Late Night Thoughts #6 (in the morning): Go get it, McConaughey/DiCaprio Domination/Barkhad Abdi's my new fave person

-No, I'm not going to do a full post on the Oscar nominations. For one thing, by the time I get around to doing them, like eight hours after the nominations, they're old news. And for another thing, I've found that people don't generally respond to awards coverage. Well, definitely not in the last few years I've done it, anyway.

-Plus, I can't really add anything new. The Tom Hanks snub sucked. American Hustle seems to be the buzz, and I'm going to reserve judgement until I see the film (possibly next week), but is this The King's Speech of this year? I reckon it is totally going to True Grit things - have all those nominations but no awards to show for it.

-Also, The Great Gatsby getting no love in the song section hurt, too. WTF is Alone Yet Not Alone?

-Anyway, so here's the story of nominations night: they were at 2.30am, and even though I was supposed to get sleep before and after then, I was up all night sick. However, I managed to contain the stomach flu for the nominations, but I had to do silent fist pumps so I wouldn't wake the house (like I did when Rooney Mara got nominated). There were a lot of silent fist pumps. First, for Jonah Hill. I knew it was going to happen (but sadface for Daniel Bruhl, though). Then for Sally Hawkins, who I knew I was right for predicting - remember when everyone thought it wouldn't happen? Then for Before Midnight getting a screenplay nod. And then for my girl Amy Adams for finally breaking through into the lead category. Started from the bottom now you here, Amy.

-And then along came Best Actor. When Christian Bale got called, I was like "no, no, no, no, no, dear god no that is Leo's spot". And then it happened. All of my hopes and dreams came true in that one moment. I didn't even pay attention to the rest of the nominations.

-But "Academy Award nominee Matthew McConaughey" sounds perfect, doesn't it?

-Anyway, this wasn't the only time of the week that Leo made my hopes and dreams come true. Of course, the Golden Globes - a.k.a the only awards show I'll be able to watch fully this year - happened and he got the award there, too. Ah, it was perfection.

-The Golden Globes were very entertaining. Was very happy to see Matty M, Amy Adams, Jared Leto, Alfonso Cuaron and Steve McQueen get awards. Plus, Amy and Tina were gold. Can't really say too much other than that - just flip through my Twitter feed for my uncensored, unedited thoughts.

-But I must say, I keep watching Matty M's speech because I love hearing him say "alright, alright, alriiiiiight" and "go get it, McConaughey". Like I swear that's going to be my new catchphrase for awards season: "go get it, McConaughey". I seriously need to stop saying it in real life situations.

-I really wish we could just have Jessica Chastain giving Matthew McConaughey awards all season. Their cute friendship makes me all the more excited about Interstellar.

-It would seem that Jennifer Lawrence backlash is the new black right now. Now, I love her as a person. I loved her in Winter's Bone and particularly The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I'm still a little angry about her winning for Silver Linings Playbook, as I don't think she ever owned her character. And it appears that the same thing happens with American Hustle. I dunno - she has an exceptionally good filmography and she's an exceptionally good performer, but she seems to be getting an awful lot of praise for movies she's not necessarily right for. If she wins that Oscar this year, the backlash will be terrible. But I think that's going to go to Lupita Nyong'o, who broke my heart in 12 Years a Slave. Well, at least I hope it does.

-On the opposite end of the spectrum, and awards getter that I'm loving at the moment is Barkhad Abdi. Maybe I'm a sucker for stories like his, but it is so awesome how he does literally one film and then gets nominated for an Oscar. He's really sweet, too.

-I've been catching up on 2013 films, with films like Short Term 12 (man, y'all were right, such a great film), Rush (I liked it, a bit sad Daniel Bruhl didn't get nommed but no big loss), Dallas Buyers Club (go get it, McConaughey), 12 Years a Slave (yeah...I've never cried so much in my life. Steve McQueen has the most perfect filmography of anyone), and...The Canyons, which I will probably write a post about in the next week or so. Man, that was an experience.

-The next and final installment in my "money" series will take a look at Side Effects and Blue Jasmine, but I'm just waiting for Blue Jasmine to come out on DVD so I can watch it again. And soak up the amazingness of Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins.

