Like Neon

I go to bed on Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker winning at the Oscars, and wake up to this. Has my birthday come early?

“Unfortunately, the critical worth, artistic vision, cultural influence, and innovative qualities of many films are not given the same voting weight. Especially since the 80s, moneymaking ‘formula-made’ blockbusters with glossy production values have often been crowd-pleasing titans (and Best Picture winners), but they haven’t necessarily been great films with depth or critical acclaim by any measure.”

- Tim Dirks

First of all, I want to make something abundantly clear: the Academy Awards are not about recognizing the most excellent films of the year. The Academy Awards are an industry promotional vehicle, and are set up in such a way that excellence in filmmaking generally has very little to do with who is nominated or wins. I’m not saying this because I am a bitter cynic, I’m saying it because it’s true. To wit: the Oscars are voted on by industry professionals. As in, people who are employed within the film industry. Bigger productions have more people working on them, and everyone wants to be able to claim they worked on an Oscar-winning movie.

It’s political bullshit. Increasing the number of best picture nominees to ten films as a ploy to up ratings is a clear example of this in action. It still matters in this evil, fucked up cycle of industry manipulation and public opinion, but it’s bullshit. Don’t forget that. [read more]

James Cameron, apparently high from sniffing $100 bills, thinks that 3D is the wave of the future. Is this 1952? Maybe more aptly, didn’t he learn anything from the virtual reality debacle of the 90s?

Maybe I’m playing the part of the crotchety old fart, here, but I prefer my films 2D. I’ve always been a little dubious about 3D, from way back in the Captain EO days, and watching 3D for extend periods makes me queasy. Surely I’m not the only person who feels this way. This whole thing just feels a bit gimmicky and doomed to failure to me.

My Project Runway addiction has unleashed the fashionista I’ve always had hidden deep in my twisty artist’s heart, and honestly, I couldn’t be happier. I haven’t taken time to really embrace or be inspired by fashion since I was a teenager, but I’ve not been without my appreciation for it. I watch the Sartorialist on my feed reader, I spend hours sifting aimlessly through Etsy, I occasionally slip an issue of Elle in between copies of Bust and Dynamic Graphics. I feel like this has been an exceptionally long time coming.

But enough blather. FASHION WEEK OMG.

I’ve been pretty busy with school the past couple of weeks, and I’ve only just recently gotten around to really looking at what was shown at Fashion Week earlier this month. Since I could use something non-academic to focus on for a bit, I’ll run down the looks that I loved best. [read more]

Never in my life have I gone from such total adoration to despising someone this much. I want to obliterate everything praiseworthy I’ve ever said about this fucker from the face of the internet.