How I got the consumption on Reading Week

Reading week? They should call it "media consumption" week.

How I spent one glorious week of preparing for class by swallowing the media whole:

1. Movies

• All Together Now: the Beatles Love
• Best of Youth
• Client 9
• Copyright Criminals
• Jack Goes Boating
• Leaves of Grass
• The Maid
• Please Give
• A Prophet
• Waiting For Superman (trailer:)

• The White Ribbon

2. TV

• Amazing Race
• American Idol
• Big Love
• CNN (Mr. Blitzer and Spitzer go for a Spritzer)
• Colbert Report
• Dragon's Den
• Ebert Presents At the Movies
• Frontline
• An Idiot Abroad
• Jersey Shore
• Late Show with David Letterman
• NBC Nightly News
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• The Ricky Gervais Show
• Survivor
• ABC This Week

3. Magazines and newspapers

• Bloomberg Businessweek (actual magazine)
• Chicago Mag (iPad via the Zinio app)
• The Daily (iPad app)
• Fast Company (actual magazine)
• Globe and Mail (iPad app)
• Huffington Post (iPhone app)
• New Yorker (actual magazine)
• NY Times (iPad app)
• Q Magazine (actual magazine)
• Uncut Magazine (iPad via the Zinio app)
• USA Today (iPhone app)
• Winnipeg Headlines (iPhone app)
• Winnipeg Sun (iPhone app)
• WIRED Magazine (iPad app)

4. Books

• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
• Louis Riel by Chester Brown

5. Podcasts

• The Adam Carolla Show
• The iPad Show
• The Joe Rogan Podcast (great recent interview with Dave Foley)
• TedTalks
• This Week in iPad
• WTF

6. Assorted apps

• Ad Age
• Blastr
• Dexigner
• Echofon
• EW Must List
• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Seth Godin
• Kindle
• Live Nation
• Lynda.com
• NME
• PS Express
• QRANK
• TagReader
• Twitter
• U of M Newsroom
• Vanity Fair Hollywood
• Wallpaper

7. Music

• Beach House - Teen Dream
• British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall
• Candy Skins - Best of (burned by me)
• Elvis Costello - National Ransom
• Foals - Total Life Forever

Foals "This Orient" from Sub Pop Records.

• The Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts
• PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
• Wendy James - Racine 1 and 2
• Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
• The Streets - Computers and Blues
• White Lies - Ritual

8. School

• Markin' first-year students' video storyboards with CreComm grad Jennifer Ryan
• Placin' second-year students on their last-ever work placements (sniff, sniff)
• Workin' the Open House with colleagues and students at Notre Dame Campus
• Attendin' Desiree Mendoza's Colours of Hope Independent Professional Project at Edge Art
• Readin' my mid-semester evaluations (thanks for the criticism!)
• Thinkin' about all of the great highs and lows that characterize every second semester of every year.
• Preparin' some good stuff for the rest o' the year.

9. Extravagances

• Innis and Gunn Highland Cask

• [yellow tail] premium wine
• Lilac Bakery
• Sleeping in
• Reading Twitter and Facebook feeds with care 
• Watching movies in the afternoon
• Bare-knuckle brawling down at the Alexander Docks

 Urp. See you on Monday!

Larsen predicts the Oscars '11, humiliates self again

Who will win best picture this year, oh twin suns of Tatooine?

Let the humiliation begin.

As I brag every year, I once won Movie Village's big Oscar contest grand prize by correctly choosing every, single Oscar category correctly - and a free movie rental every day for a year was mine.

The world was my oyster. Kids saluted me on the street. Women fainted in my presence. Trumpets played whenever I entered a room. "But then I began my long, long descent into obscurity," said the guy who last year chose Avatar to win best picture over the Hurt Locker. D'oh!

This year, I'm again using the Vanity Fair Hollywood app to make my Oscar predictions: for my money, a better app than the official Oscar app, which is clunky, clunky, clunky. The VF app features Oscar-related news, trailers, chat, the ability to share your picks on Facebook and Twitter and, on the big night, to track the leaderboard to see how you stack up.

Here are this year's terrible picks. I'm including the degree to which other users of Vanity Fair's app agree with them. This is a competition, not an exhibition. Please wager.

Best Picture
The Social Network (22 per cent agree)
The King's Speech has momentum, though.

Direction
David Fincher - The Social Network (47 per cent agree)
A lock.

Lead Actor
Colin Firth - The King's Speech (77 per cent agree)
A lock.

Lead Actress
Natalie Portman - Black Swan (81 per cent agree)

Supporting Actor
Christian Bale - The Fighter (65 per cent agree)
But I secretly think that Geoffrey Rush might get it.

Best Supporting Actress
Melissa Leo - The Fighter (32 per cent agree)

Art Direction
Inception (62 per cent agree)

Cinematography
Inception (49 per cent agree)
But I secretly think it could go to True Grit.

Costume Design
Jenny Beavan - The King's Speech (eight per cent agree)
I cannot vote for Alice in Wonderland.

Makeup
Adrien Morot - Barney's Version (12 per cent agree)
I'm betting that the Academy goes with a good movie. If not, it'll be Rick Baker's night.

Documentary
Exit Through the Gift Shop (57 per cent agree)

Foreign Film
Biutiful (81 per cent agree)
The foreign film with the actor we know will be out the foreign films with the actor we don't.

Animated Film
Toy Story 3 (81 per cent agree)
Because everyone knows that it's really best picture.

Editing
The Social Network (53 per cent agree)

Score
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Social Network (41 per cent agree)
Music that on paper seems like it would be distracting, but that really works toward making the finished product better than it would be without it.

Song
"We Belong Together" - Toy Story 3 (65 per cent agree)

Sound Editing
Richard King - Inception (73 per cent agree)

Sound Mixing
Inception (75 per cent agree)

Visual Effects
Inception (83 per cent agree)
When in doubt in the small categories, vote "Inception" and you'll be right at least a couple of times, methinks.

Original Screenplay
The King's Speech (30 per cent agree)

Adapted Screenplay
Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network (79 per cent agree)

Live-Action Short
The Confession (55 per cent agree)
Haven't seen it, but the subject matter looks Oscar worthy. 

Documentary Short
Killing in the Name (11 per cent agree)
Same here.

Animated Short
Day and Night (63 per cent agree)
Toy Story 3's opening act, so you can't go wrong.

Thank you for reading. Truly, it's an honor just to have you click through as a unique visitor.