Is President Trump's very big ballroom just for State Dinners or will there be balls?

Balls in the ballroom — what a concept! I know one time Princess Diana and John Travolta danced together at the White House. Was it a full scale ball? Where are the balls of today? It seems that we only have red carpet arrivals and then people sitting around at tables. So this passage jumped out at me as I was reading James Traub's "John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit" (commission earned)("Her" = Adams's wife, Louisa):

Her fortnightly teas became so popular that she tried to restrict the crowd by decreeing that henceforward no dancing would be permitted, but Washington society came and insisted on dancing. Washington now had a little bit of the dazzle the Adamses had known in foreign capitals. When Congress was in session, balls and fine dinners were held almost every night. The most magnificent house in Washington had been empty since its owner, Commodore Stephen Decatur, the great naval hero of the War of 1812, had been killed in a foolish duel in March 1820. But now Baron Hyde de Neuville had purchased the three-story mansion on Lafayette Square and threw splendid parties there. For a time, the Adams house was filled with music and dancing and even giggling and flirting.... A dancing master came for as much as three hours a day to teach all the young folk.

Key words: almost every night. Nowadays, it seems you only hear of balls — the dancing kind of balls (not the "Big Balls" kind of balls) — during inaugurations. I'd like to see Trump's new ballroom used for dancing, and perhaps he's the person to get people dancing. It took a person to incite all that dancing that was going on in Washington circa 1820. Of course, the person was not John Quincy Adams, and it wasn't his wife Louisa. It was Dolley Madison. 

Urban Cowboy?

From "Both Sides of a Breakup," The Cut speaks to both parties to a breakup and then presents the different points of view as a dialogue. These are real people (presumably!), a 38-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man. He's a free-lance photographer — "super-talented," as she puts it. She has a "skin-care business," but found money "always tight." At first she thought maybe he lives like he does because there's "family money," but there wasn't:

Jackson: I didn’t make the kind of money she wanted me to, which bothered her way more than me. I feel like I’m lucky that I have a rent-stabilized apartment and work that I enjoy. In my eyes, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t provide for her or her son. Love, affection, adventure. I was devoted. Dollar signs weren’t a thing as far as I was concerned.

Carly: It started to annoy me, big time, how little he worked, how rarely he thought about money or ambition. He’d do the littlest thing, like maybe smoke a joint with my friends, and I’d just boil over inside. Like, “You fucking stoner deadbeat!” Meanwhile, all my friends were also smoking and I’d be like, “Cool, love you guys.” But I was conflicted — he and my son had gotten so close and there was so much I loved about Jackson too.

Jackson: She wanted to change this very innate quality about me, which is that I’m not driven by money. I’m not materialistic. I don’t need fancy things. I just need good people, creativity, inspiration, honesty, a beautiful woman, a cold beer on my front stoop…

Carly: The Urban Cowboy thing got real old.

Jackson: I would have done anything to make it work, except get a terrible, soul-crushing job. And that was the only thing she ever wanted me to do.…

Her new boyfriend is a lawyer — a "corporate lawyer." No word on what he looks like, but Jackson was "really sexy, long-ish hair, amazing eyes, great body."

Anyway... "Urban Cowboy"? That's a reference were supposed to get in 2017? Is it the John Travolta movie from 1980?



I'm not seeing anything useful at Urban Dictionary, where the least up-voted entry seems most apt: 

An urban male who wants to be a [rugged] individualist without performing manual labor to make a living. These people include actors, singers (mainly country singers), government workers & Democrats. All Symbolism, but no Substance. They want the look, but not the work.

"And there's no judgment"... oh, but there will be judgment, as the NYT pushes working out inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The video shows the nature of the movement — vigorous walking through fabulous museum rooms with stops for jumping and stretching movement at the feet of grand statues. It's pre-opening, so no one stand in the way of this exercise-focused, seemingly art-oblivious group:



But the video does not include the voice that the museum-goers are hearing. Maira Kalman — who is an interesting author/illustrator — is saying lord knows what. I can only guess from the hints given in the article:

Her narration proffers personal thoughts about art and unexpected aphorisms on mortality. 

Tell me one!

And the video plays only one song, "Stayin' Alive." That has some "aphorisms about mortality" in it: "Life goin' nowhere/Somebody help me, yeah." More importantly, "Stayin' Alive" mentions the New York Times: "We can try to understand/The New York Times' effect on man."

And woman, it's only fair to say, as this marchin'-through-the-museum bunch is overwhelmingly female.

You know, you can also get an early-morning NYC workout by walking briskly outdoors...



To work on the upper body, carry a paint can.

Paint, ah... Back to the museum.

I'm saying that the video of the museum workout is unlike the real experience described in the text because it lacks the voiceover narration and because it plays only one song. It does appear that "Stayin' Alive" is the kind of song that is played: Elton John is cited in the text.

I don't know which Elton John. One of the peppier ones, I bet.

Maybe: "Crocodile Rock." Maybe "Crocodile Rock" as they are passing one of the museum's many representations of crocodiles, though the article never suggests that the music lyrics are keyed to the visual experience.

Quite the opposite:

The workout, with its pop-rock playlist and jazzercise-y moves, successfully removes any pretense or affected erudition. For one, talking is prohibited. (Kalman, at one point, narrates, “I really hate talking about art.”) And the constant disorientation disallows for higher cognitive thought to occur. 

So the one quote from Kalman — "I really hate talking about art" — undercuts the promise of "unexpected aphorisms."

I don't really mind people walking briskly through the vast spaces of the Metropolitan Museum. It's good to get the message out that it's one of the best places in the world to take a long indoor walk.

You don't have to look at the art, except in passing, the way you glance into shop windows when you power down the sidewalks. Big museums get very tedious if you think you need to pause and gaze reverently at every piece of art.

I don't mind if the museum lets some people for special off-hours activities. It needs to build its audience and to remind us to come back and relive its grand spaces.

You could make the Metropolitan Museum of Art your regular "workout." A long, brisk walk is good whether you're in some special organized group or not.

Just don't bump into people. Don't annoy people.

And don't knock into the art. When I saw this article, that was my main concern. You shouldn't be thinking I'm getting a workout! while barging around and swinging your arms in the vicinity of artworks.

Since we didn't get any aphorisms on mortality and you've stayed alive until the end of this post, I will give you a photograph I took in the Metropolitan Museum a while back:



Quite a lively sarcophagus, no?

And here — your final reward — an unexpected aphorism:

Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there's the trick!

"Need to work off some of those extra Thanksgiving calories? Look no further than..."

"... this Perfect Disco Workout featuring John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis."



From the comments: "This is what I imagine it would be like walking in on your parents having sex. Disturbing for all the wrong reasons."

