OMG, the BBC wants me!

My friend Mishy has always joked about being president of my fan club. Now, she wants to be my agent.

Yesterday she emailed me something from the BBC website, that went something like this:

Interested to be one of the Oscars' panelists? Sign up here!

** Join the Oscars panel 2007 **
The BBC news website is again looking for film fans to form
its Oscars panel.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/6263235.stm

I was at the office, and as usual I was bored, so I thought, what the hell, it's only a 100-word entry, and what have I got to lose? So I hastily scribbled out something about 2 films generating Oscar buzz that I have seen (Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed), clicked the "send" button, and emailed Mishy back to tell her I had joined just for the heck of it. She responded by kidding about wanting to be my agent when I get "discovered" and become a famous movie critic.

Tonight, I checked my inbox and found an email from a Stephen Robb, from the Entertainment desk of the BBC News Website. It began thus:

"Many thanks for your submission to be on our Oscars panel - we would be delighted to have you take part (from more than 250 submissions, I might add)."

I was flabbergasted. And to think I had almost deleted the email because I thought it was spam! Of course Mishy was the first person I texted, right after I told my parents, who happened to be in the same room while I was checking my email. Mishy was so psyched she called me and immediately offered to burn me copies of potential-Oscar-nominee movies I haven't seen yet. What an agent, huh? :p I'm just glad I'm not getting any money for this writing gig or I'll owe a huge chunk of it to her. Haha.

As part of the Oscars panel, I have to submit 5 short essays throughout Oscar season, sharing my views on the nominees and their chances of winning, and my reactions to who will eventually win the awards. My only immediate problem is that my first deadline is on Monday, before the nominations are announced on Tuesday, and of all the possible Oscar contenders I've only seen Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed (I guess you can count Blood Diamond and The Devil Wears Prada, which will probably get acting noms for Leo and Meryl, respectively). I think I can get by if I just manage to watch Babel and The Queen over the weekend, since the first piece just calls for my thoughts on who might get nominated. However, I'm still under pressure to go see all the other films that WILL be nominated, and I don't know if I'll be able to given that they get shown here in Manila quite late (stupid, stupid Metro Manila Film Fest!).

But with my agent's help, I think I'll pull this off. Right Mishy? Kiss kiss, hug hug. =D