Feb 21
This Oscar-related post is written by guest blogger Jen.
Read away! Check out Francis’s blog post immediately following.
Feb 19
It’s five days to the big event, an event, which for me, is bigger than the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NCAA championship game, Fashion Week, the Pillsbury Bake-off, and the Hannah Montana tour combined. It is the week before the Oscars, and I am all jazzed up! So for the next several days, my usual cerebral, erudite, artsy persona preoccupied with “obscure” theater, art, and foreign cinema is in hibernation, and my Oscars self, sort of a combination classier Michael Musto and hipper Mary Hart, with the sophisticated touch of Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter and the film buff knowledge of Robert Osborne, will be front and center. Yeah, I am trying to make myself feel a little better since I am envious that the divine Jennifer, my Oscar soul sister, has decided to bring her birdwatching binoculars and her sensible loafers to Los Angeles to jump some celebrities and, in her own words, “at least be in the same airspace as the Oscars”. While Jen is getting some real tan for a change (instead of her usual Mystic spray-ons), I am stuck in the frozen tundra that is Chicago in February, with just images of this year’s nominees George Clooney, Viggo Mortensen, and Marion Cotillard (not those images! well…maybe about Viggo) floating in my head. And I get stuck to write the introduction to our Oscar predictions and show recap notes.
Feb 16
This Oscar-related post is written by guest blogger Jen.
I’ve been counting down the days till my BGF, Francis, would shift his focus from obscure theater that no one cares about to something that REALLY counts–the Oscars! And, yes, while Francis will be banished to the tower like a poor boy’s Kathy Griffin on Oscar night, I’ll be ensconced in the Sunset Tower in West Hollywood, working off my diet of way more than 5 Factors from Il Sole and The Ivy while hiking up Runyon Canyon. Thank God the strike is over and the show will go on! Just give me George Clooney in a tux and my 4 hour night plus 3 hours of Red Carpet activity will be complete. What can we count on? Will Ellen Page become this year’s Jennifer Hudson, not so much for winning an Oscar, but for being most unfortunately dressed? Something tells me you can take the girl out of Halifax, but you can’t take Halifax fashion sensibility out of the girl. In this year of many obscure movies, can it be that we’ll finally see some Oscar upsets like those of yore, a la Adrien “Now I’m Doing Pepsi Commercials” Brody stealing the Best Actor trophy from the odd’s on favorite Daniel Day-Lewis? Hmmm…might this be another repeat of that unfortunate evening for Daniel Day-Lewis? Is Javier Bardem really as much of a lock for Supporting Actor as the critics and his gal pal Penelope Cruz think he is? Hmmmm….keep coming back for our Oscar picks all this week.
Feb 16
Feb 13
There Will Be Blood is both the most fascinating and the most maddening film I have seen in months. I heartily applaud it for its epic sweep, ambitious themes, and its risky, large-scale set pieces but I am also beaten down, exhausted, by its unrelenting Grand Guignol theatrics, its sometimes ridiculous outrageousness and its unforgiving length. And Daniel Day Lewis’s monumental, celluloid-chewing, totally unforgettable but also totally self-indulgent performance mirrors this contradiction. I think the critical acclaim is justified, but coming home from Landmark Century last Sunday, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sit through the experience again, one of my guideposts for films that I consider truly great.
Feb 11
Last year, when I was seriously contemplating going on the frightening adventure of having a personal blog, I was looking around at other people’s blogs to get a sense of what folks were writing about and came across Deceptively Simple, an arts and culture blog with a focus on classical music, by Time Out Chicago classical music editor, Marc Geelhoed. I was thrilled to discover it - finally a personal blog that didn’t contain annoying rants about potholes and long lines at Dominick’s, or gushy breathlessness about the latest handbag purchase; finally an arts and culture blog that didn’t sound like an extended MFA lecture or a pretentious cocktail party conversation. Deceptively Simple was smart, informed, appealingly and elegantly written, passionate- qualities that I wanted my own blog to possess. Marc and his blog were an inspiration and guide for my own online aspirations (and I was very excited to get this shoutout during the launch week of From the Ledge). Marc wrote last Friday that he was leaving Time Out Chicago and moving to a job with the Chicago Symphony’s Resound record label, and noted that Deceptively Simple would need to take a different tone and focus, given his new role. My initial perturbation with the impending change at one of my online must-reads of the day vanished with his latest blog entry (on a topic I actually feel very passionate about, arts education). Change is good and Deceptively Simple will continue to be a terrific model for us bloggers who want to write about arts and culture with clear points of view and insights and a goal to win others over to the possibilities and power of the arts. Thanks Marc!
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