At Jeffrey's Café..

... the fur will fly.

ADDED: Perhaps he spells it Geoffrey. I think that would be nice. But who knows how dogs picture their names? Gxphreeeeee? Oh, I think first we ought to get John Travolta to pronounce it....

"But as I look ahead and think about what may still be relevant in fashion years from now, I think back to eras in style that were defined by freedom."

"I am so happy I was young in the ‘70s and participated in the women’s movement and all it meant. My generation behaved as if it had invented freedom. That was a moment in time, between the discovery of the pill and the arrival of AIDS, when sex was carefree and fun. For design inspiration then, we looked 40 years back, to the 1930s. We loved its furniture and architecture, all minimalist, and the light style of the clothing."

Writes Diane von Furstenberg.

ADDED: Her penultimate paragraph is "Who saw this coming? An icon of the ‘70s: Andy Warhol," which was especially funny to me because as I was reading, I was planning to search for "Diane von Furstenberg" in my copy of "The Andy Warhol Diaries." She's all over the place in there. Sample:

"Travolta would always request a man for his massage, but after a while no one would take him because of his inappropriate behavior..."

"It got to the point where they couldn’t find any men to take him, and they had to ban him..."

[Michael] Caputo, 55, said male staffers complained about Travolta removing his towel, grinding against the massage table and lifting his butt in the air.

Travolta "has been through this so many times before ... he's been photographed kissing other men..."

"... and for some reason, people just don't care."

Jett Travolta and the fear of giving your child necessary drugs.

This is terribly sad:

Jett was found on the bathroom floor of the family's posh condo at the Grand Bahama Resort on Friday. Authorities believe he died of a head injury after suffering a seizure and falling....

"Each seizure was like a death," McDermott told celebrity Web site TMZ.com. Jett lost consciousness and went into convulsions about four days a week when he was unmedicated, he said.

Jett took Depakote, an anti-seizure and mood-stabilizing medication, for several years until it apparently lost its effectiveness. The Travoltas had also become concerned about the drug's possible side effects, which include liver damage, McDermott said, and took him off Depakote some time ago.

It is very difficult to dose your child on a drug that has warnings of serious side-effects, but you have to be rational about weighing the likelihood of the side-effect and the benefit of the drug. It's too late to say that to the Travoltas, but maybe some other parents who are drug-phobic will come to their senses. But the drug had "apparently lost its effectiveness." I'm not sure what that means. Did they not want to increase the dosage to keep up with the child's increasing weight? Was there really no effective drug for his condition?

I feel sorry that the Travoltas must now put up with everyone — including, now, me — analyzing the extent of their responsibility for their son's demise. They are suffering unimaginable pain. And yet, I think it is still important to talk about the decisions parents make for children. Perhaps many children who need seizure medication will receive it as the result of Jett's death.

Then there is the issue of autism... and Scientology:

There has long been speculation that Jett suffered from autism, but the Travoltas have maintained his health problems were a result of Kawasaki disease, a rare inflammatory ailment affecting the blood vessels that most often occurs in early childhood.

Advocates for autistic kids, including other Hollywood stars, have accused Travolta, a Scientologist, of denying his son's condition because it would have required Jett to see a psychiatrist, which his religion forbids.

But Scientology doesn't forbid anti-seizure medication, does it? I must say I don't even know the details about what Scientologists think about treating autism. It's one thing to tell people with mundane emotional problems that they should turn to religion instead of psychiatry. That might be pretty good advice, common to many religions. But it's quite another thing to tell people to avoid medical treatment for specific conditions of the brain.

I don't like to see a rush to blame religion over Jett's death. Parents can be afraid of drugs or in denial about autism without religion playing any part. Did the Travoltas ever talk about religion in connection with their treatment of their son? I don't know. From what I've seen, it looks like an excessive fear of drug side effects. Those side effects aren't the result of religious ideation. They are real, but they were, it seems, given excessive weight.

What the women wore on the convention stages.

Robin Givhan observes the fashions of various political women:

It is not sexist to have noticed that Sen. Hillary Clinton delivered her convention speech dressed in head-to-toe mango. Only an obstinately unaware person would have ignored this question: Senator, why are you dressed like a tropical fruit? One assumes it was to ensure an eye-catching photo for the history books and to underscore her "sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits" legacy.

But what about the potential first ladies?

The first lady serves as a reflection of her husband's administration and of womanhood, and one suspects that when there is a first gentleman, he will bear the burden of epitomizing an ideal of manhood and will be forced to wrestle with accusations that he is too much of a metrosexual, a dandy, a he-man or a wimp. Almost certainly, we will obsess about his ties.

When Cindy McCain made her first appearance at the Republican National Convention, she was wearing a buttercup-yellow shirt dress with a flipped-up collar by Seventh Avenue designer Oscar de la Renta. As is the current fashion, the dress looked as though the designer had found some inspiration in the early 1960s world of "Mad Men." It was feminine, reserved and lovely. Ballpark price for a de la Renta dress: $3,000.

I loved that dress. It is the most distinctive thing any political woman has worn this year. I read some bitching on the liberal blogs about how her outfit cost $300,000, but nearly all of that was the cost of some diamond jewelry. It wasn't a $300,000 dress. But you know, that dress was historically beautiful. And I suppose it's worth $300,000 now. The "off-the-shoulder, ink-blue velvet dinner dress that the Princess of Wales wore when she danced at the White House with John Travolta sold for $222,500" in 1997 (before the princess died).

De la Renta also designed the inaugural gowns worn by Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush and that cream-colored suit Laura Bush wore when she stood next to Cindy McCain at the convention, Givhan notes, pronouncing the Republicans "status quo." Meanwhile, when Michelle joined Barack Obama on the stage, she was "wearing a raspberry, lavender and black print silk dress by American designer Thakoon Panichgul," who is not a heavily established designer:

The dress, with its slim bodice and A-line skirt, came from his 2009 resort collection... [T]he Thakoon dress... was too informal and failed to reflect the significance of the occasion. And with that fabric belt hanging down the back, it resembled a child's special-occasion frock rather than something suitable for a sophisticated 44-year-old. The flats reinforced the tea-party aesthetic

Oops. So we want change... but what kind of change? A change might be for the worse. There's a reason why the status quo is status quo.

Two top 10 lists.

What is true about the persons on the first list is the opposite for those on the second list. Try to guess what it is before clicking on the link.

The first list:

1. Johnny Depp
2. Matt Damon
3. George Clooney
4. Jack Nicholson
5. Rosario Dawson
6. John Travolta
7. Katherine Heigl
8. Jay Leno
9. Dakota Fanning
10. Russell Crowe

The second list:

1. Will Ferrell
2. Tobey Maguire
3. Joaquin Phoenix
4. William Shatner
5. Renée Zellweger
6. John Malkovich
7. Julie Andrews
8. Bruce Willis
9. Teri Hatcher
10. Scarlett Johansson

Is it illegal sex discrimination to hire only females to host "The View"?

