it comes in pints?

It looks like a proctologists' convention.

Man. It's sad to know there are entire countries with no giant foam fingers.

Okay, it's not fair that I guess this one.

I will hold back.

But. LOVE. THIS SCENE!!!!

Sheila,
Isn't it amazing? And they didn't mess around, either, as you know. Mofos didn't just drag a bunch of extras into the California desert and put 'em in Nehru jackets with dots on their foreheads. They went to bloody India..., which is one of those details that take this movie from the ordinary cookie-cutter alien invasion flick into the realm of cinematic masterpiece. I love this movie. This scene just gives me the friggin' CHILLS.

Seriously. Great great scene. I love the story in the book about how difficult it was to get all of those extras and the leader to sing those 5 notes in the right order. But whatever they did - it ended up working. Love that! Goose bumps, totally.

I haven't got that far...they're still in Gillette where I'm at. It's funny, I picked up the movie so that I'd get a better sense of things reading the book. I sat down thinking of it more as something to get out of the way than enjoy. I kind of had to force myself out of that mindframe. I hadn't watched it since I was a kid, not even a butchered version on TV. I hardly got around to even cracking the book. Between the Oscars and watching this movie over and over again...Bob and Francois and Steven were just going to have to wait.

I love the way he keeps talking about "looking at nothing," though. They really were - like a couple of prop handlers with flashlights and shit, yet their faces were filled with just as much awe as mine. It's so easy to get cynical about these kinds of movies in the age of over-blown (and often times, useless show-off bullshit) special effects, but for that time, what they did was friggin' incredible. I think one of my favorite parts so far is Bob being amazed at how young everyone was, yet Columbia was giving them this HUGE amount of money (huge for the time, for sure) to make this movie.

Yeah, the whole "looking at nothing" thing. Great stuff. And how 'bout the T shirts made up with "Zey belong ere Mozambique"?? Making fun of Truffaut's pronunciation? hahahaha I love how Spielberg says, "Okay, we're gonna need subtitles there because he's speaking in French." And some assistant said, "Uhm ... he's actually speaking English." hahaha!!

I love Truffaut anyway - but just reading about his work process, and friendliness and all that - I'm just in love with him now!!

Oh my god...I was just thinking about the shirts...I totally want one. And Truffaut just being a well-humored guy about the whole thing made me fall totally in love with him. The way he totally laughed off his insecurities was beautiful.

My mom bought me a fancy printer/copier/scanner thing over the weekend. The first things I printed out were a page with the words "Zey belong ere Mozambique" on it and the screen shot posted here. They're hanging up over my "desk" (i.e. the kitchen table). I don't even want to talk about how many screenshots I took of Truffaut. Even around YOU, it's embarrassing.

hahahahaha I applaud you. But I do understand.

And Truffaut died so young. Such a bummer.

52. Dude, that was so WRONG. Sob. My pretend boyfriend is dead, so I can't even dream about meeting him in person.

WHAT IN THE HELL IS THE MOVIE?!! :)

Emily - I know. So young. But he always said that every movie he made - every. single. one. - was a personal movie that he had wanted to make. He didn't make movies for anyone else but himself - so that's a pretty good legacy, you know??

Lisa - hahaha. I'm so sorry. Here's the link for people who have given up on guessing.

Sheila - have you read the book he wrote about Hitchcock? I so have to get that soon.

Emily - yes. Amazing book. Get it. As soon as you can!

I just ordered it, along with this. I shouldn't have - I have more reading than I can handle, but Francois has kind of taken over my life right now. You know how distracting new love can be.

(Why did I order it from Amazon when I just got one of those nifty Barnes and Noble membership discount cards for Christmas? I'm a friggin' idiot.)

I got one of those discount cards too! Which reminds me I need to use it.

Truffaut is one of those guys who just ... The guy just knows film. I love reading his stuff. He's encyclopedic - but I always get how much he LOVES it. He's not stuffy. At all.

Really? I don't remember that part. Of course, I haven't seen it since it was released when I was in the 7th grade.

Which was thirty years ago.

God, I'm old.

