Academy Schmademy

I felt like this year I have been more involved than ever in the Academy Awards. Being married to Nathan has certainly made me a critic, which I see as a positive thing. That being said we have enjoyed watching the Academy Award nominees and I was impressed with a few, and not so much with others. Below are my favorites from the Academy and yes, I do think Silver Linings Playbook should have swept the awards.

Best Picture
1. Silver Linings Playbook
2. Beasts of the Southern Wild
3. Lincoln

Actor
1. Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
2. Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln (Daniel certainly deserved his Oscar, however, he's just a movie god. It doesn't seem fair. He could win an Oscar for a commercial... he's just that good)
3. Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Actress
1. Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
2. Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
3. Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Director
1. David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
2. Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom (can't believe this wasn't even nominated)
3. Steven Spielberg, Lincoln (mainly because it's such a period piece)

BTW, major frustration with the Best Picture winner, ARGO. I rather liked the movie, however, it was missing that "Best Picture" quality... I can't put my finger on it. But I think we'll all look back in a few years and find that ARGO is not the first movie that comes to mind. Also, Ben Affleck was not even nominated for Best Director, yet it somehow wiggled it's way to win Best Picture. I have a hard time with The Academy awarding the Best Picture to a movie where the director wasn't even nominated. I wonder what the stats are on this situation with previous Best Picture winners.

Due to all the talk about favorite movies of the last year, Nathan and I decided to list our favorites of all-time. I have a really hard time choosing favorites so this was difficult and I'm sure I've missed a bunch, but here they are.

NATHAN:

1. The Godfather (parts 1 and 2)
2. Elephant Man
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
4. Seven Samurai 
5. Master and Commander
6. There Will Be Blood
7. No Country for Old Men
8. Battle of Algiers
9. Glory
10. Rocky
11. Rushmore
12. The Deer Hunter
13. The Thin Red Line
14. The Killing Fields
15. Heat
16. Jaws
17. Donnie Darko
18. Fiddler On The Roof
19. Before Sunrise
20. My Left Foot
21. Sling Blade
22. Little Big Man
23. The Seventh Seal
24. Star Wars
25. Raiders of the Lost Ark
26. Drugstore Cowboy
27. Malcolm X 

 EMMILY: 

1. There Will Be Blood
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Fargo
4. Gone With The Wind, love Clark Gable's boisterous laugh
5. The Truman Show, staple of my youth (I'm thinking because it was one of the few movies we owned)
6. Garden State, this movie changed me. 
7. A Serious Man
8. Rushmore
9. Singing In The Rain
10. Rear Window, 'can't breath because it will make a sound' scary
11. My Left Foot
12. Life Is Beautiful
13. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
14. Young at Heart (favorite Sinatra)
15. Magnolia (all but the ending)
16. Capote 
17. An Education
18. Sling Blade, don't watch this unless you've seen the movie. Amazing acting. 
19. Glengarry Glen Ross (dialogue dialogue dialogue)
20. Best In Show
21. The Godfather (parts 1 and 2)
22. Bridesmaids (possibly too early to say if this could be a favorite or not, but I'm not sure if I've laughed harder during a movie...)
23. Elizabethtown (beyond great soundtrack, horrible acting, but there is something about this movie that I  love) Nathan said I'm probably the only person in the world with Elizabethtown and There Will Be Blood on my favorite's list. 

catch up

Sooo, this blog has been under construction, at least that's my excuse for not having posted anything since October. I should go into the detail of the last couple of months, however, I think I'll just briefly summarize.

A lot happened in October. First, we got Oskar, our adorable black lab border collie puppy with a major attitude. Then it was my birthday on the 7th, our anniversary on the 8th, and I had surgery on the 10th. It's probably better to just be brief and say it was a crazy month. And just for the sympathy I'll inform you that from October 10th until November 23rd I had not eaten a smidgen of bread or meat. Can you even imagine? It was not fun.


We decided on a whim to drive to California for Thanksgiving. I was in my annual rut at work and when this happens the only remedy is a promotion (which was just not in the cards), some kind of trip (anything) or some retail therapy (which is short lived and the problem usually comes back after a couple months). So a trip it was and 10 hours later we were in beautiful northern California. It was so nice to spend time with Nathan's awesome family. We mostly played with children the whole time and it was perfect. It could be argued that the only reason I wanted to go to California was to hold a certain baby before she learned how to walk. Which I did, and loved every second of it.

     


We brought Oskar, who by the way is such a good car dog, he slept the entire time. He had such a fun time with Nathan's brother's dog Q and he had a huge fenced back yard to play in the whole time. When we came back to Utah Oskar moped around for a few days as if his life was horrible. He's got such a personality. Anyway it was the break I needed to feel refreshed for work again, that is until Christmas. We already had plans before our Thanksgiving trip to fly out to California for Christmas. We spent 2 days in San Francisco to celebrate our belated anniversary (Oct 8). We had so much fun! We stayed in a central location that was walking distance to everything! We flew in early in the morning on a Saturday and spent a couple of hours trying to find a Starbucks that wasn't closed... it was ridiculous! Everything in that part of town was closed on weekends. We saw probably 15 Starbucks until we found one that was open. Later that night we walked to Union Square and ate at the delicious John's Grill for dinner. The whole night was perfectly romantic. The next day we walked to Ghirardelli Square/Fisherman's Wharf. We spent a good amount of time burning through $20 worth of quarters at the Vintage Arcade then met up with Nathan's parents who took us out to a great restaurant in Union Square. We then got to spend a week with Nathan's whole family! I was finally able to meet all of Nathan's sister, Aubrey's children. We pretty much played the card game Bang for 4+ hours every night and it was a blast!

It was back to the grind beginning January 2nd and has been pretty much since.

We were able to take a little trip up to Park City this past weekend. We stayed in a condo Sunday night and went skiing all day Monday at the Canyon's Resort. It was awesome. We were both terrified about hitting the slopes again since neither of us had been in years. I snowboarded and he skied and surprisingly enough we weren't that rusty. It was a beautiful clear day and practically no-one was there (or they were just dispersed through-out the 7 mountain resort). The only downside is the way my body feels today. I can barely lift my arms and I've got some whiplash from some pretty hard falls. Regardless, it was so fun and we hope to go again before the season is up.

I'll try to be better about this blogging thing...