Ramblings of a Constipated Mind

And I can really relate to this song right now. Plus, I totally played Andy in an office parody video this week. So this seems relevant.

I live-blogged my thoughts on this year's Academy Awards ceremony at RandomChatter.

Check it out here.

So, the Oscars are tonight. And while, as I've spoken about on RandomChatter, this year's list of nominees is probably the worst I've ever seen, there are a few bright spots that I hope don't get ignored.

One of the big ones is Mickey Rourke's performance in The Wrestler. Not only is The Wrestler a great film that should have garnered a Best Picture nomination and a nod to Darren Aronofsky as Best Director, but Rourke gives what might be the most naturalistic performance I've ever seen. By that, I mean that it's a performance that doesn't call attention to itself - there are no accents (like Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote), no dramatic changes in appearance (like Nicole Kidman in The Hours), and no explosive scenes of drama (like the "milkshake" scene in There Will Be Blood). I never got the feeling that Rourke was acting. He was just existing, doing his thing, with a camera capturing every moment.

Anyways, he's the frontrunner to win Best Actor tonight, and I hope he gets it. His biggest competition is Sean Penn for Milk, and while that was also a tremendous performance, it's really a completely different style of acting - the kind of showmanship that usually (and deservedly, most of the time) gets awarded. It would be nice for a lower-budget, independent film like The Wrestler (which got unjustly snubbed in most other categories) to get the attention, Rourke's performance aside.

If he does win, his speech will hopefully be one of the more memorable ones of the evening. He's a very candid, honest individual, and doesn't really seem to know how to give a "sophisticated" and "formal" speech. Here's a clip of his 6-minute acceptance speech from the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards a few days ago. I hope if he wins tonight, the Academy doesn't "play him off," and let's him talk, because this is way more entertaining than most of the speeches we're likely to hear!

WARNING: contains strong language.

My Singles Awareness Day party last weekend went well. About 20 people showed up. It didn't finish until 6 AM the next day. It was quite an interesting evening, which I spent sipping a martini, playing various games, and in general just keeping an eye on things and having a good time. Also, according to someone who was extremely drunk at the time, I "swindled" people out of their money and "took advantage of" a woman. But that's a hilarious misunderstanding to be explained another time. All in all, it was fun. Check out Facebook for pictures.

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Haven't been getting much sleep these past 2 weeks. I've had papers and assignments out the wazoo. This week I've got a midterm and two or three short papers to write, then I'm off for spring break. Yay! I need sleep.

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So far, this has been the most memorable weekend in quite some time. All I will say is this:

Ladyfriend + pizza + hot chocolate + Star Wars = awesome Friday and Saturday.

It's weird. Just when you think you've learned (the hard way) everything there is to learn about relationships, and are ready for your next attempt, life decides to throw you a curveball. And not just any curveball - the kind of curveball that is very scary, triumphant, disheartening and encouraging all at the same time. The kind that might be just what you need, or just what you don't need, but the only way to find out is to risk it. The windup only took 2 years!

Suffice to say, the next month will be very interesting. After that, it's anyone's guess.

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By the way, for those of you who read this blog regularly: you might want to subscribe to my account on Twitter. Twitter is basically a collection of "mini-blogs" (140 characters or less). I usually update daily. So for those weeks when I don't have much time to post in-depth on Ramblings of a Constipated Mind, or weeks like the past few when posts have been snippets of updates, that might be a good thing to check out. That is, if you care.

It can be found at this link right here.

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As I've posted before on this blog, I like Demetri Martin. He is a funny dude, and one of my favorite comedians. He has his own show now on Comedy Central, and so far it's pretty good. On last week's episode of RandomChatter, Ned recommended that people check out Martin's BBC special, If I. He said it was one of the most intriguing comedy performances he's ever seen, just because it was very self-reflective and autobiographical as opposed to a typical joke-centered routine.

So, I checked it out.

I really don't know how to describe this, except to say that it's very different from Martin's usual "Mitch-Hedberg-lite" style of comedy. With the exception of a few minutes of material I had heard before, I am not even sure if I would give this the label "comedy." Maybe... dramady? With a side of philosophy? I'm also very impressed at how open and honest he is when discussing his own life and personality.

Here's the full routine for your viewing pleasure:

Congress finally reached a deal on the stimulus plan.

In order to appease Republicans, spending on education and health programs was cut back and replaced with tax cuts. According to the New York Times, about $70 billion was allocated just to fix the alternative minimum tax, which doesn't really have much to do with economic stimulus and which many people thought was going to get fixed later this year anyway.

And now there's another $2.5 trillion stimulus package being proposed. Wonderful.

Not only are we spending huge amounts of money, and getting ourselves even further into debt, but we're not even spending it on the things that could help people the most in the long run. Great.

Though you might think I am after listening to the latest episode of MovieChatter.

The latest episode involves me screaming copious amounts of profanity at Morgan for approximately 3-4 minutes. It is all bleeped, of course. This was done not to offend, but merely as a parody of the Christian Bale freakout that was released to the tabloids last week and became an Internet sensation.

Now that you're in on the reference, please do not write me emails complaining about the explicit nature of the episode. It's satire, and I looked upon the whole thing as an experiment in acting. I really don't curse like a sailor in real life.

www.randomchatter.com

I am taking 21 hours this semester. Clearly I have masochistic tendencies.

My other blog, Ramblings of a Film-Addicted Mind, has been neglected. I haven't posted anything there in months, not even the reviews I've written for Technician. As a result, I'm probably going to delete it in a few days. The RandomChatter website is being drastically re-formatted, and that should launch within the next few days, so I think I'll post all my movie-related thoughts and reviews over there from now on.

Jim and I are throwing a Singles Awareness Day party on February 14. I've never hosted a party before, so I'm hoping it turns out well.

I think it's great Obama has already banned "enhanced interrogation techniques" and plans on closing down Gitmo within the year. I do not think it's great that he continues to bail out these giant corporations. Either let these companies collapse, or nationalize them. Don't take the middle ground. The fact of the matter is, these stimulus packages aren't going to work, at least not for a few years (if we're lucky). We're in a really bad situation, and while everyone likes to pretend they have an answer, the truth is nobody really knows what the solution is. Sales of Karl Marx's Capital have risen dramatically in the past few months. You know why? Because Marx wasn't an idiot. A lot of what we're seeing today can't be blamed on a particular group of individuals - this is the result of the inherent contradictions within capitalism itself. That's the unfortunate truth that you won't hear anyone in the media talking about. We will get through this crisis eventually, but I have a feeling it will only be by:

1) Incorporating a short-term solution which will ultimately lead to another crisis years down the road (due most likely to our rising debt, both nationally and in terms of personal credit).

2) Drastically changing our economic structure. I'm not saying there will be a socialist revolution (though I don't think I'd be against that), but this concept of a "free market" that will somehow magically work itself out is bogus. The free market is part of the problem. In all likelihood, I think we'll start to see the nationalization of a lot of industries, or just tons and tons and tons of market regulations.

3) Letting the nation effectively collapse, economically speaking, for a while. Let the corporate giants fall. Let things get worse and worse and worse. Hand the mantra of "world's greatest superpower" over to China. And then, after some really really dark times, gradually start rebuilding until we're at least somewhat respectable again.

4) Some sort of combination of the above three.

In essence, what I'm trying to say is that we're screwed for at least a few years. Maybe I should consider saving up enough money to flee to China.

Just not now.

Things have been really busy lately, and there's a lot I'd like to post about, but I have to sleep.

I just figured I should post so people know I'm actually, like, alive and stuff.