Grid Effect

I know we said that we would bring part three of our NBC executive drama today, but of course we forgot HBO aired their original movie Recount about the debacle that was the 2000 presidential election in Florida. So we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

In the fall of 2000 we were just starting our freshman year of college, and while we were aware of the ongoing struggle to officially determine the next president, we were preoccupied with everything that college entails other than academics. So when we say we found it insightful, if hastily thrown together and poorly executed, then you’ll understand why our opinion of it is still non-committal.

The movie revolves around essentially everyone that was integral to the process other than the two candidates. Bush and Gore are played by two mostly unseen actors with horrible approximations of their voices. We occasionally might see the side of their faces, but for the most part it’s similar to Steinbrenner on Seinfeld. We have no idea why the dialogue for those two was so generic and insipid. It makes them both look like dependent children compared to all the characters dominating the screen, that need to be hand held and guided through the process.

Presidential candidates non-portrayal aside, the acting is pretty solid. Between Spacey, Dern, Leary, Wilkinson, Balaban (who has a contractual obligation to appear in every HBO original movie, we presume) and Bruce McGill, that isn’t the problem we have with it. The shortcomings of Recount all have to do with pacing.

It probably would have worked better as a miniseries rather than an original movie. And probably would have benefited from a director not responsible for Meet The Parents, because it jumps around so frenetically and unabashedly that even settling in to actually appreciate the story they’re trying to tell requires more effort than should be necessary. Two hours isn’t a lot of allotted time to tell something so nuanced and historically, especially when a considerable chunk of time is devoted simply to character introductions. If we had to apply a tag line to a movie poster, it would be like a music video without the attractive women or music.

Our central character is Ron Klain, a recently demoted Al Gore political adviser, who begins the movie with a chip on his shoulder and is seemingly unconcerned with the outcome for his boss. It isn’t until after election day, when Michael Whouley (Leary) explains to Klain how the process of paper ballots and there inefficiency can potentially skew the outcome of an election. And motivates Klain to use this inadequacy in the US electoral process for his professional advantage.

This scene, that literally takes place in an alley behind an office building, is the highlight of the film. We are treated to a brilliant speech from Leary, whose showing his performance on Rescue Me isn’t a fluke; and a brilliant visual illustration of how paper ballots are tabulated, and the folly of the hanging chad, which is simply too stupid to fully process and take seriously. We also get a great exchange about the plural of chad (it’s chad).

This caused a national crisis.

Recount reminded us of The Wire in a lot of ways, because much of the delay in the recount process came from human error and indifference. Everyone’s just trying to get through the day to get home for dinner. The passionate few struggle to be heard while the collective carefree majority ignore their pleas. In hindsight, what was amazing is not that the recount extended for so long, but that the voices of those calling for it actually had enough influence to make it impossible for everyone to just ignore the problem. That isn’t to say ego wasn’t driving any of this. At one point, Klain even says, “I’m not even sure I like Al Gore”. With politics, as with it seems everything, nothing gets done until it effects someone who matters personally.

The political tone of the film it is definitely more sympathetic to the left. And even if all the people involved weren’t Hollywood democrats, the movie would kind of have to be in order to be taken seriously. I mean, Gore lost. They couldn’t make a movie confirming what we’ve been living with for the past eight years. There wouldn’t be any conflict and thus, no point to the movie. But when the democrats complained of an unfair negative portrayal, they weren’t necessarily being overly sensitive. In other words, Recount isn’t as biased as one might assume it to be.

Basically, I’m going to recommend the film for anyone under the age of twenty-six who was as apolitical as your average teenager in 2000, or for anyone who wasn’t following the conflict in 2000. Of course, those are probably the same people that will avoid this like the plague. But if you were politically conscious at the time and are fully aware of what a hanging chad and a dimpled voting ballot are, this probably isn’t worth your time. If you’re a democrat it’s simply going to conjure up bad memories, and if you’re a republican, it will do nothing more than put you on the defensive.

So, in short if you’re under the age of twenty-six, only recently became concerned politically or are an independent, then by all means, catch one of the 50,000 replays on HBO over the course of the next week. Otherwise, stick to FOX News or NPR or whatever echoes your worldview. Because if you’re looking at this for some sort of ideological validation, then you’re probably looking in the wrong place.

This is what happens when you rewatch an academy award winning movie instead of one of the more anticipated miniseries’ in about a decade, you have nothing to write on your website about. We saw like the first thirty minutes of it, but it was on mute as not to distract us from the riveting phone conversation we were engaged in. Anyhow, it looked stylistic if somewhat fake, and Giamatti — even with being the title character — is on screen entirely too much.

So yeah, outside of the selection show that is our weekend in a nutshell: we didn’t watch John Adams. Enthralling. We did, however, watch No Country For Old Men last night, and this is on the heels of seeing 3:10 To Yuma earlier in the week, all that is really comparable about the two is the villains. And after seeing No Country again, Antoine Chigurh makes Bud West looks like an OZ prag.

See, clearly Giamatti wasn’t that much of a miscast.

It appears not everyone is immediately giving John Adams a rave review like is usually done. This one is particularly soulless towards Giamatti, whose stock has been plummeting ever since he was integral to that Lady In The Water movie.

But hey, HBO only shelled out $100 million to see this project made, that’s hardly even considered a significant investment for a pay channel. Can someone explain the logic for HBO to invest this heavily in something when they are reliant on subscribers? Few to no people are actually going to pay for HBO as a result of a miniseries, and even if they do, conventional wisdom would suggest that it’ll be canceled two months from now when the series is done. So I guess the incentive is that those people, after being exposed to the majesty that is HBO, will have no choice but to keep the pay network, or be to lazy to cancel it, or maybe its DVD sales and awards are the motivators. Either way, I need an explanation.

