"Okuribito" wins the Oscar!

Finally my prediction was right!! It is practically a miracle. Right after I saw "Okuribito" last October maybe, I said, "This movie will win a Oscar for best foreign film." My predictions almost never come true, and most people who know me, know this. But this time, I hit it right on the nob. As I wrote in a blog about this movie before, the balance of the movie, the many stories intertwined in the movie, the music, the photography, the unique "japanese" scenes such as the bath house, all mesh well together. Plus the main character in the movie gets laid off, and has to look for another job. So, considering the recession around the world today, the timing is also perfect for this movie. If you haven't seen it yet, now you got to!

(The only bad thing about the movie is the english translation to the title. In English, it is called, "Departures." This is a mistranslation I believe. This translation doesn't depict the meaning of "Okuribito" accurately I think. If i translated it, I would translate it another way.)

Below are some more, better, more clear photos, from the special dinner the other which I wrote about before. In the photos, the food and people and condo all look much better than the blurry photos taken with my cell phone.