The Annekenstein Monster

The accounting firm of Wyse-Porterhouse has finished tabulating The Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool results.

Before I get to them, though, a few random thoughts on last night’s Oscar telecast:
– I wasn’t too impressed with Ellen. Her opening monologue was pretty weak, I thought. And when she got that tambourine and the choir came out, and she paraded with them around for a bit, then it was over… well, I didn’t think much of that. Pretty lame. A few of her things were okay – I enjoyed giving the script to Scorsese, and getting Spielberg to take her picture with Eastwood. And the vacuum thing was okay. But overall, a somewhat weak hosting job, I thought.
-I enjoyed that opening bit where many of the hopefuls, known and unknown, very casually remarked to to the camera on various topics. I thought it did a wonderful job of humanizing all the names of the nominees, and reminding us that the people we don’t “know” (the sound editors, costume designers, etc) are just as human as the ones we do “know” (actors, directors,etc). Very nice.
-I wanted to enjoy the Will Farrell/Jack Black/John C Reilly thing more than I did. It started off pretty good, but fell apart.
-The dance troupe that formed silhouettes behind the bedsheet was interesting at first. Then as the evening wore on, became merely a time-nuisance.
-I laughed a lot at the Gore joke where he was just about to announce his candidacy for POTUS when he got interrupted by the “speech time is up” orchestra. It surprised me how much I laughed at that.
-I’m tired of seeing Jack Nicholson at the Oscars.
-I wasn’t too disappointed with any of the winners. I was surprised that The Lives of Others beat Pan’s Labyrinth for Foreign Language film. Not that it wasn’t deserving, I just thought Pan’s Labyrinth was a shoe-in. I was also surprised that Melissa Etheridge won Original Song. I didn’t like the song. While I wasn’t crazy about Dreamgirls as a movie, or the songs nominated for it, I thought one would have (should have) won. Guess they cancelled each other out?
-While I think he totally deserves an Oscar, I was kind of hoping Scorsese wouldn’t win, so that we all would have that outrage to join us all in camaraderie.
– I thought the various film clip presentations were pretty meh. I did like the foreign film montage.
-I enjoyed it that Ennio Morricone spoke in Italian, and Eastwood had to sort of interpret. It seemed rather surreal. I hate whomever is responsible for putting words to that Morricone score, and getting Celine Dion to sing it.
-I thought Forest Whitaker made the best speech of the night. Even though I missed a bit of it because I was busy tabulating Pool scores.

Speaking of which:
There were 28 people who had entries qualified to win this year’s pool.
The person who had the most correct guesses (15) was (just like every year, it seems) Matt Rainnie. However, both he and Dave Moses (who had 10 correct) submitted their entries too late. I had a Friday noon deadline, and received them on Saturday. So, both are disqualified. (let the controversy begin!!)
I ended up with 12 correct. I was 2 behind the winner (3 behind the eliminated not-winner) and the only one who had 12 correct. Many people had 10 correct. One person had 4 correct. That was the lowest score.
Four people had 13 correct.
One person had 14 correct. That person is the official winner of this year’s The Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool. That person’s name (or nickname) is watsonly.

Watsonly wins!! Congratulations! You win two tickets to a Sketch22 performance of your choice this summer. We’ll have to figure out a way to get you the tickets.

DaveS and I sometimes ask each other to come up with what we think would be a terrible group of people to have to be at a dinner party with.  Kind of a self-flagellation sort of exercise.

Watching the Oscars last night, I came up with a howlingly horrific Hollywood version of a downer way to spend an evening.  Dinner for four:  Me, Marly Matlin, Celine Dion, and Jada Pinkett-Smith.

Who would be the three Hollywood celebrities you’d least like to spend an evening with at a dinner party?

I strive to ignore those big irrelevant “news” stories about celebrities.  The ones like Anna Nicole’s Death, and Bald Britney’s Binge.  I get angry at how so many people get involved in them, simply because they are being covered.  I wish more people would take a personal initiative to ignore the celebrity news we are spoon fed.

Here’s a YouTube link to a Craig Ferguson (he of the Late, Late Show on CBS) monologue where he promises to  take a higher road in his comedy rather than picking on/making fun of people who are in vulnerable situations.  It’s a nice sentiment, and I wish him well with that goal.  Good luck!  His reference to Britney is only tangential and most of the monologue is when he was still a drinker, and how he sees similarities between those days for him and the current situation for her.

