Week 3: Over.

I'm at that point in a semester (beginning of Week 4) where the idealist excitement of the first couple of weeks has worn off, and the first unit tests from week 3 are mostly behind me, and while I'm trying to get excited about the next units, I am absolutely exhausted.

It's a good thing I'm married this semester, because if I were in an apartment with 5 other girls up til all hours of the night, I would not have survived these first weeks.

Post-Oscars

As you can imagine after seeing the results from last night's Oscars, I'm a little distraught. Ugh. The King's Speech shouldn't have won Best Picture, Colin Firth shouldn't have won Best Actor, and while maybe Melissa Leo shouldn't have won Best Supporting Actress, the first F-bomb in Oscar history was pretty epic. Especially when Christian Bale got up for Best Supporting Actor and promised not to say the F word too.

Fortunately, there are some things you can always count on from famous people. Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton looked crazy, James Franco and Anne Hathaway cross-dressed, Hugh Jackman looked hot, and a bunch of people used more time than they had for their speeches and got music'd out.

I can't really think of anything else to say Oscar-related.

Life is good. I quit my job, and I'm officially the nanny to my two youngest 1st cousins on either side, Olivia and Dante. They are a total crack up. Today Olivia got up from her nap while I was watching Family Feud, and I got to explain the rules to her. By the triple score, Olivia was shouting out her own answers. My favorite was her response to "What should a woman change after a divorce?" Olivia's resounding answer was "Her beautiful dress!!"

Good times with the crazy kids.

Random, Danny Elfman wrote the theme for Desperate Housewives. I definitely don't know that because I'm watching the 3rd episode in a row right now. I like Danny Elfman.

The Oscars!

So even though my husband is trying very hard to distract me, I wanna make a couple of Oscar predictions (since I've actually seen enough of the movies to make an educated decision). I've always wanted to throw my opinion in. I'm just doing the main categories (the ones that matter). If you want my other opinions, you might get them tomorrow.

Best Picture

The nominees are:

Black Swan (love it)

The Fighter (like it a lot)

Inception (love it)

The Kids Are All Right (hate it)

The King's Speech (love it)

127 Hours (LOVE it)

The Social Network (love it)

Toy Story 3 (adore it)

True Grit (love it)

Winter's Bone (haven't seen)

My personal favorite to win is 127 Hours. Why? It outshines all the others in one simple aspect: It's a freaking fantastic 94 minute one man show and James Franco really takes it away. Only the incredible Danny Boyle could have pulled this off.

Who will win? Black Swan. For pete's sake, it's a psychological thriller about ballet. Awesome!

Best Actor

Javier Bardem in Biutiful (haven't seen)

Jeff Bridges in True Grit (really only a supporting actor)

Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network (he embodies Zuckerberg's inability to feel)

Colin Firth in The King's Speech (regal and full of curse words)

James Franco in 127 Hours (like I said, 94 minute one man show)

My personal favorite to win? James Franco, in case you hadn't guessed from my previous notes.

Who will win? James Franco might do it, but Colin Firth might push him out. Colin Firth. Who doesn't want to watch the King of England walk around a room swearing, trying to beat a stutter?

Best Actress

Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right (you're kidding, right?)

Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole (haven't seen)

Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone (haven't seen)

Natalie Portman in Black Swan (perfection will drive you mad)

Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine (haven't seen)

My personal favorite to win is anyone who is Not Annette Bening. I hated that movie, I hated her role. The oppressive lesbian man of the house? No thank you.

Who will win? Hopefully not Annette Bening. Probably Natalie Portman. I hope so, she got the Globe for it already, so she's a bit of a shoo-in.

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale in The Fighter (soooooo good)

John Hawkes in Winter's Bone (haven't seen)

Jeremy Renner in The Town (pretty awesome)

Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right (the only good part of the movie that sucks)

Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech (sooooooooo good)

My personal favorite vote is kind of split between Bale and Rush. I'm leaning towards Christian Bale though, you can't say no to an emaciated Batman.

Who will win? Christian Bale. I think the Academy will favor his weight loss and ability to piss off cops.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams in The Fighter (fantastic, and I've never heard her swear so much)

Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech (versatility!)

Melissa Leo in The Fighter (the fact that you hate her means she's good)

Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit (you mean the leading actress? yup, her.)

Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom (haven't seen)

My personal favorite to win is Amy Adams. She does a marvelous job as the "MTV girl" as the family calls her, she's very supportive of Mark Wahlberg's character and very convincing as a college drop-out bartender girlfriend from Boston (accent and all!)

Who will win? Not Hailee Steinfeld, because she should have been up for Best Actress. The Academy screwed that one up. I'm going with Helena Bonham Carter as the convincing and regal Duchess of York/Queen of England (although I'm still pulling for Amy Adams).

the question on everyone's lips (chapped lips!)

NOT AGAIN!

