Academy Awards

Nominations came out today and here, for posterity, are my predictions. (I haven't seen any of the performances or movies *grin*):

Supporting Actress:

I'm gonna go with Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener. She's won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actor's Guild.

Supporting Actor:

Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man ... George Clooney for Syriana... Paul... George... I'm gonna go with George Clooney. He won't win for Director or Movie or Screenplay, so I'm gonna give him supporting actor.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay):

Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana for Brokeback Mountain.

Writing (Original):

Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco for Crash.

Animated Feature Film:

Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit because I just LOVE these two *grin*.

Actor in a Leading Role:

Toughie... it's kind of a toss-up between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. I'm going to go with Philip Seymour Hoffman cause they have to acknowledge the gays somehow *grin*.

Actress in a Leading Role:

Felicity Huffman or Reese Witherspoon... this one is almost worse than the actor category. See, they both won Golden Globes, Huffman for drama and Witherspoon for comedy or musical. But then Witherspoon won the Screen Actor's Guild award over Huffman for best actress. That, however, could have been because they voted for Huffman for Desperate Housewives and didn't want her to have two... hmmmmm... I'm gonna say... you know what? I'm gonna say Huffman. Felicity Huffman for best actress. Besides, she gives terrific acceptance speeches *grin*.

Director:

Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain. I don't even have to think twice about this one. He won the Golden Globe and, I believe, the Director's Guild Award.

Best Picture:

Brokeback Mountain or Crash. The voters *might* be getting a little sick of the "gay cowboy movie". And, from the buzz, Crash is a wonderful, complex, thought-provoking film. Not that Brokeback isn't, but.... I'm going with Crash.


Hopefully I get a few of these right *grin*. I'll probably get most of 'em wrong. But if I put 'em down then I can remember what my original predictions were *grin*

Kidlings

I have a 4 year old niece. She's an absolute pistol. Energetic and full of fun, loving life and her big sisters. She loves music, loves to sing and dance. For a Christmas present, her mom bought her and her sisters tickets to a Hilary Duff concert. (I know, I know... but they were excited *grin*) She stood on her dad's lap, waving her glow stick around and yelling at the top of her lungs.

Last November was my step-father's 65th birthday. Everybody showed up. All 7 kids and step-kids and 10 grandkids. My niece decided to sing for Papa for his birthday. They're really, really close. She spends all day every Thursday with Papa and Gramma working in the yard, or helping Papa with his wood-working. Anyway...

She started singing "I'm just a kid" along with a CD (remember, she's 4). Now, *I* never noticed, but apparently there's a "what the fuck" line in there. Well, when it came to that part of the song, someone turned the music right down, so she said it all on her own. Well, everybody started laughing and clapping. The poor kid was just looking confused. She didn't know what she'd said - she was just singing a song.

It actually hurt my heart to see the joy go out of her singing. Now her sisters tell me that she won't even sing that song anymore in case she says "the bad word".

I dunno... I think that's one of the parts about having a child that's going to be hard for me - watching the world intrude on their natural exuberance. Seeing peers and teachers and outside forces molding and shaping them into what society thinks they should be. I suppose then, that it's my job to try and keep the joy alive.

Challenger Anniversary

20 years ago, I was in high school. Just after lunch, someone made a joke about wanting to send our English teacher up in the next space shuttle. I laughed. I didn't know.

For some reason I had driven to school that day (usually I took the bus). I drove home and ran into the house, at this point having some idea that something bad had happened, but I wasn't quite sure on the details. I turned on the TV and immediately saw what had happened.




I didn't know what to do. I do remember sitting on my mother's bed, watching her black and white TV and saying "Oh my God" over and over and over. I remember seeing the pictures of all of the astronauts, but mostly the news was concentrating on Christa McAuliffe. I remember seeing her mother's face. I remember thinking about all of the kids - the children of the astronauts, the children that were waiting for their teacher to talk to them from space.



I remember President Reagan's speech - especially the part about "touching the face of God." I remember being deeply saddened at the human loss. I wasn't overly concerned with the loss of a space shuttle. I was concerned about the astronauts and their families.

About 5 years ago, I got curious about what had really happened. How the astronauts died. I found this link: I found out lots of things, most important to me being that the astronauts didn't die immediately - they actually died when the crew cabin hit the ocean, 2 1/2 minutes after the shuttle broke apart.

Tonight I'll probably watch the CNN special about Christa McAuliffe and her family. I'll probably do some more surfing to find "where are they now" things about the families and how they've coped. It was a defining moment in my life.