Almost Surprise-less

I started this blog six years ago on another Oscar night, when Crash won Best Picture, surprising some who thought Brokeback Mountain had it in the bag. So without any further adieu, here's my notes on tonights Academy Awards.

If there were any surprises at this year's Oscar ceremony, they were:

(1) The Artist did not sweep all it's nominated categories, losing a number to Hugo (while retaining the big ones)

(2) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won two of it's categories, in both Film and Sound Editing, not too shabby

(3) While not a 100% surprise, I think after the SAG Award win by Viola Davis for Best Female Actor (The Help) there was some expectation that this fine actress would finally be rewarded with Oscar gold, especially since her movie has a Best Picture nomination and that of the victor did not. However, Meryl Streep finally won again 30 years after her previous win for Sophie's Choice and I think it was due to five factors.

• Most importantly, she played a significant historical figure convincingly and aged tremendously in the role as well. That's pretty much a recipe for an acting Oscar.

• Second, the 17 nominations have been touted heavily this year, pushed by producer Harvey Weinstein and his p.r. machine, so it's a bit of a career award as well.

• Third, The Help has taken some hits from the left tarred as being too Civil Right-light. I think this is unfair considering how Hollywood traditionally makes serious "issue" movies, but it could not have helped.

• Fourth, some thought Viola Davis' role was not large enough to be Best Female Actor and more of a supporting role, although that view is really only supported by the trailer for the movie, which over-emphasizes Emma Stone's crusading white girl character, while the movie is clearly Viola's story in the main plot, giving her the V.O., the beginning and the end.

• Finally, the Academy is generally old, male and white...and Meryl is a lot closer to their demographic than Viola. One can only hope her .

At this point I find it hard to get up in arms about any Oscar slights. My three favorite films of last year, in rough order, were:

1. The Tree of Life
2. Shame
3. Bridesmaids

So there were a few nominations in the bunch, but no wins. But I still got to enjoy these movies and I expect to see them again long before I rematch The Artist, which I did enjoy, albeit not at the same level as these three.

As the director and lead actor of The Artist (both Oscar winners tonight) might say:

C'est la vie.

Split Decision

The 69th Annual Golden Globes were held tonight in Los Angeles and in an odd year that's produced a number of very good films and great performances without producing an obvious frontrunner for the big Oscar crown (although The Artist has had that buzz for awhile), the Hollywood Foreign Press delivered a rather tantalizing split decision.

In my mind, the eventual Oscar for Best Picture could go to The Artist, The Help, The Descendants or Hugo. For awhile -- before it was released -- there was a general feeling that Steven Spielberg's The War Horse was built for the prize, but it's not had the reviews, word of mouth or box office needed to make that a reality, and recently was left off of some key guild award lists.

For the record, here's the top-tier award winners tonight:

• Best Motion Picture — Drama: “The Descendants”
• Best Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical: “The Artist”
• Best Director — Motion Picture: Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”
• Best Actress — Drama: Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
• Best Actor — Drama: George Clooney, “The Descendants”
• Best Actress — Comedy or Musical: Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”
• Best Actor — Comedy or musical: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist
• Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, “The Help”
• Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
• Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”

Is The Descendants the timeless classic its producer thought it was in his speech tonight? Is Harvey Weinstein unstoppable this year with The Artist, a crowd-pleaser, if not doing Descendants type box office? Can Martin Scorsese's Hugo, also with the weaker box office, sneak in there (it really feels like a classic) and take the prize?

Then there's The Help. Classic Hollywood middlebrow take on an important historical moment, filled with fine performances and a rare female-dominated cast for a picture this size. Could Viola Davis break past Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams in their pitch-perfect historical recreations and, with Octavia Spencer looking like a frontrunner now for Best Supporting, lead the team to victory, even without a Best Director nomination?

Which one is that most compelling combination of spectacle and sentiment that makes a "Most Picture?"

