I’m going to probably sleep now. If I can. I hope tomorrow will be a better day, though I have my doubts. It may not be better, but I’m just hoping that I’ll forget about this shit, and put it aside. Let it fester inside me for a while. That’ll be good.

First of all, in lieu of posting a gigantic ~4,000 word entry about my favorite films of the year, let me just give you my Top 10 List with no added descriptions or anything:

10: The Devil & Daniel Johnston

9: The Prestige

8: A Scanner Darkly

7: Little Miss Sunshine

6: Brick

5: Babel

4: Letters from Iwo Jima

3: The Departed

2: Children of Men

1: Pan’s Labyrinth

HM: The Queen, V for Vendetta, Caché

So, now that that whole thing is out of the way, I’m going to discuss the nominations, as well as give my official opinion on what I think should win as well as what I predict will win.

Best Picture

The first category is Best Picture. The nominees this year are considerably different from last year, for the most part, since there isn’t really a clear-cut winner (though last year the “clear-cut winner” lost to a major dark horse (that, honestly, wasn’t that good)). I can say with a fair amount of certainty that The Queen and Little Miss Sunshine will most likely not win. However, the latter has the advantage of a late-summer release, with DVDs shipping before the nods were released, which seemed to help Crash a lot last year. Also, it’s a crowd-pleaser, so I guess it would be best to not count it out all together. The Queen will not win though. You can quote me on that. As far as the other 3, I think that each one has an equal chance of winning. The Departed is my favorite to win. I would have said Children of Men would have been a shoo-in to win, but I guess the Oscar voters thought differently, as did the studio, who basically dropped the film off into theaters like an orphaned child on a doorstep. But I digress. The Departed has a star-studded cast, a fantastic director, poppy dialogue, a twisty, edge-of-your-seat plot, and enough action to keep everyone happy. Not to mention it’s fantastic. Babel has a good chance because of Crash’s win last year, though it plays out the “multiple, interweaving storylines” thing a hell of a lot better than Paul Haggis’ rather mediocre effort last year. It’s also full of dynamite performances from actors fairly unknown to most Americans. Honestly, I think everyone in the movie (except for Brad & Cate) deserves an acting nod. Letters from Iwo Jima is probably the only one that I think has the least chance among the 3 front-runners. It’s a great film, but it’s quite long-winded and at times monumentally depressing (not that Babel isn’t equally sad). But seriously, it’s the first film to make me shed tears since American History X, and honestly it’s pretty hard to do.

My pick: The Departed

Predicted winner: The Departed

Best Actor:

I’m at quite a disadvantage here, since I haven’t seen any of the films for which the actors are nominated. Sad, I know, but honestly, save for maybe Half Nelson and Venus, the other films aren’t supposed to be that good. And come on, Leonardo DiCaprio for Blood Diamond? I heard his accent in the trailer; it was bloody awful. Probably the worst attempt at a South African accent I’ve ever heard. So he’s right out in my book. I’ve heard Ryan Gosling’s performance is great, but I don’t think that Half Nelson got enough exposure to give him much of a chance. The other three have a decent chance of winning. Will Smith’s always a favorite, and The Pursuit of Happyness had more success at the box office than probably any of the others combined. The two front runners, however, are Peter O’Toole and Forest Whitaker. I would have to say the former is my favorite to win. Though I haven’t seen Venus, I have heard his performace is stunning, and plus it would be good way to top off a legendary career. Whitaker, however, got the most hype, and in Hollywoodland, hype is everything. I predict that he’ll be walking away with the statue, which is fine by me, as he delivers an amazing performance as well.

My Pick: Peter O’Toole, Venus

Predicted Winner: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress:

I’m going to say it right off the bat: Helen Mirren has this one locked up. Though I wasn’t a huge fan of The Queen, her performances was so spot-on, I thought I was looking at Elizabeth herself. Not to mention she got an insane amount of pre-awards hype for it. I really loved Penelope Cruz in Volver, though I know she has almost no chance of winning. Judi Dench and Meryl Streep both have a decent chance of winning, mostly due to name recognition, and the latter given a huge boost by the fact that pretty much every woman in the Western hemisphere saw The Devil Wears Prada. Kate Winslet… I love her, but it’s not her year. The other women carry far too much clout to allow her much chance of winning. She’ll have to wait for her 6th nom for another shot for the gold.

