I watched the Academy Award show last night and I can't say that I have seen any of the films that won any awards, except for maybe "Ratatouille", which was cute and funny and won the Oscar for "Best Animated Feature". Other than that, I can't say that I've seen any of the others that featured award winning categories. The big winner of the night was the Coen Brothers film, "No Country for Old Men", based on a book by Cormac McCarthy. It seemed a night for foreign winners, as the main acting awards went to Brits Tilda Swinton for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, "Michael Clayton" and Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor in his role in the film, "There Will Be Blood", and Spaniard Javier Bardem for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "No Country for Old Men" and French actress Marion Cotillard for Best Actress for her role in the film, "La Vie En Rose". I haven't seen any of these movies yet and I suppose if I really wanted to, I'll just wait until they come out on DVD and join the long queue of people wanting to see them. I'm not really sure that I am all that interested in seeing any of these and frankly, there have been very few films coming out that I have either had the time or the desire to see. There have been a few that were on my "must see" list that I missed in the theaters, but those are the ones that I will wait for to arrive on DVD and see them at home when I have a bit more free time to do so. It's just gotten to where I don't seem to have a whole lot of free time these days and on weekends, if I'm not already committed to doing something, I just sort of want to veg about the house in my pj's and do pretty much nothing at all. It is nice, though, to finally have a DVD player so that I can catch up on all those good films I've missed and want to see. I suppose of all the films that were major Oscar winners, the one I will probably want to see is "La Vie En Rose", although, if it's subtitled, I don't know if I want to try to follow those and pay attention to the movie at the same time. I used to speak French fairly well in my younger days, but over time, I've gotten rusty and my comprehension of it is also pretty bad anymore. Still, it does seem like an interesting topic for a film and so "La Vie En Rose" is on my list of films I may just want to see eventually. Other than that, none of these movies made my "must-see" list this year. I'll just pick and choose which of the movies that were made this past year I want to see. Chief among those is "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" with Cate Blanchett reprising her role as Queen Elizabeth I. I do want to see that movie very much and look forward to spending an afternoon curled up on the sofa with my DVD player watching that one. GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL, DO NOT PASS GO
This morning I had to go to one of our correctional facilities, Oriana Glenwood, to do library service for the inmates. Normally one of my co-workers does it, but he's on vacation this week, so the assignment fell to me to fill in for him. I had done this years ago, but hadn't been back there in some time, so I'm a bit rusty on what to do and how to do it, but it all came back to me quickly once I'd been there a bit. This facility is primarily for substance abuse/DUI offenders, so there are no hardened criminals in the place. The women surprised me a lot - they didn't look at all like the hardened alcohol and drug abuse types. In fact, one woman seemed quite interested in really good literary reading and seems to be quite the fan of books by Barbara Kingsolver. I can't say that I've read any of her works but I did hear her on a radio program last summer while driving to West Virginia on vacation on a book that she wrote about moving to a farm in Appalachia and living only off of what she and her family could raise off the land, a book I have been meaning to read myself someday. The men looked more the types of people who'd led a harder life and some of them were surprisingly young looking but all very polite and respectful. I was a little afraid that some of the men might try hitting on me because of my long hair, but no one did. I was also surprised at how much people wanted to read and how many books everyone took. Of course, when you're holed up in jail, I don't suppose there's much else to do but watch TV or play cards or some other sort of thing. But these men and women were certainly eager readers and took a surprising amount of books, which is encouraging when I consider how few people seem to read anymore. So that was kind of a nice break from my usual work chores and a nice chance to get out of the building and do something different to start my week out.
This morning I had to go to one of our correctional facilities, Oriana Glenwood, to do library service for the inmates. Normally one of my co-workers does it, but he's on vacation this week, so the assignment fell to me to fill in for him. I had done this years ago, but hadn't been back there in some time, so I'm a bit rusty on what to do and how to do it, but it all came back to me quickly once I'd been there a bit. This facility is primarily for substance abuse/DUI offenders, so there are no hardened criminals in the place. The women surprised me a lot - they didn't look at all like the hardened alcohol and drug abuse types. In fact, one woman seemed quite interested in really good literary reading and seems to be quite the fan of books by Barbara Kingsolver. I can't say that I've read any of her works but I did hear her on a radio program last summer while driving to West Virginia on vacation on a book that she wrote about moving to a farm in Appalachia and living only off of what she and her family could raise off the land, a book I have been meaning to read myself someday. The men looked more the types of people who'd led a harder life and some of them were surprisingly young looking but all very polite and respectful. I was a little afraid that some of the men might try hitting on me because of my long hair, but no one did. I was also surprised at how much people wanted to read and how many books everyone took. Of course, when you're holed up in jail, I don't suppose there's much else to do but watch TV or play cards or some other sort of thing. But these men and women were certainly eager readers and took a surprising amount of books, which is encouraging when I consider how few people seem to read anymore. So that was kind of a nice break from my usual work chores and a nice chance to get out of the building and do something different to start my week out. 
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