The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 81st Annual Academy Awards Prediction Edition
Hey Poll-fans! It's Heart vs Mind i.e.
Who d'ya want to win as opposed to who d'ya think is gonna win
.
Best Picture
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Director
Feel free to include any other category that interests you (nod to Adam here for sound). Results will be posted prior to the ceremony... I wish I could make this a contest with prizes and all. But, hey, there's a recession going on, or haven't ya heard? So, just have some fun, eh?
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to
Reults Friday, 20 February.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Roger Ebert: Ending up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must
The day will come when the words of Shakespeare are no longer known. The day will come, perhaps sooner, when all the words on the internet, in every language, have disappeared. These very words, and all the words we have read and written, will no longer exist. Oh, for a long time they may be on a hard drive somewhere, one able to store the entirety of the web. But not forever. Not even close. A word not read is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. The word existed, the tree fell, but without witness, what does it mean?
Paul Krugman: Failure to Rise (nytimes.com)
It's early days yet, but we're falling behind the curve. America just isn't rising to the challenge of the greatest economic crisis in 70 years.
Tom Danehy: In the commodities-speculation game, average Americans can only get screwed
Last summer, when all we had to worry about was the high price of gasoline, people were looking for explanations as to why the price of a barrel of oil had doubled (and would soon triple). A few members of Congress and some people in the media wondered whether speculators were driving up the price of oil, as similar scoundrels had done with the housing market. At the time, know-it-all gasbag Rush Limbaugh ridiculed that notion and anyone who dared speak or write of it in public.
Mark Morford: Death by moron (sfgate.com)
Has anonymous commenting destroyed meaningful online dialogue? Oh, hell yes.
JOEL STEIN: Facebook's '25 things' too many (latimes.com)
Facebook's '25 Random Things About Me' is all about you. And you aren't that interesting.
Brian Palmer: Why Do Americans Love Peanut Butter? (slate.com)
Last week, Sen. Tom Harkin excoriated the company accused of knowingly supplying salmonella-tainted peanut butter to a free school lunch program, asking, "What's more sacred than peanut butter?" How did peanut butter become such a popular part of the American diet?
RICHARD ROEPER: Celebs have to learn: Win fame, lose privacy
But Bale, Phelps and Cyrus have history of scandalous behavior.
Rick Bentley: 'Confessions' of an actress: 'Shopaholic' star Isla Fisher (McClatchy Newspapers)
Acting is like dancing. Some lead. Some follow.
Daniel Bubbeo: Fast chat with '30 Rock' co-star Jane Krakowski (Newsday)
No one would ever have to ask Jane Krakowski what her astrological sign is. She's a die-hard Libra, always looking for balance in everything she does.
Rick Bentley: John Francis Daley is making his 'Bones' on Fox series (McClatchy Newspapers)
When baby-faced actor John Francis Daley joined the cast of "Bones" to play psychologist Lance Sweets, he expected to be at the receiving end of some sharp barbs about his youthful looks. He just wants to deflect enough of those witty remarks so the viewers respect the character.
Interview by Hannah Pool: Question time (guardian.co.uk)
Actor Angela Bassett on why she is drawn to playing strong women - from Tina Turner to the mother of Biggie Smalls.
Roger Ebert: WAKING LIFE (R; 2001; A Great Movie)
It is hard to say how much of Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" (2001) is a dream. I think all of it is. His hero keeps dreaming that he has awakened. He climbs out of bed, splashes water on his face, walks outside and finds himself dreaming again. But the film isn't one of those surrealist fantasies with pinwheels coming out of the hero's eyes or people being sucked down into the vortex. It's mostly conversational, and the conversation is all intriguing; the dreamer must be intelligent.
Richard Roeper (richardroeper.com)
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Jane Fonda Plays TV Crass Word
New TV Game Show That Isn't?
wrote:
Reader Suggestion
Arizona
Check out:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Rainy day.
Time To Be On Best Behavior
Oscar Nominees
Next to some of the biggest names in music and sports, Hollywood's hottest movie stars are looking like absolute saints these days.