If I were Phil Connors, and I had to relive Groundhog Day just like he did, I think the hardest part would be waking up at 6am every day. The other stuff would get on my nerves, but seriously? The alarm? And it's the same stupid bit of "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher. I always end up with that song and the Pennsylvania Polka stuck in my head after watching Groundhog Day. But you can't not watch it on Groundhog Day. Plus it's Casey's favorite movie of all time, so I was a good wife and sat on the couch waiting for him to come home with it already pulled up on the Netflix last night. Did you know that 20% of all internet traffic is used for streaming Netflix? I did. (Although, it might be at least 25% on the days I'm online).

It really was a pretty good Groundhog Day. I went to work, but it was SUPER boring, so I let Lisa stay and I took off with my whopping $8 I made in an hour and a half. (In server lingo, that's a SLOW morning.) I was more than happy to come home to my husband before he had to take off for work and we embarked on a small adventure for food at Zupas, where I had a half tomato basil half wisconsin cauliflower soup with orzo pasta in it. It was AWESOME. My life is changed forever.

Then Casey went off to work and after being dramatic about being by myself for a few minutes, I watched Lost and took a shower.

Not terribly exciting, I know.

BUT! I went to PG for the regional wrestling tournament, and Lars of course kicked some 215-pound butt, as he generally does. I always feel just a little bad for the 289-pounders when they get up. They are so BIG for high school kids. We were watching these 289ers go at it, and one took the other down, and they was this ginormous THUD as they hit the ground. As if 500 pounds of pure high school had just hit the mat all at once. They're insane to watch. I do love to watch the little 105 and 112 pounders right after the big guys, because suddenly it's like a third of the big kids steps on the mat, and they move so much faster than the big guys.

I'm gonna go watch my brother kick some more 215-pound butt today, before AND after class. If he places at least 4th (we're betting he'll take 1st or 2nd, depending on how he does against his mortal enemy, Dustin Dennison) then he goes to state next week! Woo! Funniest part? He totally dyed his hair black, as did a ton of the guys, but the black guy who already has short black hair, shaved an Alta Hawk on the back of his head. Epic.

That's a lot of information I guess. Really I only meant to talk about how I always forget parts of Groundhog Day, like the day he gets drunk and arrested after driving on the railroad tracks. Good lesson there, no consequences for our actions! Right?

Casey's inaugural post.

"There's nothing like curling up with a good Brooke"

So, having been introduced as a co-contributor, it's time I get my blog on. It seems best to take the 60 minutes approach to things: Brooke will provide the news; I'm Andy Rooney. For my first post let's cover one of my favorite activities: watching movies. Brooke and I are kind of movie nerds. I like to seek out good movies that many people haven't seen, because then I get indie-cred and am more interesting at parties, or would be if I got invited to parties. So if you want to know the best Danish World War II spy movie, I'm your man (Flame and Citron!). If you ask about other good Danish films, then I will casually direct the conversation elsewhere to, say the best French World War II spy movie (L'armée des ombres!), thus implying that I could name Danish genre pieces all day but who would confine themselves so narrowly? The point is, let's talk about Oscar nominees! (and the award for best segue goes to...)

So far Brooke and I have seen many of the major Best Picture nominees.We still want to see The Fighter (supposedly the best boxing movie since Rocky IV: Rocky Wins the Cold War) and The King's Speech, which is supposed to be good but loses points because it apparently pretends that Churchill didn't support George VI's Nazi-loving brother. Oops. (I've noticed that Americans nowadays tend to like Churchill a lot more than British voters did, but that's another topic). Also need to see Winter's Bone and The Kids are All Right, but those won't win anyway.

For me, the best picture last year was Black Swan. Holy fracking-scary-ballerina crap that movie was a trip. Natalie Portman was amazing, the cinematography was just gorgeous, and basically everything about the movie made me happy (read: deeply unsettled. This movie beats any "BOO LOUD MUSIC CRASH" horror movie you've seen.) Right behind that is 127 Hours: For what basically amounts to a one-man show in a single, confined setting, the movie had so much verve and energy, totally characteristic of its director, Danny Boyle (Aside: Boyle is one of my favorite directors. He's tackled so many different genres and topics, from drug addiction and sci-fi to zombies, Bollywood, and family-oriented heist shows involving deceased Saints, and every single one has been a winner). Plus 127 Hours has one of the most intense scenes of any movie you'll ever see, and if you watch it you'll know exactly what I mean. Third is the The Social Network, which will probably end up winning the real thing. It's a good show but my most vivid memory of it is is watching the movie in the theater with my then-fiancee and afterwords having a huge bearded stranger in overalls advise me to marry that pretty girl as soon as I could. Also there's True Grit, a great Western and hands-down winner of Fewest Contractions in an Adapted Screenplay, and Toy Story 3, which gets the Pixar stamp of guaranteed quality. And this lesser known film about a guy who steals dreams or something... Inscription... something like that. You probably haven't heard of it; it's by the guy who did Bat Man In all seriousness, The Woman on the Street* will probably pick Inception because she hasn't seen any of the others (thanks to the MPAA and Spencer W Kimball if the street happens to be in Provo), but while Inception is good, it's not as good as you thought it was the first time. Promise.

And that's it. I could also go on about other good movies from previous years that everybody should see, but that can wait until another day.

*because i love us is committed to gender equality