I Wanna Be Your Blog

My name is Tessa. I used to live in Los Angeles and now I live in Brooklyn. I do this and other things.

Email:
strain.tessa@gmail.com

Twitter:
@tessastrain

Comics reviews/commentary:
DEATH-RAY OZONE

Old tumblr:
REPULSIVE INTERACTIONS

Essays about my hometown:
ON THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

Art:
NUMBER 1 PEN NUMBER 2 THOUGHTS
IT’S OSCAR SUNDAY. Could I love the Oscars more? Probably, but at great cost to my dignity. I’m pushing it already as is. I love the Oscars. I love their stodginess, their self-importance. I love the Saturnalian quality of letting people (read: actors) whom you would ordinarily beg for silence wax poetic about their feelings and their managers/agents/lawyers plus their COURAGE. Such courage. Like the courage it took Nicole Kidman to temporarily wear a prosthetic nose identical to the real nose that I have to wear around every day of the year. Where’s MY Oscar? This is going to be a banner year for everything the Oscars stand for, since Billy Crystal (the insideriest insider, king of the feel-good non-jab) is hosting and also Best Picture goes to a movie that celebrates Hollywood feeling good about itself, which it like NEVER gets to do anymore, god, it’s so hard, if you only knew how hard it is to be Hollywood. Last year the Oscars blew it by trying to be cool which had the tragic effect of seeming like when old people think that young people r alws usng txt spk but rlly only the olds write lk ths. It was embarrassing for everyone, but at least we know what it looks like when James Franco falls asleep while talking. THE PUBLIC NEEDED TO KNNOOOOW. Of the Best Picture nominees that I actually watched (like, uh, three of them?) my favorite was Moneyball, and it’s probably not going to win anything this year which is really too bad. I’m rooting for it for Adapted Screenplay even though that means rooting for Aaron Sorkin (WHO COMPARED HIMSELF TO PADDY CHAYEFSKY IN HIS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH LAST YEAR YOU COMPLETE JACKASS NEVER FORGET) because (it’s about to get insidery) Stan Chervin did the heavy lifting in adapting a book people called unadaptable (which people always do, I think because they don’t realize that you can make changes across media???) and turning it into something lovely and sharp and involving. I love it when hardworking journeymen manage to do something that may appear workmanlike but is truly extraordinary, and I think we should give them prizes for that.  I implore you all to look at this list of Oscar ceremonies because some of these host combinations are like those hip ice cream places where they’re all “we have a chili pistachio caramel coffee gelato I think you will find exciting.” ROBERT SHAW. That’s all I have to say. ROBERT SHAW. LOL. He was one of FIVE in 1975, gawd what happened to you, Oscars? From the ages of twelve to eighteen I won the family Oscar pool every year, and then I haven’t been able to reclaim my title since, save for a tie-year with my dad two years ago (high score 20 correct). My sister was the long-term dark horse contender, who finally won the year that Kathryn Bigelow beat out the ever-insufferable James Cameron for an Oscar he HONEST TO GOD believed he deserved for making my least favorite move of all time. GOOD JOB TO BOTH KATHRYN BIGELOW AND MY KID SISTER! My mom never wins because she votes for who she wants to win.  A true romantic. Every year I like to pick a category to pretend to win, and then think up a gracious yet witty acceptance speech. Maybe Sound Editing this year (I just realized what a consistently macho category Sound Editing is, always action movies and whatever David Fincher directed). Speaking of macho, it’s incredible how the old white dudes of the Academy were so old and white that in 2005 they chose Crash for Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain even though the latter was co-adapted by Larry McMurtry and directed by Ang Lee and was about COWBOYS in WYOMING for crying out loud. Insane. Did you know that the other day, I was intending to google “Titanic” and just straight-up googled “1997” instead? LOL. Anyway, tonight isn’t about me (I WISH)—it’s about spectacle and gambling and polite applause. OSCARS 2012.

IT’S OSCAR SUNDAY.

Could I love the Oscars more? Probably, but at great cost to my dignity. I’m pushing it already as is.

I love the Oscars. I love their stodginess, their self-importance. I love the Saturnalian quality of letting people (read: actors) whom you would ordinarily beg for silence wax poetic about their feelings and their managers/agents/lawyers plus their COURAGE. Such courage. Like the courage it took Nicole Kidman to temporarily wear a prosthetic nose identical to the real nose that I have to wear around every day of the year. Where’s MY Oscar?

This is going to be a banner year for everything the Oscars stand for, since Billy Crystal (the insideriest insider, king of the feel-good non-jab) is hosting and also Best Picture goes to a movie that celebrates Hollywood feeling good about itself, which it like NEVER gets to do anymore, god, it’s so hard, if you only knew how hard it is to be Hollywood.

Last year the Oscars blew it by trying to be cool which had the tragic effect of seeming like when old people think that young people r alws usng txt spk but rlly only the olds write lk ths. It was embarrassing for everyone, but at least we know what it looks like when James Franco falls asleep while talking. THE PUBLIC NEEDED TO KNNOOOOW.

Of the Best Picture nominees that I actually watched (like, uh, three of them?) my favorite was Moneyball, and it’s probably not going to win anything this year which is really too bad. I’m rooting for it for Adapted Screenplay even though that means rooting for Aaron Sorkin (WHO COMPARED HIMSELF TO PADDY CHAYEFSKY IN HIS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH LAST YEAR YOU COMPLETE JACKASS NEVER FORGET) because (it’s about to get insidery) Stan Chervin did the heavy lifting in adapting a book people called unadaptable (which people always do, I think because they don’t realize that you can make changes across media???) and turning it into something lovely and sharp and involving. I love it when hardworking journeymen manage to do something that may appear workmanlike but is truly extraordinary, and I think we should give them prizes for that. 

I implore you all to look at this list of Oscar ceremonies because some of these host combinations are like those hip ice cream places where they’re all “we have a chili pistachio caramel coffee gelato I think you will find exciting.” ROBERT SHAW. That’s all I have to say. ROBERT SHAW. LOL. He was one of FIVE in 1975, gawd what happened to you, Oscars?

From the ages of twelve to eighteen I won the family Oscar pool every year, and then I haven’t been able to reclaim my title since, save for a tie-year with my dad two years ago (high score 20 correct). My sister was the long-term dark horse contender, who finally won the year that Kathryn Bigelow beat out the ever-insufferable James Cameron for an Oscar he HONEST TO GOD believed he deserved for making my least favorite move of all time. GOOD JOB TO BOTH KATHRYN BIGELOW AND MY KID SISTER! My mom never wins because she votes for who she wants to win.  A true romantic.

Every year I like to pick a category to pretend to win, and then think up a gracious yet witty acceptance speech. Maybe Sound Editing this year (I just realized what a consistently macho category Sound Editing is, always action movies and whatever David Fincher directed).

Speaking of macho, it’s incredible how the old white dudes of the Academy were so old and white that in 2005 they chose Crash for Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain even though the latter was co-adapted by Larry McMurtry and directed by Ang Lee and was about COWBOYS in WYOMING for crying out loud. Insane.

Did you know that the other day, I was intending to google “Titanic” and just straight-up googled “1997” instead? LOL.

Anyway, tonight isn’t about me (I WISH)—it’s about spectacle and gambling and polite applause. OSCARS 2012.

  1. novazembla reblogged this from tessastrain
  2. elisabethdonnelly said: Someday can we have an Oscar party together, possible Oscar soul mate? It used to be you could give me the year and I’d give you the best picture, Rain-Man style.
  3. tessastrain posted this