Watched 12 more movies today.

No really, I did. Steph and I went to see all of the Oscar Nominated Short films today. Living in Austin is starting to pay off. I won't go into detailed reviews of all of them. I'll give my overall impression.

I was not particularly impressed. I wasn't dissappointed. Just not blown away. To be honest, I could do that. I know I know....why don't you then? Ok, I will.

There was one, Cashback, that I did like quite a bit. I think it should win the award, I hope it does. The others had some good things about them, but weren't overwhelmingly great.

The animated shorts were good. There were two that were serious. Two that were humorous and 1 that was completely WTF? The Funny ones were good, especially the Pixar One Man Bad film. That was cool and should win. If The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello wins, I will seriously consider shooting someone. Blech. By the way, that is not the WTF? one. That was called 9 and I liked it but holy crap I don't get it.

Tonight we came home and watched The Constant Gardener. This was a decent movie. It was fine. It was too simple. Anyone who reads this, who has seen it, and who isn't as smart as me will say "Too Simple?" That is because the movie goes out of its way to seem complicated. It is overwhelming in its details. Its "complex" plot dealing with large pharmaceutical companies working with governments doing illegal testing on poor Africans...blah blah blah.

Heres the movie. A bad guy teams with some other bad people to do some bad things. A good person catches them, they kill her. The good person's husband spends the movie connecting the dots to catch the bad guy. I have seen this movie once a month for my entire life. Just because you set in a new place and give it a new crime doesn't make it a new movie. Just because you inundate us with absurd amounts of details and characters and convoluted plot devices does not make your movie complex. Its not supposed to be confusing. Its supposed to be good. I like it fine. It was interesting. But nothing particularly special.

Wow what a week. King Kong, Walk the Line, Brokeback Mountain, Junebug, Good Night and Good Luck, Wallace and Gromit, and all the Nominated Short Films. Not too shabby.

Capote tomorrow.

-T

Also, I bought an Ipod Nano today. Woo Hoo