Reading List: February

Fiction: 

Juli Zeh: Corpus Delicti.

Films: 

It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck) ***/****.
The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009, Julien Nitzberg) ***.
Paper Man (2009, Kieran and Michele Mulroney) ***. 
Rocket Science (2007, Jeffrey Blitz) ****.
Temple Grandin (2010, Mick Jackson) ****. 
In the Loop (2009, Armando Iannucci) ****. 
The Golden Compass (2007, Chris Weitz) ****.

Shows: 

The Wire, Season One, Two and Three.

I was actually surprised by how disappointed I was

Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman, her forehead liberated, gave the performance of her life in the neglected Rabbit Hole. Michelle Williams surpassed herself (and Ryan Gosling) in Blue Valentine. Jennifer Lawrence broke your heart in Winter’s Bone as a girl trying so hard not to emote. When Portman wins tonight, it will be because she lost all that weight and suffered mightily. She’ll win because actors win awards when you see the acting, even though some of the greatest acting looks effortless. That’s why The Fighter's Bale (weight loss, accent) and Leo (accent, scenery-chewing) will win, too.

The Vulture: David Edelstein Live Blogs the Oscars

 Also, because I really didn't write about this movie at all; I had a discussion about Inception with a friend and was really impressed by the fact that he had a comprehensive list of all the logical flaws - when I asked him about it, he said "it was so frustrating that I had to take notes".

Insheeption
Tags: SOUTH
PARKStan Marsh,Mr. Mackey,more...

Academy Awards Prediction Game

Best Picture

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter’s Bone

Winter's Bone was one of the most intense cinematic experiences I've had in a really long time, and it does probably win over some of the other movies here because it is the only one that I actually did see in the cinema. While I thought that the performances in The Social Network were genuinely good, the movie wasn't (this is also true for Black Swan, although it was a better movie over-all). The King's Speech would probably be a good candidate in case the Academy is looking for a compromise, and I wouldn't mind if True Grit won either (haven't seen The Fighter, 127 Hours or Toy Story 3). This is maybe also the right moment to mention that Inception didn't do anything for me, and mostly felt like a lot of wasted talent and potential.

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

David O’ Russell, The Fighter

Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

David Fincher, The Social Network

Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

The Social Network and Black Swan are probably going to win either of those categories. The King's Speech surprised me. I wouldn't mind the Coens winning.

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

James Franco, 127 Hours

Is 127 Hours a movie that I should see? I haven't seen Biutiful. Jesse Eisenberg would actually deserve an Award for The Social Network, and I am just terribly biased against that movie. 

Best Actress

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

This is an impossible category. Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams. I left Winter's Bone thinking that this was the performance of the year, but Michelle Williams is stunning in Blue Valentine (and deserves all the awards for Wendy and Lucy), and Natalie Portman IS Black Swan. Haven't seen Rabbit Hole, and while I thought that The Kids Are All Right was a good movie, Annette Benings character was a bit too overwritten for my taste (also, I went into this movie with High Art in the back of my head which was not a very good starting point).

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Fighter

John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

With a bit of luck, this will be the one recognition Winter's Bone gets in a year that has so many grandiose movies. 

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Fighter

Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Haven't seen The Fighter or Animal Kingdom. It still disturbs me a little bit that Amy Adams used to be cousin Beth in one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I wouldn't mind Helena Bonham Carter winning for a surprisingly subtle performance in The King's Speech (and how was Hailee Steinfeld's character  only SUPPORTING? It wouldn't have made the Best Actress category any easier but this just disregards her role in the movie entirely)

Best Animated Feature Film

How to Train Your Dragon

Illusionist

Toy Story 3

Haven't seen any of those. Mary and Max was the Best Animated Feature Film I saw this year but it technically came out last year? 

Best Foreign Film

Mexico - Biutiful

Greece - Dogtooth

Denmark - In a Better World

Canada - Incendies

Algeria - Outside the law

Kynodontas is the only film I've seen on this list but it was intense and shocking and relevant and thought-provoking and the best movie I saw all year (and it was up against Winter's Bone!). 

Best Original Screenplay

Another Year

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter’s Bone

There was this intense feeling in Winter's Bone that this was more like a Greek tragedy than anything else, and then I read Daniel Woodrell's novel and this is exactly the tone of it - something ancient, something that will be just as clear and close in 500 years or more.

