part. He points out that the Jedi beliefs seemed to be based on Taoism (which was being popularized in the US in the 1970s by the writings of Alan Watts) with Judeo-Christian good vs. evil ideas added in. Kotler feels that George Lucas articulated the
way a lot of people feel, even though they might not term it religious.
