Entries in the Category "steve martin"
Osssssssscars!
I am reading all these bloggers who’ve pledged to see all the Best Picture nominees, or all the films with a non-technical nomination (that’s Sarah Bunting, and she almost did it). Some of them spent two Saturdays in a row parked in a movie theater seat watching five wannabe Best Pictures back-to-back. My major regret going into Oscar night is that I haven’t seen enough of the nominated movies. Living virtually across the street from a limited-release haven like the Cedar Lee, just about every one of these movies has crossed my path (not something I could say back when I was living in Lansing, Michigan--sorry Lansing). I went to an Oscar party in which the crowd was generally well-versed in movies—not just the big ones, but independents, foreigns, documentaries—and I wished I could have given more opinions instead of continually saying, “That looked really good. I heard that was good. I was going to see that. Everything I’ve read online says that was overrated, actually.”
The real problem is this whole being-in-grad-school thing, which will be over soon enough. I’ll be a cultural civilian again by May, and then it’s seeing movies all the time, reading books all the time, just because I damn well want to. And maybe next February I’ll plan my own Oscar film binge.
This year, I had to content myself watching the Oscars having seen only Inglourious Basterds, Up in the Air, Julie and Julia, and one-third of The Hurt Locker. I'm catching up on the other movies at my usual snail’s-pace rate. (Oscar-nominated or Oscar-winning movies I have seen in the past few months: Valmont, Mrs. Brown, Frozen River, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Gangs of New York.)
Anyway, here are my totally uneducated thoughts on the proceedings.
Continue reading "Osssssssscars!"
Fun with words!
Just found this on the Internet. Apparently, it circulates as one of those "true stories" we all get through e-mail, but its real origin is a humor piece written by Steve Martin for The New Yorker in '99. (See it on his website here.)
Forgive me, Mr. Martin, because I'm going to reprint it in its entirety. Loved you in Baby Mama!
Disgruntled Former Lexicographer
The following definition was discovered in the 1999 edition of the Random House dictionary. The crafting of the definition was the final assignment of Mr. Del Delhuey, who had been dismissed after thirty-two years with the company.
mut·ton (mut’n), n. [Middle English, from Old French mouton, moton, from Medieval Latin multo, multon-, of Celtic origin.]
1. The flesh of fully grown sheep.
2. A glove with four fingers.
3. Two discharged muons.
4. Seven English tons.
5. One who mutinies.
6. To wear a dog.
7. A fastening device on a mshirt or a mblouse.
8. Fuzzy underwear for ladies.