The Realm of the Pachyderm

As is tradition for me this time of year, I watched the Oscars this evening with my roommates and some friends. Much to my chagrin, Doubt was left with nothing.

However, much to my delight, Slumdog Millionaire got 8 out of the 10 nominations it was up for! Admittedly, I haven't seen it, but I'm really pushing for it to be in International Cinema next year.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button did pretty well for itself, even though I heard it was pretty dull. I'll probably see it at some point for the sake of being part of the general populous.

Mickey Rourke was scary the whole time. The Wrestler also left with nothing, even with Marisa Tomei.

Frost/Nixon actually sounds really interesting. Way to be, Frank Langella.

WAY TO GO, KATE WINSLET! After roughly 20 years of receiving Oscar Nomination shaft, she finally won for The Reader. Not going to lie, I was very happy for her.

Speaking of the shaft, I'm interested to see what Anne Hathaway will do next to score some critical acclaim in the form of a golden statuette. If hardcore drugs in Rachel Getting Married didn't do it, where is she to go now?

Oh, and does anyone know anything about Tropic Thunder? Robert Downey Jr.'s nomination is still blowing my mind after the atrocity that was Ironman.

As a whole, I'm looking very forward to hunting down some of the documentaries/short animated features this year. Some of them looked AWESOME.

Now we come to the portion of the evening that I have a bone to pick with: Milk.

Let's start by stating a couple of things that I would like to make known:

1. I have no problem with homosexuality existing. It does.
2. I have no problem with homosexual couples. There is legitimate love between same sex couples that there is between any heterosexual couple.
3. I believe that every couple regardless of orientation is entitled to the same legal rights and protections. I believe that couples that have civil unions should be able to file joint tax returns and have access to each other's possessions in the event of one person's death.
4. I believe that everyone is entitled to the pursuit of happiness and equality in this country.

HOWEVER, when you have Mr. Sean Penn up on the stage telling me that I will hang my head in shame for having supported Proposition 8, I get really upset. The fact that this man, who only has a say in front of millions of viewers because he won some award, is making derisive statements about my moral decisions infuriates me. As if he or anyone in Hollywood is a moral pillar! Hollywood is Sodom and Gomorrah if I've ever seen it! I only watch the Oscars to commemorate great films, not to have some stuffed up actor insult my beliefs.

Before our good Mr. Penn mounted his soapbox, the writer of Milk took the stage to accept his bit of gold. Rather than just saying "I'd like to thank the Academy", he begins to share the details of his life story: "I was raised in a conservative Mormon home." He ended his little history by dedicating his award to all the kids out there who had been rejected by their CHURCHES and communities for being true to themselves. First of all, what does your Mormon upbringing have to do with anything? Unless you were bringing it up to say that your parents weren't the horrible villainous harpies Mormons are made up to be, why don't you skip the formalities, scream "IN YOUR FACES, MORMONS!", then step down? You weren't being subtle, you weren't being tasteful, and you certainly weren't painting an accurate portrait of the current Mormon attitude towards homosexual couples.

I guess what I'm so steamed about is this idea of using the podium as a soapbox. Why can't award ceremonies just be a ceasefire? If I wanted to get into another debate about this, I can do it all over the Internet. Personally, I watch the Oscars to celebrate the history of film. People like Sean Penn sour the whole thing for me by insulting me and telling me that my opinions are less valid than his [which conveniently follow the popularity tide].

Overall, it was a good year for the Oscars. I could have done without all the "CONSERVATIVES SUCK!" mudslinging from the Milk party, but what else is new? Quite frankly, for all the love the gay rights platform is preaching, they sure are dishing out a lot of hate.

Alright, I have homework to attend to. Good night!

You know, the more I see it, the more I'm convinced that He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not is less about love and perceptions and more about the deplorable condition we find ourselves in when dealing with the mentally ill.

Now, don't misunderstand me. If you've seen the movie [*spoiler alert*--ew, I've officially become a spoiler person], you know that Angelique has a few screws loose upstairs. However, the mentally ill I'm referring to are the people who find the answers to all their problems in pills. The ending does make a commentary about saying the right things for people to believe you're sane, followed by the scene with collage of pills, but the insistence upon medication was prevalent throughout the entire film. There were references made to people claiming to need pills, people refusing to take pills, people who preferred to be examined rather than follow instructions and take pills...