My Pick: Helen Mirren, The Queen

Predicted Winner: Helen Mirren, The Queen

Best Supporting Actor:

This category, like Best Actor and Picture, has pretty much narrowed itself down to 3 top choices, leaving Jackie Earle Haley and Djimon Hounsou out in the cold. I think that Eddie Murphy will probably walk away with the award, granted Norbit hasn’t tainted his public image too much (though you’d think the man wouldn’t have a career at all after I-Spy, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Showtime, et. al.). My personal pick, however, is Alan Arkin. His performance in Little Miss Sunshine was one of the high points of a great movie, and, like O’Toole, really deserves it. Additionally, I think Mark Wahlberg has a chance too. Since Boogie Nights, he’s really proven himself as a quite fine actor, and I think it’s about time he’s gotten some recognition.

My Pick: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Predicted Winner: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Best Supporting Actress:

This one is quite a big predicament, in my opinion. I think that all of them have really, really, REALLY great performances, and in any other year, would all have a pretty good chance of winning seperately, save for maybe Cate Blanchett, who I really think is consistently a frigid bitch in all of her movies (she was pretty terrible in Babel, IMHO). American-Idol-reject-cum-actress Jennifer Hudson will probably win. However, my personal pick is a three way tie for the remaining women: Abigail Breslin, Adriana Barazza, and Rinko Kikuchi. The latter two played very, very interesting characters in Babel, with Barazza giving a truly heart-wrenching performance as a down-on-her-luck Mexican babysitter, and Kikuchi playing a deaf-mute Japanese teenager looking hard for love. Breslin, on the other hand, acted beyond her years in Little Miss Sunshine, adding so much charm to the film, and giving a performance that some veteran actors would be hard-pressed to match.

My Pick: Barrazza (Babel), Kikuchi (Babel), Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine)

Predicted Winner: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Best Director:

Again, Children of Men gets shut out again. Who can honestly watch the now-infamous nine-minute chase scene and not be completely flabbergasted that one man could so accurately capture such an intense experience? So, beyond that, I think that Clint Eastwood, Alejando Gonzáles Iñárritu, and Martin Scorsese have the best chances of picking up the prize. Eastwood’s been hot over the past few years, and really I think that Letters from Iwo Jima is by far his best work thus far. Iñárritu is a fantastic director, and he did some really incredible work on Babel. However, it’s the big man I’m rooting for tonight. Scorsese deserves an Oscar more than anyone nominated this year. He should have won for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas without question, but got shafted each and every year. Though The Departed isn’t as good as those masterpieces, it’s definitely a solid enough film to warrant this being his year. Needless to say, he’s by far my favorite pick to win, and God willing, he will, finally.

My Pick: Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Predicted Winner: Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Those are the only ones I’m going to tackle. With about half an hour left until the awards, I really need to wrap it up. But yeah, there you go.

I’m going to stop right now to reassure you that, yes, I still want to be your friend. The main reason I never told you was that I was afraid you’d be too freaked out to continue the friendship. All in all, loving you as a friend is better than no love at all. Much better.

But I digress. I just can’t believe that you didn’t see right through it from the beginning. All of the bulletins didn’t tell you anything? Because they sure as hell told everyone else, including one person neither of us have talked to for a good period of time who completely called my “bluff” from a mile away. Maybe I should have held your hand during the movie. Maybe I should have put my arm around you while we were walking through the Plaza. Maybe I should have jumped out of the car that night as you were punching in your garage door code, standing out there, looking so lonely; I should have gotten out and thrown a big kiss right on your lips. Then, perhaps, I would have gotten my answer, and I wouldn’t be living in a personal hell for the past month (though it seems like much longer).

All in all, I just want to make everything better. I want to talk to you. I want to hang out again, sometime. That is, unless you think I’ve “CORRUPTED OUR FRIENDSHIP” too much. It really was all my fault. I don’t want to sound too apologetic, because I do that all too often, especially when it’s not my fault. But at this point, it is my fault. Other than the whole “not calling me ever” thing, you have nothing about which to apologize.

Anyway, this month has been good for me, and I was able to once again prove to myself that I 1) can still feel feelings, and 2) never learn from my past mistakes. Not to mention you’ve been wonderful inspiration for some really bad poetry (you can totally see my “collection” if you think you’re up to it).