-And in non-movie related news, I got my exam results back. I managed to achieve Level 3 with Merit endorsed (which I suppose is like a solid B-grade/A- for you Americans), which I was told at the start of the year I couldn't do because I was Head Girl. Ha. Also managed to get Excellence endorsed in Level 3 English (solid A+ grade), getting Excellences in everything I did apart from my damn Othello essay, which I got Merit in. And I also got Merit endorsed in Drama. And yeah, that's high school completely done. I didn't fail anything last year, which was also quite the achievement. I got my acceptance letter into Canterbury and have to scrape together so much money - uni is so hard and I haven't even gone yet!

-Oh crap, just realised the SAG awards are tomorrow. I won't be watching, as I have work, but I don't really see the point as Leo isn't nominated anyway. Alas, my quick predictions would be: Best Ensemble - probably American Hustle since everyone loves it, but judging by only having Jennifer Lawrence nominated, this could well go to 12 Years a Slave (as it should); Best Actor - I imagine this is going to Matthew McConaughey, but there could always be a spoiler from Bruce Dern; Best Actress - Cate Blanchett, no doubt; Best Supporting Actor - Jared Leto, no doubt; Best Supporting Actress - most likely Lupita Nyong'o - I only think Jennifer Lawrence's chances would be helped if the rest of her cast was individually nominated.

-And make sure you listen to the Across the Universe podcast, where the Chicks with Accents discuss/cry over The Wolf of Wall Street. It's beautiful.

What's been going on in your cinematic lives lately?

Late Night Thoughts #5 Exams and Daniel Day-Lewis Has a Rapper Son

-So exams are happening.

-I've had Biology, English and Statistics so far. The human evolution part of Bio seemed to go pretty well (but I'm suspecting foul play on NCEA's behalf - were the questions supposed to be that easy?). English seemed to go pretty well, but I don't really think I'll get solid top marks like I wanted to. And Stats...well, let's just say, I'm not hoping for big things. I just have Drama left, which is basically just a paper about The Crucible which should be okay if I don't ramble on about how cool Arthur Miller is/how cool Rebecca Miller is/how cool Daniel Day-Lewis is. So yeah, exams are pretty much done.

-But school is not done. I have spent much time preparing for the ball, and also writing my valedictory speech, which is probably inspired by every Oscar acceptance speech of all time.

-I admit, all I seem to do in my spare time is watch Oscar acceptance speeches. And any of Daniel Day-Lewis' acceptance speeches. I should be embarrassed, but I'm not.

Late Night Thoughts #4 I Made it Through High School!

-The before and after: on the left is the obligatory parent photo of my first day at high school in Feb. 2009. The second one is me on my last day of high school (on the far right) with my girls Laura and Jess.

-Yeah, so this whole post is going to be dedicated to the end of my high school career. This is one of the last times you'll ever have to hear about it, so bear with me.

-Wednesday was my final day of proper high school. It isn't officially over, as I have four exams this month, the ball in December and then things will officially end when I do my valedictory speech not too long after. However, Wednesday was my last day of classes. Which is kind of ironic since I don't think any of us spent much time in class.

-Wednesday was a very cool day, though. Most of us went down to school at 6.20am because our Year 13 prank was to park all of our student cars in the staff carpark (which 95% of people found hilarious...the other 5% need to go buy a sense of humour or something). Then we cooked breakfast before going off to our three classes. To finish off our high school careers we had our last assembly, where my Deputy Head Prefects Seth and Emma gave the most wonderful speeches (seriously, what Seth said about me was about the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me - he said I was the most hard working person he knows, which is probably true). I got a few awards, including my excellence certificates for my last English assessment and my excellence for The Crucible, an Honours for Attitude award and also a certificate of Merit for English, Drama and Biology (ha).

-However, there was a bit of a surprise at the end of the assembly when they were doing special awards. Turns out that I got the cup for "Contribution to Senior Drama", for my efforts with Stage Challenge and also getting everyone's shit sorted for The Crucible. I was so shocked, it was what I imagine winning an Oscar would be like. I've secretly wanted it all year, so it was a nice way to top things off.

Late Night Thoughts (in the morning) #3 The Crucible, Daniel Day-Lewis Feels and Life Crisis

-This past couple of weeks have been kind of ridiculous.

-I'm sorry that I always talk about school, but school is literally all that happens in my life right now.

IDK, you'd probably have to watch it to see how Oscar worthy my performance was.

-So we finally performed The Crucible on Wednesday night. I managed to remember all of my lines, which was a plus. But the biggest plus was that I managed to cry some fake tears at the very end. Maybe I should become an actress now, I dunno. Watching the performance on video was kinda weird but I think we all did well enough. It went the full Daniel Day-Lewis and Joan Allen.