Perhaps I'm culturally unaware, but I thought the US was the only nation that was pill-crazy. I wasn't aware that it had spread to France, let alone Europe. Why have people because so hooked on pills? The people that don't need them are throwin' them back with cocktails, and the people that do need them have convinced themselves that they don't or are so hooked on them that it would be detrimental for them to wean themselves off them.

Now, let's look back through the history books for a second. If you believe in the Creation, that's 6,000 years of man; if you believe in Evolution, that's millions of years with as many generations on the Earth. Either way you slice it, the development of modern medicine is a very recent blip on the radar. If all these new wonder pills are the answer, how on Earth have we made it this far without wiping ourselves out?

Answer: the development of advanced modern medicine had to happen because we made ourselves sicker at the same time. If we compare the average lifespan of today back to some of Abraham's contemporaries, there's no contest. When people were dependent on the Earth and natural resources for their sustenance, they were healthy. Their biorhythms were regular. They put things into the body that were meant to be put into the body.

Today, that is simply not the case. Food and beverages are loaded with preservatives, chemicals, and flavorings that wreak havoc on the body because our bodies weren't designed to be taking in so many foreign substances. And then we come to pills! Methuselah didn't have pills and he lived for 900 years! I refuse to believe that our bodies are so different from the bodies of our ancestors that we need pills for everything under the sun.

Why not take a page from the books? Instead of chocking it up to the world being a more "dangerous place", why don't we look back on the dietary habits of the people who were living for hundreds of years? We don't need to rely more on the arm of man to keep pumping chemicals into us, we need to turn back to the Earth and fill ourselves with God's natural bounty. I'm by no means claiming to be perfect, since I have just as hard of a time fighting junk food as anyone else, but this movie really got me to thinking about the increasing dependence people around the world are developing for pills. Perhaps if we put better more natural things into our systems, we could discard the need for pills altogether.

Please don't take this as a diatribe against modern medicine. I've been listening to my mom [who's gone back to more natural foods and been much healthier because of it] and listening to trends in health in the media, and everything I've said just makes more sense.

I'm going to bed, I'm about to pass out. Check out this movie, it's way good [and not really about health...it's more of--a romantic thrillerish thing...yeah...].

As I was just telling a friend in an email, I love being an English major because of all the fun reading, but I hate all the writing! It's arduous, it's rarely ever about something I care about, rewriting is infuriating--AKNAWVIONOWRUVGO!

$20 if anyone can pronounce the last word of the previous paragraph.

Anyway, I had a fun day yesterday. I was sick [that wasn't the fun part], so I didn't go to classes, but that gave me time to sleep in and catch up on some homework I had neglected. I spent most of the morning reading--

1. The Birth-mark by Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
3. Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

It was mad fun, I loved all three [even though the archaic language bothered me a tidge]. After that, I did some other homeworkish things, then practiced my chanter [I officially learned how to play all the doublings yesterday! Wooooo!], cleaned myself, watched American Idol, ate food, and played MAO! If you've ever been to girl's camp/been in a high school theatre company, you should know what Mao is.

For the past three nights, our dear friend Joe's-way [a fun phonetic spelling of his name in Italian] has come over to play Mao. It's essentially Uno, but with lots and lots of imaginary rules. Nadin, Becca, and I have become obsessed, but as perusual, Grandma will have nothing to do with it.

In weekend news, I'm going skiing tomorrow since I missed class yesterday. But, that aside, guess who's going to be lonely on Valentine's Day?

If you said Punxsutawney Phil, then you're correct. Happy Day of Togetherness in two days!

The latest project: the script for our ward's spring sing. Surprisingly, it made me feel like a creative genius. Perhaps I'll post it later for the world to see? We'll see.

But, I have to say that the hardest part by FAR was rewriting the lyrics to "Popular" from Wicked for the preshow dealio. Oh man, have you ever listened to that song? It's insane! How anyone can sing it is beyond me--but, one of our boys will have to figure out how! Mwahahaha!

Ok, I have an essay to write. It's about Anne Bradstreet. Wooo.

'Night, all!