Potentially career-destroying scandals are plaguing pop star Chris Brown, baseball player Alex Rodriguez and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, but 'tis the season for Oscar nominees to lay low, at least until the votes have been cast.
Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have until Tuesday to choose their favourite film performances, and it's not just a star's onscreen presence they consider, say industry observers.
Bad behaviour is not the only thing that can ruin Oscar chances. A questionable project can have the same effect.
Eddie Murphy's celebrated turn as a drug-addled crooner in "Dreamgirls" was considered a lock for the best supporting actor trophy in 2007 until his comic farce "Norbit" came out just before the Oscar bash and tarnished his image as a respected actor.
Oscar Nominees
Picked Up For Sixth Season
"Rescue Me"
The fifth season of Denis Leary's "Rescue Me" doesn't premiere for two months, but FX is already ordering a sixth round.
The network picked up another 18 episodes of the critically acclaimed show about the lives of New York firefighters. The 22-episode fifth season, which was delayed by last year's writers strike, starts April 7, about 19 months after the conclusion of Season 4.
In addition, Leary is launching "The Rescue Me Comedy Tour," an 11-city tour featuring the actor, fellow comedians and "Rescue Me" co-stars Adam Ferrara and Lenny Clarke. The tour includes a stop at Radio City Music Hall on April 2, a performance that will benefit the Leary Firefighters Foundation.
"Rescue Me"
Pulls Out Of Oscars
Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel's minute in the Oscars spotlight will lack one important element: Peter Gabriel.
The Academy Award-nominated singer won't perform at the Feb. 22 ceremony to protest an apparently revamped presentation of best original song contenders. Gabriel says in a video on his Web site that he objects to the songs being shortened to 65 seconds apiece and made part of a medley.
Gabriel is nominated alongside Thomas Newman for "Down To Earth" from "WALL-E."
The British musician says he'll still attend the Oscars, but is hoping a gospel choir will stand in for him onstage.
Peter Gabriel
For Millions, Deadline Still Is Now
Digital TV
Isidro Diaz surfs channels on his old TV about three hours a night in the trailer he rents for $350 a month. Come Tuesday, his limited choice of programs will be much more limited.
Although the government delayed the mandatory shutdown of analog TV signals by four months to give people with older TVs more time to prepare, that's small comfort to Diaz and other people who live in cities where some broadcasters are switching to all-digital broadcasts Tuesday, as they had originally planned.
In San Diego, the nation's eighth-largest city, the ABC, CBS, Fox and CW affiliates plan to end analog broadcasts Tuesday.
Diaz, a 63-year-old Mexican immigrant who was laid off a month ago by a garden nursery that paid $10 an hour, figures he will eventually muster $200 for a digital television; the least expensive model on Best Buy Co.'s Web site costs $130.
Digital TV
Nude Photo Sells
Madonna
A full frontal nude photo of Madonna, taken in 1979 before she became famous, has sold at auction for $37,500 -- more than double its pre-sale estimate.
The black and white photo of the pop music superstar, aged 20, was acquired by an unnamed European buyer at Christie's in New York late on Thursday.
The picture, taken by photographer Lee Friedlander, was shot at a time when Madonna was a dancer trying to make ends meet in New York and answered a classified ad seeking a nude model. It had a pre-sale estimate of $10-15,000.
The photo and six others from the shoot later appeared in Playboy magazine in 1985 after Madonna found fame with hits like "Like a Virgin" and "Holiday".
Madonna
Changes Name
Blackwater
Blackwater Worldwide is still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, but executives at the beleaguered security firm are taking their biggest step yet to put that work and the ugly reputation it earned the company behind them.
Blackwater said Friday it will no longer operate under the name that came to be known worldwide as a caustic moniker for private security, dropping the tarnished brand for a disarming and simple identity: Xe, which is pronounced like the letter "z."
It's a rare surrender for a company that cherished a brand name inspired by the dark-water swamps of northeastern North Carolina, one that survived another rebranding effort about a year ago, following a deadly shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. The decision to give it up underscores how badly the Moyock-based company's brand was damaged by that incident and other security work in Iraq.