Prediction

Personal Preference
Winner

Also, I am not actually taking the Academy Awards very seriously.  

• I found Anne Hathaways genuine enthusiasm adorable but the hosting this year wasn't that great. Along with the complete lack of surprises, it made for a boring show. 
•  Best moment: The Dance of the Brown Duck.
• I don't know why but I really started to resent the King's Speech. Immediately after watching it I thought it was a solid, enjoyable movie that did deserve recognition but compared to most of the movies it was up against, it was extremely conventional and harmless, and True Grit just stuck with me more. 
• Colin Firth, however, is fantastic.  
• I want to see an alternative version of the Awards in which the camera just stays on Helena Bonham Carter for the entire ceremony.
• I really can't see Michelle Williams lose. Upsetting. And she brought Busy Phillips! 
• Congratulations, Academy, Alice in Wonderland got more awards than Winter's Bone. 
• I like The West Wing but I never, ever want to hear Aaron Sorkin speak again.  
• What was up with Melissa Leo? 
• I wish someone gave Sandra Bullock  a really good movie to star in. 
• I guess Gwyneth Paltrow is singing now.
• Great year to be male and white. 
• Jeff Bridges presenting Best Actress was my favourite bit of the evening because it felt heartfelt. On the other hand it was really frustrating watching the Awards this year because it wasn't that much of a great year for movies, but there were some amazing female performances and I didn't feel like the Awards actually reflected that.
  

Episode Five. Hero Boyfriend Saves the Day.

john maus | do your best. ted hawkins | sorry you're sick. violent femmes featuring pj harvey | hitting the ground. mirah | la familia. various production | circle of sorrow. james blake | i only know (what i know). glasser | mirrorage. warpaint | undertow. tarmac | notre epoque. esben and the witch | marching song. mickey 3d | les gens raisonnables. alana johnston | say yes.

The entire cast (except Freya and Sebastian) did a Q&A at the Apple Store in London and you can download the whole thing from the iTunes store (seach for Skins: Meet the cast) or here.

Will Merrick and Alex Arnold "promote" Skins the Novel. In your face.

LIVESTREAM

liveblogging, kinda...

Did you hear...? Did you? Did you hear this? Did you hear? Did... Did you...?

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein share their favourite music videos on youtube. 

"I picked Sleater-Kinney."

Portlandia is a little bit as if some of the amazingly good things about Parks and Recreation had kidnapped SNL with all their incredibly cool friends (Aubrey Plaza! Kyle MacLachlan! Corin Tucker! Aimee Mann!) and are now running havoc in it.

There's an empty space inside my heart

Radiohead - Lotus Flower (directed by Garth Jennings)



Dancing around the pit / Just to see what it is / I can't kick the habit

You Don't Own My Soul

La Femme Nikita ultimately pushes the dilemma straight at the audience. Rather than leaving this discussion of US moral bankruptcy in global affairs a lingering resonance [...] that ‘surprises’ us with the obvious fact that corporations don’t care about human lives, and then ends limply there, Nikita has all the power and is left to make an actual choice within the debate: either she destroys Section (refusing to accepts its ruthless destruction, self-interest and moral bankruptcy, risking her life and visions of global security), or continues to let it run (accepting that such compromises are necessary for global security and securing her own status).
This is tougher than it may seem. It’s not simply the dilemma itself, but the positioning of an ongoing mainstream character within it: a character who still needs to hold audiences for another season or three. A fantasy character is forced make a decision that resonates directly with real-world politics – one that may conflict with the beliefs of many fans – and not a decision that’s merely abstracted or idealised. In front of a potentially polarised audience, Nikita essentially has to finally choose between Fox News and the PBS Newshour once and for all.

PopMatters: What 'La Femme Nikita' Has to Say about Egypt and Former President Hosni Mubarek

One of the reasons why I keep returning to La Femme Nikita even though it is a terribly uneven show that would have considerably profited from a Dollhouse-like economic storytelling is its complex ideology, or rather, the fact that it is impossible to pinpoint what the ideology of the show or the people behind it is. The characters are constantly changing, adapting and growing, the role that Section plays shifts in the course of the seasons (one of the most interesting questions of the show is whether Section is an instrument that can be used to serve any point on the scale between good and bad, or if it is inherently flawed and corrupts those who run it, regardless of their intentions), there is a multitude of different voices and while the sympathy of the viewer always tends to lie with Nikita herself, Nikita is constantly in flux too (as her relationships to other characters, most importantly Michael, change, as she collects more but hardly ever reliable information, or even as Section finally really turns into an early-stage Dollhouse with the ability to shape its agents like Actives). She doesn't actually finally choose between the two and the show doesn't provide a comfortable choice between the obvious good and the potentially more effective evil - and this is also what makes La Femme Nikita a far superior show to Nikita, which isn't interested in such complexity.