No hard feelings? No hard feelings. No hard feelings!

Just call me soon whenever you feel like it.

Love (but only in a friendly way),
Bradley Tyler Davis

Just an eyeful, that’s all he needed.

One sidelong glance and he’d be good.

The urban surroundings comforted Irwin, but at the same time awoke certain senses that are commonly present in a suburban-born white man. He watched as a black man in a heavy down coat pushed around and old, balding, gray-bearded white man. The black man twisted the white man’s arm around, and shoved him around at this bus stop right on the corner at fairly busy intersection, right outside a Walgreen’s. Dilapidated structures housing newly founded check-cashing rip-off houses seemed perfect backdrops for this wretched scene. He didn’t know if anyone else noticed what was happening, nor if they cared. It could have been the two joking around, but the look of distress on the old white man’s face worried Erwin. That look he wore…a look of true fear; pure terror exuded from this man’s wrinkled face. He became so caught up in the urban drama unfolding to his port side that he nearly missed the traffic light change.

Only a few more minutes, and he’d be there. The buildings slowly began to change. They grew taller, more majestic, more opulent block-by-block. “Poor sandwich,” Irwin thought. That’s a perfect metaphor. There were the skyscrapers uptown, and the swanky shopping area downtown, and ghettos right the fuck in the middle. He smiled at his cleverness.

He’d reached the creek. It was lined with, on his side, the massive outdoor shopping center that was his destination, and on the other, these great lofts that looked like something straight out of Tribeca, and probably cost as much Irwin’s house and car combined per month. Expensive restaurants lined the right side of the street. Irwin cursed as he dodged valets paralleling and indecisive Lexuses.

Soon he delved into the heaping mass of overpriced microwaveables and overpriced threads and ignorant socialites lapping it up like honey and breast milk whipped up in a little bowl in the hardwood kitchen. Ground zero was tucked in the very back, hidden away in a small alley. Slowly, Irwin drove down the road and kept his eyes glued over his shoulder.

Nothing. Not a person.

This didn’t stop him. He drove around again, and again, and again.

He saw nothing.

He felt the frustration building up inside of him. He wasn’t going to leave until he saw them. Just a glance, that’s all. Nothing more.

As he drove by, every young-looking female somehow transformed into the targets for a brief moment. Irwin got a neck cramp from doing so many double-takes.

I’m a bad stalker, Irwin said to himself. Really bad.

The tenth time was the last. Reluctantly, Mr. Cassidy threw in the towel. He took a couple more laps around the area, but for the sake of fuel conservation, he thought he’d head home. However…perhaps the bookstore would be of some use.

He quickly whipped the car around and hauled up an incredibly steep hill to a parking garage. Shifting into park, he hoped the place wasn’t private. Slowly but surely, he walked down the hill, trying not to slip on the remaining ice. Upon reaching the bottom, he felt everything that any normal human probably would have felt long before this point. This was wrong. Totally wrong. He could turn around right now and spare some of his dignity. He could go home with his heart merely duct-taped, but his soul still bottled deep in his chest.

No. He’d traveled this far, and he wasn’t about to give up yet.

The bookstore was surprisingly packed for the time, roughly twenty past ten. Irwin scoured each and every aisle on all of its 4 floors. The building seemed bigger the past times he’d been there. Upon reaching the art section, he saw a cute couple reading some fucking art book, pretending to be interested. This feeling rose up in Irwin, a feeling of regret, jealousy, nostalgia, and hopelessness, all mixed with a bizarre nausea. He scampered all over, trying to be quick, but not stir up too much of a commotion. He used the escalators as a quick scouting point, just in case his subjects actually were there. He stuck his head into the café. Everyone glared at him with diamond-drill-eyes. It was time to leave, he reckoned.

Cursing, he trudged up to the garage, narrowly avoiding a car he’d been too distraught to notice climbing the hill. Cursing, he got into his car and pulled out, leaving the trendy shithole behind. He cursed at himself for being such a terrible stalker, for one, and two, for being one at all, for degrading himself like that. But that was the voice or reason talking, and Mr. Cassidy had no room for such a thing in his life. He instead decided to curse the subjects, referring to some woman named Betty Short in a sinister, mocking way. He knew, as well as everyone did, he’d never hurt someone, but the thought of it helped him.

