Up In The Air~~~~and other oscar winner type doodles

I enjoy the Academy Awards each year. I always watch thinking soon I will take my rightfull place at the awards show for some brilliant film I haven't made yet. (hahaha) So year, after year I enjoy the show in the privacy of my own home. Well this year featured some films I had allready seen, and some I hadn't. Avatar of course was big on my list. I have been shouting from the rooftops about how good this movie was going to be long before it was even released. Ben Stiller had a great moment at the awards show in Navi' makeup. So with the upgrade to my home entertainment center I now am in the glorious era of Blu Ray! True Hi-Def to dazzle my eyeballoonies. Weee. I am constantly amazed how much difference there is between Blu Ray, and DVD. Wow! So of course being the Oscar junkie that I am, I decided to get two of the movies that won several awards, including best picture. Yeppers I got "Up In The Air", and "The Hurt Locker" both on the lovely Blu Ray disc. Up In The Air was very good. It resonates with feeling. George Clooney was great. It's cool to see the son of Ivan "Ghostbusters" Reitman directing the type of films his dad never made. Jason directed most notably "Juno" which got alot of attention. It was sort of a coming out party for both Ellen Page, and Diablo Cody, as much as for Jason himself. Funny, but somehow the movie wasn't very enjoyable to me. I liked it, but I found it unsettling. I was surprised that I liked Diablo's movie "Jennifer's Body" as much as I did. I thought it was great. A fun weird stylish horror film. Anyway Jason Reitman continues to grow as a film-maker. I did see his first film "Thank You For Smoking" It was good, but not great. I also just got "Julie&julia" on Blu Ray, and it is quite enjoyable also. Great acting, and a nice romantic dinner movie, if ever there was one. Julie blogs in the movie, and of course her blog becomes popular, and people send her stuff, and love it. Where as I blog, and I don't think too many people actually read mine. Hahahaha oh well, that's the way the pizza crumbles.

Whip It ~~~~One must own DVD weeee

Whip It looked like it was going to be cool way back when Drew Barrymore was first promoting it, and appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. The movie is Drew's directing debut, and as Jimmy said that night "she hit it out of the park." I whole heartedly agree.

She brought more to this movie than just a sense of style, but she infused it with a real knowledge of film making which of course comes from growning up a movie star, and working non stop on films her entire life. The movie is pitch perfect from start to finish. It has a great story, based on the novel "Derby Girl" by Shauna Cross. The cast is stellar including the brother of Luke, and Owen Wilson who I don't think I've seen before, Andrew Wilson. He was fantastic as the coach of the Roller Derby Girls team "The Hurl Scouts".

Ellen Page continues to delight, and amaze in her odd deadpan delivery with tons of emotion boiling beneath the surface acting style. She is truly a big time star on her way to the top of the A list. The cast is a big ensemble cast is awesome. When you have this many characters in one film, you don't know if some will get lost, but they balance it nicely giving everyone a good amount of screen time. I thought it was funny that Drew plays a goofy reckless character with very little dialogue.

She also cast another favorite actress of mine stuntwoman Zoe Bell. Since her appearance in the Grind House movie Death Proof she has started to get more acting roles, and should. She is always entertaining, and since she is a top Stunt Woman she can nail any physical demands her roles require.

Another great actress featured in this movie was Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven. She was the perfect rival for Ellen Page. A rivalry that somehow seemed to go beyond the movie into real life careers. Without any real animosity. The movie captured growing up in a small town quite well, since I lived in Texas fresh out of High School I could relate to the characters desire to get out of a small Texas town. Jimmy Fallon was brilliant as the ring announcer looking tired, and hung over (which he was of course) so method acting, hahaha. All of the girls in the movie really learned to skate, and became quite proficient at it. By the end of making this movie they really were pro skaters. A co-worker of mine said she didn't want to see this movie because it was about Skating, which seemed boring to her. I explained that while that is an element in this film, it hardly is a sports movie, and is by far character driven. The sports element is handled perfectly being interesting without dominating the film. It avoids sport movie cliches. Yet still has some sports drama. Anyway I think this is a great movie, and I can't recommend it enough.