...

Security forces and militiamen backed by helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of Tripoli overnight, according to witnesses and news reports. Fighting was heavy at times, and the streets were thick with special forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi fighting alongside mercenaries. Roving the streets in trucks, they shot freely as planes dropped what witnesses described as “small bombs” and helicopters fired on protesters.
Hundreds of Qaddafi supporters took over the central Green Square in the capital after truckloads of militiamen arrived and opened fire on protesters late Monday night, scattering them. Residents said they now feared to leave their houses.

NY Times: Qaddafi’s Grip Falters as His Forces Take On Protesters, February 22, 2011

There were also reports of bystanders, including women and children, leaping to their deaths from high bridges as they tried to escape battle-hardened mercenaries from neighbouring countries like Chad.
Meanwhile, the government in Tripoli has shut down a range of media, including internet providers, social networking sites and the signals of western news channels. 

The Telegraph: Libya protests: 'foreign mercenaries using heavy weapons against demonstrators, February 18, 2011

The Globe and Mail: Gadhafi's influence on Africa (graphic)

These are two severely upsetting videos from Bahrain where the military shot peaceful protesters last week.

...

ALJAZEERA LIVESTREAM.

The Guardian: Libya in crisis - live updates
NY Times: Warplanes and Militia Besiege Protesters in Libyan Capital, February 21, 2011
Die Zeit: In Tripolis eskaliert die Gewalt, 21. Februar 2011

I've seen and done things I want to forget

PJ Harvey - The Words That Maketh Murder

what if I take my problems to the United Nations

Episode Four. We don't tell each other our secrets, do we?

HEALTH | triceratops (acid girls remix). benga | 26 basslines. crystal castles | baptism. m.i.a. | paper planes. janelle monáe | tightrope. massive attack | unfinished symphony. cage the elephant | shake me down. HEALTH | die slow.

livestream

liveblogging, kinda...

"Who are the Suburbs and why did they win a Grammy?"

[...] the suburbs went from being a high-tech consumerist dreamland to depressed sprawls on the edges of cities. The biggest threat in the Rush song is that you have to "be cool," or at worst, "conform or be cast out." The suburbs themselves are described as "in between the bright lights and the far, unlit unknown." Also, though the suburbs "have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth," at least they're wealthy: In the video, the kids all have cars, and the "outcast" main character goes into the city and plays video games.
By the time Arcade Fire is writing its songs about the suburban landscape, there's little sense of a "far, unlit unknown" left. There's just more and more suburban sprawl, and it's meaningless: "All of the suburbs they built in the 70s . . . meant nothing," the band sings. And unlike Rush, Arcade Fire describes a constant threat of violence [...]

io9: Two Futures, Decades Apart: Arcade Fire’s Suburbs vs. Rush’s Subdivisions

Heavy Stones are Falling.

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

England's dancing days are done / Another day, Bobby, for you to come home / and tell me indifference won.

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Politics: 

Italy is faced with a growing number of Tunisian refugees. Meanwhile, protests have spread to Algeria, Bahrain and Yemen (and here's Yemen's crisis, explained in three minutes). 

This SWP study discusses whether the successful Sudanese referendum for an independent South is going to help other African separatist movements, and points out that there actually aren't that many.

Slate is trying to answer some questions following the resignation of Hosni Mubarak.

Pop Culture: 

Michelle Williams made TIME's list of great performances. "Maybe if I ever thought I had done something great," she muses, "then I would be done."

As part of Newsweek's Oscar Roundtable, Michelle Williams and James Franco discuss their respective experiences with starting their career on a television series.

I've always been much less critical of the X-Men movies than almost any other dedicated person with an opinion on them (not actually having read the comics seems to help - I did read Joss Whedon's run years later and I see where the hatred comes from) - but the cast of X-Men: First Class is ridiculously amazing: Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Nicholas Hoult, James McAvoy, Rose Byrne. WHEN FANDOMS COLLIDE!