As the night waned, Mr. Cassidy realized that the night had been a waste. His life, his motives, his actions, mostly wasteful. It didn’t faze him much. He was used to a life of scum, bottom-feeding, shit-sucking, no warmth. The cold lonesome.

The answer is: nothing. No rock has been left unturned in on this subject. However, since both of my earlier entries have been lost, I will iterate, and reiterate my main problems with this, the fourteenth day of February.

Everything about the holiday is fake as hell. How many people, honestly, want to spend all of this money on shitty candy and wilted flowers and cheesy-ass Hallmark cards? No one really wants to. But it’s expected of us to give things to our significant others during this hellish reign of Cupid. It’s unprotestable. Try bringing this up to your girlfriends, guys. Say that you dislike everything that this holiday stands for, and that you’re not going to get her any chocolate, any roses, nor any $3 cards with anthropomorphic animals and schmaltzy puns. See how she takes it. If she’s like 99% of women out there, she’ll either call you cheap, or claim that you don’t love her. Love, on this day, is measured in material goods. It’s a sad truth. You can do the most romantic thing ever for your girlfriend, but if there isn’t a floral bouquet or a heart-shaped box full of cacao-based confections, you’re going to be flying solo tonight, chances are.

I guess it’s sort of indicitave of our materialistic society. You can win over any girl’s heart if you spend enough money on her. The ninety-nine hundreths I previously mentioned, they’re completely vapid individuals, and pretty much use guys as their personal credit cards. Really, it’s a brilliant method they have collectively devised. Want to go to the movies, but don’t want to throw down the $9 ticket price? Promise a guy you’ll give him a handjob in the theater, and you’ll get in, and probably be able to drown yourself in popcorn and Skittles, too. Need something excessively pricey, say a new purse or one of those cuuuuuute new iPod Shuffles? Give your man access to the Hershey highway, and you’re golden (but be sure he stops and gets some Vaseline on the way home if you decide to go this route).

It’s essentially prositution, except mostly legal. V-Day is basically prositution too, except the guy gets royally shafted. Sure, a lot of them will get more Poon than a Chinese phonebook, but in the end, the essential question remains: was it worth it?

Was having sex with your girlfriend, with whom you’ve probably had sex dozens of times before, worth unintentially degrading both of you by perpetuating this vile, superficial holiday?

Oh. It was?

Well, was having sex with your girlfriend worth the amount of money you spent on god-knows-what to get there? I’m talking about the $2.99 Hallmark card, the $50+ bouquet of roses, the $10 box of chocolates, and…god have mercy on you if you had to throw down a handful of Benjamins for jewlery, or even more so if you happened to purchase a goddamned eighty dollar teddy bear dressed as an antiquated thief or a wife-beatin’ truck driver.

Oh, it was.

Well, then, that pretty much shits all over my plan.

Women aren’t entirely to blame for the Valentine’s Day fiasco. It’s men accepting this horrid truth, and really only thinking with their penises.  Penises, regardless of popular belief, do not have brains. Therefore, it would be wise to not let them think for you. Trust me, my wang is often like a guided missle, and I just have to trust myself that where it takes me will usually not be a good place. It will never hit its target, and always ends up blowing up in my face. I think the word I’m looking for is “pussywhipped.”

Don’t be that.

So I’ve convinced you that typical Valentine’s stuff is not worth it. Now, you’re thinking, “How do I show her that I love her?” Really, it’s simple. Tell her that you love her, and be completely serious about it. And, just a helpful hint, try to tell her without staring at her chest. It helps, trust me. You can also take her out to eat, which is less outwardly-focused, because you benefit as well, but she thinks it’s just as sweet. Let her pick the restaurant though. Even better: make dinner. Cooking isn’t hard. Find a good recipe, get a friend to help, whatever. It’ll usually be a lot cheaper than some swanky downtown eatery, and a hell of a lot more romantic. Speaking of romantic, another idea is to have Roman-themed festivities (for those of you who are clearly fucking retarded if you didn’t pick up on it, “Romantic” = “like the Romans”). Wear a toga. Stage a gladitorial fight with your pets. Have a Ben-Hur-style chariot race with your sedan. Don’t explain any of it though. If your girlfriend doesn’t get it, promptly dump her ass,  because if you’re reading my blog, you’re clearly too smart to date a plebian like her. Unless she has a nice rack, then by all means continue the relationship.

