The Quinnipiac poll asked voters to rate politicians on a scale of 0 to 100, with higher numbers representing more favorable opinions. Giuliani's mean score was 63.5, according to the poll.You know you want to talk about the '08 election. Go ahead!
Obama got a mean score of 59.9, McCain 59.7 and Rice 57.1.
"Not only do Mayor Giuliani and Sen. McCain get the best ratings, but their numbers are uniform across the country," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
President George W. Bush's rating was 44.1. Vice President Dick Cheney got a 41. Former President Bill Clinton was at 56.1
Four Democrats who are considered potential presidential candidates in 2008 were also mentioned in the poll's top 10: Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards received a 50.8, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner scored 50.7, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton 50.4 and Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin 49.
March 7, 2006
Rudy Giuliani is the most popular politician in the country.
According to a new Quinnipiac poll.
March 6, 2006
"The Apprentice."
The task is to get people in the street to send text messages, as many as possible, but it's also supposed to be a promotion of that new Gillette shaver with 5 blades. But if the game is judged by the number of messages, why should anyone pay any attention to the shaver? I mean, other than to get unusually distracted by the fact that Brent needs a shave? Lenny ("the Russian") figures all of this out, but no one else seems to. It's pointless to think up a "creative" word to text -- like "closer." Just have them text the easiest thing. One letter! Lenny's right. And so hardcore about saying he's right.
The Synergy team gets utterly distracted by the loathsomeness of Brent. What's so loathsome about him? I mean, in addition to the fact that he needs a shave -- and he's otherwise disheveled, which is especially bad since he's also overweight... and everyone else is above-average in looks? Well, he's really pushy, and his way of expressing himself is so annoying that Stacy just has to cut him off, and then he gets all in her face about that. Now, Stacy goes overboard, accusing Brent of being "physically threatening" and saying she can't work with him and they need to oust him right now. Interesting concept, the team firing somebody. How exactly does that work? Well, both Stacy and Brent are lawyers, so presumably there was some legalistic discussion of the concept, but it must have been boring, because we don't get to see it. Bottom line: Synergy wasted time.
Meanwhile, Michael comes up with the Synergy concept: they will all wear bathrobes, and then people in the street will all -- he predicts -- want to know why and will be ready to text message to find out the answer. Hilarious! Somehow they don't realize that everyone on the street will avoid a person in a bathrobe. Well, at least a guy in a bathrobe. Ivanka Trump is the new Carolyn and she's all "Oh, bathrobes?" Some of these folks look especially atrocious in bathrobes. Brent's got the belt up under his man-boobs with his undershirted belly hanging out below and, further down, hairy, scabby legs. They go to Times Square. Who would interact with such a man in Times Square? And then he busts out dancing. In flip-flops. And doing Devo-style "robotics."
Meanwhile, Gold Rush's leader Lee ends up ceding authority to Lenny, who's totally right about getting out early and having no gimmicks. We see little of these folks, and in the world of reality show editing, we know the other team lost. And yes, of course, that's what happens.
The "reward" for Gold Rush is to help three down-and-out guys each get a nice suit of clothes together to help them get back to work. Trump preens over the astounding charitableness of this activity. We cringe.
The Synergy gang gangs up on Brent. Michael, who's surely got to know he's on the line for the boneheaded bathrobe concept, emotes about "the aggressiveness that he took out on our female." Stacy now wobbles and says that Brent didn't "threaten" her. She must realize that to claim to have been threatened by a little verbal confrontation and close physical proximity is to reveal weakness. She's wracking her brains trying to pitch this right so that Brent goes down, and she can't quite figure it out.
In the Boardroom, there's plenty of pressure on Brent, but Trump sniffs out the problems with Pepi (the leader, why didn't he lead?), Stacy (you were threatened?), and Michael (bathrobes?). Trump announces he's going to fire two. Keeping up the suspense. We think, so, Brent and who else? And then he fires Stacy and Pepi! As they are leaving, we see Brent in the elevator. He's smirking devilishly. Ha!
