PICTURES: PICTURE A WEEK

Picture a week #1: Hoboken

	"Wait 'til next year" (Click for larger version)

I recently discovered the "Picture a Week" phenomenon on the Web — photographers (mostly devoted amateurs, I'm guessing) resolve to put up a picture a week as a source of motivation to keep going out and shooting. I'm no great photographer by any means, but two years ago I bought a camera that was better than I was, and I had to learn photography just to use it. Of course, I'm still learning. So I hope I can come up with a few pictures a week that don't suck.

PICTURE A WEEK 2005 - More in this series -

I had a couple personal days left at the end of the year, so I spent a little time in hometown Hoboken with my camera. After taking a few shots of the snow-covered basketball court across from the library, I thought I'd head toward the river where there's a beautiful baseball diamond overlooking the Hudson with Manhattan in the background. Turns out, not only was there snow on the field, there was a whole ice rink. Full of kids. I guess my favorite picture was this one of the kids looking at the snow-covered outfield, dreaming of spring.

Additional pictures

January 1, 2005 | 10:19 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041226.php#e79

FILM: 2004 FILM AWARDS

OFCS film awards

	Claire Danes and Billy Crudup in "Stage Beauty," a film that was halfway decent for the first 80% and breathtaking for the last 20%.

The other big end-of-year event is voting for the Online Film Critics Awards. We have a preliminary ballot, then a final ballot, then the whole thing is announced somewhere around the third week in January. Since we don't really get into Best Actor/Actress, Director, Screenplay and whatnot on the Offoffoff site, I thought I'd offer my choices here.

I saw more Hollywood movies this year than in the previous few years, and some of them didn't suck quite as much as in other recent years. Even some so-so movies (e.g. "The Notebook") had some definite redeeming qualities.

I'll post more when the awards are announced.

Picture
1) Garden State
2) Blind Shaft
3) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4) A Very Long Engagement
5) Super Size Me

Director
1) Zach Braff — Garden State
2) Li Yang — Blind Shaft
3) Michel Gondry — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4) Jean-Pierre Jeunet — A Very Long Engagement
5) Kim Ki-duk — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring

Actor
1) Paul Giammati — Sideways
2) Zach Braff — Garden State
3) Leonardo DiCaprio — The Aviator
4) Jim Carrey — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
5) Gael Garcia Bernal — Motorcycle Diaries

Actress
1) Kate Winslet — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2) Catalina Sandino Moreno — Maria Full of Grace
3) Claire Danes — Stage Beauty
4) Audrey Tautou — A Very Long Engagement
5) Hilary Swank — Million Dollar Baby

Supporting Actor
1) James Garner — The Notebook
2) Peter Sarsgaard — Garden State
3) Orlando Tobon — Maria Full of Grace
4) Josh Lucas — Undertow
5)

Supporting Actress
1) Gena Rowlands — The Notebook
2) Cate Blanchett — The Aviator
3) Sandra Oh — Sideways
4) Sandra Oh — Rick
5)

Original Screenplay
1) Zach Braff — Garden State
2) Charlie Kaufman — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3) David Gordon Green — Undertow
4)
5)

Adapted Screenplay
1) A Very Long Engagement
2) Mean Girls
3) Stage Beauty
4) Blind Shaft
5)

Sandra Oh with Thomas Haden Church in "Sideways," one of two great performances she had this year.

Cinematography
1) Garden State
2) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3) Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring
4) A Very Long Engagement
5) Collateral

Editing
1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2) A Very Long Engagement
3) Garden State
4)
5)

Original Score
1) Garden State
2) A Very Long Engagement
3) Collateral
4)
5)

Documentary
1) S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
2) Super Size Me
3) Fahrenheit 9/11
4) Los Angeles Plays Itself
5) Born Into Brothels

Foreign Language Film
1) Blind Shaft
2) A Very Long Engagement
3) Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring
4) The Return
5) Maria Full of Grace

Animated Feature
1) Gosh, I Have No Idea
2)
3)
4)
5)

Breakthrough Filmmaker
1) Zach Braff — Garden State
2) Li Yang — Blind Shaft
3) Andrei Zvyagintsev — The Return
4) Joshua Marston — Maria Full of Grace
5) Siddiq Barmak — Osama

Breakthrough Performance
1) Catalina Sandino Moreno — Maria Full of Grace
2) Zach Braff — Garden State
3) Lindsay Lohan — Mean Girls
4)
5)

January 1, 2005 | 1:35 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041226.php#e78

FILM: TOP 10 FILMS OF 2004

Top 10 films of 2004

	Zach Braff in "Garden State."

I get kind of excited all year about the end-of-year top 10 list of the best films of the year. (Inevitably, I come up with more than 10.) I keep a running list of the best movies I've seen all year, and I often have 10 very good ones by June. Here's what I wound up with for 2004.

The full article is at:

January 1, 2005 | 1:18 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041226.php#e77

RANDOM THOUGHTS: SHOPPING

You call this shopping?

Went to Lord & Taylor today, and who was taking advantage of the post-Christmas sales with me but huge numbers of orthodox Jews. Which makes sense — who else still has money to spend on December 26?

So I'm sitting on a bench in the women's department, a gaggle of bonneted Hasid women ambles through, and the grandma takes a seat next to me while her daughters and granddaughter shop. Every 90 seconds, one or another of her crew comes around with something she likes — as long as it's gray — and the whole family criticizes the selection in a mixture of Yiddish, Hebrew and English. A gray jacket with black border? Not good enough for my baby. A salt-and-pepper overcoat? Not a good enough bargain. A knit skirt in a subtle blue-gray? Much too provocative. Send it back!

The granddaughter disappears behind me. A minute later, grandma stands up, turns around and exclaims in Brooklyn-slash-shtetl English, "Oh, it's gorgeous! It's gorgeous, Etel! It's GOAH-JUSS!" I don't want to be so obvious as to look around and stare rudely at Grandma Feynbaum's innocent little girl, so I just face forward and stay focused on the book I'm reading. Finally, Etel comes around and lets the mother hens pass judgement on her discovery: a black-bordered jacket just like the one previously rejected — except in peach! I assume this flirtatious little number was sent back to the rack just like all the others, but it must have been quite a thrill to try it on. Gott in himmel! Peach! Think of the scandal!

December 26, 2004 | 11:11 p.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041226.php#e76