Craig Ferguson’s Britney Monologue

I’m waiting for the bus to take me home from work.  I have headphones on, listening to music.  Some guy, 40-ish,wearing sweat pants, crosses the street and approaches me rather briskly.  He’s saying something to me but I can’t make it out because of the music.  I turn the music off and I hear “…Sketch 22 last year!  My god it was funny! We laughed.  My wife nearly shit her pants!!”
And with that utterance he was off down the street.
I’ve heard of pissing oneself with laughter (and I know that I’ve made at least one person literally pee her pants from laughing so much), but it’s far less common to shit oneself when laughing.  Honestly, it’s a comedic achievement I don’t want on my resume.

So, I’ve been thinking of trying to start this video project.  Very simple, with no reward other than doing it.  Basically, the idea is to get random people (friends, mostly) at random times and at random places to perform a very short, very specific one person, one-take, one shot (partial) scene on my digital camera, and then compile them all.

Here’s the scene:

This is the backstory to the scene:
You play a tough guy or gal.  You’re like muscle for the mob, or something.  A collector. You’re talking to someone who owes money.  This person is someone you know from your past.  Someone you know of outside of your life as a collector, though you aren’t close.  Maybe someone from “the neighbourhood”.  The relationship is up to you.  The important thing is that you are familiar enough with this person that a meeting with them isn’t only about business.  They know what you do, but maybe they don’t know the extremes to which you’ll go to get your point across.

The shot in question takes place after there’s been a bit of “getting caught up” small talk.  Small talking done, you move on to the matter of the money you owe.  The person sort of non-committedly says that you’ll get the money.  They promise.

Now the specific shot and dialogue that I’d shoot each time:

You have three lines of dialogue: 

Don’t make me come down there.  No, relax, I’m just joking.  Seriously, though, don’t make me come down there.

You can say the lines any way you want.  Your objective, though, is to convey that you are serious that if you don’t get the money, the person will get hurt.  The way I hear the lines is this:  first line is said kind of as a faux (but real) threat.  Second line is to lighten the mood of the person who is maybe afraid by your first line.  The third line is said in a way to make it clear that you are not just joking.  But you might find a more interesting way to deliver them.

I doubt I’ll ever get around to getting anyone to give it a go.  If you see me around town, and I happen to have my little camera with me, be brave and ask me to shoot you saying these lines.

Hey, I think I just made up a new word:

Commentuncating, or commentucation

That’s where your relationship with someone is based pretty much solely on communication through the comments you leave each other on your blogs, internet sites, forums, etc.

Commentucating

Technorati Tags: commentucating

Last night’s 30 Rock was great.  Alec Baldwin is wonderful.  The whole cast is fun.  My biggest laugh came when Rachel Dratch, this episode a trampy prostitute, screamed “Happy Valentimes!!”  I appreciated that the line wasn’t commented upon by any of the characters.  It was just allowed to live on its own merits.

Anyway, I just saw a photo, and then read a story about a couple who recently got married.  I’d recommend you read the story first.  Then look at the photo.  Because if you do it vice versa, like I did, you’ll likely feel sad, until after you read the story.

Here’s the link to the story.

Here’s the link to the photo.  It won first prize at this year’s World Press Photo.

I hope it makes you feel good.  I hope any cynicism you have can be ignored for the duration of your involvement in the story and picture.

Happy Valentimes.  Next week.

Last night’s 30 Rock was great.  Alec Baldwin is wonderful.  The whole cast is fun.  My biggest laugh came when Rachel Dratch, this episode a trampy prostitute, screamed “Happy Valentimes!!”  I appreciated that the line wasn’t commented upon by any of the characters.  It was just allowed to live on its own merits.

Anyway, I just saw a photo, and then read a story about a couple who recently got married.  I’d recommend you read the story first.  Then look at the photo.  Because if you do it vice versa, like I did, you’ll likely feel sad, until after you read the story.

Here’s the link to the story.

Here’s the link to the photo.  It won first prize at this year’s World Press Photo.

I hope it makes you feel good.  I hope any cynicism you have can be ignored for the duration of your involvement in the story and picture.

Happy Valentimes.  Next week.

I’ve had my music player on my computer and iPod synced up with Last.FM for a while.  Here, then are the top 50 artists who’ve been played.  Even though I have my players set up to play random tracks, I think this is a pretty good representation of what I’d consider my favourite music.  A couple of anomalies are the Theme Songs showing up at Number 8, and Emmanuel College Chapel Choir showing up at all (don’t understand that one??).  Elvis Presley is surprisingly high, too.  And, really, Emmylou Harris probably shouldn’t be on that list (I’d replace her with Iris Dement).

Top Artists