The Synergy team gets utterly distracted by the loathsomeness of Brent. What's so loathsome about him? I mean, in addition to the fact that he needs a shave -- and he's otherwise disheveled, which is especially bad since he's also overweight... and everyone else is above-average in looks? Well, he's really pushy, and his way of expressing himself is so annoying that Stacy just has to cut him off, and then he gets all in her face about that. Now, Stacy goes overboard, accusing Brent of being "physically threatening" and saying she can't work with him and they need to oust him right now. Interesting concept, the team firing somebody. How exactly does that work? Well, both Stacy and Brent are lawyers, so presumably there was some legalistic discussion of the concept, but it must have been boring, because we don't get to see it. Bottom line: Synergy wasted time.
Meanwhile, Michael comes up with the Synergy concept: they will all wear bathrobes, and then people in the street will all -- he predicts -- want to know why and will be ready to text message to find out the answer. Hilarious! Somehow they don't realize that everyone on the street will avoid a person in a bathrobe. Well, at least a guy in a bathrobe. Ivanka Trump is the new Carolyn and she's all "Oh, bathrobes?" Some of these folks look especially atrocious in bathrobes. Brent's got the belt up under his man-boobs with his undershirted belly hanging out below and, further down, hairy, scabby legs. They go to Times Square. Who would interact with such a man in Times Square? And then he busts out dancing. In flip-flops. And doing Devo-style "robotics."
Meanwhile, Gold Rush's leader Lee ends up ceding authority to Lenny, who's totally right about getting out early and having no gimmicks. We see little of these folks, and in the world of reality show editing, we know the other team lost. And yes, of course, that's what happens.
The "reward" for Gold Rush is to help three down-and-out guys each get a nice suit of clothes together to help them get back to work. Trump preens over the astounding charitableness of this activity. We cringe.
The Synergy gang gangs up on Brent. Michael, who's surely got to know he's on the line for the boneheaded bathrobe concept, emotes about "the aggressiveness that he took out on our female." Stacy now wobbles and says that Brent didn't "threaten" her. She must realize that to claim to have been threatened by a little verbal confrontation and close physical proximity is to reveal weakness. She's wracking her brains trying to pitch this right so that Brent goes down, and she can't quite figure it out.
In the Boardroom, there's plenty of pressure on Brent, but Trump sniffs out the problems with Pepi (the leader, why didn't he lead?), Stacy (you were threatened?), and Michael (bathrobes?). Trump announces he's going to fire two. Keeping up the suspense. We think, so, Brent and who else? And then he fires Stacy and Pepi! As they are leaving, we see Brent in the elevator. He's smirking devilishly. Ha!
The Solomon Amendment is upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court.
SCOTUSblog reports:
As the unanimity indicates, this outcome was not at all surprising. Here's my post on the reports after the oral argument, at which point it was rather obvious that the government was going to win.
(I dread seeing all the opinion pieces that connect this case to "Brokeback Mountain" not winning the Best Picture Oscar.)
MORE: From the case:
YET MORE: I want to express my deepest thanks to Chief Justice Roberts for gathering the Justices onto one clearly written opinion. There is no blather or hedging in the prose. He has obviously taken great pains to put every sentence in plain English. He deals with all the precedents, handling most of the cases in one or two crisp sentences. You may not appreciate how beautiful this thinking and writing is, but I do, and I think generations of law students will.
A unanimous Supreme Court on Monday upheld the "Solomon Amendment" that assures military recruiters they may seek to sign up students at the nation's law schools. The Court ruled that the military must be given access even though it violates the law schools' policy against facilitating discrimination against homosexuals. Moreover, the Court declared, law schools could not exclude the military even if they also excluded all other potential employers that declined to hire gays and lesbians.Chief Justice Roberts writes the opinion. There are no additional opinions. (Alito, of course, does not participate.)
As the unanimity indicates, this outcome was not at all surprising. Here's my post on the reports after the oral argument, at which point it was rather obvious that the government was going to win.