People currently associated with the fourth season of Torchwood (apparently called Miracle Day): Mekhi Phifer, Lauren Ambrose, Dichen Lachman, and Jane Espenson is part of the writing staff.

Being Human is SO GOOD THIS SEASON and everybody should be watching. It also has one of the most ridiculously adorable cast.

And finally, a new song from The Kills called Satellite. Their new record, Blood Pressures, is scheduled to be released on the April 4.

Eighteen Days.

Shortly before the announcement of Mr. Mubarak’s departure, the military issued a communiqué pledging to carry out a variety of constitutional reforms in a statement remarkable for its commanding tone. The military’s statement alluded to the delegation of power to Mr. Suleiman and it suggested that the military would supervise implementation of the reforms.
The military did not indicate whether it intended to take the kinds of fundamental steps toward democracy that protesters have been demanding. This was the second direct statement from the military in two days, and it largely stuck to the main constitutional and electoral reforms that Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Suleiman had promised to implement. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Suleiman would retain a role, under the military council, in running the country.

NY Times: Mubarak Steps Down, Ceding Power to Military, February 11, 2011

The West may be worried that the crisis will bring democracy too quickly to Egypt and empower the Muslim Brotherhood. But the real concern is that the regime will only shed its corrupt civilians, leaving its military component as the only player left standing. Indeed, when General Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed vice president to whom Mubarak entrusted presidential powers last night, threatened on February 9 that the Egyptian people must choose between either the current regime or a military coup, he only increased the sense that the country was being held hostage.

Foreign Affairs: Mubarakism Without Mubarak, February 11, 2011

The Guardian: Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resigns - video, February 11, 2011

The Economist: Mubarak toppled, February 11, 2011
openDemocracy: The Arab 1989?, February 11, 2011

The New Yorker: The Shoes Did It, February 11, 2011

Die Zeit: Mubarak tritt zurück – Militär übernimmt Macht, 11. Februar 2011

DerStandard: Chronologie - Rücktritt nach vier Protest-Wochen, 11. Februar 2011

The Economist: Ripples, spreading, February 10, 2011

Foreign Affairs: Morning in Tunisia, January 16, 2011

Episode Three. Nightmare Girl.

kelis | caught out there. missy elliott and mc solaar | all n my grill. destiny's child | bills bills bills. brandy & monica | the boy is mine. the roots and erykah badu | you got me. mary j. blige and method man | all i need. tlc | no scrubs. lauryn hill | lost ones. tricky and pj harvey | broken homes.

(I'm really sorry about this. The AV Club is running this series about the Nineties and they've finally reached years that I remember. This is basically the music I listened to instead of Nu Metal, and it holds up fairly well?)

livestream

liveblogging, kinda

This is like the best thing ever....

AND IT WORKS. I like to cook, but I don't particularly enjoy baking - especially because it makes my kitchen look like a battlefield - but this amazing. I wasn't sure how long it would take in the microwave but if you use baking powder, the cake starts to rise and then it's done - it took about three minutes at 600 Watt.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Rural Alberta Advantage - Stamp

Episode Two. I don't compromise.

wolf eyes | village oblivia. scout niblett | your beat kicks back like death. yeah yeah yeahs | rockers to swallow. so many dynamos | we vibrate, we do.  we versus the shark | ten uh clock heart uh tack. queens of the stone age | feel good hit of the summer. sleater-kinney | hot rock. zero 7 featuring josé gonzáles | crosses. 

livestream

liveblogging, kinda

...and when I wake tomorrow I'll bet that you and I will walk together again.

The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful.

The White Stripes announce their break up, February 2, 2011

"The most distant known galaxy in the universe"

Since the universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old, UDFj-39546284 was around nearly at the beginning — just 480 million years after the Big Bang, or when the universe was just 4 percent of its current age.
Officially, UDFj-39546284 remains a "galaxy candidate," requiring some more observations to confirm its existence and age with certainty. But after performing a number of tests, Bouwens and his team are confident that the galaxy is there, and that its redshift is around 10.3.
"Everything we found was completely consistent with it being a real source," Bouwens said. "It looks really good right now."

Space: Astronomers Discover Oldest Galaxy Yet Seen, January 26, 2011