Oh, you're not old, Lisa. Hell no. Women your age are in their friggin' prime. If Helen Mirren taught us anything last night, it's that you can be totally amazing and gorgeous well into your grandmother years.

Sheila - I love it when Bob is writing about how everyone just feels so stupid around Truffaut...like twenty IQ points just get sucked out of their head, but he's so easy-going and friendly, that whole apprehension sheds so quickly. He's so incredible - one of those guys who makes movies because he LOVES it. Not for the stupid reasons like fame and money and power. Nope. He does it for the love of it. People like that are inspiring (call your office, Sienna Fucking Miller and your ilk. You BORE me. You're just attention whores who would be picking up garbage in an orange jumpsuit if that's what it took to get your names in the papers. YAWN. Go away).

Oh, and Lisa - this is one of those films that Spielberg went back and fiddled with years later. I think it was one of the first times a director actually did that, so the version you can get now on DVD is probably a little bit different than the one originally seen in theaters. But I'm sure this scene was in the original. It's totally worth seeing again. It's even tame enough to watch with your boys, though by today's standards, they might find it boring.

Also, I just love the detail (not sure if you got to this yet) - of how much he loves kids. How he is drawn to kids, there was no awkwardness between him and children. He loved their spontanaiety - he spoke about it quite a bit, because so much of film acting is trying to forget that you're an adult, with certain societal constraints - and get back into 'make believe' like you could when you were a kid. But kids can always play make-believe - and he just loved them. There was never a language issue either, English, French, whatever - it didn't matter with kids. I know people like that - people who just are so natural with kids, and I just like that he was one of those people. Not surprised at all.

I haven't got that far, but I'm not surprised, either. Speaking of the kids, I think one of the great things about this movie is that they had a bunch of cute kids in the movie - especially little Cary Guffey - but Spielberg didn't smash them over your head with that obnoxious "LOOK! CUTE PRECOCIOUS KID!" bullshit I'm always ranting about. I HATE that. Yes, we get it. Cute kid that says cute stuff. Most kids too. Stop shoving it down my throat like it's the most amazing thing a human being could witness. He did none of that. He completely stayed away from cliches and stereotypes. Hell, for his time, when this film came out, he possibly invented them. I thought War of the Worlds was an intolerable bore, even with all of the wonderful special effects. And that's not just because Tommy Boy could ruin an otherwise perfect production just by being in the same room.

Oh, you're not old, Lisa. Hell no. Women your age are in their friggin' prime.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety...

Emily - didn't Tommy Boy seem rather ... fuzzy last night? I actually thought the television was out of focus but then I realized - that it was HE who was out of focus (with apologies to Woody Allen for stealing that). But seriously when he came out to present, I got this very flat vague foggy impression of him.

Sheila,
My reaction whenever I see him is so tainted by disgust and hatred, my judgement is entirely unfair. I turned the sound off when he came on and walked over to my "desk," where I had the movie on to watch during commercials, the boring awards I don't care about and Celine "Why God Invented The Mute Button" Dion.

He's pretty clueless, but after the year he's had, he had to be aware on some level that he was standing before a large group of his peers, many of whom considered him a laughing stock of an attention whore.

Yeah - he just didn't have that "I am on top of the world" strut that stars at the very top of their game have. It was disorienting - also he had this weird squint ... I truly think reaching that level of OT has done something different to him. I've heard about that happening - that there's some kind of a switch that happens - and it seems to me I can see it in his facial features. He just doesn't "have it" anymore -that star swagger.

I know what you mean - good observation. If I think about it too much, it will actually make me ANGRY. There's the price of your immortality and achieving cult nirvana, Cruise.

When Cruise gave away the special achievement award (I forget the woman's name, Shirley something, former head of Paramount), the recipient (who looked fabulous) was a good half a head taller than he was. They did the congratulatory ear-whisper thing, and I would lay good money that he hissed, "I thought you said that you wouldn't wear heels!"

And she probably replied, "I didn't. Didn't you?"

Sherry Lansing.

yeah, he just looked ... fuzzy to me. Weird. Stars who know their power can truly be electric - like watching Cary Grant accept his honorary Oscar whenever that was - in the early 80s. he had been retired for years but he walked out onto that stage - with this confidence, this glow - it was powerful, like a politician is powerful when he knows he has won - and it was like the Archetype: HUGE FREAKIN' MOVIE STAR.