(I dread seeing all the opinion pieces that connect this case to "Brokeback Mountain" not winning the Best Picture Oscar.)
MORE: From the case:
The law schools object to having to treat military recruiters like other recruiters, but that regulation of conduct does not violate the First Amendment. To the extent that the Solomon Amendment incidentally affects expression, the law schools' effort to cast themselves as just like the schoolchildren in Barnette, the parade organizers in Hurley, and the Boy Scouts in Dale plainly overstates the expressive nature of their activity and the impact of the Solomon Amendment on it, while exaggerating the reach of our First Amendment precedents.
YET MORE: I want to express my deepest thanks to Chief Justice Roberts for gathering the Justices onto one clearly written opinion. There is no blather or hedging in the prose. He has obviously taken great pains to put every sentence in plain English. He deals with all the precedents, handling most of the cases in one or two crisp sentences. You may not appreciate how beautiful this thinking and writing is, but I do, and I think generations of law students will.
"Oscar night is no longer about movie stars feting each other in front of an awed audience. It's about viewers deconstructing celebrity...."
Alessandra Stanley on the Oscars show:
Oscar night is no longer about movie stars feting each other in front of an awed audience. It's about viewers deconstructing celebrity — abetted by a cottage industry of stylists, dermatologists, surgeons and trainers who reveal the fakery behind even the most seemingly natural beauties: celebrity with a dehumanized face. And TV commentators fawn and probe on pre-Oscar shows and red-carpet interviews with little to no curiosity about filmmaking or news events but insatiable appetite for details about clothes and personal grooming. (There is something delicious and embarrassingly decadent about the national obsession with the Oscars — an entire country caught eating raw cookie dough while reading "in Touch.")No, no, what would really be embarrassing would be if we were the "awed audience" they'd like us to be. We're doing exactly what we should be doing, eating the cookie dough of truth.
"Splits within the party about what it means to be a Democrat."
Adam Nagourney writes about the difficulty Democrats running for Congress are having finding a coherent theme:
These scattershot messages reflect what officials in both parties say are vulnerabilities among Republicans on Capitol Hill, as well as President Bush's weakened political condition in this election year.I didn't think much of the Contract With America, and it's fine with me if the parties don't have coherent themes. I felt no dissonance voting for both George Bush and Russ Feingold in 2004. But that's just me. Maybe you like to see these characters more united. I'd rather see smart, good people who think independently. I think it's much harder to convince people that the party needs to take over than that an individual candidate is worthy. And that's very good, it seems to me. In any case, if they've got to coalesce into a theme, I think they are right to wait until they get much closer to the election. We've got 8 months yet.
But they also reflect splits within the party about what it means to be a Democrat — and what a winning Democratic formula will be — after years in which conservative ideas have dominated the national policy debate and helped win elections.
And they complicate the basic strategy being pursued by Democratic leaders in Washington to capture control of Congress: to turn this election into a national referendum on the party in power, much the way Republicans did against Democrats in 1994.
Interviews with Democratic challengers in contested districts suggest that the party is far from settling on an overarching theme that will work as well in central Connecticut as it does in central Colorado.
And while Democrats have no shortage of criticism to offer, they have so far not introduced a strategy for governing along the lines of the Republican Party's Contract With America, the 1994 initiative that some Democrats hold up as their model for this year's elections.
"It's certainly worth the effort, but it's damned hard to do," Charles O. Jones, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said of the Democratic effort to emulate the Republicans.
"If you're going to run a national campaign," as the Republicans did in 1994, Dr. Jones said, "it's helpful to have a message, not just 'The other guys don't know what they are doing.' If Democrats are using that strategy, I haven't heard that message yet."...
Democrats pointed out that Republicans did not offer their Contract With America until the final weeks of the 1994 campaign and said that they were planning to offer their own version by summer.
Where's my NYT?