Essentially, be creative. Show her that you love her, not that you’re willing to spend a lot of money on her. Or actually sit down with her and discuss exactly why you don’t want to celebrate at all. Basically, you want to cut your dependence on Russel Stover, Hallmark, and FTD. Don’t give them the benefit of a profit from you. Become a one-man army and revolutionize the holiday. Most of the things I laid out in this “guide” of sorts should be a last-minute tactic, if you realize that V-Day means a lot to your lover. Ideally, you shouldn’t even recognize its existance. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and sometimes otherwise well-meaning girls can be bitches about this kind of stuff.

So that’s it. You may be wondering what I’m doing for Valentine’s Day this year. Well, since my “Good, bad, insignificant” incident has thus far proven”insignificant,” unless you count the fact that I’ve really thought about nothing but that since it happened, I am happily single. I don’t have to waste my money, or think of creative excuses for not wasting money. Instead, I’m going to wallow my sorrow in the candy my mom left for me this morning, and masturbate to internet pornography. I think that’s the way St. Valentine himself would have wanted this day to be spent.

That brings me to the whole “career” thing. I’ve wanted to be many things throughout my life: an astronaut, pilot, chef, video game designer, and more recently film director/screewriter, photographer, audio engineer, etc. I’ve since realized that it doesn’t matter what I do for a living. I can do the things I love outside of work. It honestly doesn’t matter if I have a boring job that I don’t like. I mean, I’d prefer to have a job a love, but if I don’t, so what? I can still do filmmaking, writing, photography, and other things I love to do outside of work, and just completely separate myself into 2 different lives.  So, I don’t really know what I want do with my life. And I think that’s okay.

All tangents aside, the visit was quite nice. I got a campus tour from Ashley Rufus, AKA the “I Chose Truman Over Harvard” girl, which was pretty cool. Wondering around the campus, I realized how content campus life is going to be. Truman’s a small school, and I noticed that there wasn’t a whole lot going on on campus, mostly since it was colder than all balls outside. I really liked the fact that if I didn’t really have any classes to go to, or a lot of time in between, I could just kind of roam around, or lay around in my dorm room, or whatever, unlike the prison-esque experience of high school. Life at Truman does seem very contained though. There’s not much to do in Kirksville, obviously. They have some pretty good “college town” restaurants and the like, and a pretty decent movie theater, but not much else, so most of the activities take place on campus. I saw a poster for Jim Gaffigan, who is coming on Feb. 2. They had some other ones for “The Prestige,” which was showing that weekend at the campus movie theater. The campus itself seemed like its own little town, mostly self-contained. I’m not sure how much I’ll like that, but often I think I spoil myself in Kansas City. There’s quite a bit to do around here, and a lot of times no creativity has to go into hanging out. I think that I’ll find myself doing things I’ve never thought of doing, and probably wasting a lot of time driving around on the backroads, getting lost and getting found. I’ll probably have friends visit, and come home to visit a lot, and go to visit Columbia, where a lot of other friends will be going.

The whole money thing is freaking me out a lot though. My mom recently had overtime cut from her job, meaning she gets only a fraction of the paycheck she used to bring home. The household has entered “skrimp-mode,” with my dad yelling at me every day to start selling my stuff on eBay or Craigslist (why did I tell him either of those exist?) to earn extra money for college. Everything is about college money. Someone from work called a couple of weeks ago asking me to work. I’d planned to hang out with some of my friends, so I said I already have plans. Per the norm, my dad was listening on the phone and asked me why I didn’t take the shift. I told him I had plans, and he whipped back with this little gem, in total seriousness, “Well, you planned to go to college too, didn’t you?”

WHAT THE FUCK.

I can’t even talk to the man anymore without him belittling me about not filling out these scholarship forms he gave me, (for which I’m not even eligiable) studying for the retake of the ACT, or whatever other thing he’s told me to do. I wish I could make him realize that this stuff doesn’t matter, and if that I’m going to have to pay for the majority of my education myself, I’d rather not go at all. I kind of wonder what he’d say to that. Note to self: try it sometime during one of the nearly-daily arguments we have.

Anyway, I’m kind of tired of writing about something that doesn’t really matter that much. I’m going to make the best of it, and try to come out of it all alive.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I might sell prints of some of them at First Fridays or something like that.

Obviously, click on the thumbnails to see the full size.

More to come.