Xe will cover the parent brand for the two-dozen subsidiaries, and none of those subsidiaries will retain the word "Blackwater" in their names.
Blackwater
Areas Closed To Foreigners
Tibet
China is tightening its grip on Tibetan areas in the western part of the country by banning foreigners from the region ahead of the politically sensitive 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising.
Large swathes of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces - home to large ethnic Tibetan communities - are now off limits to foreign travelers, local officials confirmed Thursday.
Last year, protests to mark the anniversary spun out of control, with deadly riots breaking out in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.
An official at the tourism office of northwestern Gansu province's Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, home to a major monastery and large Tibetan communities, said the region was closed to foreigners and would not be open until late March. The official, who did not identify himself as is customary in China, did not say when the restrictions were put in place.
Tibet
Sounds Yummy!
Mellow Yellow
A hardline Hindu organization, known for its opposition to "corrupting" Western food imports, is planning to launch a new soft drink made from cow's urine, often seen as sacred in parts of India.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Corps, said the bovine beverage is undergoing laboratory tests for the next 2 to 3 months but did not give a specific date for its commercial release.
The flavor is not yet known, but the RSS said the liquid produced by Hinduism's revered holy cows is being mixed with products such as aloe vera and gooseberry to fight diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
The organization, which aims to transform India's secular society and establish the supremacy of a Hindu majority, said it had not decided on a name or a price for the drink.
Mellow Yellow
Gets 7 Life Terms
Another Polygamist
A self-proclaimed polygamist was sentenced Friday to seven consecutive life prison terms for torturing seven of his 19 children, abusing four others and imprisoning two of his three wives.
Mansa Musa Muhummed, 55, also was sentenced to additional terms totaling 16 years and eight months by Riverside County Superior Court Judge F. Paul Dickerson III, who said Muhummed's treatment of his family amounted to "a reign of terror over defenseless children."
Muhummed was convicted in June of 25 counts, including torture, child endangerment, false imprisonment and corporal injury on a spouse.
At his trial, several of Muhummed's children and stepchildren testified against him, telling jurors they had been beaten, starved, strung up by their feet and forced to eat vomit and feces.
Another Polygamist
"Loose" Women & Pink Panties
Valentine's Day
Thousands of Indians, many fuming over a recent assault on women in a pub, are vowing to fill bars on Valentine's Day and send cartons of pink panties to a radical Hindu group that has branded outgoing females immoral.
A "consortium of pub-going, loose and forward women," founded by four Indian women on social networking website Facebook has, in a matter of days, attracted more than 25,000 members with over 2,000 posts about the self-appointed moral police.
The women said their mission was to go bar-hopping on February 14 and send hundreds of pink knickers to Sri Ram Sena, the militant Hindu group that has said pubs are for men, and that women should stay at home and cook for their husbands.
Collection centers have sprung up in several cities, with volunteers calling for bright pink old-fashioned knickers as gifts to the Sri Ram Sena as a mark of defiance.
Valentine's Day
In Memory
Estelle Bennett
Estelle Bennett, one of the Ronettes, the singing trio whose 1963 hit "Be My Baby" epitomized the famed "wall of sound" technique of its producer, Phil Spector, has died at her home in Englewood, N.J. She was 67.
Bennett's brother-in-law, Jonathan Greenfield, said police found her dead in her apartment on Wednesday after relatives had been unable to contact her. The time and cause of death have not yet been determined. Greenfield is the manager and husband of Bennett's sister, Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector.
The Ronettes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007; its Web site hails the group as "the premier act of the girl group era." Among their admirers were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; their exotic hairstyles and makeup are aped by Amy Winehouse.
The Ronettes - sisters Veronica "Ronnie" and Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley - signed with Spector's Philles Records in 1963.
Their recording of "Be My Baby" hit No. 2 on Billboard magazine's pop music chart that year. Among their other hits were "Walkin' in the Rain" and "Baby I Love You."
Bennett was born in 1941, her sister in 1943 and Talley in 1945, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Web site.
In addition to her sister, Bennett is survived by a daughter, Toyin Hunter of Santa Monica, Calif., and three grandsons.
Estelle Bennett
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