We've been getting some serious snow these last two days, and the worst part about it is that I can't find my New York Times. The snow shoveling guys might have covered it up, or maybe it just didn't come. Trying to get the day started without the foundation of the paper Times is hard for me. Am I just supposed to read the website? Why does that feel so awkward to me, when I do so much other reading on line? It's a mental quirk of mine. I've had the Times delivered for the entire time I've lived in Wisconsin, over 20 years. Why the NYT? It's not just that I was living in New York before I came here, it's that the NYT delivered out here, and the local papers are completely insubstantial. I've become quite attached to it, in its traditional form.
Oscar afterthoughts.
That was a long night of blogging yesterday! But watching the Oscars without blogging is much more of a slog. And I relied heavily on TiVo, so, really, it was a snap compared to just sitting around watching in real time. I skipped nearly all of the speeches, all of the commercials, all of the walking to the the stage, and (the best part) all of the singing. I also skipped all the pre-shows, so I didn't really get the chance to see as much of the fashions as I would have liked. I also got so preoccupied writing that I didn't check around to see what other folks were writing.
This morning I see that this character, apparently a somewhat popular blogger, spent the entire evening simulblogging my simulblogging. His motivation seems to have been that he had me pegged as a conservative, the sort of person he despises, so he was going to wait around and jump on me for jumping on Hollywood for being liberal. In classic lefty form, he makes plainly sexist remarks without seeming to think it counts against him! And his commenters fail to call him on it. His long post mostly consists of my statements, copied. To this he adds his repeated assertions that I'm boring and boys won't like me because I'm mean and his generic comments that mostly just express antagonism toward a crude right-wing stereotype that has little to do with me (including imputations of racism based on utterly nothing that appears in my post). What a shameful display! He does append a meager apology at the end, when it seems to finally dawn on him that he'd been off in some fantasy world of his own all night, ideating about me. What the very idea of a woman with opinions does to a man's... mind! Oh, and one of our regular commenters, who stooped to a sexist insult against me here yesterday, shows up over there and preens about that insult, without admitting that it was a sexist insult and that he apologized for it here. Apology not accepted!
Anyway, I didn't get much chance to talk about politics, because, even with Jon Stewart hosting, I heard very little politics. I think somebody thought a lot about how to avoid offending ordinary Americans, whom they need to keep going to the movies, when they had a political host and so many heavily political or politicized movies among the nominees. The memo seems to have gone out. Quite rationally, the decision was to focus on the positive, how Hollywood has supported good values, like ending bigotry. The war and President Bush were not mentioned (or if they were, it was rare and I missed it). I think the stars were advised to act serious and elegant. Perhaps they were told to play Old Hollywood. Something caused nearly all the women to wear either black or beige dresses and to pull their hair back into a soft bun. Something caused the presenters to drain the life and playfulness out of their voices. They really do want us to love them, but when we see how they act when they are trying to win our love, we get a sense of what they really think we are like. We're the people in the dark, featureless, mindless. They were trying to fit in with us. A dreary display!
I haven't read the newspaper commentary yet, but I assume there will be a lot of analysis of why "Crash" beat out "Brokeback Mountain." Were the Hollywooders trying to make the America it imagines like them? It's hard to see how group behavior can mean that much. It can't be just a matter of getting tired of the frontrunner, because there were so many other predictable winners last night. What about the possibility that "Crash" is actually a better movie? But maybe the voters really did think it was a good idea to express their social consciousness in the anti-racism mode rather than the anti-homophobia mode, because America's caught up on the proposition that racism is wrong.
This morning I see that this character, apparently a somewhat popular blogger, spent the entire evening simulblogging my simulblogging. His motivation seems to have been that he had me pegged as a conservative, the sort of person he despises, so he was going to wait around and jump on me for jumping on Hollywood for being liberal. In classic lefty form, he makes plainly sexist remarks without seeming to think it counts against him! And his commenters fail to call him on it. His long post mostly consists of my statements, copied. To this he adds his repeated assertions that I'm boring and boys won't like me because I'm mean and his generic comments that mostly just express antagonism toward a crude right-wing stereotype that has little to do with me (including imputations of racism based on utterly nothing that appears in my post). What a shameful display! He does append a meager apology at the end, when it seems to finally dawn on him that he'd been off in some fantasy world of his own all night, ideating about me. What the very idea of a woman with opinions does to a man's... mind! Oh, and one of our regular commenters, who stooped to a sexist insult against me here yesterday, shows up over there and preens about that insult, without admitting that it was a sexist insult and that he apologized for it here. Apology not accepted!
Anyway, I didn't get much chance to talk about politics, because, even with Jon Stewart hosting, I heard very little politics. I think somebody thought a lot about how to avoid offending ordinary Americans, whom they need to keep going to the movies, when they had a political host and so many heavily political or politicized movies among the nominees. The memo seems to have gone out. Quite rationally, the decision was to focus on the positive, how Hollywood has supported good values, like ending bigotry. The war and President Bush were not mentioned (or if they were, it was rare and I missed it). I think the stars were advised to act serious and elegant. Perhaps they were told to play Old Hollywood. Something caused nearly all the women to wear either black or beige dresses and to pull their hair back into a soft bun. Something caused the presenters to drain the life and playfulness out of their voices. They really do want us to love them, but when we see how they act when they are trying to win our love, we get a sense of what they really think we are like. We're the people in the dark, featureless, mindless. They were trying to fit in with us. A dreary display!
I haven't read the newspaper commentary yet, but I assume there will be a lot of analysis of why "Crash" beat out "Brokeback Mountain." Were the Hollywooders trying to make the America it imagines like them? It's hard to see how group behavior can mean that much. It can't be just a matter of getting tired of the frontrunner, because there were so many other predictable winners last night. What about the possibility that "Crash" is actually a better movie? But maybe the voters really did think it was a good idea to express their social consciousness in the anti-racism mode rather than the anti-homophobia mode, because America's caught up on the proposition that racism is wrong.
March 5, 2006
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:
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.
Audible Althouse #39.
A new podcast for you: getting ready for Oscar night, looking at a snow-covered tree, why I like to simulblog TV shows I don't like, why I'm not one of your "wonderful people in the dark," three posts about pee, leaving religion out of "Walk the Line," Tony Blair's mention of God, and the gender mysteries of Don Knotts.
You don't need an iPod to listen. You can stream it right on your computer here.
UPDATE: The clip is fixed now.
You don't need an iPod to listen. You can stream it right on your computer here.
UPDATE: The clip is fixed now.
At last, the blook!
Richard Lawrence Cohen, who's been my ex-husband for lo these many years, has had a book manufactured from what he's decided are the best posts on his blog. I've linked to his blog a lot, so you probably know if you like the style or not, and I know some of my commenters have become regular commenters over there, so clearly some of you do.
So how do blog posts look in book form? He observes:
"A unity that makes them still more meaningful"? So he's asserting that his own blog posts are meaningful? Well, the very act of publishing your writing is an assertion that what you've got to say is meaningful. Or do we bloggers seem to be saying only here it is, for whatever it's worth. I'm not saying it means a damn thing. It's just the latest thing that dribbled out of my head.
Nevertheless, when you blook your blog you're definitely asserting that these posts were meaningful and I'm now making them even more meaningful. So what the hell? Why not say it?
So how do blog posts look in book form? He observes:
It looks good, and I'm pleased that the posts, placed one after another in a nice typeface on good paper, form a unity that makes them still more meaningful: a literary self-portrait in several forms, covering the course of a year.That is, you totally don't have to buy the book to read every single thing in it (other than the preface). Info on buying his book is in the sidebar. It's great that you can sell your blook through the major bookstore sites!
In a second post today I'll tell give you some further glimpses, but in this one I just want to offer you the table of contents (which is very long because the book contains 89 posts). Those of you who are familiar with my work can go back to any of the listed posts if you wish, and remind yourselves of what you liked in them. Those of you who haven't read certain posts before -- ones from months ago, perhaps -- can dip into them as previews of the book.
The posts are arranged in chronological order, except for the last one listed. An author's preface introduces the book.
To find a post on this blog, type or cut-and-paste the title into the white search bar at the top of this page. Then click "Search This Blog". Click on the link provided by the search results.
"A unity that makes them still more meaningful"? So he's asserting that his own blog posts are meaningful? Well, the very act of publishing your writing is an assertion that what you've got to say is meaningful. Or do we bloggers seem to be saying only here it is, for whatever it's worth. I'm not saying it means a damn thing. It's just the latest thing that dribbled out of my head.
Nevertheless, when you blook your blog you're definitely asserting that these posts were meaningful and I'm now making them even more meaningful. So what the hell? Why not say it?
"I just feel that filmmakers are much more proactive since the second Bush administration."
Says Steven Spielberg. "I think that everybody is trying to declare their independence and state their case for things that we believe in. No one is really representing us, so we're representing our own feelings, and we're trying to strike back."
Emanuel Levy, professor of critical studies in the UCLA Film School and author of the book "All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards," said he thinks the tremors of a post-9/11 world have just caught up with Hollywood in this year's Academy Award races. Levy said that when society faces a divisive issue, such as the war in Iraq or the response to terrorism, critical movies emerge, but not immediately.In other words, Spielberg is totally bullshitting. It's not about Bush, it's about Clinton.
There is an expression in Hollywood that the studios make movies about what people were talking about last year. There is always a lag between idea and premiere. "Munich" took six years to reach the multiplex. "Brokeback Mountain" took eight. "Syriana" is based on a book written during the Clinton administration.
Are we really going to watch the Oscars when we haven't seen the films?
Manohla Dargis writes:
The Dargis conclusion:
Oh, but something will be lost? You're looking for "a unified whole rather than ... a mass of self-interested egos"? Excuse me if I -- ooh, I'm so egotistical! -- opt out of your dream, which reminds me, somehow, of all of my least favorite political schemes.
TONIGHT, an expected 41 million Americans will tune into the 78th annual Academy Awards to watch a spectacle largely honoring films they have not seen and may never get around to watching....Well, I'm going to watch -- with TiVo to leap the longueurs -- because I like simulblogging this sort of thing. See! I simulblogged the Oscars last year. Wasn't that amusing?
There are all sorts of reasons why "Munich," along with "Brokeback Mountain," "Capote," "Crash" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" were nominated for best picture (they're pretty good, for one) and a couple of reasons why we should care. Among the most obvious and discomfiting, however, is that Big Hollywood increasingly finds it difficult to make the kinds of high-profile movies that the industry likes to honor with its most important awards.
The Dargis conclusion:
The crisis now facing Hollywood isn't unique to the movies; the atomization of the culture makes it hard to know what people want, particularly when they belong to a multi-everything society like ours. Still, something will be lost if Hollywood continues to downsize its ambitions and fails to make movies that connect with the mass audience, to make movies that speak to us as a unified whole rather than as a mass of self-interested egos, that give us a sense of collective identity and social cohesion. A nation of iPod-people, each staring at his or her individually downloaded film on the delivery system of his or her choice, seems a poor substitute for the oceanic feeling that comes with watching a film with a crowd, finding communion in the dark.Yeah, well, that crowd is slurping gallons of soda and popping up to pee every 5 minutes, so spare me the old blather about communion in the dark -- which sounds like something Norma Desmond would say:
And I promise you I'll never desert you again because after 'Salome' we'll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!Maybe we've about had it with being your wonderful people in the dark, communicants at your bogus church. Maybe this atomization of the culture is a good thing. We can find our affiliative connections over small things through blogging and other internet methods. And these will be much richer, better connections. Since the new movies can be made and distributed cheaply, digitally, real artists can reach out to us with film, and we will be here -- yes, with our iPods -- to listen to them.
Oh, but something will be lost? You're looking for "a unified whole rather than ... a mass of self-interested egos"? Excuse me if I -- ooh, I'm so egotistical! -- opt out of your dream, which reminds me, somehow, of all of my least favorite political schemes.
"Grey Gardens," the musical.
I've already blogged about my great love for the film "Grey Gardens." Here, I respond to the charge that I've phonied up the list of favorite films in my Blogger profile as a way to make myself appear more sexually attractive. And here I describe an at-home triple feature where I inflict it on friends, including the one who made the aforementioned charge.
Now, there's an Off-Broadway musical based on the film. Here's the NYT piece on it, which includes a photograph that should hearten the film's devotees:
That really captures the mood well, doesn't it? From the article:
Do we understand from the musical any more than from the film what brought these women to this condition?
Here's the piece NPR ran this morning, which gives you a chance to hear some of the music. The photo at the NPR page, unlike the photo above, is worrisome for a "Grey Gardens" devotee.
Oh, and apparently, we're about to get a "Grey Gardens" movie too. With Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange!
Now, there's an Off-Broadway musical based on the film. Here's the NYT piece on it, which includes a photograph that should hearten the film's devotees:
That really captures the mood well, doesn't it? From the article:
"Grey Gardens" also developed a following among people, gay men especially, who responded both to the implicit campiness of the film — two faded old biddies, preening and bickering and singing Cole Porter tunes in lah-dee-dah accents — and to the women's eccentricity, originality and uncompromising independence. The two Edies, a cross between the Collyer brothers and Miss Havisham and Estella, are a bizarre version of the American family but ultimately an affectionate and mutually sustaining one. Their admirers include numbers of men who love to watch the film while dressed in drag and reciting the dialogue from memory.Dressed in drag? Well, presumaby you are wearing the skirt on you head, right? It's the perfect costume for the day.
Even before seeing the musical, some of the diehards are charging sacrilege. Scott Frankel, who was the prime mover behind this production of "Grey Gardens" and wrote the music for it, has been accosted on the street by outraged fans of the film saying "How could you!" Doug Wright, who wrote the book for the musical, said recently: "It's like adapting the Bible. You do feel a certain responsibility."...It will be interesting to see how that works. One of the great charms of the film is the way you discover the past, at surprising little moments, like when the camera shows a beautiful oil portrait of Big Edie, who is laughing about how the cat is "enjoying" itself by pissing behind it.
... Mr. Frankel called in Mr. Wright, a Yale classmate and the author of both the movie "Quills" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "I Am My Own Wife." Mr. Wright told him he was nuts. "I said I adored the movie, but what you have in mind can't be done," he recalled. "How can you have a two-act musical where nothing happens? It wasn't until they came to me with the tablecloth that I realized there could be a narrative shape."
The tablecloth — a paper one, from Ernie's restaurant on the Upper West Side — was the handiwork of Mr. Frankel and Mr. Korie, who wrote the libretto for "Harvey Milk," among other operas, and who was starting to think about lyrics for the show. It had two boxes drawn on it, one labeled 1941 and the other 1973, depicting the solution the two men had arrived over dinner in the fall of 2003: to create an entire first act set in the past, when Big Edie was in her prime and Little Edie was known in debutante circles as Body Beautiful Beale, and a second set in the actual period of the film.
"We had been playing with the idea of flashbacks, but that just seemed like 'Follies,' " Mr. Frankel recalled. "But then we began thinking about what really happened. What if we saw what life was like at Grey Gardens before it became this hothouse terrarium?"
Do we understand from the musical any more than from the film what brought these women to this condition?
"I kept trying to get a clinical fix on them," Mr. Frankel said, "and my allegiances kept shifting. At first I thought Big Edie was a narcissist who created a sort of bohemian salon for herself at Grey Gardens, and didn't equip her daughter to live an independent, creative life. But then I began to wonder whether Little Edie was ever equipped to deal with the world. Was she mentally compromised? She knows what she should do, and yet she doesn't seem able to make it happen. So maybe Big Edie was in fact providing a safe haven for a daughter who couldn't manage in the world. We kept looking at it as an 'or' proposition, but through talking to Albert we came to see it as an 'and' proposition."Have you figured it out?
Here's the piece NPR ran this morning, which gives you a chance to hear some of the music. The photo at the NPR page, unlike the photo above, is worrisome for a "Grey Gardens" devotee.