Tom has lost that. He used to have it.

Also, his bangs continue to be atrocious.

It's kind of sad to think about...him losing that. I mean, for as big of an ass that he is, I blame Elron for that, ultimately. Same with his buddies Jenna and Leah and their like, who are totally self-righteous and obnoxious about their "beliefs," but they've been brainwashed. On some level, I have to forgive them. If that absurd book posing as some sort of philosophical wisdom had never been written...if that megalomaniacal assplow hadn't started this rubbish in the first place, they'd be totally different people.

Yeah - it's strange. It's like he's lost his ease. Which is everything. No one wants to see an uneasy superstar. hahaha I wonder how much of this I'm just reading into it, though. Probably quite a bit ... just cause of all I know. I never really paid much attention to Tommy C. before this - I mean, I saw his movies, whatever, but I wasn't really tuned in to his whole THING - but I do seem to recall him operating with much more of a sense of ease than he does now.

Well, over the course of the last two years, he's managed to piss off Spielberg, alienate movie-goers, baffle Oprah, and get dumped from Paramount (then have to give Lansing an award...!). I can imagine why he'd feel kind of ill at ease in front of the crowd when we should be expecting more of a "I'M MOTHERFUCKIN' TOM CRUISE, BITCHES!" kind of attitude.

Yeah - the power politics in that whole award-giving-moment was fascinating to watch, in a kind of gruesome way.

Nowhere near as gruesome as Jack Nicholson's shaved head. Jack, grow it back and don't ever do that again.

He looked like Marlon Brando at the end of Apocalypse Now.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! That's it! I couldn't place it.

Yeah, this looming moon-head from out the darkness.

I hope it was for a part or something.

I love that guy. He always brings an irreverent jokey sense to the proceedings - which GOD is so needed. Just seeing him out there makes me go: Phew. There's a guy having fun.

Me too. He's so friggin' great. He totally takes the edge off from the people who are just taking it all way too seriously. I know it's an important deal for people that are nominated, but you should have some fun with it as well.

(Like, Ellen DeGeneres asking Steven Spielberg to take her picture with Clint Eastwood..."for my MySpace page." And he did. Hahaha)

Oh that was hysterical!! I liked when she was fanning herself with her "screenplay" that she then handed to Scorsese. hahaha

Hahaha. "Oh, look. I just happen to have a screenplay with me...how did this get here?" Didn't Clint Eastwood ask her if she had one for him, too?

Yes! hahaha Very funny.

No comments about Arkin's Oscar? Over at Samizdata, I said this:

"Why did Alan Arkin get nominated? What was so great about his acting in Little Miss Sunshine? I'm not puzzled because his character is hideously unlikeable (as are most of the others). I just don't see a great performance."

And I said this about Happy Feet:

"Penguin: the other white meat."

Alan,
I can't even talk about it yet. Even Arkin said it himself - he probably won because of his age and nothing else. Mark Wahlberg acted fucking circles around Arkin. I was seriously ANGRY when he didn't win. Every now and then, Oscars get thrown out like that. Peter Jackson won the directing Oscar for Return of the King, the weakest of the trilogy. But they weren't giving it to him for that movie, but all three. Scorsese won last night for a film that I wouldn't call his best, but he's just that guy that deserves an Oscar already. Like last year, when they gave the honorary one to Altman because they knew he was going to buy the farm at any moment. Whatever. I hate the politics of it all.

Sherry Lansing... that's it. Thanks, Sheila.

I couldn't find word one about the award online, and I tried - even checked the official 79th Oscars page and didn't see it listed under any of the special awards, didn't see it listed under the winners, googled the Snooze and didn't see it, browsed People and EW... wasted a whole hunk of my evening, actually.

When all you had to do was come here, NF.

I'm just glad that one film I enjoyed watching got an Oscar - Pirates of the Caribbean, for special effects.

(I liked the original Pirates better, though.)

BTW - did anyone actually name the movie, or did they all just describe it?

Nightfly,
I don't see the title anywhere here...so I guess not. Hahaha.