If this guy’s opinion counts for anything at all, it looks like Mad Men will go over well with the Brits. There seems to be a proclivity on the other side of the pond for watching Americans wallow in despair. From what I can gather, The Wire has a pretty strong following as well. Of course, I enjoy watching both series’, which I guess would make me a self-loathing patriot. Whatever, I’m not watching 24.

The gang from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is bringing their act to FOX in a new sitcom deal. Or rather, a portion of their act, were not certain FCC guidelines allow for a comedy about finding a dumpster baby. On the other hand, they do allow people to wreck their lives on reality television, so the excessive degree of lewdness could go either way.

To send you out on this Monday morning on a high note, it appears FNL is getting closer and closer to a deal. Good, we don’t want our Crucifictorious t-shirt to be dated before we ever wear it in public. Besides, what is Minka Kelly going to do should this series go off the air.

Slow day, back with more tomorrow.

Were back from the weekend, finally. And I have to tell you, nothing sucked the life out of me quite like that Oscar blog. I’ve lived a relatively charmed life, so when I say that’s the closest I’ve been to any sort of torture, you know I’m being serious. It’s about what I imagine being an Al-Qaeda detainee is like, except for the longterm physical abuse and potential death. But it was bad enough that we couldn’t bring ourselves to post yesterday without a specific topic, which we seldom have nowadays.

So here are a few links, the first three days of the week are turning into a mini-preseason. We gear up for writing about Survivor and The Wire by reusing and rehashing the same tired gimmicks over and over again. And though we feel as if we’ve perfected these gimmicks about a year ago, there still might be some benefit in this repetition. Not really, but that’s how we kid ourselves, and we’ll be damned if anyone can take that away from us.

The Oscar’s had their lowest rating since the inception of ratings. “Only” 32 million people tuned in, and while it’s the lowest rating since 1974, the fact that they got 32 million people to watch that tripe is impressive. How often do 32 million people ever do anything simultaneously?

If you’re looking for an endless amount of HBO teasers, well, look no further. It appears the cable network has fully embraced the glory of new media by creating their own youtube page. This is the perfect way for them to lure in non-subscribers to pay for something they probably can’t afford.

Few non-murderers/rapists disgust me more than Heather Mills, and the fact she can actually make me care about her either way I suppose is why she keeps being rewarded for her contribution to the downfall of humanity. Yes, Ms. Mills is parlaying her barely a marriage to Beatles icon Paul McCartney into a cooking show. For the love of all that is holy can she please drop off the face of the Earth?

Prison Break is pulling a Nip Tuck and moving to Miami. Well, I hope they’re moving the fucking prison as well, since the premise of the series is that someone is breaking out of it. Didn’t they ever consider the idiocy of that title if it was going to last passed one season? This fuck-up just about embodies why we rarely watch network television.

NBC is picking up a series based on the classic novel, Robinson Crusoe. We read this book for college and the fucking thing might as well have been in hieroglphyics. If they keep the same diction, we’re probably going to sit this one out.

Isn’t there a more recent novel to base an island series off of? You know, like one written in the past 280 years.

You know there is no justice in the television industry when Women’s Murder Club and Lipstick Jungle are both extended while Friday Night Lights and Arrested Development get the ax. Oh well, we suppose there is a reason your television is often referred to as an “idiot box”.

We’re somewhat hesitant to post anything about a Wire episode before we do our recap and review of it on Friday (If you haven’t seen it yet this is a huge spoiler), but Michael K. Williams has said he wished the character had stayed in Puerto Rico. From a fan standpoint we tend to agree (even though we’re not supposed to like the guy), but we consider his downfall a privilege to watch.

Oh, this is why we don’t watch any primetime television: the broadcast networks apparently do not want me too. Or, at least that’s how I interpret the airwaves being overrun with “cougars”. For those completely turned off by contemporary nomenclature (I usually am, but am unfortunately in tune with it), a “cougar” is an older woman who sleeps with a significantly younger guy, the female equivalent to the older guy who has a trophy wife. The only time we’ve found this unique or interesting is in Weeds, and the woman is a widower.

Speaking of which, Weeds apparently shares a number of similarities with Breaking Bad, a series we kind of regret missing and now it is only enhanced.

That’s it for today, we’ll try to keep to fresh tomorrow. An essay of some sort, maybe. Probably not, but maybe.

Back in the saddle. We didn’t have nearly enough cocaine left to keep us wired for the entire telecast, should it run passed the 11:30 mark.

10:00- Oprah has her own version of Brewster’s Millions on ABC, we might have to watch that just for the material.

10:02- Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen prove why their part of the elite comedy team in Hollywood presenting the award for best sound editing. It should go to No Country for that ridiculous Antoine Chigurh’s ridiculous gun, but they throw a studio film a bone and give it out for The Bourne Ultimatum. People are scared to death of that exit music.

10:04- Hill and Rogen continue the same shtick and present for best sound mixing. We have no idea what the difference is between this and editing, but we’ll trust that their is one. 3:10 To Yuma is nominated here, and as far as we know this is unbelievably its only nomination, but it as well goes to Bourne.

10:07- Presenting the award for best actress is Forest Whitaker, a year removed from his role as Idi Amin. This is a really obscure field, despite our regular and over-indulgent film attendance we’ve only seen two of these, it goes to someone named Maria Cotilliard for La Vie En Rose, the same women who was shedding tears after the win for best makeup for the same picture. Eh, no opinion one way or the other on this one.