The Really Important Race

New Hampshire was a foregone conclusion -- how about this year's Academy Award for Best Picture, as often predicted by the Director's Guild of America nominations? Announced today, this year's DGA nominees, per Sasha Stone:

WOODY ALLEN
Midnight in Paris
(Sony Pictures Classics)

DAVID FINCHER
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
(Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)

MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS
The Artist
(The Weinstein Company)

ALEXANDER PAYNE
The Descendants
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)

MARTIN SCORSESE
Hugo
(Paramount Pictures)

The semi-surprise here is Woody Allen and the big surprise is David Fincher, with the first in a pulpy trilogy, and not the first version either. The other surprise is that Steven Spielberg's work on The War Horse didn't score a nomination, even though (far afar, admittedly) it appears built to win awards.

Can The Artist really win Best Picture? Wonderfully clever and evocative, I feel like it's a bit too much of a novelty film. Midnight in Paris and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would be surprises to me as well.

Unless The Help can sneak in (a safe and respectable compromise candidate) my gut tells me it comes down to The Descendants vs. Hugo. The Descendants does not play as well with older audiences (i.e., a disproportionate segment of the AMPAS membership), but it's the most straightforward of the potential winners. A coming of age for director Alexander Payne. But is it too indy? Is it Billy Wilder enough?

It hasn't been a horrible year for pictures. There's some really good, entertaining, interesting work. My pick would be The Tree of Life, but the DGA snub for Terrence Malick means it's too esoteric to win the crowning prize. But it's not a year that's produced a clear Best Picture to fight about.

I've been saying for awhile that Hugo is the stealth candidate to win. It's big and moving and about movies even closer to the beginning than The Artist, a much deeper, richer historical value. And it could, justifiably, be the first 3D movie to win.

Don't be surprised if Georges Méliès (1861-1938) comes out on top.

Dinklage for the Win

With the 2011 Emmy Award nominations today, is there any doubt who is the greatest sentimental favorite in the bunch? Peter Dinklage (per my reading) is the only member of the Game of Thrones cast to win a nomination, as Best Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Series, and as Tyrion Lannister, the witty, nay brilliant dwarf son hated by his father (the richest man in the Seven Kingdoms), disliked by his sister (the Queen), loved by his brother and wrongly accused of murder, he steals every scene in which he appears.

As his role is expected to grow in future seasons, this is the perfect time to give him the award. A full list of reasons come from People's website, and if you haven't yet seen him in the role or just want to enjoy some great moments again along with some smart actor commentary, here you go:



C'mon, justice of the Gods.

Final Verdict on Ricky Gervais

The best piece on last night's Golden Globe Awards today is, unsurprisingly, Pete Hammond in Nikki Fink's Deadline. As The Social Network solidified it's leading candidate status, along with Colin Firth, Christian Bale, arguably Natalie Portman and Melissa Leo, the only thing anyone talked about was returning host Ricky Gervais:

From inside the Beverly Hilton International ballroom, jaded journalists at my table in the back seemed genuinely shocked at just how far host Ricky Gervais went to insult the organization he was working for, not to mention everyone else in the room. It was as edgy a performance as these things can possibly be and, like him or not, it kept your attention. Ryan Gosling told me it seemed "like David Lynch was directing the show". I thought it refreshing to see someone go so un-PC on NBC.

The President of the Golden Globes even threatened his host's career:

"Ricky will not be invited back to host the show next year, for sure," the HFPA member said. "For sure any movie he makes he can forget about getting nominated. He humiliated the organization last night and went too far with several celebrities whose representatives have already called to complain."

Eventually he corrected that, as I'm sure calls were made by representation, but the final verdict is exactly what this commenter, skd, says on another Deadline post:

The Golden Globes went from an irrelevant awards show with questionable methods of choosing winners, to a major hit (17 million viewers on the deadest night of the week, Sunday!?). Yeah maybe the HFPA and NBC will grumble within earshot of those who were grilled last night, but privately they are jumping for joy. In the age of cable tv, you got to push the envelope…hard, or you will be irrelevant, boring and without viewers. No one was going to watch the Golden Globes, until Twitter and Facebook came alive 15 minutes into the show. You can’t buy that kind of PR.

Exactly. Makes Gervais look like some kind of genius.

Who can do whatever he wants.

F'Real

The Fighter is a great movie and I wasn't expecting it. It's director David O. Russell's most sustained and successful film, with a great story wrapped in a true indie spirit, shot in the streets and gyms and crack dens of Lowell, Massachusetts.

It's based on the true story of a great boxer, Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg), who's a solid guy in every sense, but he's 31 and has his last shot to be more than a stepping-stone. His half-brother, an ex-boxer named Dickey Eklund is his trainer, but he's in it for the crack money. His mother is his manager, and she's toxic as well. In the trailer it looked like Christian Bale's astonishing performance as Dickey might overturn the narrative ship, but it's actually just an extremely sharp and powerful reflecting subplot, particularly during a point where the story bifurcates, and when it reunites it's with a vengeance.

As much as its a boxing movie, it's about family, asking what do you owe your fellow family members, and what do they owe you. Melissa Leo's transformation in her role as the mother is a departure from anything I've seen her do before, the hair and outfits and the shoes, but also the incredible specificity she achieves in how she so expertly applies guilt, shame and loyalty in dealing not just with her two sons but her seven heinous daughters as well.

Amy Adams is the other big name in the movie, has a notable upgrade on the noble girlfriend role, and she gets Lowell, gets to curse, and actually has an impact on the story. She and Wahlberg make a convincing couple in their love scenes together, very sweet. It's a tribute to Wahlberg's success here as a leading man that all those around him are getting accolades, while he holds down the fort with quiet decency and a body he trained for four years to play the role.

Wahlberg evidently held the movie together over a long gestation as well. It makes sense for him to go back to Massachusetts, as he did so well in The Departed. When you see the real Micky and Dickey for a few moments at the end of the movie, it all makes sense.

These two guys appear to be exactly who they are in the movie. Two inseparable brothers, one who's silent and steady, the other who can't shut his mouth.

True love.

Just Patti

Patti Smith won a National Book Award. David Ulin writes smartly, and with feeling, about it.

She's an American treasure. Who'd have thought!

Iggy Phenomenal

James Newell Osterberg, Jr. and band just made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That's Iggy and The Stooges to the rest of you.

This guy is 63 years old next month:



Iggy is a great American success story. He's like 25% responsible for inspiring the punk rock movements (25% to The Velvet Underground, 25% to New York Dolls, 25% to Stones, MC5, The Standells, The Kinks, The Who, Motown, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Andy Warhol and David Bowie all together). Iggy cracked the code the rawest way possible, with his half naked, streaming wet, sinewy snapping body. The neck on that guy, insane.

The Wiki link above has the goods. Here's my favorite:



Long live the king.

Losers and Winner

The funniest line of the night might have been Steve Martin's about Meryl Streep's 16 nominations meaning she's actually a big loser. The biggest losers of the night were:

• Avatar, which I'd pegged for Most Picture, possibly due to the 10-nominee preferential voting system that made 2nd choices as powerful as 1st choices assuming none of the 10 received 50%+1 on the 1st choice round

• Up in the Air, which I was not alone in believing had a lock on the Best Adapted Screenplay statuette but lost to Precious, a surprising show of strength for the film and, I believe, rewarded the more gritty story -- which emerged as the theme of the night

• Inglourious Basterds, which was a sudden Best Picture spoiler due to winning the big ensemble prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and had a very good shot at Best Original Screenplay, but at least had a mortal lock on the Best Supporting Actor statuette

• Honorary Oscar winners who had to settle for giving their thanks at an awards dinner a month or so ago, losing out on the big platform

• Best Song nominees who didn't get to perform -- something of a blessing for the audience, since there's usually, at best, only one song by a major recording artist that anyone really wants to see performed live (Isaac Hayes, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, etc.)

• Oscar viewers expecting more comic genius from the pairing of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin -- their jokes seemed perfunctory, more inside than outside, very corporate in a sense that you didn't get from Jon Stewart, Chris Rock (who went too far the other way), even Whoopi Goldberg; and the material for the presenters seemed lamer than usual as well

While I did enjoy the use of actors who had worked previously with directors of the Best Pic nominees introducing the clips, and I was prepared to like the similar experience with the five for Best Actor and Best Actress intros, only a few of the stories were good (Michelle Pfeiffer on Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins on Morgan Freeman were standouts) and there was a level of embarrassment being out there for those who'd been nominated before but lost, particularly Julianne Moore, who didn't seem to have worked more than three days with Colin Firth and is far too overdue for a win (which I would have loved to have seen for Far from Heaven).

And there's no excuse for that dance number.

I have to admit it, I have a little problem with Barbara Streisand. While we're not very far off politically, did she have to make it all about a woman winning Best Director? After several months of Kathryn Bigelow saying she'd like to be treated as a filmmaker rather than a special case? It kind of took the wind out of the announcement of Bigelow's win for me, but maybe it plays well as an historic quote.

In any case, there was one clear winner of the night, that excellent movie that vacuumed up six awards, making it a bit weird to read of a "split night" in one place on the Web. The acting awards went every which way, and it was the acting nomination for Jeremy Renner that first made me suspect that The Hurt Locker could win the big prize, and then there's evidently 79 years of Academy Award history saying that you can't win Best Picture without an acting or writing nomination. Even if you are the highest-grossing movie of all time.

So of all the losers, Avatar lost the least. My wife asked, "How do you think James Cameron is feeling right now?" to which I could only respond, "Rich." Crying for Cameron losing the big prizes is like complaining that George Lucas was ripped off when Star Wars lost, or when E.T. didn't take home big prizes. Sometimes the work is its own reward. Especially when it turns out to be more lucrative than any movie that preceded it.

Congrats to Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal and Summit Entertainment et al for the victories tonight, especially Most Picture. The Hurt Locker stands a great chance now of being the defining War movie for the Iraq War, kind of the Platoon for our time. There's no The Deer Hunter for our time, of course, no big budget picture combining wartime grit with epic sweep for an artistic, poetic statement on our current national character.

Because our major motion picture studios don't finance films like that any more.

Working Class Hero

The Kennedy Center Honors this year were spectacular choices and spectacle. Robert DeNiro, Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbrey and the Boss, Bruce Springsteen. If you didn't get a chance to see the special on CBS last week, it's all on YouTube. The Springsteen tribute closed the show and, wow, it's thrilling. Here's the clips, starting with the hilarious, then moving Jon Stewart:



The second part starts has Vietnam vet Ron "Born on the Fourth of July" Kovic speaking about meeting Bruce, then John Mellencamp doing a two-part "Born in the U.S.A." segueing from his own style to Bruce's. Then comes a heartstopping duet of "I'm on Fire" by Ben Harper and Jennifer Nettles. She's new to me but blowaway great. Melissa Etheridge brings everyone spontaneously to their feet with her rendition of "Born to Run." (The edits are pretty evident here -- I've heard some whole numbers were cut for the TV special length as well.) Great watching everyone nodding and tapping to the music, especially the President and the First Lady:



The last section has Eddie Vedder followed by Sting and a cast of thousands:



The award was no doubt helped by the fact that the Boss worked for the President towards the end of the campaign, but how cool is it to have someone with tastes that some of us left out the previous eight years can actually relate to in a huge way?

I know my friends on the left love to complain about Obama, but I once again guarantee that even if a decent Dem succeeds him, we're going to miss having him as our Head of State.

Strap your hands across those engines...

Oscar Winning Predictions 2009

I haven't seen all these films, but here's what I'm expecting as winners:

Best Picture
Avatar

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress
Mo'Nique, Precious

Best Director
Katherine Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Best Original Screenplay
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

Best Adapted Screenplay
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Best Animated Feature
Up

Best Actress is the only one where I have some conflicting thoughts. The play here would be Bullock in a new signature role, a la Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, rewarding both someone popular in town (helping with Crash etc.) who's had a great box office year for an older actress, and also giving a nod to those non-coastal states which came out in droves for this movie.

On the flip side, the picture is not seen as very sophisticated, and may not impress the Hollywood crowd, particularly actors. That opens it up for Carey Mulligan in An Education or Meryl Streep in Julia & Julie. While the Academy loves to reward ingenues, it is usually in the Supporting Actress category, and while Mulligan is certainly good, she doesn't give a real powerhouse performance and has zero track record besides this movie. Nor is her face as yet as memorable as, say, a young Audrey Hepburn to whom she has been compared. A few more good roles and she may win, but I'm doubtful this movie will be rewarded with such a big award.

As for Ms. Streep, she could win by default, sort of a late career achievement award for being a box office sensation at age 60. The role is Oscar bait inasmuch as she's playing a real life character, with bonus points for playing someone we've seen on TV so much (back then) so well that you forget the original. The strike against her is that since she's only half the movie, isn't it like giving the heftiest acting Oscar for half a performance?

Choosing Bullock solves a lot of problems. And Meryl may have another great one left in her. Who would doubt it? Or more than one great one -- half a dozen. And in more Oscar-worthy fare.

In any case, I always find it useful to make the picks long before the nominations are announced and my opinion can be swayed. The Oscars work by tried and true rules: Jeff Bridges wins in an underwatched picture because he's overdue and the only real competition, Clooney, has won recently, albeit in a Supporting role, but a weightier one. Waltz is the nod to Tarantino and the Weinsteins and is the way Oscar likes to dole out rewards to guests from around the world in witty, standout performances. Mo'Nique gives Precious it's gold, acknowledging the power and importance of that rather smaller picture, Bigelow wins the first female Directing Oscar for her profoundly suspenseful yet grounded in a big, salient reality work. Reitman's movie gets the indie attitude Best Picture consolation prize (as did his Juno), Boal gets the only other major double for his suspenseful yet grounded in a big, salient reality screenplay. Up beats Fantastic Mr. Fox because it's bigger of heart and more soaring of vision, and because it may get a Best Picture nomination (with 10 slots this weird year).

Which brings us to Avatar. As longtime readers of Nettertainment may recall, Best Picture is a misnomer, as the Academy instead bestows their top prize on "Most Picture" -- the movie that best combines huge spectacle with huge emotion. When there's no film that bridges that divide you find smaller movies winning, as Big Heart beats Big Empty Spectacle every time.

From what I hear about Avatar, it has a heart, kind of a liberal one as well, and since it's a game-changer on the technical/visionary front, it is now the front runner for Most Picture. The split with Best Director will come from the impression that it may be a bigger technical than emotional achievement -- i.e. just enough emotion to win the big prize, not enough to get the Directing award. In addition, you have a first-time-ever story of ex-spouses up against each other, with Cameron's ex-wife Bigelow a perfect choice to split producing (Best Picture) and directing honors with her ex-husband, everybody wins.

Plus it'd be nice to see a woman win that award FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OSCAR HISTORY.

There you have it; you read it here first.

Early Oscars

While it seems to be a huge slap in the face to the winners of honorary Oscars that they will not be receiving them in front of the millions of TV viewers around the world in February, bumped off the schedule by the now infamous decision to nominate ten movies for Best Picture rather than the usual five, it seems that the party last night was kind of a blast. The relaxed setting amongst friends may have been great consolation for honorees Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman and Gordon Willis. John Calley, admired studio chief who won the Irving Thalberg Award, was too ill to attend.

Bacall, of course, is the great actress who's career began in the 1940's under the tutelage of the great director, Howard Hawks, working with Humphrey Bogart who became her husband until his death from throat cancer in 1957. Corman, the perpetual low-budget filmmaker and studio owner, is responsible for launching the careers of Oscar winners Jack Nicholson, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, Ron Howard (as director) and many others.

Gordon Willis is the best cinematographer never to win a competitive Oscar. As in, The Godfather (I & II), All the President's Men, Manhattan...the list goes on. He invented a form of long-shadow lighting (using his own custom light box) now used as the standard of crime dramas and NYC filmmaking. Here's a great post with some representative scenes from great movies.

Meanwhile, one has to ask, what ten pictures are worth nominating? Is this meant to provide a place at the table for such box office draws as Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen?

My bet: ratings continue to fall. Hooray for Hollywood!

Acceptance

There were a few entertaining moments in last night's Golden Globes telecast and some genuine over-emotion, but the most moving speech of the night was by The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan in accepting the Best Supporting Actor award for the late Heath Ledger:



The way of looking at the loss, as significance to cinema. James Dean but with another forty years of sophistication behind it. Torn from cinema's side.