Can producers of "The Price Is Right" decide their audience wants a male host? Is it wrong to insist on a male to play the role of Edna in "Hairspray"? Lawprof Ian Ayres thinks it is:

Title VII prohibits sex discrimination in employment unless the employer can establish what's called a BFOQ or "Bona Fide Occupational Qualification." The EEOC Guidelines do allow intentional sex discrimination in hiring an actor or actress where the sex-specific roles are necessary for the "purpose of authenticity or genuineness," see 29 C.F.R. § 1604.2(a)(2). But there is no way that the producers could establish that sex was a BFOQ for being host of "The Price is Right."

The same conclusion probably holds true for hosting "The View." The thought that only women could host a talk show would be difficult to square with existing case law. Probably a dozen different hosts have been employed by The View. They have all been female. There is little doubt that the producers of that show discriminate on the basis of sex in hiring.

Indeed, even John Travolta's portrayal of Edna in the movie Hairspray raises a non-trivial BFOQ question. Travolta, like all of his predecessors, is male. But it's hard to say that casting a man for the part is necessary for "authenticity or genuineness" -- especially when the whole point of his portrayal is that Travolta (unlike Divine) is playing it straight.

I know. The idea of lawsuits over such things seems ridiculous. But exactly why is it ridiculous?

Personally, I feel insulted by what the networks put on TV during the day. The whole line-up makes the statement: This is what we think women are. Or: This is what we think nonworking women are. Not that I wish I could sue. I'm just offended.

"He did not want to resemble a refrigerator or Jabba the Hutt, he said, but Sophia Loren with a couple of hundred extra pounds."

John Travolta reenvisions Edna Turnblad:

His Edna, unlike the greasy Gorgon created by Divine in the 1988 John Waters original or the Kabuki hausfrau rendered so memorably by Harvey Fierstein in the 2002 Broadway musical adaptation, has cleavage and a waist and a kind of geologic sex appeal....

“Playing a woman attracted me,” Mr. Travolta said. “Playing a drag queen did not. The vaudeville idea of a man in a dress is a joke that works better onstage than it does on film, and I didn’t want any winking or camping...."...

There was no film precedent for this approach to Edna. Though Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie” and Robin Williams in “Mrs. Doubtfire” did well donning drag, they were playing explicitly male characters who for plot reasons needed to dress as women....

"[H]ow do I convince you I’m a woman doing that and make you want to watch her for an hour and a half?”

Having grown up the youngest of six children in a bohemian working-class family in Englewood, N.J., he modeled his idea of a watchable woman on his “very sexy mother” (Helen Travolta was a high school drama teacher and sometime actress) and on the bombshells in the European movies they enjoyed: Ms. Loren, Anna Magnani, Anita Ekberg. “I’m not as beautiful as any of those people,” he said, “but I’m not unpleasant to look at, and I thought: ‘This is my library. Not grandmas or Aunt Bee from Mayberry, but the kind of person a blue-collar woman would aspire to be if she had money. What if that kind of woman had gone to flesh?’ ”

Impressive. But what of the argument that the those who care about gay rights should boycott "Hairspray"?

In a blog entry posted in May on the Web site of The Washington Blade (washblade.com), a gay newspaper, Kevin Naff, its editor, called for a boycott of “Hairspray” because of Mr. Travolta’s membership in the Church of Scientology, which he described as a cult that “rejects gays and lesbians as members and even operates reparative therapy clinics to ‘cure’ homosexuality.” In a subsequent editorial Mr. Naff added that Mr. Travolta’s appearance in the “iconic gay role” is “even more galling given all the gay rumors that have followed him for years.”

There would be an awful lot of boycotting if we avoided movies starring any actor who belonged to a religion that held a belief we found abhorrent. But maybe a special case should be made if the role is somehow "iconic" for you. Travolta makes the point that Edna is not a gay role. Edna is a heterosexual female, traditionally played by a male. As the article points out, this is like the stage play "Peter Pan," where there is nothing gay about the character, but an actor of the opposite sex is always cast in the role.

Let's look at how Naff put it -- in writing and in this fair-and-balanced fight with Bill O'Reilly:



My thought on watching that was that people should go to the movie if they want to see it, but Naff did a great job of picking an issue that would get him some publicity and he handles his argument well even if he persuades no one.

What are you going to do with the subject of whether religions offer people fraudulent treatments? It's one thing if a psychologist purports to be able to cure homosexuality, but religions purport to solve all sorts of problems, including mortality. I can see why gay rights activists think it makes sense to single out one issue to make a big deal about, but boycotting the work of one religion's adherents seems wrong. Many religions are negative toward gay people. The only thing that makes Scientology stand out is that its approach resembles what therapists do. But it's a religion!

Isaac Hayes quits "South Park."

He's upset about they way it disrespects religion. His religion? Scientology.

"There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins."

The response from Matt Stone:

"This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians."...

Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker "never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin."

Well, Stone got the better of that exchange! Who has a better ear for hypocrisy than Stone?

Link via Memeorandum, so let's see who else is talking about the Hayes-Stone face-off. (Invocation of John Travolta unintended!)

Captain Ed: "It seems that Chef can't take what he dishes out."

Patterico: "Look to see Chef die a particularly bloody, horrible, and painful death."

Does Chef have to go? I don't think he's been an important character in recent years, but since Stone and Parker have been blithely doing so many voices, why not do his too? In fact, why weren't they doing that voice themselves all along? Here's Stone's answer, from a transcript of "Fresh Air" (date: 10/24/04, no link available):

[A]ctually with Chef--Trey and I were doing all the voices, and we actually--me or Trey wanted to do that voice. We were going to be like, 'Hey, what's going on, children?' and just kind of do that voice ourselves. And we were going to pitch it down, so it was really, really low, like an older black man's voice, how they can just be really, really low. And we wanted to do it ourselves. At the time Comedy Central was like, 'You can't do that.' And it's kind of true in a lot of Disney cartoons and a lot of other cartoons, they won't let their gender--Their gender?--race specific with the voiceover; they won't allow a white person to do a black person's voiceover. They probably don't care the other way. But at the time they were like, 'You know, you need to have a black person do this.' And we were like, `Well, you know, we have this character who sings all these soul songs.' I was like, 'Why don't we get ...(unintelligible)?'