Oh, and apparently, we're about to get a "Grey Gardens" movie too. With Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange!
One woman, one man -- and Manitowoc.
Here in Wisconsin, we're contemplating a state constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to one man and one woman. How is this affecting people aroung the state? Consider the congregation at the First Reformed United Church of Christ on Waldo Boulevard, Manitowoc:
The issue to be voted on in Wisconsin is whether a ban on gay marriage belongs in the state constitution, not whether homosexuality is a sin or whether gay marriage is a good idea. There are ever so many sins that are not burdened by provisions in the state constitution and ever so many bad personal choices that the law doesn't go out of its way to prevent individuals from making. But this congregation is reacting to the resolution adopted by the General Synod as much as the proposed vote on the amendment. Gay marriage has been forefronted as a political issue, and now this little church has decided it needs to take an official position on a subject that it seems as though it would have preferred not to address or at least, as the pastor says, to address in the mellow fashion of more dialogue and discussion and more thinking and praying.
The local congregation, with 275 members, is scheduled to vote on March 19 whether it should bless same-sex marriages.It's interesting -- isn't it? -- this idea that we need to believe in something as a group. First Reformed Church needs to take an opinion so people know what they are believing in. When I first read that, I thought the man meant that he needed his church to take a position so that he could know his own beliefs. But I think he means that the group as a body needs to take a position so that members know what sort of an organization they are part of and outsiders can decide what they think of the place. But it's an odd locution to say that people need to know what they are believing in.
At its annual meeting last Sunday, members approved a motion for a congregational vote on the issue....
[The UCC's General Synod adoped a resolution] titled "In Support of Equal Marriage Rights for All," passed by national delegates in Atlanta last July.
It urges UCC congregations to support local, state and national legislation to grant equal marriage rights to couples regardless of gender....
First Reformed's pastor, the Rev. Richard Runge, recognizes the issue's divisiveness.
"I would prefer no vote at all ... my preference would be more dialogue and discussion and more thinking and praying about it," he said.
The UCC General Synod speaks to — not for — congregations which are free to accept or reject any or all resolutions offered at the national meeting held every two years.
After last July's gathering, Runge said he made it clear he supported the equal marriage rights stance of the general synod. For him it is a matter of justice, not morality.
"Marriage has to do with love, faith and commitment and knowing you care about someone and that special someone cares about you ... whether a man and woman or two men or two women," Runge said.
Church member Dick Weber believes Runge holds a minority viewpoint, both within First Reformed and the society at large.
Weber opposes same sex marriage.
"It is a moral issue to me," he said. "I am not criticizing homosexuals coming to church. We have always had a church open to all," Weber said.
But Weber believes his church must distance itself from the General Synod's position or risk people assuming the Manitowoc church also endorses gay marriage.
Fellow members saying it is OK for a gay couple to be at worship services, while a blessing ceremony for their relationship would be forbidden, mystifies Lisa Bergner.
She wonders how they could possibly feel welcomed. No matter how the March 19 vote goes, she vows to remain a First Reformed member.
"I will welcome everyone who walks in our door no matter the color of their skin or sexual orientation, and I believe the majority of our members will," Bergner said.
Kevin Schmidt on Sunday proposed the vote. "First Reformed Church needs to take an opinion so people know what they are believing in," he said following approval of his motion.
The issue to be voted on in Wisconsin is whether a ban on gay marriage belongs in the state constitution, not whether homosexuality is a sin or whether gay marriage is a good idea. There are ever so many sins that are not burdened by provisions in the state constitution and ever so many bad personal choices that the law doesn't go out of its way to prevent individuals from making. But this congregation is reacting to the resolution adopted by the General Synod as much as the proposed vote on the amendment. Gay marriage has been forefronted as a political issue, and now this little church has decided it needs to take an official position on a subject that it seems as though it would have preferred not to address or at least, as the pastor says, to address in the mellow fashion of more dialogue and discussion and more thinking and praying.
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