10:18- Stewart is playing Nintendo Wii with someone when we return, and its the most exciting thing to happen since the monlogue. Colin Ferrell (who was in a borderline great movie I saw last night called In Bruges), presents the song “Falling Slowly” from Once by Glen Hansard. Another film we wanted to see but never got around to. It’s supposed to be fantastic and doesn’t fail to live up to expectations. A little overly emotive, but good all the same. I suppose seeing it in the context of the movie helps matters.

10:24- Jack Nicholson steps up to the podium with the look of a man who doesn’t want to be remembered for The Bucket List, something he really shouldn’t be too concerned with. He’s introducing another montage for best picture (we had to at least say why he’s on stage, our apologies). The titles on the montage are all left of center, so if you are unfamiliar with a movie such as The Bridge Over The River Kwai, you’d just assume it’s called “ver The River Kwai”, at least if you were an idiot. Also, it seems worth mentioning that I can’t believe some of the movies that won in the early part of the decade. It’s a good thing we were in college then and had binge drinking to distract us from the mediocrity.

10:28- Rene Zelwegger presents for best film editing. Do people winning these technical awards jump into the field saying things like, “Someday, I hope to win Oscar gold”? I’m sure some do, but the majority probably do not. Do we have to force them to take part in this spectacle? Can’t they do it off camera and condense this shindig down to two hours (at least)? Someone’s regretting a decision…

10:31- Nicole Kidman has a top on that looks like it is encrusted in diamonds. If that is indeed the case, no fewer then seventy Africans gave their lives for. Not sure if it’s worth it. Anyhow, she’s introducing another montage for lifetime achievement winner Robert Boyle. He has a scarf on that could cover the whole in the ozone. He is dapper and appreciative, amazingly the orchestra isn’t queued up to rush him off.

10:42- Stewart jokes about restarting the show, and we are so deep into a temporary depression that we couldn’t bring ourselves to laugh.

10:43- Penelope Cruz, who has never been able to lose her thick Spanish accent, is presenting the award for best foreign language film. This is the only category that 2007 failed to trump from 2006. But when you have Clint Eastwood nominated in this category, its probably never going to be trumped. The director accepts the award for The Counterfitters.

10:45- Patrick Dempsey introduces the last song nominated, it is also from Enchanted and is a romantic ballad. We’re going to go read Alan Sepinwall’s write-up on tonight’s Wire episode.

10:48-….And we’re back, John Travolta comes out to present the award for best song by dancing with one of the stage performers for the last nominee. Everyone pauses awkwardly, the gives a delayed applause. Everyone, and I mean everyone is rooting for “Falling Slowly” and wouldn’t you know? It takes the prize. Both seem flattered and are gracious, other than clearly having the best song and being European, is there a reason the crowd is so behind these two?

10:52- Luckily Stewart jokingly calls him arrogant then quickly comments on how great the moment was. Honestly, what does he have on these people?

10:57- Wow, Stewart and I’m assuming it was producer approved, brings out the female half of the “Falling Slowly” duet. These two must have some mass Hollywood orgy on tape at their apartment.

10:59- Cameron Diaz comes out looking like Chyna to present the award for best cinematography. There Will Be Blood wins appropriately. That movie literally had me mesmerized at times. It was embarrassing. Someone dumped a bag of popcorn on me and I hardly noticed. Said cinematographer says they all have Daniel Day Lewis to thank for the masterful camera work. Damn, that guy was multi-tasking like a motherfucker.

11:02- Hilary Swank introduces the in memoriam for February 1st, 2007 through January 21st of this year. Its not in alphabetical order so were guessing DOB or of death. Probably not the latter since Antonlioni pops up way too soon. Certainly not by recognizability, we’re going with DOB by the month, not year.

11:09- As of now we can think of three awards still to be handed out (Best picture, director and actor) and then we’re home free. Amy Adams, who we’d hate to think what we wouldn’t do for some face time with, presents the best original score (OK, four more). There Will Be Blood should be a shoe in, but we see it’s not even nominated and it goes to Atonement, so the young Mensch’s involved with the most questionable film up for multiple nominations don’t get completely shut out.

11:11- Tom Hanks steps up to the podium and as he does everything, introduces several soldiers from Bagdhad in a likable manner, and they present the award for best documentary short (shit, six more). It goes to two women responsible Freeheld. As always the case with documentaries, the subject matter is something the creators are unabashedly passionate about, and the woman is in tears.

11:15- Hanks presents the award for best documentary feature, and really, if King of Kong isn’t nominated then I can’t really take this seriously. We know it’s lighthearted by comparison, but is so well-executed and so humanizing (which is almost harder to do in a film about Donkey Kong than a war) that its absence is palpable. Anyhow, it goes to Taxi to The Darkside.

11:23- Harrison Ford comes out to present the award for best original screenplay (its best to not listen to any of my presumptions). Strong category, but Diablo Cody is going to win due to hype and her overwritten dialog. Naturally, maybe listening to some of my presumptions is wise. She manages to avoid saying anything like “honest to blog” while choking back tears before losing it at the tail-end of her speech. Damn it, now I feel bad about taking a couple shots at her expense.

11:29- One minute before the scheduled end of the broadcast, and they are just getting to the first of the “final three” awards that I said were to be handed out. Helen Mirren presents the award to Daniel Day-Lewis who apparently is there (though his overly humble cinematographer suggested otherwise) for best actor. What should be the strongest of categories but has three performances we’re unclear about, most notably Viggo Mortenson in Eastern Promises, when he very well could have won — much less been nominated for — A History of Violence. Anyhow, its good to know what Daniel Day-Lewis actually looks like.

