Disciple of the Reading Rainbow

I only made one real New Year's resolution this year: READ MORE. I used to read so much when I was younger; I've always read a lot but it seems that I've fallen off in the last couple of years and not kept up with stuff. When I was a kid I devoured books; I would easily read a 200-300 page book in a matter of hours. I've always attributed a lot of my intelligence to my reading habits; nothing helps you learn or stretches your brain better than reading. Fuck school; if you have the books you can always teach yourself. I know when I was in kindergarten I read at a 4th or 5th grade level.

Anyway . . . I figured I would try to discipline myself and try to read a book a week this year. I'm a little behind already having read only four books in about seven weeks, but to be fair none of the books have been less than 600 pages. In total, my pleasure reading has numbered 3,546 pages so far. Of course, this hasn't included any of my school reading, which has added a couple of hundred of pages to be sure. Al Bakri, Lacan, Mulvey, the Qur'an, Ibn Battuta: what absolute fun this semester has been so far. If I can hit 20,000 pages and about 52 books this year I'll be pretty pleased with myself. So if you're bored go read a book.

Casting call

After the Oscar nominations were announced I saw that the trend of younger talent being recognized is not only continuing, but getting stronger. Even though Dame Judi Dench continues to be nominated every year, the overall groups of women (whom I am focusing on here) are getting pretty young and remaining so.

And the Best Actress category seems to be the most groundbreaking in the last couple of years as well; admitting Halle Berry as the first black Best Actress, the 'Whale Rider' girl as the youngest nominee for Best Actress, my sweetheart Catalina as the first Spanish-speaking nominee, and Charlize Theron as the first Oscar winner to successfully make the jump from former model to real actress (sorry Milla). All in all, pretty wild stuff.

This year, Michelle Williams looks poised to grab the Best Supporting statuette and the coveted "First Dawson's Creek Alum to Actually Do Something With Their Lives Other Than Excite Tom Cruise Into A Freakish Adolescent Frenzy Award" for her role in the ever-popular 'Brokeback Mountain'. In the spirit of all this estro-mania I decided to make a little list of my own to award deserving actresses. As follows are the Top 10 actresses I would love to work/sleep with in the process of shooting a film.

10) Ziyi Zhang: Her work is both powerful and subtle and she commands the physicality and grace for action films and the presence for drama. I've never really been all that attracted to Asian women, but she's turning that all around.

9) Emmanuelle Chriqui: I first noticed her in the college comedy '100 Girls' and since then in bit work, such as 'Waiting' and HBO's 'Entourage'. I don't know much about her acting, but she's fucking hot!

8) Uma Thurman: If she's good enough for Quentin, she's good enough for me.

7) Natalie Portman: She's been nominated for an Oscar and she was in 'Star Wars'!? Duh!

6) Scarlett Johannson: I actually fell in love with her before Bill Murray and Sofia Coppola did. 'Ghost World' anyone?

5) Kate Beckinsale: In 'Underworld' she plays a hot, Goth vampire chick who takes pity on us mere mortals. Harry Knowles just creamed his pants.

4) Keira Knightley: See # 7 plus British accent. ('Star Wars' Trivia: She and Natalie Portman both played Queen Amidala in 'Episode I')

3) Charlize Theron: I honestly do respect Charlize's acting chops. A friend and I went to see 'Monster' when it opened and it was pretty powerful. In addition, I'd bat cleanup to Stephan Jenkins any day of the week.

2) Jessica Alba: Wow, talk about a strong argument for interracial marriage. I actually do think she's a good actor; I'm just worried she's gonna get type-cast into comic book roles. Guess I'll have to write a dramatic role especially for her.

1) Catalina Sandino Moreno: I love her and I will marry her.