Category Archives: Americana

Oscars

Americana, Film

The other day at lunch, Richard Taylor asked me to post my Oscar predictions – or, atleast, who I want to win. I have not seen all the nominated movies and have no insight on who will win. Who wins the various Oscars is really an Inside the Movie Biz political game. Who do people like, who do they admire but don’t especially like, who did they vote for last year and don’t want to vote for them again – you get the idea. 

I do obsessively read other people’s opinions on who will win, but, because I really don’t remember how accurate they were in the past, I don’t have much of an idea how good their predictions are. I sort of feel the LA Times is a good source because they seem to be the quasi-company paper; I like a website called the House Next Door because they seem to actually be thinking about the nominations; the New York Times because – well – its the New York Times and they have two different ways of predicting.

With those caveats, here are some predictions and what I liked the best of what I saw.

Visual Effects – Probably will win: Avatar; I hope will win: Avatar because that is what it was -and I mean this in the best possible way. 

Avatar

Cinematography – Probably will win: Inglorious Basterds; I hope will win; Inglorious Basterds – I just thought every shot in this movie was gorgeous.

Inglourious_basterds49-jpg
 

Best Actress: Probably will win – Sandra Bullock; probably should win – one of the actresses from one of the movies I didn’t see; I hope will win – Sandra Bullock

Best Actor: Probably will win – Jeff Bridges -his Dudeness – in Crazy Heart which I didn’t see; who I hope will win – George Clooney if for no other reason than he is willing to take a risk but he started off so off-putting and ended up so vulnerable.

Best Supporting Actor: Probably will win – Christoph Waltz; I sure hope so, he was great.

Best Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique; I hope will win -Vera Farmiga who was charming in Up In The Air

Best Original Screenplay: Probably will win – Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds; I certainly hope so. The only problem here, as I see it, is that Tarantino writes great scenes rather than great movies. The scenes don’t alway fit together into a great movie – he sometimes gets around the problems by putting the scenes out of order as in Pulp Fiction – but, wow, are the scenes great.

Best director: Probably will win – Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker; I hope will win – Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

 


Best Picture: Probably will win – The Hurt Locker; Who I hope will win – Avatar. It was a staggeringly original total experience.

A pet peeve: F**K

Americana, Current Affairs

A couple of weeks ago, linguist Geoff Nunberg talked about pet peeves on Fresh Air. He was advocating that a pet peeve is only a pet peeve if it is particular to the peeved. It is not a pet peeve if everybody, or most people – at least – have it. For example not liking people who poison dogs is not a pet peeve.

The other day, I ran across one of my biggest pet peeves. A quote in Time magazine in which in the quote they had f**k. WTF? Why? I think they should either say fuck or @#%&. If they consider themselves a magazine that children, too young to read the word fuck, read; then they should not put it in, they should either put in @#%& or put in an innocuous word like gosh. But everybody but those small children know that f**k means fuck, so who are they kidding – why not just put in fuck.

The New Yorker puts in fuck when it is in a quote and, even occasionally, when it is deemed appropriate by the author. They seem to feel they are dealing with a mature reader. (As an aside, one of my favorite bits in the New Yorker was Anthony Lane’s  in which he says: Also, while we’re here, what’s with (Yoda’s) screwy syntax? Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. “I hope right you are.” Break me a fucking give.end aside.)

But Time magazine, among others, just want to be cute and, I guess, not offend anybody but adults.

 

The cows are back

Americana, San Mateo County

Behind Stanford in the area known as The Dish, every winter, somebody brings in cows to graze. I have read in the local paper that the last people to graze their cows said It is impossible to make money
grazing. and quit – or, atleast threatened to quit. But, the cows are back. Usually, there are only trees, parallel cow trails along the steep hills and impossibly green grass. 

Cows are back

Cows are back-2

 But once again, there are seemingly very happy cows.

Cows are back-3

Gays in the military 2: Obama as a Jedi master

Americana

Now, General Ray Odierno, the commanding general of the U.S. forces in Iraq, says that he is OK with gays serving in the military. (Seeing here giving Stephen Colbert a haircut.)

Odierno 

It is like the Chinese water torture (enhanced interrogation?) – only in reverse – every week some new commander comes out saying that they are OK with gays serving in the military.