11:40- Best director is presented by last year’s winner: Martin Scorcese. We’ve never understood how this award differs all that much from best picture. What about the best directing isn’t synonymous with the best movie? The nominees are almost identical to the best picture category (Diving Bell and The Butterfly replacing Atonement). No Country wins this as well, giving it three on the night, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that it wins best picture as well.

11:45- Denzel presents for best picture, he’s beginning to look like Forest Whitaker more and more everyday. Naturally, No Country takes this as well, and it is somewhat odd since they just got done intentionally giving a incredibly short but thankful and lighthearted acceptance speech for best directing, so they let another co-producer do all the talking.

That is it for the 80th Oscars. We are mercifully done. The bright side of this running long is we only have thirteen minutes until the aforementioned Wire episode is posted on demand.

I wouldn’t expect anything from us in tomorrow. Maybe some links in the afternoon.

Welcome one and all, to the 2008 Oscars. It was a particularly critically successful year for the film industry, if not commercially so. Essentially all of the films sans Juno nominated for multiple awards were overlooked by the American public. So, for better or worse, mass interest in this year’s awards season is almost non-existent. And reasonably so. Film awards are never all that enthralling and nine times out of ten they’re completely subjective. Between that, the writer’s strike and the lack of mainstream appeal, the 2008 Oscars have culminated into what feels like something everyone wants ignore (more so than usual), as opposed to the “biggest night in Hollywood”. How eventful.

But still, Jon Stewart is hosting, if we can watch an hour long interview with him on Larry King then we can watch him host an awards show, regardless of how tedious it is. Many of the films nominated are ambitious and an artistic success, and in the interest of full disclosure: we’ve seen every film up for multiple awards except for Atonement (we’re not dating anyone) and Sweeney Todd (we’ve seen enough Tim Burton movies to know what to expect from him in an adapted stage musical), so there are definite opinions and rooting interest which will most likely pepper this entire post(s).

With that in mind, feel free to comment any disagreements or petty grievances in the comments, we’ll post at almost every commercial break and probably take musical and in memoriam segments of the show off. If you want an indication of how this is going to go, here’s our recap of the 2007 Oscar’s.

8:30- Flipped in a few minutes early, Regis called Javier Bardem, “Xavier Bardem”. I guess I really have no idea how his name is pronounced (though I assume its something along the lines of Hav-ier), but this wreaks like someone is aging in front of our eyes. We’re off to a great start.

8:32- Jon Stewart’s brought out after a generic, recycled special effects montage of an introduction. Beginning his monologue with commentary on the strike goes to show that he is fully intent on being just as critical of Hollywood to Hollywood, this is why he makes this show a hundred times more watchable.

8:36- Already taking potshots at the Clinton’s, everyone laughs. Jesus, isn’t this their base?

8:39: Diablo Cody looks like she just fell off a flying carpet, and Stewart makes light of your average Oscar nominated writer’s six figure salary. Then mocks Hollywood’s virtual monolithic political views.

8:41- This isn’t as scathing as last year, but just as funny. We can’t really blame him, he would probably be pushing his luck to do the same set two years in a row.

8:42- Jennifer Garner presents the award for costume design, it goes to some cat for Eizabeth: The Golden Age, and we can’t tell you how long overdue this is. Really, we can’t. Or if she has won in the past. She manages to keep it succinct with a few simple thank yous. Any chance this becomes a trend? With untimely community deaths and a strike just in the rear-view mirror ,there’s a good chance we’re in store for a myriad of impromptu orchestra music tonight.

8:46- Clooney presents a self-aggrandizing Oscar tribute, in which the Oscar’s congratulate the Oscars for a solid four minutes of reflective clip glory. Oscars.

8:52- Anne Hathaway and Steve Carrell present the award for best Animated feature to Ratatouille, which we actually mocked pretty unapologetically during the previews because it looked so fucking ridiculous. Call it our disdain for all talking animal features or bad marketing on the part of Pixar, either way it looked like garbage. of though Carrell and Hathaway do some overacted shtick that indicates a writer’s strike before handing out the award.

8:56- Katherine Heigl has her award face on, ironically enough to present for best makeup, of which Norbit is nominated for. Just based on the fact they actually nominated it, it really should win. But they give it to two people for La Vie En Rose. Some actress that was presumably in said movie is really, really attached to this achievement, and even brushes away some tears. She’s in for a long night if her reaction is so visceral for best makeup. In fact it’s probably in her best interest not to go home with anything.

8:59- Amy Adams performs the nominated song from Enchanted. We’ve come a long way from Cruel Intentions 2, baby. I’m sure this is a helluva performance, but I’m watching it with Junebug in mind.

9:06- Stewart compares The Rock to Ellen Page…we think its pretty similar. Anyhow, Johnson is presenting for best visual effects, Golden Compass is nominated, and it has wise polar bears, so of course it wins. This crowd probably has nothing but contempt for Michael Bay, so if you thought Transformers was going to win, think again.

9:10- Cate Blanchett, every girls girl crush after Angelina Jolie, as I like to refer to her, gives out the award for best art direction and set decoration to Sweeney Todd. Two Italians responsible for The Aviator win and are rushed of the stage post-haste. Coincidentally, Blanchett won best supporting actor for her role in the Scorcese movie, they don’t seem to know each other.

9:14- Another montage of best supporting actor winners. It seems unnecessary. Jennifer Hudson presents the award to Javier Bardem in what is otherwise a competitive field, but no one else stood a chance. That guy essentially played the devil incarnate and did so convincingly. Seriously, I cried myself to sleep the night I saw that film. Hoffman, Casey Affleck, Hal Holbrook (who was great in Into The Wild but had maybe twenty minutes of screen time) and Tom Wolfinson all turned in worthy performances. Like I said earlier, a really good year for the film industry. Bardem gives the second half of his acceptance speech in Spanish (directed at his mother), way to rope in the fly-over states, man.

9:24- Keri Russell presents the second performance for best song for Raise It Up. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this a You Got Served type film? What’s with the slow ballad? I wants to see some steppin’! All I know is, this is no “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp”.

9:29- Owen Wilson, who I’m going to refrain from making any jokes about, presents the award of Best Live Action Short Film to Le Mozart Des Pickpokets. We might be mistaken, but we think its foreign. The recipient couldn’t speak English and he resorted to his native tongue (French?) as well, but it could all be a ruse.

9:31- Jerry Seinfeld continues his inevitable plunge into obscurity by showing up in digital animation Bee Movie form presenting for best animated short to two people for Peter and The Wolf. Some co-recipient says it is “for everyone”. Really? That’s kind of strange, because you seem to be clutching it pretty tightly.

9:34- Another montage, this recognizing best supporting actress nominees and we’re going to just quit mentioning them. Alan Arkin hands out this year’s award to Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton. This was also a strong category, and if we said we weren’t rooting for Amy Ryan ( Beadie on The Wire) for her role in Gone Baby Gone, then we’d be lying. Swinton is warranted though, she certainly gave the most nuanced performance, particularly in her final scene.

9:43- Back from commercial and oh my God we’re only one hour through this thing. We’re going to need a Roger Clemens type B-12 shot to make it through this and expect to watch The Wire’s penultimate episode on demand.

9:44- Enough bitching, Jessica Alba is presenting the award for all the scientific technical awards to several people. Everyone pretends to know what she is talking about.

9:45- Good lord, Stewart is delivering well. Few can so comfortably rip on Alba, Blanchett and Nicholson all in one breath.

9:46- James Brolin and I think James McAvoy presents for best adapted screenplay to the Coen brothers for No Country For Old Men. Seems fitting, but if you read the book then you would know that Tommy Lee Jones’ final scene is also a part reflection on his time at war, and they completely abandon the war backstory in the film.

9:49- Some guy I recognize but cannot put a name to is talking about the academy selecting process. It’s interesting, sort of. But unworthy of recapping or mocking. So we’ll just grab some sustenance, which is becoming all the more imperative.

9:53- A half Asian woman is presenting the third performance for best song, also from Enchanted, it is dfamn fucking weird and we refuse to believe this was one of the five best songs from a movie this year. To top it off, the lead singer bares a striking resemblance to Amy Poehler, so it’s all the more difficult to take seriously.

We’re going to set up a different post for the second half, just go to the home page and it will be up top.

So, is there a more appropriate post to do the day after the Superbowl? I really can’t think of anything relevant outside of the game. Speaking of which, and we don’t want to complain too much, we won a bundle of money last night and enjoyed it thoroughly, but after watching thirty seconds of the Puppy Bowl on Animal planet, the latter clearly had better production values then the former. I mean, they had a camera on the bottom of the water bowl. This is the Animal Planet equivalent of the Card Cam in poker. A freaking camera! We all get to look the puppies in the eye as they are enjoying their sustenance. Man, that is genius.

This pretty much summarizes the three hour telecast, it’s very sophisticated.

As far as commercials went, we thought they were vastly improved on recent years. A lot of talking animals though. Seriously, it was like a fucking Pixar movie. Maybe ad executives looked at how much money those movies regularly bring in, then hoped the same theory would translate to televised advertising, because the abundance of non-sentients verbally exchanging opinions and emotions was hard to not notice. Anyhow, we liked the one with the baby and the hired clown, though we can’t remember what product or service was being hawked, so we’re not sure how effective it was. That award goes to the Career Builder ad where the woman’s heart literally jumped out of her body and handed in her walking papers in hopes of a more altruistic career path. In fact, it served as nightmare fuel.

Some links:

Jeffrey Tambor (aka George Bluth) has now joined Jason Bateman on the campaign, blazing a trail for the Arrested Development movie to be made. I’m giddy, but also realistic, because all of these actors opinions are only good for verifying that they’d be willing to participate. Nothing gets made until Mitchell Hurwitz decides he wants to make it. Considering he was part of the reason the deal with Showtime was shutdown, we’re still only cautiously optimistic.

We are inching closer to the writer’s strike concluding, we kind of don’t care about the details so we didn’t read the article. But still, if this means FNL can pick up where it will leave off this Friday in a couple months, then we are all for it. Speaking of which, after a disappointing episode, they really stepped up their game and delivered what’s definitively the best episode of the second season this past Friday. Seriously, that was vintage season one FNL, the reasons everyone in the small but loyal fan base became so devoted to it in the first place were exemplified three nights ago.

Even with the news of a pending agreement, talks were postponed until after the Superbowl. To which we ask: Who gives a shit? They canceled Sunday school when I was younger for the Superbowl (we used to question the validity of this since we never got off for the NBA all-star game) and it was always a letdown in the mid-90’s. But that was irrelevant, because it’s virtually a national holiday at this point regardless of what some might consider the pervasive elements that surround it, and its place in the cultural landscape is undeniable. If people put matters of faith on hold for it, then it really shouldn’t come as any surprise when a gaggle of millionaires set business aside on a fucking Sunday.

This is probably it for today, back with something similarly non-descriptive tomorrow.

Great weekend of television. Or rather, a great weekend of football with a couple good series’ on. So many people are skeptical of the McNulty development on The Wire and I’m just not understanding the knee-jerk reactions. We are five minutes into his caper and already people have voiced discontent over its fallacy. How it’s any more farcical than Hamsterdam this website will never understand, but it provides an excellent way for the media to become intrinsically instead of peripherally involved in this season’s arc, and that is what they’ve been so far to the commercial viewer: a distraction to the characters we’ve come to know and love.

Also this weekend Bill Maher’s show returned. This website doesn’t claim any political affiliations in fear of losing half of its already minimal audience, but watching one party set up a forum to verbally berate a single member of the other party is always enjoyable. Maher now brings in some guy from Rolling Stone he refers to as a field reporter or some shit, just to pile on whichever republican has shown up for his medicine. This week it was Tony Snow, who despite still recovering from Chemo treatments stood tall against the semi hate-fueled panel and audience. Seriously, regardless of which side of the aisle you happen to land on, you had to admit being impressed. Then again, debating politics with Marc Cuban probably isn’t a daunting task for a former press secretary. Simply put, if he’s the Dallas Mavericks then Helen Thomas is the San Antonio Spurs.

The Golden Globes took place last night. Not an actual awards show because those who would have scripted it would have been outside protesting its very existence. And since we had absolutely no idea it was taking place, we were surprised to see it being hosted on NBC with two, two person “panels” going back and forth talking vapidly about the winners and nominees in the name of killing time. It was a strange broadcast, and since they were doing much more succinct shows on E! and CNN (NEWS!), we couldn’t really fathom why any one would watch it.

Anyhow, while we were somewhat intrigued by who won, we weren’t too adamant about it since the nominees were so random, at least in the television categories. How can you hold an awards show for television and leave The Sopranos completely off the docket, sans Edie Falco? We have no idea, either. Never the less, it was good to see Mad Men garner recognition for best drama and best actor, for a series that should appeal to everyone with a brain over the age of twenty, maybe it will grow on its already large (cable) audience. Extras taking home best comedy series didn’t come as a surprise since foreign press essentially means European press. But the win was warranted, and we can’t recall Ricky Gervais’ sophomore series being recognized in any awards capacity to date.

Because of the strike, Gervais managed to avoid all public embarrassments.

A few gripes, namely David Duchovony getting the win for best comedic actor when his series is hardly a comedy. This seemed like a novelty to have him nominated in the first place, and I think we all kind of assumed it was Alec Baldwin’s to lose, or even Ricky Gervais or Steve Carell. For a field as loaded as this one was, seeing the guy from The X-Files win because his show is new kind of cheapens the already cheap award show. Also, we were pulling for Mary-Louise Parker (finally saw the third season premiere of Weeds this weekend, it was…chaotic) in the best comedic actress but can’t argue too staunchly against Tina Fey.

That was the weekend in a nutshell. We’ll try and return this afternoon with something worthwhile.

Alright, I have managed to calm down after getting alarmingly inebriated, sexually harassing three female coworkers, beating my boss mercilessly with his own desk chair, passing out, waking up in a jail cell, having bail set and processing when my fed up girlfriend generously went into her own pocket to spring me from my cage. Seven hours later I am back to summarize my thoughts on the rest of the Emmy field, only unemployed and with a splitting headache that would stop an elephant in its tracks. When I am finished with this I have every intention of flying to Vegas, putting all my money on black and being back home with triple my current net worth for a late dinner and in time to watch the Mad Men pilot on AMC at 9pm et (which we will have a review for tomorrow).

(See, anyone can write for 24, you just need to expedite everything in a comedically short amount of time, and do it all with a straight face).

Truth be told, I did find a lot of sanity in the comedy nominations. Though still need to vent about FNL, which was passed over for every acting and writing category. There just isn’t much logic in many of these nominees. Connie Brittion and Kyle Chandler should have both been locks to lose to Edie Falco and James Gandolfini. In the earler post I concurred with Leary’s nomination for best actor, but he was an afterthought when compared to Chandler, who’s portrayal of conflicted, honorable yet flawed high school football coach Eric Taylor, was an acting clinic when compared to the usual swill that is on the broadcast networks. It sure as hell was better than Leary’s third season of Rescue Me, which for the first half of seemed primarily concerned with how many different sex positions Leary could simulate.

Everyone raves about the two leads on FNL, but there is a slew of supporting talent that went unrecognized. Gaius Charles playing the troubled NFL hopeful running back in Brian “Smash” Williams, who spent an entire season bouncing back and forth between Smash the public persona and Brian the well-intentioned but misguided teenager. Or Scott Porter (Jason Street) or Adrianna Palicki (Tyra Collette) or Zack Gilford (Matt Saracen) or Jesse Plemons (Landry)… the list is endless. Maybe its like in heisman voting, when two players from the same school are viable candidates, but they split their region’s votes, and end up cancelling each other out because another player from a diffrerent part of the country was unanimous in his region. Either way, I just felt the need to vent.

But yeah, the comedy portion we have much more laudatory opinions on. If you just take a gander at the best supporting actor category, which features Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute), Jeremy Piven (Ari Gold) and Kevin Dillon (Johnny Drama) are all nominated and all prominent roles on series we watch here, in addition to Neal Patrick Harris for his work on How I Met Your Mother, we have a pool of four strong candidates. And it really should be five, as Alec Baldwin is not a leading role and should replace Jon Cryer in this category, but he submitted himself as a lead, so, what can you do? Ego trumps logic, though his field is equally as competitive as well, going up against Steve Carrell and Ricky Gervais.

Also, Jenna Fischer was nominated for her work as Pam Beasly on The Office, Martin Landau was nominated for best guest actor on Entourage and the best comedy field is pretty stiff competition as well, even though we only watch two of them and one of the nominees is Two and a Half Men.

Really, all the comedy nominations did was enlighten us as to how little comedy we have watched recently around here. All the people we wanted to see nominated and had a realistic shot of doing so, were. Otherwise the comedies we have enjoyed over the past few years have either been cancelled (AD), were on hiatus (Curb) or I would have been deluding myself to think they stood a chance in hell (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Extras, South Park).

So there you have it folks, your 2007 Emmy nominees. With little to no objectivity exhibited in these two posts so far, let me wish the fine people of Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal the best of luck on Emmy night.

Well, my head is spinning with the multitude of oversights this year, but I don’t know what else to expect from an award show that is clearly being compromised by someone or something. Either that or they are simply lazy. I hate to be so cynical but there is really no other explanation.

Note: This article will contain some spoilers, so if you’re waiting for some series’ to be released on DVD or whatever else, this post will upset you immensely if you continue to read.

For starters, lets give credit where credit is due: fifteen nominations for The Sopranos! Yowza! Obviously for best drama and both lead acting categories, then three supporting acting nominations (Imperioli, Bracco and Turturro) then three nominations in the best writing category for “Kennedy and Heidi” (The episode Chris died), “The Second Coming” (AJ’s suicide attempt) and the series finale, “Made In America”. All this in addition to a directing nomination for Alan Taylor for “Kennedy and Heidi” (I Get It!) and five other nominations in minor categories.

There were some other various highlights with the dramatic series nominations, including Dennis Leary getting a best actor nomination (which is a lost cause, I’m pretty sure based on the overwhelming recognition that The Sopranos very well might end up sweeping), Friday Night Lights, though clearly underappreciated did pick up a best directing and best casting (which is like an award for best ensemble), its minimal, but at least it is something.

The Wire, on the other hand, was completely snubbed. In this blogs humble opinion, this oversight completely diminishes all credibility The Emmys may have built up. This series is so nuanced, so well characterized and structured, its intriguing, insightful, entertaining and probably the only series that I can say with any cerititude that is actually important; and for it to get zero nominations is a fucking embarrassment. The only plausible explanation is either they aren’t watching it (most likely), its not popular so it goes unrecognized because there won’t be any mainstream outrage (quite possible), or race is actually an issue (never would have thought this to be the case as I am hesitant to play this card, but now I’m not so sure). It has to be one of these three, because if one watches the series in total, and isn’t subjective in any way, then there is no rationale for this series to not have a nomination in every major and minor category. It is that good.

Thing is, this really shouldn’t come as any shock. The Wire is virtually snubbed every year it should be in contention to clean house. I really shouldn’t take it so personally but the series deserves better. The Emmys are essentially the only mainstream outlet that acknowledges excellence in television, and for The Wire to go unrepresented is a sham. If The Emmys would give this show its due, then maybe it could build up the audience it deserves. But ultimately, those who watch The Emmys are not interested in a slew of no-names collecting awards, and that might be what this is attributed to. Most would rather see Kiefer Sutherland or one of the twenty-five year old smoking hot doctors from Grey’s Anatomy stockpile hardware. Not a gritty, realistic portrayal or institutional and urban decay and corruption. And that is no disrespect to 24 or the hospital drama, but give me a fucking break.

Like stated before, The Sopranos very well may sweep on Emmy night and that is all well and good. But it should really be rivaled by its artistic and narrative counterpart in The Wire, otherwise everything David Chase & Co. wins is borderline fraudulent. For a sports analogy, its would be like winning a Superbowl because the other team died in a plane crash. Technically, someone is awarded the Lombardi trophy, but did they really earn it? Or feel good about it?

Back later with some approving editorial on the comedy nominations (sans a few nitpicks), other miscellaneous categories and some more on Friday Night Lights, right now I need to karate chop some bricks so I don’t chuck my monitor across my office.

Both my love for Naismith’s game and the outlet 451 Press has afforded me led to the decision to attempt a running diary of tonight’s NBA draft. I understand this is a television blog and I mainly discuss television series’, so it is also understood that the connection is tentative at best and definitely out of the ordinary. But screw it, this isn’t a democracy and I am only so interested in appeasement. This draft is loaded and I am watching it regardless, so just skip this post if you’re a hockey fan.

7:30- Welcome to the most anticipated NBA draft in a quarter of a century, given the circumstances, I’m sure nothing will go wrong or be retroactively funny. We’re going to play it by ear and see if we can extend this into through the second round or ends at the first. We love the game, but when it comes to second round draft picks, our relationship status is best described as open.

7:32- David Stern welcomes us and gives a free plug for the WNBA but is also non-threatening, so we consider this a successful introduction. I’m used to being scared shitless of Stern.

7:33- We get a good look at the Portland Trailblazers war room. Apparently it takes a brain trust of about a dozen guys to determine that drafting the best post-prospect in twenty five years is a good idea.

7:36- The Blazers do what they should and take Oden, he hugs a woman who’s presumably his mother, Durant looks as one would expect: unsurprised.

7:38- We get a montage of Oden overwhelming college post players in the paint, it is glorious.

7:39- Oden is interviewed by our favorite reporter with a lazy-eye, Stuart Scott. It is already outdated to crack jokes about how old Oden looks, but his demeanor only exceeds his geriatric appearance in maturity. He’s affable and even self-deprecating and clearly I’m immensely biased. In short, this interview just makes Kevin Pritchard feel better about the non-decision to draft him.

