77th Annual Academy Awards... Natalie Portman lost!! Bah!! Oh well... Cate Blanchett may have taken the Oscar away from the late and broken-hearted Queen Amidala (oh wait, I hope I didn't spoil one part of Episode 3 for you! Heheh), but at least Million Dollar Baby, which I haven't seen yet, pulled an upset on The Aviator by winning Best Picture. Sideways (which, along with Finding Neverland, are the only Best Picture nominees I've seen as of this writing. Or typing) won for Best Adapted Screenplay, which was really awesome. That film rocked. Great story and characterization, it had. And Chris Rock was hilarious. Those interviews at that Magic Johnson theater cracked me up, and one of the jokes I found humorous was the one about Michael Moore doing Super Size Me instead of Fahrenheit 9/11...since Moore was already "super-sized." Not an exact quote by Rock, but still hi-larious nonetheless. Oh, and I'm not surprised that Spider-Man 2 won for Best Visual Effects. That train sequence between Spidey and Doc Ock owned! But here's hoping Industrial Light & Magic wins Best Visual Effects next year...for either War of the Worlds or Revenge of the Sith. I'm rootin' for the latter.

I worked a test screening at The Block in Orange today, and I ran into Teary (the make-up artist for my senior thesis film Envious... How many times did I mention that film in my journal entries already?? Anyways) and her sister Bri there. They were among the people recruited as general audience members for the screening! Boy, was I surprised. This pretty much supports why I like working in Orange County...you, or at least I'll never know who I'll run into while I'm in that area. And yes, I'm only talking about girls. I could care less if Kobe or Dennis Rodman live in Newport Beach (No offense to one of my friends who's a big Kobe fan and frequents this page, haha). Hi Teary and Bri, if you two ever read this.

I drove down to San Diego in an attempt to go skydiving today... Unfortunately, due to California's weather being a bitch for the past few weeks, the airplane had to turn back because the pilot and the two instructors onboard couldn't see the drop zone down below, due to the cloud cover. And all of us diving (there were four: me, this one Caucasian girl, and the two instructors who we were gonna be strapped to for the tandem diving) obviously had our chute harnesses attached already. Oh well. At least the plane trip above San Diego was nice, haha. Don't know when or if I'll attempt to go skydiving again. You can't help but think about your mortality while waiting to jump out of the plane if this is your first time. And if you've read the past few entries on this journal page, you'd know that there are a grip load of movies that I'm waiting to see this year (especially during the summer)! So if I'm crazy enough once more, summer would be the next time for me to do a crazy stunt like this again.

Below are a few pictures I took of the airfield and the two dudes who had the opportunity today to jump out of a Cessna propeller plane and dive towards the ground at 120 MPH.

PARNO'S CELEBRITY UPDATE: Celebrities I've seen in person since I began working at The Screening Exchange last October: Sandra Bullock (Miss Congeniality 2), Ridley Scott (Kingdom of Heaven), Andy Garcia (The Lost City), Warren Beatty (Ask The Dust), the Farrelly Brothers (Fever Pitch), Jason Bateman (of the hilarious TV show, Arrested Development. I saw him at the Fox Studios Lot in Century City during the screening of Millions, a kid's film) and Leonard Maltin (who was reviewing In Good Company during a press screening in Hollywood). Ewan McGregor, Billy Joel and Tracy Morgan of Saturday Night Live fame attended a press screening of Robots last Saturday, but I wasn't working that shift. I worked the Robots screening last Friday, though, but it's obviously not the same—since Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn't there! Haha. Maybe my company will do press screenings for Sin City or Batman Begins in the coming months...and then I'll get to see Jessica Alba and/or Katie Holmes in person. Doesn't hurt to wish...

Another geeky film update: Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson made a cameo as some bad guy who gets shot with an arrow by Legolas in The Return of the King, and now George Lucas, the "Flanneled One" according to Star Wars fans, makes a long-awaited cameo in one of his six science fantasy films by having a brief appearance in Revenge of the Sith. If you watch the film, keep an eye out for him during the “opera scene” that takes place on Coruscant (that planet covered by ‘one big city’...for those of you who slept or walked out of the last two prequels. Not to sound like a 'basher' or anything, haha). An image of the Flanneled One in costume is shown below. Sorry that the pic isn’t big enough... I stole, err, took it from another website. For meaningless trivia, his character's name is Baron Papanoida (Papa Nerd? Pop Annoyed, since Lucas has 3 kids? Just kidding). Expect a comic book series, action figure or novel to delve into his history in the near future, hahaha.

SIN CITY: I just saw the trailer for the upcoming film today, and needless to say, Sin City looks awesome! Sure, I've never read the Frank Miller graphic novel of the same name, but that's okay. The movie's awsome look is enough to get me to watch it. Well... That, and Jessica Alba, Jamie King, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson and all the other hot chicks in it. Speaking of which, this movie features an all-star cast, with all the hot actresses mentioned above as well as Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Tero, Elijah Wood, and Josh Hartnett—among others. The movie has a way better visual style than Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but I enjoyed that film as well. If you want to see Sin City's trailer (though it is a small version), click here. Can't wait till the movie comes out this April!

100 DAYS REMAINING... Till the shi-, err, Sith hits the fan.

Super Bowl XXXIX: No boobies were exposed, but at least the Patriots won, 24-21. Why didn't I root for the Eagles, you ask? 'Cause I never root for the underdogs, hahaha. Much like I'd root for the Yankees in October and the Lakers in June.

...

Though not this June, thank you very much Kobe.

EDIT: By the way, the Super Bowl ad for Batman Begins was pretty cool. The TV spot for War of the Worlds somewhat resembled that of Independence Day in 1996...the only difference being the WOTW ad didn't have any money shot like the White House blowing up. Oh well.

A year ago today, I completed production on Envious. Near the end of the day, my assistant director was bugging me about getting my last remaining shots filmed as soon as possible, since he (and everyone else still on set, haha) were missing the Super Bowl. Funny stuff. They only missed Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction...