When All Else Fails, Make Oscar Predictions

Here are my infallible picks for the major Oscar categories this year. If you win any pools using my picks, you owe me half of your winnings. Winners are in bold. Since I haven't seen most of these films (indeed, many haven't even been released yet), it will be fun to see how accurate these are.

Best Picture:
The Aviator
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Fahrenheit 9/11
Finding Neverland
The Passion of the Jesus

Director:
Bill Condon, Kinsey
Mel Gibson, The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre
Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11
Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
Oliver Stone, Alexander

Actress:
Annette Bening, Being Julia
Laura Linney, P.S.
Catalina Sandino Marino, Maria Full of Grace
Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby

Actor:
Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda
Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland
Jamie Foxx, Ray
Paul Giamatti, Sideways
Liam Neeson, Kinsey

Supporting Actress:
Laura Linney, Kinsey
Virginia Madsen, Sideways
Maia Morgenstern, Faces of Death: The Jesus Edition
Meryl Streep, The Manchurian Candidate
Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Finding Neverland

Supporting Actor:
Alec Baldwin, The Aviator
David Carradine, Kill Bill: Vol. 2
Thomas Hayden Church, Sideways
Clive Owen, Closer
Peter Sarsgaard, Kinsey

Original Screenplay:
Bill Condon, Kinsey
Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Mike Leigh, Vera Drake
John Logan, The Aviator
James L. White, Ray

Adapted Screenplay:
David Magee, Finding Neverland
Jose Rivera, The Motorcycle Diaries
Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor, Sideways
Jean Pierre Jeunet & Guillaume Laurent, A Very Long Engagement
Tod Williams, The Door in the Floor

One of Those Days

I'm having one of those days. You know, the paranoid, anxious, obsessive, depressive, pitiful, empty, meaningless days. It's the kind of day where I obsessively check my email in the hopes that someone will email me, but I don't write any email myself. I obsessively reload the stats page on my site, and I wonder about the identity of the person or thing who is in the process of visiting each one of my review pages, in alphabetical order. (What do they want with me? Are they going to send a hurtful email that will upset me into obsessing over it for a week? Or is it just a web crawler?) I worry about making enough money, which is a side-effect of depending on freelance employment to pay the bills, but I want to spend money because it's among the only things that I know will relieve my mood. I fret about the art history monograph that I am supposed to index, a task up to which I do not feel. What if I don't get it done? What if I don't do a good job? I think about writing reviews for some of the movies I've seen in the past couple of weeks, but I'm too distracted to write. I worry that the director of the documentary I worked on is annoyed with me. What if he changes his mind about wanting me to work on the next project? Plus, there's nothing on the internet today, because I'm too stressed to read about politics and I'm too distracted to think of anything else I want to read about. I'm worried that I won't have enough time to do the things I want to do, but at the same time I'm bored because I have nothing to do. As my good friend Gaia said, I'm "moody." This is a moody day.

Voting Shenanigans

Are you as distressed as I am about the controversies that have already cropped up for the 2004 elections? In Michigan, an unknown group has been calling people to tell them that the deadline to apply for absentee ballots has already passed, when in fact the deadline is the day before the election. Michigan already, in a 2000 law, made it more difficult for college students to get absentee ballots. There are similar issues in at least a half-dozen other states.

In a conversation with my favorite art historian, she pointed out that you never hear about Democrats attempting to keep people from voting or registering. (Democratic voter fraud usually consists of fraudulent votes or fraudulent registrations.) This is because there is a correlation between increased registration and increased Democratic votes. Does anyone think the unnamed callers who were telling people that the absentee deadline has passed were Democrats? Of course not, because absentee ballots are cast mostly by college students, who tend to lean Democratic.

I'm convinced that we're going to have an even longer period between the election and the determination of the winner than we did in 2000. I'm told that the two sides already have their lawsuits written up. What happens if it goes past January 20?

All Kinds O'Good News

A major independent distribution company* has agreed to distribute Axis of Evil, the documentary I worked on; they're going to get it into all the chain stores and video stores, and they also want to screen it at some point in the near future.