Late Night Thoughts with Stevee #2

-Yes, I am really bad at prolific bloggery. I do promise that in my spare time I have been slaving away over a The Place Beyond the Pines review, but I keep getting confused at what I'm trying to say about it so I may as well just do incoherent thoughts about life instead.

-Yeah, this was a busy week. Last full week of school ever (whaaaaaaaaaat). There were school dramas or whatever, but a couple of good things happened: a) I got an Excellence in that 1950's essay I was dying over in the holidays, which means I got solid Excellences through all of my English things I've done this year, and I hope to repeat that in the exams and b) this is totally nerdy and up myself, but in assembly the principal remembered what I said in my speech about why I wanted to be a leader at school, and said it would be part of the school's history. I've made my mark.

-Movie wise, I saw a grand total of two films this week. Which is utterly ridiculous. The first was Mud, which I really adored. Matthew McConaughey for all the awards and all that - yes, I'm still in love with him. Then I watched the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby. It was actually terrible. Everyone was overacting, particularly Mia Farrow. I get that Daisy has a sing-song voice, but not a bad-audition-on-American-Idol voice. It was rather faithful to the novel, apart from not ending on the best ending lines of all time. Karen Black, who played Myrtle, was really the only person who I enjoyed seeing on screen, since she actually got her character right. Just everything about it was so...ugh. Or maybe that is just my huge aversion to the 1970's.

-So I'm trying to figure out what papers to do next year within my Bachelor of Arts and I have a sneaking feeling I may have made a slightly wrong choice with Canterbury, as they are offering less than I thought they were, film studies wise. However, this doesn't really bother me as I just wanna obtain my BA in what is probably the best city in New Zealand. I keep seeing on the news how all of these new buildings are going ahead and it makes me excited, because it is the only place moving forward. So good vibes all 'round.

-Random thought I had at work: how many of you have seen The Details? The film that has Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta and Kerry Washington? I found it to be rather polarising, so would love to hear your thoughts.

-Just remembered that the blog turns four tomorrow. Or 3 and 1/4, since I stopped blogging for eight months. Will hopefully try and put something celebratory up.

-Oh, I started watching Breaking Bad. Please do not alert me of spoilers, as I know absolutely nothing about it. I'm two episodes in, and I can tell I'll love it. Now, someone find me some more time in the day?

-So the Carrie remake came out. Like, I never really prepared for this to actually happen. Carrie was the first film I ever truly loved, but now Chloe Moretz is Carrie and that just does not sit well with me. Carrie works as a 1970's film (and here I was just talking about my aversion to the 70's movies), not a film in our era right now.

-Mind you, is anyone feeling like 2013 may be one of our best years in films for years? America has 12 Years a Slave and All is Lost out this week, which both have over 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. There's also Gravity and Captain Phillips in the high 90% range. Rush is in the high 80% range, Prisoners is a little bit behind it. And then we have some of the older releases, like Short Term 12, Mud, Before Midnight, Stories We Tell, The Hunt, Blue Jasmine, Blue is the Warmest Colour, The Spectacular Now, Frances Ha and Enough Said all in the 90% range. Sure, there's not hundreds of great movies out yet, but as a cinema lover, this makes me very excited to see a movie open every week with such a high rating. And we have films like American Hustle, The Counselor, (wow, just saw that Jessica Chastain's first film Wilde Salome is coming out next week in America, exciting times), The Wolf of Wall Street (???), Catching Fire, Inside Llewyn Davis, Her, The Monuments Men and The Hobbit 2 still to keep us excited. Very good times to be alive and kicking in cinema right now.

-However, we still have our bad films, and Diana seems to be one of the worst of the lot. Which is hilarious because the ads that are going around on TV right now keep saying "See the film that everyone is calling "stunning", "compelling" etc. Oh well, they may as well use any of the good press they can get.

-And that's life in the fast lane right now. I'll try rustle something up in between The Crucible rehearsals and Photoshop and Othello and hominins. I could even write you a whole post on the allegory in The Crucible or how bipedalism increased hominins' cranial capacity. You know you want it.

How has your week been?

Late Night Thoughts with Stevee #1

If you should remember, most of my writing is just pointless rambling, so what better than to fill a post with my late night thoughts which have about as much cohesion as an Adam Sandler movie? Not that they have the quality of an Adam Sandler movie. Since no one actually ever puts any thought into an Adam Sandler movie.