Nolan is the secret identity of the cinema man of the year. Think how pitch black Batman is, especially as informed by the real life tragedy that followed. It's vision of endless conflict leaving it the #1 Bush Era blockbuster, an anti-utopian vision of modern justice. And now think how many people have seen it, and continue to do over and over on DVD. This movie is going to be with us a long time, and Ledger's performance is the centerpiece that holds it all together.

At the Beverly Hills Hilton last night Christopher Nolan channeled real pain, real gravity, but in a disarmingly modest way where he put himself in the same position as the filmgoer in relation to the loss of Ledger.

Even as one imagines the future movies they would have made together.

Solid Gold

Here's the video with Josh Marshall announcing winners of Talking Points Memo's annual Golden Duke Awards for sleazy, scandalous behavior by politicians in 2008:



Text version here, with detailed breakdown of individual judges votes.

Here's to hoping the next President never even gets nominated.

The King

I could write about Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech but the sizzle was last night with the new celebrity; I could cover Cindy McCain's $300,000 outfit which could itself cover a down payment on an eighth house, or Sarah Palin's second ethics charge as filed against her today by the Alaska Police Union for illegally looking into personal records; I could comment on how GOP Rep. Westmoreland laid bare the inherent racism of the "elitist" tag by calling Obama and his wife (I kid you not), "uppity"; I could even link to Obama's ultimate cool, collected, community organizer explaining press conference where he said he'd been called worse things than Palin did on the basketball court.

But I'd rather tell you about a great guy I met several years ago, during my life as an entertainment advertising exec.

Every year the Hollywood Reporter hosts the Key Art Awards, named for the primary image used to sell a movie. This is the Oscars of movie marketing and, as such, is held in the very same Kodak Theater where the Oscars happen annually. There's usually great talent hosting the show and I saw Sarah Silverman, Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider and others join in the marketing side of the industry making fun of itself even as it rewarded itself with statuettes (one of which Ms. Silverman sniffed and said smelled "assy").

I believe it was the last one I went to that saluted Don LaFontaine, not exactly a household name, but definitely a household voice. His signature line:

In a world...

Don's voice actually changed how movies were marketed, from the old days of listing stars and attractions to creating a mood, telling the story more atmospherically, drawing you in rather than shouting out at you. And yesterday he died at the rather abbreviated age of 68.

I had the good fortune to meet Don at the always-excellent catered, open bar reception that always follows the Key Art Awards. He was talked to by everybody, but there was a moment and he seemed so approachable that I just had to approach him.

He was warm, welcoming and just modest enough, understanding the slight undercurrent of absurdity there but still grateful for the recognition. I asked a bit about his past based on the program notes and in-show testimonials, and learned that a large part of the reason for his early success as a coming attractions voiceover talent was that he was working, starting in the 1960's, as a movie marketeer himself. He continued to do double duty, being appointed head of the Paramount trailer department in 1978. But his voiceover work grew so much that he built a home studio and sometimes did up to seven jobs a day. In fact, based on the number of contracts signed, LaFontaine "is the most employed actor in the (Screen Actors) guild's 75-year history."

As his ubiquity grew he remained able to make fun of his image, including a famous Geico ad:



And you may remember:

Last year, he did a promotion for the “The Simpsons Movie,” in which his comments were immediately echoed by characters from the film. At one point he says, “Hey, you’re just repeating everything I’m saying!” and Homer responds: “I know. It’s weird!”

So it's sad that he's left us, four years younger than GOP Presidential nominee McCain, a man who seemed (based on the very funny videos made for the awards show that night) generous with his fellow voice talent and warm of spirit:



I guess he's left our world...or...maybe he's in a different world altogether...

Anniversary

It's the two year anniversary of the start of Nettertainment, not to the day but to the event. Thanks to several friends I called moments after Crash was announced as the Oscar winner for Best Picture, an award I've gone on to describe as "Most Picture", I was compelled to write my very first post, "Crash?"

Since then I've posted every day and hopefully the writing has gotten better for it. But I have to say Nettertainment hit something of a milestone today, with a record 10 comments on last night's post.

There are only two ways I feel I can justify the time it takes to research and write every night. One is just for the release, so I don't have to keep my opinions trapped inside or inflicted on different friends over the course of a day. The other is to join the public discussion, hopefully in a responsible way, hopefully not shackled to a reverential way.

