Wow. It's Academy of Motion Picture Awards time and I'll be flying over the Atlantic during the ceremony. It seems that I never got around to making my list of 2005 movies.

favorite movie of 2005: the Squid and the Whale. (At least it was nominated for the Original Screenplay Oscar, though a win seems like a long shot.)

( an honor to be nominated )

I left the office a little early on Friday to meet up with Jeff, Maggie, Liz, and Carolyn to see Brokeback Mountain at the Egyptian, where a lot of people seemed to have the same idea about checking out an afternoon matinee about an ill-fated love story. There are a lot of great things about the movie, the heroic photos of the sky and fantastic film of sheep herded being just a couple. Like Thursday's entertainment (King Kong ), the leads find unexpected love in a remote setting, and from the beginning, the circumstances tell the audience that after a few beautiful moments, the whole thing is destined to turn out badly. From there, the tragic machinery chugs along with the consequences rippling out after paradise is abandoned. Of course this comparison is a bit of a stretch. The scale of Brokeback Mountain is certainly more human and lacks the frentic spectacle of King Kong, so the impossibility of a happy ending hits a lot harder and takes a lot longer in mid-century Wyoming than it does in early-century New York.

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The second act of the evening was the Strangercrombie blowout at the Showbox. First, though Peter and Samantha and I met at the White Horse. And although I've said this before, there's nothing quite like the hidden in plain sight quality of an English pub on Post Alley as a way for feeling transported to somewhere completely charming . Or maybe that's just the effect of conceding to drink one of the mysterious maroon concoctions called Pims.

Eventually, we went to the Showbox. I guess I'll start with the story of the terrible thing that happened. We missed seeing Band of Horses on account of a fake burger. You see, when we arrived Common Market was playing and I was hungry. So we went to the Green Room and ordered food. I think that the hiphop on the Green Room's soundtrack lulled me/us into a false sense of security that we had plenty of time. But by the time we returned to the showroom, we saw the cast of Band of Horses unloading their instruments from the stage. It was surprising and very sad, I had also assumed that since they're one of the best things going that they'd be higher in the lineup.

Alas. There were many other good things to counterbalance this disaster of poor planning. Namely, Vladimir the Polar Bear, Dina Martina, Korny the Kwanzaa Korn, and a finale by 1960-1970s funk/soul superstars Wheedle's Groove. In between, my favorite performance was from the Fruit Bats who brought plenty of indie goodness to the stage. My spirits were further lifted by a couple pairs of drink tickets from a nice Stranger staffer who temporarily left the elite VIP quarters to mix with the commoners on the floor. Oh, and somewhere in the mix of free tequila and beer I think there was something about a visit to the photo booth.

In honor of the veterans, I didn't go to the office today. Instead, I spent the afternoon at Victrola reading science-type papers. Well, first I read section A of the New York Times until it made me want to slit my wrists (e.g., Krugman's column about the Social Security Donut, "Despite Recent Gains, Conservative Group Is Wary on Direction of Court" [#], "Rove Is More His Old Self at the White House" [#], "Senate Approves Limiting Rights of U.S. Detainees" [#], "Democrats Provided Edge on Detainee Vote" [#], "F.D.A. Reports Reduced Risks With Condoms" [#] ) or at least read film reviews and work through the crossword.

After accomplishing a marginal bit of necessary reading, I went home and tried to watch Law and Order (a very rainy day holiday activity, I thought), but the audio and video were out of sync; so I decided to catch an afternoon matinee.

I saw the Squid and the Whale. It is probably going to be my favorite movie of the year. It was just about perfect: quietly funny and sad and efficient and honest. I could have done with someone else in the William Baldwin role, but in a way, the oddness of casting him may have added something to the film. It written & directed by Noah Baumhach and Wes Anderson is one of the producers, so my loving it is probably not a huge surprise.

Feeling drained by the movie (it's kind of brutal), I needed to recover and thought that fries and a root beer float would do the trick, but instead it just left me feeling a little bit sick (I'm out of practice); so I went home and cooked some rice and vegetables.

Now I'm supposed to go watch the 1970s version of King Kong. It seems a little early to get into the spirit for the winter blockbuster, but it seems like a decent enough plan.

On Monday I spent some time at the office, had a techfee meeting, went for a swim, and made an attempt at the pub quiz. For the first two rounds we were in the lead, but when it got to the part where we had to identify celebrities from distorted pictures we were completely crushed by the opposition.

Since it is now officially summer, I stopped at the Mix for a drippy ice cream cone on my way to the bus stop. It was good, but really really messy.

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Today, after work I met Carolyn at the movie theater and we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I liked some parts -- everything up to the factory and the squirrels -- but I'm not sure if I liked the whole thing. My biggest immediate complaint is that most of the Oompa Loompa songs were unnecessarily hard to understand. But maybe I'll think about it and conveniently forget about the flat parts in the middle and the indifference to the horrible fates of the children and like the memory of the movie better than the experience of watching it. This happened to Stephanie Zacharek [salon] and she's usually always right.

After the movie, I'd hoped to see Mount Eerie. Unfortunately, they (/he) wasn't the headliner; so I missed the set. But the bouncer let me go inside to buy the new CD (No Flashlight) before I left. The packaging is incredible -- it includes a CD and a record. The liner notes, unfolded, take up about half of the dining room portion of my apartment. I'm listening to the CD now and it's pretty great, too.