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I was 6 for 9.
Not great, but not too shabby either.
Here's some discussion of what I missed:
Best Adapted Screenplay:
I picked:
“There Will Be Blood”
Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson
What won:
“No Country for Old Men”
Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
I really thought that since they were not going to give "There Will Be Blood" either best picture or best director, they were going to give it the writing award. I've called this the "Pulp Fiction Effect" in the past, since that's *exactly* what happened with "Pulp Fiction." I guess I just underestimated the Academy's appetite for showering the Coen's with Oscars.
Best Original Screenplay:
I picked:
“Michael Clayton”
Written by Tony Gilroy
What won:
“Juno”
Written by Diablo Cody
Sorry, but "Michael Clayton" is truly a better screenplay. It's original, smart, adult and compelling. "Juno" is just a cute, quirky comedy (and not *really* all that rip-roaring funny if you ask me).
Best Actress:
I picked:
Ellen Page in “Juno”
Who won:
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”
Sorry, but I don't get this one at all. I think they gave the award for the makeup, rather than the performance (much like they did with Nicolle Kidman and Charleze Theron). The Oscars have been accused of being out-of-touch with the movie-going public. Giving the Best Actress Oscar to an obscure French movie that nobody saw does not do much to dispel this.
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2007 Academy Awards Picks
Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”
Very, very, very tough to call this one. It's really a four-way race (sorry Tommy Lee). I think that either Clooney or Day-Lewis could pick this one up I'm giving it to Day-Lewis, but would not be surprised at all if Clooney won.
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”
This is the closest thing to a lock this year. Bardem all the way.
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie in “Away from Her”
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”
Laura Linney in “The Savages”
Ellen Page in “Juno”
This is a two-way race (Christie and Page) in what I've long held to be the least competitive category of them all. If Page were to win (as I think she will), she would be the youngest winner ever in this category, plus the first to win in a comedy since Helen Hunt 10 years ago.
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”
These are all really weak. I'm going to say Swinton, but with the pickings this slim, the field is really wide-open.
Best animated feature film of the year
“Persepolis”
“Ratatouille”
“Surf's Up”
Ratatouille, nothing more to say.
Achievement in directing
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” Julian Schnabel
“Juno” Jason Reitman
“Michael Clayton” Tony Gilroy
“No Country for Old Men Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
“There Will Be Blood” Paul Thomas Anderson
The Coen brothers have already won the DGA award, so that pretty much says it all.
Adapted screenplay
“Atonement”
Screenplay by Christopher Hampton
“Away from Her”
Written by Sarah Polley
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
“No Country for Old Men”
Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“There Will Be Blood”
Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson
Since Anderson will NOT get the directing award, they will throw him a bone with this one.
Original screenplay
“Juno”
Written by Diablo Cody
“Lars and the Real Girl”
Written by Nancy Oliver
“Michael Clayton”
Written by Tony Gilroy
“Ratatouille”
Screenplay by Brad Bird
Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
“The Savages”
Written by Tamara Jenkins
A tough one. It's a two-way-race between Juno and Michael Clayton. I'm going to give it to Gilroy for "Michael Clayton" using the same logic that since he's not getting the directing award, they will throw him this one.
Best motion picture of the year
“Atonement”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”
The three best films of the year (in order) are: "No Country for Old Men", "There Will Be Blood" and "Michael Clayton", and that's how it should be.
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B & B
Posted by: admin on Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 07:53 PM |
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Ok Barry, you did it.
Now take a seat.
That's right, sit down, retire and be content with the fact that your name will forever be beside Ruth's in the record books.
It's the classy thing to do, everybody (even the vast number of people who hate you) will commend you for it, and it will go a long way towards patching up your reputation.
But... you will play on.
Such a shame.
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Well, I've finally taken the plunge and switched my primary desktop to Linux, and lived to tell the tale.
I'm using Ubuntu Linux and it pretty much works right out of the box. My NVidia 6600-based video card connected to dual monitors works with a Linux driver provided by NVidia and with the exception of an oddball film scanner all my peripheral hardware works perfectly and some cases (like my HP Scanjet) work better than they did with Windows.
I have a fairly large genealogy database that I was maintaining with Family Tree Maker, I was able to export and re-load it into a Linux genealogy program called "Gramps."
My digital photography workflow is maintained by using DIM, Mapivi and Gimp.
I can sync up my IPod without any trouble and playing music and DVDs work seamlessly.
All my software development tools (Netbeans/Java/Perl/Subversion) work as they did before.
Plus, I'm not missing the constant re-booting that Windows forced on me.
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Roman Around
Posted by: admin on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 08:32 PM |
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There was a trend for a while (particularly in the 19th and early 20th century) to inscribe the date of construction of major buildings with the year in roman numerals.
This often results in a much longer sequence of characters than if the date had been written in arabic numerals.
On a recent trip, I came across this building which was constructed in 1888. This date requires a whopping 13 characters and will not be topped until 2888, which will require 14 characters.
So, I can pretty much safely say that there is no building standing with a longer inscribed date string.
However, I'm sure that there are many which, also constructed in 1888 equal this record. I'd like to start a web gallery of shots of those buildings, so to that end, if anyone has any pictures of this phenomenon, can you please send them to me?
P.S. Any idea what building this is?
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A Fable...
Posted by: admin on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 11:27 PM |
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One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes
on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves"
inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow,regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority,lies, false pride,
superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope,serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth,compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
from Adam Curry's weblog
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Opening Day
Posted by: admin on Monday, April 04, 2005 - 08:24 AM |
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The players of the home team shall take their defensive positions, the first batter of the visiting team shall take his position in the batter's box, the umpire shall call "Play" and the game shall start.
--- "The Rules of Baseball", Rule 4.02
Some of the most beautiful words in the English language...
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Recently, Howard Stern has been making the point that legislation recently passed by congress provides for a $500,000 fine for each incident involving "indecent" speech, as determined by the FCC. He has been comparing this to his claim that dumping nuclear waste in the ocean only carries a $60,000 fine. In fact, it seems that the situation is even more farcical than that.
Apparently, according to this, the maximum fine that can be levied for any federal offense (for an individual) is $250,000. That's right, commit any federal crime, and the most you can get hit with is $250,000, say a dirty word on the radio, and the fine is twice that!
What a country!
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My annual predictions for the Oscars. Last year I was 8 for 9, which will be very difficult to top.
Note: I will not be selecting a Best Original Song winner this year, because they are pretty much all crap.
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· 2007 Academy Awards Recap
(Feb 25, 2008)
· 2007 Academy Awards Picks
(Feb 22, 2008)
· B & B
(May 20, 2006)
· Powered by Linux
(May 19, 2006)
· Roman Around
(Jun 23, 2005)
· A Fable...
(May 20, 2005)
· Opening Day
(Apr 04, 2005)
· $500,000 Fines for Broadcast "indecency" vs. $60,000 Fines for Dumping Nuclear Waste in the Ocean?
(Mar 02, 2005)
· Academy Awards Recap
(Feb 28, 2005)
· My 2004 Academy Awards Predictions
(Feb 21, 2005)
· Upcoming enhancements to DIM
(Feb 20, 2005)
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Tired of Windows?
Give Ubuntu Linux a try.
