I DRINK YOUR OSCAR!!!

It's that time of year again, when we forget about all that truly matters in the world and spend three plus hours on a Sunday night watching the giant stroke-fest that is the Academy Awards. It's also a fantastic excuse to throw a potluck. Since every party must have a theme, well, Oscar potlucks naturally have to have themed food.

Two years ago was our first experiment with this format, which I think came out smashingly. I was the proud bearer of Ca-potato Casserole and Munich Madness German Chocolate Brownies, but Dojo really stole the show with his March of the Penguins-themed hors d'oeuvres.


March of the Black Olive Penguins

While the combination of black olives, cream cheese, mozzerella, and carrots left my stomach churning, his presentation was flawless, and that counts for a hell of a lot. I also recall that Leah made a pie that refused to solidify, so I guess it was more of a milkshake, but whatevs, it was delicious.

And speaking of milkshakes it looks like the unifying element of this year's awards is going to be milk; Cases in point:



There Will Be Blood's runaway hit of a catchphrase is "I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!" It's more than a little annoying that this line uttered by Daniel Day Lewis has already been profiled by Defamer and Best Week Ever, but the movie's pretty snazzy so whatever gets it attention, right?



I can remember at least two distinct instances in No Country For Old Men in which characters drink milk out of an old-fashioned glass jar. The first involves a cop, and the second involves a serial killer, but I digress.



Juno is about a pregnant teen whose breasts are slowly filling up with milk, end of story.



Atonement takes place in England where people drink lots of tea. As we all know, what makes the British special is that they put milk in their tea, and that's it.



The one conspicuous exception to this rule is Michael Clayton which, as far as I know, is lacking any images of, or references to milk or milk by-products. If you can prove me wrong, please do since I have no desire to see this film and I probably never will.

Let's hope we can continue this trend next year when Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk is up for noms.

"It's about an oil man..." or I Want Daniel Day Lewis to Be My Dad

This weekend Tyler and I went to see There Will Be Blood which, okay, I'm gonna say it... is the best movie of 2007. Granted, I didn't see a ton of movies in 2007, but I did see Hairspray AND Sweeney Todd, and believe you me, oil is by far a more compelling topic than murderous barbers or zaftig girls who can dance.

Daniel Day Lewis was, as usual, his pitch-perfect self.



In TWBB, Lewis comes complete with his requisite funny 'stache and affected accent. Before entering the theater I told Tyler that the poster really annoyed me because it just screams hey look at me, I'm the most respected character actor in the world, but the shear artificiality of his demeanor melts away pretty quickly.

I'm not sure if this is P.T. Anderson's doing or Lewis', but I found myself rooting from the get-go for this man who may or may not love his son (umm... and how could you NOT?) and who may or may not be a complete and total asshole.

Sure, when placed against his nemesis (a preacher played by Paul Dano, whose face is pretty easy to hate):



it's sort of easy to see who you should be rooting for. However, the guy's got religion behind him and if the last decade has taught us anything it's that you can't hate a priest unless he's touching you inappropriately:



And speaking of P.T. Anderson, I was amazed by how little of him I actually saw in this movie. I guess in the directing world Anderson's young and by proxy has always had a case of the flashy directing tricks, but there were virtually none of them here. He's still all about stealing borrowing motifs from other directors (see: Kubrick, Huston, and Polanski), but the overall effect is one of cohesion... not like in Boogie Nights where you can literally post-it note your way through the movie if you've got a big book o' directors on your lap.



Possibly the most endearing part of the film is the relationship Lewis shares with his son H.W. played by Dillon Freasier, who according to IMDB has no other acting credits. Well good, 'cause he's not yet one of those over-exposed child actors whose face you've more than once thought about punting down a red carpet (sorry Abigail Breslin).



That is if you or I were ever invited to walk down a red carpet, but regardless...

The day after seeing TWBB, I was out to lunch and overheard a frizzed-out, Gap-bag-toting woman in the booth behind me spewing her philosophies about life at unacceptable decibel levels to an all-too-eager lunch-mate at Joy's Noodles. Among her gems were, "...that new play, Eva Perrota. It's about a French singer," and later "...it's about an oil man. We had to walk out half way through it it was so bad."

I was pretty much cool with her existing until she delivered that last line and then I wanted to throw my plate of Crazy Noodles at her head.

Anyway, I guess that's basically to say, There Will Be Blood is super fierce and you shouldn't listen to the opinions of loud crazy ladies who shop at the Gap.