Maybe it's the time in my life, but I think it's really what's happening in the public sphere. That sphere has expanded with the opening up of the Internet, to where my voice is but one in a zillion. At the heart of this expansion, not necessarily limited to the political blogs and comments, is our innate civic-mindedness. And the fuel these past eight years has been an arguably stolen Presidential election and the hell-on-earth Administration that has made its bitter mark on our world since then.

So your comments are manna for Nettertainment. I believe the responsible public discussion of our public affairs is crucial to our future as a nation, society and planet. This blog is just one corner of the agora in ancient Athens, one broadsheet during the American Revolution, and I thank you, valued reader, for taking a look and for those of you who find yourselves compelled to participate.

Oh, and here's another reason why, even if I'm not a Hillary hater, I do hold her campaign in contempt:

“Now I could stand up here and say, let’s get everybody together, let’s get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing,” she said, reportedly drawing giggles. “And everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect.

“But I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and make the special interests disappear.”

No, Hillary, you're fine with special interests. How would I infer that your anti-special interests position were anything more than rhetoric, if your Chief Strategist, Mark Penn, has lobbying subsidiary run by the man who is also John McCain's top advisor?

Any wonder why she and McCain seem to have been tag-teaming the same messages against Barack Obama since Super Tuesday?

Any wonder Obama continues to look more and more impressive, as he takes on enemies attacking from all sides?

Blood in the Water

I guess I was prescient last night. Nothing signals wheel trouble like firing a campaign manager in the heat of a campaign.

As a scorching 19-point landslide victory for Obama over Clinton in the Maine caucus unfolded today (59% to 40%), out come the news that longtime Hillary confidante Patty Solis Doyle had been replaced by longtime Hillary confidante Maggie Williams. Perhaps Ms. Williams, an African-American woman, has some skills to help the Clinton campaign recover and win Ohio and/or Texas but, once again, Barack Obama's campaign is one step ahead.

With Obama openly touting his poll advantage over John McCain, Clinton, openly touting having won in all different regions of the country, and possibly coming out of this Tuesday's Maryland, D.C. and Virginia contests with more victories, he's putting together a string that started with more states than her last Tuesday, an ensuing seven-state string (eight if you count the Virgin Islands).

The game change now is that the Clinton campaign is looking a lot like the Edwards campaign two weeks ago: Losers.

Obama the sports fan knows that the stink of a loser is the worst part of losing, the hardest to shake, the Kryptonite that drives away potential supporters and makes fans have second thoughts.

No one wants to be associated with losers for very long, hence the question of whether Edwards will come out for Obama or Clinton this week -- does he think he can turn the tide for her, or is he just finally sick of being on the losing end, whether John Kerry's campaign or his own.

What else happens when the loser tag is applied? Everything seems to underline the loserdom:

The announcement of Ms. Solis Doyle’s replacement came minutes after Mrs. Clinton was grounded by what her campaign said were high winds at Dulles Airport. After arriving at the airport for a charter flight to Roanoke, Mrs. Clinton, her staff and the traveling press corps were not allowed to board the plane.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said high winds at the airport had forced “a number of planes” to be kept on the ground, and that some planes that had taken off today had suffered structural damage. (Other planes at the airport were taking off as Mrs. Clinton’s motorcade drove away, en route to Washington.)

This is not to say that Sen. Clinton and Ms. Williams won't end up the new "comeback kid", or that she doesn't have a dozen over or underhanded means to flip the tide. But at a certain point, to again quote Cormac McCarthy, you can't stop what's coming.

Dems want a winner more than anything else. More than a restoration. If Hillary Clinton can't run a winning campaign, or one that foresees challenges and challengers, that chooses the right strategy to win and shows a little originality in doing so, how on God's earth is she a remotely safe choice to lead the most powerful nation on earth and keep us safe?

But Obama is proving it. I want to see him up against Putin. I want to see him handling Chavez. I want to watch him to fire up this country and make us feel like a nation of winners again, regardless of Party affiliation.

And if the string of electoral victories weren't enough, he just beat Hillary's husband Bill for the Grammy Award.

And no, you can't make this stuff up!