So we had a really short list. It was--Isaac Hayes was our first choice. Then I think we had Lou Rawls on there. And what's the other guy? Barry White. And so we sent out tapes to them to them. I don't think we ever heard from Lou Rawls. Barry White respectfully declined because he's a very Christian man, and he thought it didn't reach his standards. We sent out 'The Spirit of Christmas.' And Isaac Hayes called back and said, 'Sure, I'll do it.'

So Trey and I flew to New York to record Isaac Hayes. We were so freaked out. You know, we'd never even worked with anybody except for our own friends in Colorado, and here we are doing Isaac Hayes. So then Isaac Hayes--he shows up, and he has no idea what he's going to do. So now we're sitting in the studio. He goes, 'All right, what's going on?' And his agent had basically just said, 'Yeah, you know, he's into it. He wants to do it.' But Isaac really was, like, just going to a gig to do a voiceover. And so we had to sit there and explain to him, 'Well, you're this big, fat black guy that lives in this little town in Colorado. You're the only black person there, and you sing soul songs.' And he was, like, 'OK. That sounds good.' So we were, like, 'All right.'

Think "Comedy Central" would let them do the voice now? Think Stone and Parker will have some more fun with Scientology over this? I hope so!

By the way, the episode that mocked Scientology was "Trapped in the Closet," and it was quite brilliant and hilarious. The press paid most of its attention to the material about Tom Cruise being "in the closet" (which he was, literally). I wrote at the time:

[CNN has a] segment on the new episode of "South Park" that mocked Scientology and Tom Cruise. CNN jumbles a lot of things together and titles the segment "Did 'South Park' go too far in mocking Tom Cruise?" Why not ask whether "South Park" went to far in mocking Scientology? That was what most of the episode was about.

Not shown in the CNN clip is the show's hilarious animated depiction of the deep secrets of Scientology. Instead, CNN reruns rumors about Cruise's sexual orientation, replete with the usual clip of him jumping on Oprah's couch. It's true the "South Park" episode repeatedly used the phrase "Tom Cruise come out of the closet." (Cruise literally hides in a closet for a reason that has nothing to do with his sexual orientation.) CNN shows many of those repetitions and informs us that they counted 39 of them. It's very funny.

But religion is the real target of "South Park's" mockery, and CNN opted for the easy approach of tweaking Cruise one more time about the rumors. In a lame attempt to appear journalistic, CNN presented the rumors as a report on how other people are spreading rumors. (Isn't that usually how one spreads rumors?) Can you picture CNN actually going after Scientology the way "South Park" did?

Thank God somebody's willing to mock religion!

Simulblogging the Oscars.

7 (Central Time). A slow-moving intro for Jon Stewart, showing Oscar hosts of the past declining to re-host. We see Billy Crystal and Chris Rock shacking up together in a tent, for the first gay joke of the night. The second one comes a minute later when we see Jon Stewart waking up in bed with George Clooney. It's funny, see? Because men having sex with each other is funny... or not... Stewart begins with a reference to "Death to Smoochy," which is what he always does on "The Daily Show" when he interviews a high-quality actor. "The Oscars is the one night of the year when you can see all your favorite stars without having to donate any money to the Democratic Party" -- that gets a very mild laugh and I think I see suppressed panic on Stewart's face.

7:10. Gay cowboy montage. Pretty funny. A lot like all those parodies of the "Brokeback Mountain" trailer, but they came up with some nice clips.

7:16. Best Supporting Actor... I've seen two of the performances: by William Hurt and Matt Dillon. They give it to George Clooney. "We are a little bit out of touch here in Hollywood. And it's probably a good thing." Blah, blah, we're great, ahead of the rest of this benighted country.

7:25. They waste our time with a clip of Tom Hanks demonstrating how award winners shouldn't waste our time. Ben Stiller comes out in a green suit -- and powerfully sucking in his abs -- to talk about special effects. "King Kong" wins. Jon Stewart thanks Stiller for wearing a unitard. Reese Witherspoon is next, and she's very well trussed into a sparkly beige dress. Hey, I'm just noticing how cool the stage set is. The award she's announcing is animation, and I love seeing the clips, especially for "Howl's Moving Castle." "Wallace and Grommit" wins. The guys that win are wearing giant bow ties. Next out is Naomi Watts, and she too is wearing beige. Her dress has a tattery "destroyed" look. She introduces Dolly Parton who is shockingly, scarily anorexic! She's wearing a white pantsuit, and her breasts are still huge, but beneath them, there is nearly the complete absence of a body.

7:42. Jon Stewart is mocking Scientology. Surely, there is at least one religion we feel utterly free to mock. Now, it's the Wilson brothers. They announce two awards no one cares about. Really, who even gets a chance to see the shorts? At least with the animated ones we get to get a look at some animation. They bring out some "Chicken Little" characters to take over. "Seriously, Mr. Eisner, what's up with ducks and no pants?" Good question!

7:48. Jennifer Aniston comes out in a beautiful black dress and mega-diamonds. She's doing best costumes. She belabors her lines, as if she's a schoolteacher pissed at us for not doing our homework. "Memoirs of a Geisha" wins. Russell Crowe robotically introduces a montage about biopics. "Pierre, we've discovered a new element." "If we win, well, then we'll have what none of us have ever had before: a country of our own." Yeah, there have been some pretty cool biopics over the year. But, generally, the genre is a big drag.

7:57. Will Ferrell and Steve Carell come out in terrible makeup to announce the makeup award. Carell is wearing false eyelashes. "Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy." Ridiculous! "Star Wars" doesn't win. "Narnia" wins, and it looked pretty cool in the clip. Stewart makes his best joke of the night, expressing surprise that "Cinderella Man" didn't win: "Imagine the difficulty in making Russell Crowe look like he got into a fight." He points to a giant Oscar prop and says "Do you think if we all got together and pulled this down, democracy would flourish in Hollywood?" A political joke. The quickie technical awards recap follows. TiVo time! Ah, don't go too fast, here's Best Supporting Actress, announced by Morgan Freeman, who's wearing an ascot instead of a tie. Rachel Weisz wins. She's wearing a black dress, which nicely supports big, swelling breasts, and she's got tastefully dangly diamond earrings. She says nothing notable.

8:11. Lauren Bacall walks out stiffly. She's wearing a black pantsuit, and she seems short of breath. She's blabbing about film noir. Montage. "I feel all dead inside. I'm backed up in a dark corner."

8:15. A nice "Daily Show" style piece with fake ads for actresses is followed by a flatfooted intro for the documentary awards. An unfortunate juxtaposition. Another Woman in Black: Charlize Theron. (All the women are in beige or black. Did some neutrality order go out?) What will win for feature documentary? Surely, it must be the penguins. Yes, it is. The accepters bring stuffed penguins up and one guy whistles "thank you in Penguin." Another guy makes some comment about tuxedos, "penguin suits." At least, they thought of ideas. Jennifer Lopez is pushing the beige envelope toward a kind of greeny brown. She's even more robotic that Russell Crowe, but she says something about making "human contact." It's an intro to another song. TiVo, save me!

8:32. Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Again with the black dress. And the ponderous delivery. Did some memo go out? Be elegant. And this is how it came out. "Geisha" gets set decoration. Samuel Jackson tells us Hollywood is unafraid! Issue films change the world, don't you know? Montage time. "Call me Mr. Tibbs!" "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" A roomful of Hollywood prissily applauds itself. Stewart: "And none of those issues were ever a problem again."

8:44. Salma Hayek busts out the non-neutrality by wearing a brilliant blue dress. She introduces the conductor, and the coolest part of this is not that we get to see where they tucked away the orchestra, but that the conductor has two packets of M&Ms. I'm using red wine to get me through this ordeal, but the maestro is going with the M&Ms, which, presumably, work too. So what wins for o-REE-gi-nal score? "Brokeback Mountain." Yeah, I know this score... from all those trailer parodies. It's supposed to feel serious, but, too me, it feels comic.

8:56. Jake Gyllenhall woodenly reads lines about how important it is to see movies on the big screen. Translation: please help us with our box office problem. We see a montage about spectacle. Which, ironically, we're seeing on our small screens. They end with the shot from "Gone With the Wind" that comes right before the intermission, which reminds me of one of the main reasons to prefer the home screen. You can break up the physical ordeal of sitting through it however you choose. Stewart: "Wow, I can't wait 'til later when we see Oscar's salute to montages." Good one! "Holy crap! We're out of clips. We're literally out of film clips. If you have film clips, send them, please. We have another three hours." Next comes Jessica Alba to botch her lines along with some guy. The lines are about... damn, I don't know. I fast-forwarded. But "King Kong" got it. Oh, it's sound mixing. Dull!

Bring out Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep to give the special award to Robert Altman. Tomlin's face is much larger than Streep's. But Streep's earrings are way longer and her neckline is way plungier. They do a comic routine that's supposed to demonstrate the Altman style by having a lot of talking over each other. Then, the montage. Well, damn, they just wore us out with montages up to the point where Stewart made a too-many-montages joke. Way to treat an honoree. TiVo.

Intro to another song. TiVo. Queen Latifah announces the song award, and the pimp song wins. "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." The room is jubilant; America, perhaps not so. Stewart tries to come up with a joke. Sound editing is the next award. A big bore, but they do another "Daily Show" fake ads thing. Jennifer Garner! Beige... but she almost trips! "King Kong" wins.

Now, we need to endure Clooney again. "Academy Award winner, George Clooney." But it's the best part: "In Memoriam" -- the dead ones! Biggest applause: Shelley Winters, Anne Bancroft. Getting surprisingly little: Robert Wise, Richard Pryor.

9:37. Will Smith hands out Best Foreign Language Film. He does some impressive fast-talking in some foreign languages. The winner is "Tsotsi," the South African film. Next, Film Editing. The winner is "Crash," which is a good choice. A lot was done with editing in that movie. Next, Best Actor! Hillary Swank presents (in black). As expected, the winner is Philip Seymour Hoffman. He's overwhelmed. He's got lots of folks to thank. He loves them. He loves his mom. "She took me to my first play.... Her passions became my passions."

9:54. It's John Travolta, introducing the Cinematography nominees. I only saw one of these: "Batman Begins," which I seriously doubt can win. Again, "Geisha" wins. It's doing well with the lesser awards. Jamie Foxx gets to do Best Actress. Here's our best hope for an emotive acceptance speech. Wow, Charlize Theron has a black dress with a pouf the size of her head on her shoulder. As expected, the winner is Reese Witherspoon. I love her in "Election." She's really cool, a distinctive actress today. That means something. She seems like a good person. "I'm just trying to matter and live a good life."

10:07. Dustin Hoffman is doing the adapted screenplay award. Weird that this one is coming so late. Did writers get upgraded? Unsurprisingly, "Brokeback Mountain" wins. Uma Thurman -- in beige! -- announces original screenplay. "Crash" wins. Tom Hanks announces Director. Unsurprisingly, Ang Lee wins for "Brokeback Mountain" (and I wrote that before the award is announced). Jack and Ennis taught us about "not just the gay mans" but "the greatness of love itself." And, finally, it's good old Jack Nicholson to tells about the best "moption" picture of the year. And the shock of the night...

"Crash"!

Nicholson points his fingers up and mouths "Wow!"

Wow, indeed! After all that predictability! I actually saw that one. It was pretty good. What the hell did I say about it. Let's see:

I thought it was quite good, constructed like "Magnolia," with a lot of characters and a script that connects their stories up with coincidences and a common theme. The theme in this case is race. You can tell from the first scene that you are seeing a heightened reality. I haven't read much of the criticism of this film, but if people are complaining that there actually isn't this much racism in real life, they are missing the point. This is a surreal depiction in which racism is concentrated everywhere. Everyone manifests racism, but then also a vulnerable human side. The characters' stories were nicely, complexly interwoven. I liked it -- even when it skewed melodramatic. I liked that you were kept on your toes about which characters to love or hate, to respect or revile.

UPDATE: For my morning after observations, go here.

Simulblogging the Golden Globes.

Are you watching the Golden Globes? On this last day of winter break, this Martin Luther King Day holiday, I whiled away much of my time in can't-put-it-down mode watching the DVDs of Season 1 of "Project Runway," which recently came in the mail. I watched it effortlessly, in marathon form. Oh, how I loved it! I laughed. I cried. I loved Austin Scarlett from the first moment, and I loved a lot of other people over the course of the high-speed (for me) season. As Kara Saun emerged as a force, I cried at her greatness. But I won't do any spoilers here. If you didn't watch the show, order the DVD. Now, I can move comfortably back into Season 2, already in progress. But do I have the TV energy to sit through the crazy Globes? Well, yes, why not?

Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney, for "Syriana." He thanks Jack Abramoff. "Who would name their kid 'Jack' with the last word's 'off' at the end of you last name? No wonder that guy's screwed up."

Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz for "Constant Gardener." Her dress isn't not as good as what Austin Scarlett could have made. Her speech is the usual boring thanks. No smutty political talk a la Clooney.

TV supporting actor: Paul Newman for "Empire Falls." He's not there.

TV supporting actress: Sandra Oh. She's irritatingly overexcited saying "I-I-I-I-I-I feel like someone's set me on fire."

Drew Barrymore comes out in horrendous green with shockingly pendulous breasts to introduce the first of the best picture nominees "Good Night and Good Luck."

TV actress: Geena Davis wins for playing the President of the United States. She's chubby and wearing a dress that would have been devastated by the "Project Runway" judges. She's funny, taking people by in telling a story of a little girl who told her she wanted to be President then admitting it was a fake. And there's no add-on joke that lying is a way of being President-like.

TV actor: Hugh Laurie, for "House." Blabby! Thinks he's cute.

Clip from "The Producers" introduced by baby-talking hag Melanie Griffith. The film is an embarrassment.

"Empire Falls" wins for whatever the category is for that.

Best Actor, TV: Steve Carell, for "The Office," beating that "Earl" guy and Larry David. He acts out reading from a piece of paper, a speech written by his wife. A line from it: "To my parents, for not making me go to law school."

Best Actress, movie musical or comedy: Reese Witherspoon for "Walk the Line." "Okay, my husband just hit me so hard, I almost fell over."

Actress, TV comedy: Mary-Louise Parker for "Weeds." She giggles a lot in a weed-appropriate way. "I just want to make out with all of you."

Actor, TV movie: Jonathan Rhys Meyers for impersonating Elvis.

Actress, TV movie: S. Epatha Merkerson. "I'm 53 years old. This was my first lead in a film."

Screenplay: "Brokeback Mountain." Larry McMurtry thanks his lawyers and his Hermes 3000 typewriter. "It's kept me for 30 years out of the dry embrace of the computer."

TV musical/comedy: "Desperate Housewives."

John Williams wins for one of his drecky soundtracks. Then some crappy song from "Brokeback Mountain" wins.

Ooh! Gwyneth Paltrow comes out in a neat white dress with puff sleeves. A special award for Anthony Hopkins. We see him playing a number of roles, including Hitler (yelling) and Nixon (sobbing). And the usual fava-beans-and-a-nice-chianti stuff. [ADDED: Chris emails: Worst-ever misquoting of a famous movie line: "Ready when you are, Mr. DeMille" (Anthony Hopkins).]

Best director: Ang Lee for "Brokeback Mountain." "Wow, getting this award, for this movie, from The Man." (The Man is Clint Eastwood.) "And everyone in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China: I wish you a Happy New Year."

Best actor, movie musical or comedy: Presented by John Travolta. Joaquin Phoenix for "Walk the Line." I don't like the way the actors in dramatic musical movies always beat the comic actors in this category. It's against the spirit of the categorization.

Best picture, musical or comedy: "Walk the Line." Again, unfair to comedies. A violation of the spirit of the categorization. "I know that John and June are up in Heaven with my mom and dad," says the producer, inanely. Why would Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash hang out with some producer's parents? That's just nutty.

Best TV drama: "Lost." "The show is an exercise in faith, and most of all we would like to thank you for having faith in us." Suddenly, the awardcast has gone all religious.

Dennis Quaid introduces clips for "Brokeback Mountain," calling it "controversial" and saying it "rhymes with 'chick flick.'" Ew! Yikes. Classy.

Best actress, drama: Felicity Huffman, who cries and salutes transgender persons for "becoming who they really are."

Best actor, drama: Phillip Seymour Hoffman for "Capote." "I was given the best part of my life."

Best picture, drama: Morgan Freeman announces the nominee. I hear his voice and look for the penguins. [ADDED: Sorry, it was Denzel Washington. I was in another room, listening, at this point.] "Brokeback Mountain" wins. Producers accept and are, as always boring. No info on what his parents are doing in the afterworld.

And the show ends precisely on time. Nothing surprising or weird this year, despite the conventional wisdom that people get drunk and let loose at the Globes. I wouldn't count the implied smuttiness of the Clooney and Quaid remarks. Just your basic handing out of awards to pretty much everyone you thought would get one.

UPDATE: The Anchoress followed the Globes and has lots of catty things to say about fashion -- and emaciation.

Simulblogging the Oscars.

5:51 Central Time. There is still an hour to go before the big Oscars show begins, and I will be going strictly live beginning then. No TiVo tomfoolery once the official broadcast starts -- that's a rule enforced chez Althouse, but not by Althouse. But I want to watch on HDTV anyway, so I guess that would be my rule too, even if it were up to me, which it's not, because I share this old house with someone who is much more serious about film and all of its accoutrements than I will ever be. But pre-7, I'm going to catch up on what the TiVo dragged in: E! Live from the Red Carpet. This show for me, is all about the absence of Joan Rivers. Yes, I know that Joan lives on over at the TV Guide channel, but that show is sad and low energy. I want the old Joan back -- Joan before she was tossed aside by E!. So, what we have is Star Jones, reading her lines and not even pretending to be interested in anything but selling her $20 shoes, and Kathy Griffin trying to do comedy even though her face is disturbingly immobilized.

6:10. Jones interviews Morgan Spurlock. The bodice of her dress fits so badly, so loosely! Here's Carlos Santana. "Che Guevara! That's the luck right there," says Star Jones, after she asks him what he's wearing for luck and he opens his black jacket to reveal a Che Guevara T-Shirt. He is promoting "Motorcycle Diaries," so perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on him. Don Cheadle, not nervous? "I took the right meds before I got here, so I think everything will be smoothed out the rest of the night." Melanie Griffith is wearing a blue-gray dress and carrying a cane -- she's broken her leg! Antonio Banderas has very stringy greasy hair tonight.

6:29. Leonardo Dicaprio! He doesn't care about fashion, but for the Oscars: a Prada suit. What would the little girls out there find surprising about you? "I'd say just about everything." Hilary Swank in a dark blue looks-like-it's-on-backwards dress provokes Jones to say "You are on my list as a perpetual Glamazon." Swank says hi to her fifth grade teacher. Virginia Madsen brings her glamorous mother. Mother and daughter have big swinging earrings. Scarlett Johansson looks incredibly light pink with nearly white poodle hair. The dress is black, a very dramatic contrast. "Aging is about wisdom and grace," Drew Barrymore informs us, with the perspective of her thirty years.

6:48. Spike Lee is wearing a white suit, with a black shirt and tie -- and a black fez! So far, on the hat front, we've seen Carlos Santana in a Che beret and now Spike Lee in a fez! Salma Hayek shows up and suddenly ranks at number 1 on the home voters' best fashion list. Her dress is another dark blue dress -- what's with all the dark blue? -- and it's got black bows and other black trimming all over it. Alan Alda says Morgan Freeman is going to get the Supporting Actor Oscar and he's just there to have fun. Kate Winslet in bright, medium blue: beautiful! She's talking to the other Cate -- Cate Blanchett. Cate is impossibly fragile, with translucent skin and a lemon-sherbet-colored dress. Johnny Depp! He's in dark blue. He's still got some gold teeth from the pirate movie. His wife is beautiful and, actually, looks a lot like him.

7:00. Now, I go to live-blogging, and to HDTV. I love the red carpet on wide-screen, and it's great to get a chance to see all the flaws on the stars. Annette Bening is beautifully crinkled – presumably with grace and wisdom. Jamie Fox is proud to have "cracked open" the love for Ray Charles that was hidden underground.

7:13. Orlando Bloom is asked why everyone admires Johnny Depp so much. Bloom, who's doing the new pirate movie with Depp, starts to explain something slightly complex about integrity, and the interviewer talks over him and shoos him along.

7:34. Nice clip show to begin. I hope they do more montages, less on-stage entertainment. Now Chris Rock comes out and gets a standing ovation. Why a standing ovation? It makes no sense. It's as if they were warning us about all the overpraising we've got coming tonight. "There's only four real stars, and the rest are popular people." Rock is yelling his routine. It's about how moviemakers should wait for the real star to be ready to film. Don't make "Alexander" with Colin Farrell. "If you're doing a movie about the past, you need to get Russell Crowe's ass." Rock loved "Fahrenheit 911," he says, and we see numerous stars in the audience clapping solemnly. Rock talks about Bush: imagine seeking a job, and while you're seeking that job, there's a movie playing everywhere about how awful you are. He goes into a long Bush-bashing tirade, and we see the audience cracking up and clapping. He ends the routine, though, by sending out love for all the troops.

7:44. "The Aviator" gets the first award, for Art Direction. The nominees are all made to stand on the stage, which seems a little sadistic, but does allow the women to show off their gowns. Renee Zellweger comes out in a stiff red dress. She moves like an inchworm. Her hair is dyed black. Best Supporting Actor is next. They don't make these guys line up on the stage. Based on the clips, I said "Anybody but Church." Morgan Freeman wins. He thanks everyone, especially Clint Eastwood. "This was a labor of love."

7:54. Robin Williams comes out with white tape on his mouth, presumably symbolizing censorship. He rips it off and does a little routine about how various cartoon characters -- other than Sponge Bob -- are gay. Donald Duck, with that sailor suit and no pants. Best Animated Feature: "The Incredibles." Cate Blanchett announces the makeup award from the audience, not from the stage -- innovative! "Lemony Snicket" wins. Drew Barrymore announces the first performance of a nominated song. My suggestion for a better Oscars show: just get rid of the song award altogether. Beyoncé sings in French with a boy choir. She looks great, with lots of green eyeshadow, but the song is absolutely deadly.

8:07. Chris thinks Beyoncé sang that song just great. We argue through the commercial about this, with me taking the position that it demanded more of an operatic voice and was not suited to Beyoncé, who I'm willing to believe is an excellent pop singer.

8:10. Chris Rock goes downtown to ask ordinary people what their favorite movie was. "I'm not going to lie, and I'm not going to front to these people," says one guy as he admits he didn't see "Sideways." Scarlett Johansson announces the scientific and technical awards, and I suddenly feel that I understand her dress. Pierce Brosnan announces the Costume award with that fashion character from "The Incredibles," causing me once again to regret that I didn't have a child of an age that could have justified my going to a cartoon this year. On seeing the clips, I mutter "The Aviator," and I'm right, and I take that to mean that "The Aviator" will win the most awards, including Best Picture. Tim Robbins -- who bores us to death with his politics, per Rock -- announces Supporting Actress. Oh, I love them all. And my Cate wins!!!

8:26. A tribute to Johnny Carson, with horrendously smarmy music. Leonardo Dicaprio introduces the Documentary Feature award. The nominees are lined up on stage. One expects Spurlock to win. I saw that movie and thought little of it. So I'm thinking: anybody but Spurlock. And I am satisfied. It's "Born Into Brothels." Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom come out to do the Editing award. If "Aviator" gets this, the handwriting is on the wall. And it does!!!

8:42. Adapted Screenplay: "Sideways." Not surprised. I've like Alexander Payne for a long time. He accepts the award knowing all of his actors missed out. Visual Effects: "Spiderman 2." Didn't see it, but the clip made me laugh with delight. Now we reach the great slump section of the night. Everyone goes into a coma now, and maybe later we will emerge and think, why am I so tired? when will it all end? I like Al Pacino but spare me the awards that don't relate to the past year!

9:08. Struggling to emerge from the coma. What was that? Beyoncé again! Yes, that was Beyoncé, but was that a song? I can't tell you one word that was in that song or remember a single musical phrase. Jeremy Irons ad libs "I hope they missed" when we hear a sound like a gunshot. Best Live Action Short -- a pointless category. "Wasp" wins. I have no idea if it's about the insect or not. Short Animated Film - well, could you show a clip, maybe? Wouldn't that be a better use of time than those damned songs? Something called "Ryan" wins. No one cares. Kate Winslet! We love her chez Althouse. Cinematography is the award. I predict "The Aviator," because it's been an "Aviator" night. And so it is.

9:20. Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz side by side. Fascinating! Another line-them-up-on-the-stage-award, that is, a low-valued award. What is it? Sound mixing. Who cares? The award is announced but the movie isn't named, so we're all confused. What won? Oh, it's "Ray." Now, Sound Editing. What the hell's the difference between that and Sound Mixing? No one knows or cares. Why isn't this grouped with the technical awards that are done in a separate ceremony? The coma continues... Okay, it's "The Incredibles." Here's where I miss using the TiVo assist. The acceptor says these aren't "technical" awards, these are for "artistic decisions." It's as if he heard my bitching. And now, another damned song. Salma Hayek not only announces the song from "The Motorcycle Diaries," she translates the words into English. Carlos Santana plays guitar and Antonio Banderas sings. It's the sort of thing where if you wandered into a bar and this was going on, you'd turn around and walk out.

9:34. Here's Natalie Portman in a dress that requires her to stand perfectly upright. Best Documentary Short Subject, the low point of the evening. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Original Score is next, and John Travolta does us the kindness of speaking very fast. "Finding Neverland" wins. That's one of the movies I saw, but I have no memory of the music.

9:47. Okay, I've ignored the humanitarian award. Annette Bening introduces one of my favorite sections, the memorial to dead filmfolk. Yoyo Ma plays the cello to set the lugubrious tone. Reagan is first, and we hear only applause. Good. It ends with Marlon Brando, with a series of clips. Clearly, Brando is the greatest actor to have died in the past year.

9:56. Sean Combs introduces another boring song, again with Beyoncé. What is the pont of this overuse of Beyoncé? The song is awful, the thing from "Polar Express." Combs tells us we should listen to the words, that they have some important message especially relevant today. I think he may have said that it's "hip." But the song is about how you should believe in your dreams! "Believe in what you feel inside, and give your dreams the wings to fly." Oh, how I hope that song loses, even though none of the other songs made any impression on me. And now, it's Prince! Pink pants, blue jacket. Sparkly hair! He just reads his lines -- doesn't do anything odd. The "Motorcycle Diaries" song wins. Good! Get it over with. The guy who accepts re-sings the damned song. As if we care! At least he doesn't talk. No more songs!!! Finally, we are at Best Actress. Announcing the award is Sean Penn. He tells us Jude Law is one of our finest actors, which he says to contradict Chris Rock's insult to him in the opening routine. Ha! Humorless Sean Penn -- but he was right about that! As expected, Hillary Swank wins. "I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream."

10:12. Gwyneth Paltrow comes out to give the Best Foreign Language Film. "The Sea Inside." Samuel Jackson gives the Original Screenplay Award. Some good films here. "Eternal Sunshine." Charlie Kaufman. Good! He seems like a sweet guy, and he really is doing something that no one else does. And it makes Kate Winslet happy, so... "It's the one thing that really deserved it," says Chris.

10:22. Charlize Theron, in a fluffy light blue dress, introduces the Best Actor nominees. As expected, Jamie Foxx wins. Standing O! But the standing O was cheapened earlier in the night. "Thank you, Ray Charles for living." Love! Love! Love! He praises his grandmother for beating him and that gets a big laugh. Ah, but grandma is dead and he's crying over her. So, love! I'm sure there are some people who beat their kids who are sitting at home thinking, see, I'm right, it does the kids good, and they'll thank me for it some day.

10:32. Julia Roberts introduces the directors, who bring their visions to the "scream." Clint Eastwood wins, so we can continue to talk about how Martin Scorsese has never won an Oscar. Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand (dressed in dark blue) come out to give the Best Picture award. Hoffman seems to be in a weird trance. Seeing Streisand reminds me that no one (other than Rock) brought up politics tonight. "Million Dollar Baby" wins.

10:40. That's it!

UPDATE: Here are my morning after thoughts.

Fall movie preview.

The big Fall movie preview issue of Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail today, and on the cover is my personal favorite actor, Johnny Depp. Not only is he clean shaven now, but he's got his hair combed back quite elegantly and he's wearing a suit. He looks quite like my father in the pencil drawing that I keep on the mantel. I'm having a bit of trouble getting past the cover! Hmm… the cover folds out and there are sixteen small pictures of various Fall movie stars. One of them is Maggie Gyllenhall, who looks uncannily like my own mother as a young girl. Okay, I'm finished with the cover. On to the magazine. Here's what caught my eye:

1. "Seinfeld" is coming out on DVD with "deleted scenes, blooper reels, an alternate version of the pilot, and cast commentaries."

2. Ereka Vetrini, Omarosa's nemesis from "The Apprentice," will be Tony Danza's sidekick on the new "Tony Danza Show." It's a talk show. Yeah, Ereka can talk.

3. Jamie Foxx, playing the role of Ray Charles in the biopic "Ray, " "wore prosthetics (modeled on Charles' actual eyes) to simulate the singer's blindness." He asserts that this was needed to avoid "cheating" as he moved around. It would be unaesthetic without prosthetics. But acting is faking it in all sorts of ways. Among the great actors who played blind sans eye prosthetics are: Audrey Hepburn and Bette Davis and Gabrielle Anwar and Patty Duke and Virginia Cherrill. The movies seem to prefer blind women to blind men, but I note the great Mr. Muckle in my all-time favorite comedy "It's a Gift." And the guy in "Butterflies Are Free." Ah! The best performance by a male actor as a blind character was Al Pacino. Hmm… and there was good old Gabrielle Anwar as his love interest. What has become of of Gabrielle anyway? Oh, and another fine performance by a male as a blind character was Gene Hackman. It seems blind men are funny and blind women are dramatic. You can think about why, and think about whether Foxx's film will be a hit. He sure looks like Ray Charles in the photograph. He's also, according to EW, a fine pianist--he went to college on a piano scholarship. So he'll be doing all the piano playing as Ray. Nice fact to know: Ray Charles, who died in June, was able to witness the final cut of the film.

4. John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix play firefighters in "Ladder 49," which is supposed to be better than "Backdraft," which real firefighters hate (because it's unrealistic). The filmmakers want you to think "Black Hawk Down."

5. They remade "Alfie," with Jude Law as Michael Caine. I've never bothered to watch the Michael Caine one, so why should I care? Well, Law is much cuter than Caine.

6. So what's the Christian Bale diet? "I just didn't eat." He got down to 120 pounds (he's 6'2"). He also only slept 2 hours a night. What role required all that? Some paranoid guy in "The Machinist." He's bulked back up for "Batman."

7. New Alexander Payne movie. "Sideways." I loved "Election" and "After Schmidt" was pretty good. Good lord, this new film is set in a wine-tasting milieu!

8. "The Grudge"—they've hired the director of the original Japanese film ("Ju-on") to do the Hollywood version. Takashi Shimizu. It stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, who looks just like Gwyneth Paltrow in this picture.

9. Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet together at last! "Finding Neverland." A biopic of J.M. Barrie. I hope it's good, because this is one I'd like to see.

10. Kevin Spacey directs himself in a biopic of Bobby Darin. "Beyond the Sea." How could that possibly be good? Spacey is eight years older than Darin was when he died. And who is interested in the life of Bobby Darin? That's just crazy! It seems the only reason for this is that Spacey has always looked a bit like Bobby Darin. What's next for Kevin? A biopic of Lee Harvey Oswald?

11. It's biopic year for the Oscar-craving actors as Leonardo DiCaprio plays Howard Hughes (with Martin Scorsese directing) in "The Aviator." There really is some fascination in seeing Cate Blanchett impersonate Katharine Hepburn and Kate Beckinsale impersonate Ava Gardner.

12. Jim Carey as Lemony Snickett. He rides a Segway. Okay.

13. "Proof," "Closer" … I guess I'm supposed to care about these Oscar-y productions. I'll wait for the reviews. And even if they are good, I'll probably resist, because I still remember getting hoodwinked into seeing "The Hours." Prestige movies for women: leave me alone!

14. Then there's the question: What Don Cheadle movies can I see in December? There's "Hotel Rwanda," in which Cheadle plays the role of Paul Rusesabagina, who saved the lives of 1200 Tutsis in 1994 (a great story). And there's "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," a political thriller that also stars Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.

15. They're making a film of "Get Smart," with perfect casting: Steve Carell.

16. A current film I'd buy right now if it were on DVD: "Los Angeles Plays Itself." It's a documentary about L.A. as it appears in the movies.

17. Ah! Finally, a decent DVD of "Purple Rain." Make sure you get the 20th Anniversary version. Don't buy this one.