This meme was submitted by my friend Maguy after recently traveling to Abu Dhabi.
For reference, this is what she downloaded in 30 minutes:
On an unrelated note, if you don’t watch The Vampire Diaries, start putting it in your downloads queue.
Today is one of my closest friends’ birthday – little miss Elia turns 22 today. About time, I guess. She’s the youngest one in our click. She’s not even a 1980s person. Isn’t that so sad, everyone?
But no matter, as little miss folds another year of her life today, I figured what better way to make her want to shoot me on her birthday than to write a blog post to wish her a happy birthday. Also, just for your information, she recently took shooting lessons so I’m putting my life on the edge over here. Yes, dear reader, you’re welcome.
So miss Elia, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you – poor ependorf tubes will miss you immensely as you celebrate your day. For those of you who don’t know, Elia is soon to be a biology MS holder (no that’s not multiple scleroris although I think all the time she spends culturing her precious cells will eventually lead her to have this). Her favorite passtime other than watching The Vampire Diaries, which she vehemntely refused to watch until my awesome persuasion skills overtook her, is to cultivate cells and attempt to “teach” biology students how to act like scientists (and limit their answers in the allocated space she has given them, which is in itself one of the most impossible things in the world, akin to asking a philosophy major to shut up).
And then I figured, who would make Elia very happy if he/she wished her a happy birthday? And the answer was so obvious that I decided to get him/her to do it. Sadly, it’s no me. But:
I’d quote Izzie over here. But that would be weird. Happiest birthday missy. May you have a hundred birthdays more during which you always remain kind, you always remain smart. You’ll always be important.
If you, like me, were outraged by how ridiculous the Golden Globes nominations were this year, this is for you. And if you’re not, this is why you – as a movie enthusiast at the very least – should be.
1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 was nominated… for nothing. Not a single category. Nada. Disregard the fact that it’s the last movie in the series. Disregard the fact that it’s the highest grossing franchise in Hollywood history and disregard the fact that Hollywood owes a huge chunk of its financial well-being to Harry Potter. Leave it all aside. Deathly Hallows Part 2 has an aggregate score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. For reference, the other nominated movies have scores that range from Moneyball’s 95% to The Help’s 75%. And if you thought Moneyball’s 1% difference is irrelevant, it becomes relevant when you notice that Moneyball has this score based on 194 reviews whilst Harry Potter has his based on 257 reviews.
But no matter. For those who think Rotten Tomatoes is not a decent criteria – after all Bridesmaids is truly horrible – I shall refer to Metacritic, which gives movies a certain grade if you want based on the reviews they get. Harry Potter has a grade of 87. Hugo has a grade of 83. Moneyball’s grade is 87 as well. The Help comes in at a measly 62. I’m just saying.
It’s either the reviewers are bipolar or those nominating in these award shows are bipolar. I’m sure there’s a correlation between those reviewing and those nominating, which leads me to think this double bipolar disease they have is truly damaging to the industry. What’s even worse about this is that Warner Bros actually tried to get Harry Potter a nomination. Ah well… elitist snobs always win, I guess.
2) Lebanon’s Where Do We Go Now was not nominated in the foreign movie category but the United States’ In The Land of Blood of Honey was. Apparently the fact that the latter movie had an American production, albeit being filmed in Bosnia, did not deter them from considering it foreign. They consider the language the movie was spoken in apparently. Add to that the fact that the movie has an English version which was submitted to other categories for consideration. But as you know, In The Land of Blood of Honey is Angelina Jolie’s movie and as a friend put it, these award people can sometimes be starwhores. Just look at the other nominated movies in this category: Flowers of War has Christian Bale. The Kid With The Bike and The Skin I Live In were also directed by more famous names than Nadine Labaki.
Perhaps our Oscar hopes are not totally dead now. But Where Do We Go Now‘s chances are now very slim at best.
3) Glee gets nominated for best comedy series but The Big Bang Theory, which is truly a comedy, does not get any nominations except for Johnny Galecki’s (Leonard) nomination for best actor in a comedy. Jim Parsons (Sheldon) was not nominated. I don’t even feel like having to elaborate on this.
4) Nina Dobrev, who plays two characters on the CW’s hit series The Vampire Diaries, doesn’t even get a nomination for drama actress in a TV Show. Her characters have nothing to do with each other to make it at least easier for her to portray them. They’re as different as different go. And yet, she’s snubbed. How could a CW TV show be considered worthy after all, right? It’s not like it’s not better than most TV Shows out there. But I guess you should refer to point #1 for their view on quality. I’m sorry to break it to Nina Dobrev but apparently anything she does won’t be enough to get her an award outside the Teen’s Choice or People’s Choice Awards.
5) House’s Hugh Laurie and Dexter‘s Michael C. Hall are both not nominated for best actor in a drama even though they’re both portraying totally twisted and sick characters that should be eaten up by any award committee. The fact that they’re slowly becoming iconic characters in our generation apparently doesn’t help as well.
I guess the finger given by Hugh Laurie as House is fitting.
Those who know me are well aware that The Vampire Diaries is, currently, my favorite TV show – by far. It combines all the elements that I like in a TV show: suspense, twists, shockers and a fantasy storyline.
Say all you want about the whole vampire obsession which spread like wildfire with Twilight, but The Vampire Diaries is not Twilight. Let me put it this way, The Vampire Diaries is so much better than the Twilight books and movies that they are rendered more useless than they already are. They are rendered irrelevant.
I hadn’t blogged before about The Vampire Diaries because I didn’t know what I was supposed to write. After all, you can’t really write a synopsis of the show without giving too much away and you can’t review episodes because they would contain spoilers.
But don’t worry, this is pretty much spoiler free.
The latest episode, aired yesterday, of The Vampire Diaries (titled “The Sun Also Rises”) is one of the most epic TV episodes I have ever watched. It is an episode that doesn’t let down for 45 minutes, constantly escalating an already red-alert level storyline. You are basically taken to adrenaline stratosphere level – and no, I am not exaggerating.
This could have easily served as the season finale. It had everything you could ask for as a conclusion to a TV show season. But it’s such a big episode that the writers probably thought the viewers would be morally scarred if they left the season at that. After “The Sun Also Rises”, we need some form of resolution.
But “The Sun Also Rises” starts setting up the pace for season three. And by the looks of it, it will be even better.
Finally, have you ever watched something and it got so stuck in your head that as you walked around and remembered parts of it, you basically got goosebumps? That was me today as I headed towards an exam and the only thing I could think of was how epic the episode was. And yeah, I basically aced the exam also.