In related news, Chris Rock is going to host the Oscars in February! It's about time that they listened to me and Shawn, as we were talking about this very thing quite recently. He'll bring several needed qualities to the show:

1. He's really funny.
2. He's edgy.
3. He's not Billy Crystal.

I guess that's it.

*I had initially named the distributor, but it turns out that the contract isn't signed yet, so I should keep quiet about it.

CD vs. LP

This article takes on the age-old question that has confounded philosophers for millenia: do LPs sound better than CDs? The answer is "hmm, could be." It comes down to this:

Just because one technology is inherently superior to another in one way or another does not in fact ensure that an application of that technology is superior.

In a conversation with Travis, we came to the conclusion that you can substitute a lot of words for "technology" in that sentence, like "religion" or "roast beef." The article also explains things like why 8-tracks sucked although they shouldn't have, why the 1812 Overture can't be reproduced accurately on any recording medium, and what Tim Robbins is talking about in Bull Durham when he talks about his "quadrophonic Blaupunkt."

Native American Awareness Day

Happy Native American Awareness Day, known in some parts (like downtown Chicago, so don't try to drive through there this afternoon) as Columbus Day. I'm pretty torn about the whole thing, when I think about it at all. Columbus was sort of a mass murderer, sort of a heroic explorer, sort of a plundering invader. He wasn't the first white guy to end up in North America, but he certainly popularized it, for all the good and bad that resulted (including Columbus Day parades, which we can't really blame on him anyway). It would be nice if Columbus Day inspired a thoughtful discussion of the legacy of Columbus, but all it seems to inspire is parades and days off, and bad episodes of good shows (today provided the subject matter for my least favorite episode of one of my favorite television shows, The Sopranos).

I did learn a valuable (if unrelated) lesson today: don't try to eat while reading stories about zombies.

Crazy in Michigan

A woman in Benton Harbor pled no contest to selling rocks to rioters, who then tossed them at police and through windows. This seems like pure capitalism at work. It's all about supply and demand. The defendant had a supply of rocks; the rioters demanded them. I don't see, on a purely logical-capitalist level, a problem with this kind of commerce. Lots of businesses sell products that they know will be used to break laws. Instead of being punished, they're rewarded with tax breaks and attempts to pass laws that protect them from lawsuits. The defendant should use the same argument that the gun lobby uses: rocks don't break windows and hurt cops, rioters break windows and hurt cops. (Link from Obscure Store and Reading Room)

DVD Premiere Party

Here's a press release for the documentary I've been working on. You're all invited to attend. Feel free to print out a copy of the flyer to post in your workplace cafeteria or narrow hallway that houses both printers and food storage/preparation equipment.

---

Please join us for the premiere screening of our newest project, AXIS OF EVIL,
directed by Carmine Cervi, produced by Qualiatica Press and BulletProof Film.

The screening is Saturday, 16 October, 2004 8pm
ACME Art Works Gallery
1741 N. Western Ave. at St. Paul
between Armitage and North Ave.

NO COVER
COMPLIMENTARY HORS D'OEUVRES and BEVERAGES

Hundreds of copies of the DVD will be given to MoveON.org, BuzzFlash.com and others.

AXIS OF EVIL is an experimental-feature-documentary-essay that features interviews with sixteen artists, scholars, and activists, including Howard Zinn, Daniel Ellsberg, Bernardine Dohrn, Martha Nussbaum, and others, talking about the concept of evil, its usefulness as a framework for US foreign policy, and evils that they've encountered in their lives. The interviews are illustrated with postage stamp art, archival footage, and other elements that interact with, illustrate, and comment on the statements of the interviewees. It's a unique and well-suited approach to the idea of evil.

The film is different from the slew of Bush-bashing documentaries that are flooding media outlets. Because it's about the idea of evil, it goes way beyond Bush; major topics covered include racism, war, Vietnam, criminal justice, capital punishment, and of course the Axis of Evil. It's a reasoned discussion of evil, not a polemic, and the cutting-edge stamp art makes it unlike anything else out there.