I have predicted the Oscars informally for years, often times making wise picks, others quite foolish.
I’ve predicted Best Picture correctly since 2003 (in 2002, I refused to admit that “Chicago” was the frontrunner and not “The Hours”). Yes, that even includes picking “Crash” to upset “Brokeback Mountain” in 2005 – the pick of which I am the most proud.
I’m a dedicated Oscars watcher, no matter how painful it may be.
Example: In 2008, I was very ill on the day of the big show. Did I sleep and try to recuperate, watching the Oscars on TiVo on the morning?
Obviously not.
I stayed up until 11:00 P.M. to watch “No Country for Old Men” take home Oscar gold.
I’ve been watching the Oscars for a long time, and my parents always made me go to bed before all the good awards when I was younger.
The first year I saw the presentation of Best Picture live was in 2006 when “Crash” upset “Brokeback Mountain.”
The first year I got to watch the entire show was 2008 when “No Country for Old Men” reigned supreme.
An Oscars tradition at my house: my mom always makes pizza, and we eat it while watching the red carpet arrivals on E!
Don’t know how it got started, but it stuck.
UPDATE: Turns out that I am a bit of a factoid repeater. Oh well, it was bound to happen sometime.
In 2007, I bought a book in New York City called “Oscar Season” by Mary McNamara. It was at a random little shop in the city, and I was struck by seeing the golden statue concealing a gun.
Ever since that fateful day, I have told myself that I will read the book during awards season one year.
2007 came and went, “The Departed” won Best Picture, and I hadn’t read it.
2008 flew by, “No Country for Old Men” won Best Picture, and I still hadn’t read it.
2009 was fine, “Slumdog Millionaire” won Best Picture, and it continues to garner dust on my bookshelf.
Now, in 2010, barring some freak occurrence, yet another year will pass where “Oscar Season” has gone unread. There’s always next year…
**UPDATE 3/21/10: Please see Random Factoid #236.**
Sometimes, when thinking about factoids, I have to go search for influence from outside sources. Today, my inspiration comes from old faithful, IMDb.
The poll question of the day: Has a movie ever made you feel physically ill?
Answer: Yes. “Cloverfield” made me feel sick at my stomach because of the shaky camera.
In my “documents” folder on my computer, there is a folder called “Screenplays.”
In this folder, you can find 51 screenplays that I have downloaded off of the studio FYC sites in the months leading up to the Oscars.
So, studios, consider this my thank you note. You are awesome for giving me fodder. Make more movies like those.
Love, Marshall
Another movie-going pet peeve, inspired by seeing “Crazy Heart” tonight:
There was a skinny line that scaled the height of the screen, and it was incredibly distracting and annoying.
I don’t know if it was on the film or the projector. Heck, I don’t even know if you understand what I’m talking about. Do I make sense?
Some friends and I who share a common obsession with the movie “(500) Days of Summer” have been messing around on Facebook, setting our profile pictures to the movie’s characters. Tom and Summer are covered – but not by me. Who am I, then?
Rhoda, the greeting-card worker who is seen trying to roll out a new line of cards with her cat, Pickles. She is an obscure character, but I remembered her. Mainly it was because I actually felt bad for her because there she was, just trying to unveil a cute and sweet new line of cards with her cat who she probably loves dearly. Then depressed Tom comes along and just decides to tear her down while he is feeling especially horrific. Her response is a simple frown, and I just wanted to go and give her a hug.
(In case you don’t remember her, this should jostle your memory.)
I’m one of those people who is extremely easily distracted from doing a simple shopping task.
Case in point: back in January, whenever I was shopping for travel books before my trip to Argentina, I found myself in a section filled with books about the history of Texas.
Of course, there just HAD to be a book about the history of movie theaters in the city of Houston. I lost well over 30 minutes to it.
Another short factoid today. Sorry, it’s a busy week … I’m learning to tap dance!
I was turned away from free screenings of “(500) Days of Summer” last summer not once, not twice, but thrice. Persistence paid off, and my friend and I were there an hour and a half early for our fourth try. We pitched camp in the lobby and played Uno for quite some time.
Moviegoing pet-peeve:
I can’t stand whenever the theater just leaves you hanging before the trailers because the projectionist is lazy and doesn’t want to start your movie.
I don’t want to stare at a still image of the theater chain for ten minutes. Put on my darn movie, because believe it or not, I could actually do something productive with that time.
If you look up in the address bar of your Internet browser, you should notice a tiny little picture whose contents are virtually indistinguishable.
In case you were wondering, that is a picture of me underneath the “American Beauty” plaque outside of the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles where the Oscars are held.
I took pictures of a lot of my favorite winners, including “The Departed” and (I believe) “Annie Hall.” Possibly “Slumdog Millionaire” too just for kicks.
What illustrious movie from 2009 will get its plaque right underneath that? Just trying to add some suspense to a good old factoid…
I always thought I had a good ear for music, but I raised my game to a new level last night.
While taking a paper break and watching the Olympics, I saw part of a segment on Norwegian skier Aksel Lund Svindal (I had to go to Yahoo to look that one up). They showed him intensely focusing on skiing and doing other exercise to better himself physically. Of course, NBC added some intense music to go along with it.
All of a sudden, I realized that I recognized the music.
I said out loud, “That’s so random. They are using the score from ‘Frost/Nixon’ when they discovered Nixon and the Watergate scandal!”
It was the track “Watergate” from the “Frost/Nixon” soundtrack which I bought last year when the score was nominated for an Oscar.
Today marks the release of “Shutter Island,” the first movie in 2010 that I actually have an active interest in seeing.
Today is also February 19th. I thought to myself that this was pretty late for the first interesting movie of the year to come out.
So I consulted my ticket collection at the first movies I saw in a given year released in that year. The latest recorded day that I have seen my first movie of a given year was “Wild Hogs” on March 11, 2007. Every other year, I had seen a new release in January.
Could this year top 2007? Hopefully not, because I really want to see “Shutter Island.” But depending on how my history research paper and musical rehearsal go, it could be a photo finish…
Marshall and the Movies 
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