-So my last ever term holidays have come to a brisk end, but that's no matter - I'm actually looking forward to going back to school. To be honest, I've hated the holidays this year (apart from the sleep ins) because they have gotten in the way of all of the projects I've had on the go. Except for the first holidays. That was all stage challenge. I don't remember how I survived that. Anyways, as you may know I went to Sydney at the beginning of the holidays, which was great fun, especially buying all of the DVDs I wanted. I saw Captain Phillips and Blue Jasmine, which were both terrific, and Frances Ha (which I loved) and Stoker (which I didn't love) on the plane. And I went to Madame Tussaud's which was awesome. I bought an Oscar from there and posed with Leonardo DiCaprio (as seen above). Because I'm hilarious. Then I came back and I've literally done nothing but toil over this essay I have to write for English that's somehow gotta find connections between A Streetcar Named Desire, The Crucible, Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Catcher in the Rye, and also how these novels proved the influence of the time they were written in. It is the worst thing I have ever written, with four pages and absolutely no cohesion at all. Please help.

-This week has been a bit crazy, though. I got accepted into the hall I wanted at University of Canterbury, and also won a $5000 scholarship for being Head Girl. Now I just have to enrol in my courses (a Bachelor of Arts with Cinema, English, and possibly a History and Linguistics paper - but I don't get university courses at all) and start selling drugs so I can pay for the rest of it.

-Speaking of being Head Girl...ah, I really wish I got the epiphany to start blogging again earlier so I could outline this craziness a bit more. Alas, since Stage Challenge, everything started to get really bad for a number of reasons (mostly just missing Stage Challenge - honestly, it was like having a leg cut off when that all ended) but that's all done now. I focused my energies on trying to help a whole lot of redundant workers in town, which wasn't successful. And I got nominated for this community services award as well. I honestly don't remember much else, aside from being very tired and cleaning the common room lots, but here's the point where things get scary. I have exams around the corner, and then I have to do my valedictory speech, which I've been thinking about all year, but now it is about to happen, I'm kinda scared about it. Oh and yeah, this year has gone way too fast.

-In other exciting school news, my drama class is performing The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I'm playing Elizabeth Proctor. Would be great if I were Joan Allen right now.

-Anyway, off the topic of school, and on to the topic of movies. So I saw Gravity today. I have a 'review' all set to go, which is pretty pointless since every man and his dog has written about it, but I tried to make it a little different. It just needs a heck of a lot of editing so I can use the thesaurus to give me 27 more variations of the word 'amazing'.

-Aside from rewatching a whole lot of movies so I could also toil over that bloody English essay, I saw most of the week's new DVD releases. First up was The Hangover Part III, which I liked more than the terrible second one but still not all that much. I laughed quite a bit, but there were way too many unnecessary animal deaths I found. And then there was Sharknado, which was every bit as terribly entertaining as I thought it would be. Deadfall was next up, which was okay but man, Eric Bana was crazy in that. Straight after I watched The Paperboy, which I really quite liked, even though it was ridiculously violent and greasy. Nicole Kidman killed it, though. Lastly, I watched The Hunt, which was definitely one of the most depressing films I've ever seen. But it is sooooo very good.

-The film that I'm most obsessed with at the moment is The Place Beyond the Pines. I rewatched it over the weekend and was absolutely won over this time. Every time I see the trailer at work, I just want to see it over and over again. I'll get around to reviewing it, but this is definitely in my Top 3 for 2013 now.

-The Nymphomaniac posters are pretty much the worst/scariest things I've ever seen. I know that Lars Von Trier was trying to be all against the grain and stuff, but...that's not cool.

-American Hustle has a new trailer and I love it and I need this movie right now. Amy Adams looks fantastic. Jennifer Lawrence looks amazing. I love it already.

-Diana is getting thrashed, huh? Poor Naomi Watts, she's not having a good year. Remember how Jessica Chastain was supposed to be in that film? Luckily she decided to do Zero Dark Thirty instead.

-Speaking of J-Chas, who has been stalking around on her Facebook page? Her big status about Oscar Isaac was absolutely adorable, as was her link love for Awards Daily's post on women in film. She is easily the best person in Hollywood at the moment, maybe even the planet, I dunno.

This is honestly my most used movie quote of all time.

So, can anyone offer any help on my English essay? Or, an easier question: what's everyone been watching lately? What's on your cinematic mind?