7:41- We get word that Boston will trade their five pick, Delonte West and Szczerbiak (sp?) for Ray Allen, if this actually goes through I have to believe that Danny Ainge is somewhat masochistic. But if they need to acquire someone to keep Pierce like the aging two-guard demanded, then I guess they have no choice. Still, I don’t know if a 32 year-old set shooter is the answer for pissing away the #5 pick in a loaded draft.

7:42- Durant is taken by the Sonics, but breaks his leg standing up to approach the stage. Seriously this cat reminds me of Mr Glass. Still, it goes without saying that Durant was the obvious choice, but Seattle isn’t doing him any favors with the aforementioned trade news. Methinks Yi is going to occupy that fifth pick now.

7:45- Stuart Scott decided to make everyone uncomfortable by asking Durant about his inability to bench 185 lbs even once, Durant brushes it off with the knowledge that he just officially becoming a millionaire.

7:48- Horford is taken 3rd overall by The Hawks. He’s a forward, and the fifth straight first round forward the Hawks have taken in the draft. His dad causes a scene waving a Portuguese flag. His former teammate at Florida, Corey Brewer, actually looks happy for him. Speaks to the degree of success they experienced while in Gainesville.

7:51- Horford does the routine interview with Scott. He concludes it with saying their was a group of Gator fans called the “Horford hotties”, but doesn’t include any details to how initiation is conducted.

7:52- Mike Conley is drafted by the Grizzlies, making him the second Buckeye and third player from the title game. He swears he can play without Oden, which he hasn’t had to do for the past ten years, so naturally everyone is curious to the legitimacy of his claim. They show clips of his father/agent dunking from the free throw line and scenes from He Got Game are dancing in my head.

7:57- Boston selects Jeff Green who’s immediately going to Seattle in the Allen deal. The Sonics will be lethal in about five years. For the upcoming season however, they should be demoted to the eastern conference, where they would probably make the playoffs. But multiple versatile players between Green, Durant and Rashard Lewis (assuming he changes that adamant position that he wants to leave) and a town who couldn’t give a fuck less combines for a great acquisition for basketball fans in Oklahoma City.

7:59- Green points out a fantastically hilarious double entendre in that his NBA jersey will be green, and the color also serves as his last name. Apparently he knows he is going to Seattle, because Scott makes a crack about Starbucks and Green offers no reaction. I guess I couldn’t expect Jeff Green or Stuart Scott to make me laugh any more than I could expect Jon Stewart to be able to dunk a basketball.

8:04- The Milwaukee Bucks have taken Yi Jianlian, despite the fact the Chinese Government has warned the NBA about sending any of their players to a city with a limited Chinese population (i.e., they want him in a major market on the either coast). I’m assuming he is trade bait. God, I’m praying he does the interview with Scott.

8:06- There is a dearth of foreign players this year, Tirico and Andy Katz are visibly upset that the American public will be familiar with most of the people drafted.

8:07- Yes! we get an interview, Scott asks him why he thinks he’s ready for the pro game. He essentially says because he is ready, but with broken English, so it isn’t much different than your typical draftee interview (I kid, I kid). Apparently he has been here for a couple years, attends film premieres and goes to clubs. Tirico calls him “Americanized”, which I’m sure the Chinese love. Considering they were prepared to drag Yao Ming out of here for far less frivolous reasons than going clubbing, they’re probably ecstatic that he already leads a life resembling that of a cast member on The Hills.

8:10- Stephen A. Smith is going ape shit over the owner of The Bucks not seeing Yi for himself. It’s what us NBA fans have come to expect from the abrasively annoying commentator.

8:12- Minnesota Timberwolves select Corey Brewer, who I think is handily the third best player in this draft. This guy is an absolute beast: 6′9, can go left, can go right, can knock down the three and plays the best perimeter defense of anyone coming out of the draft. The consummate professional. Joakim Noah is wearing a bow tie, probably just to draw attention to his attention drawing freakish mug.

8:14- Brewer gives the dullest interview of the pack so far, which is saying something. But he can be as dull as he want if he carries the downtrodden T-Wolves into the playoffs at some point. They should be trying to acquire draft picks with Garnett if he’s so staunch in his (long overdue) trade demands. But the ironic part is, Brewer will be the best teammate he has had since Sprewell and Cassell skipped town. Never the less, as good as Brewer is, the two of them can’t make a playoff run in the overloaded west.

8:17- Mike Tirico decides to twist the knife in the collective hearts of Knicks fans by reminding them all that the ninth pick would be going to them had they not traded it to The Bulls for an over-compensated Eddie Curry.

8:18- The Charlotte Bobcats take another North Carolina Tarheel in Brandan Wright, the lengthy, sometimes disinterested freshman forward. Bilas thinks he is a steal, and as far as talent goes he is a top three candidate, but if he didn’t want to utilize his potential in college, once he is swimming in a pool of gold coins like uncle Scrooge he isn’t going to be anymore motivated.

8:21- In the Stuart Scott interview it says in the caption that he was three time Mr. Basketball in Tennessee, which is a daunting accomplishment and sort of indicates his talent. He also said Michael Jordan, the GM of The Bobcats, doesn’t want any of him in one on one. Probably not that intimidating with the braces and all.

8:23- Spike Lee is at the draft again, and you have to admire his loyalty. I wonder if the Knicks continue at this pace will he jump ship when The Nets move to Brooklyn.

8:24- Chicago takes Joakim Noah, which I do not understand. They already have three other above average defensive big men with no offensive credentials, why take a fourth? Did they see the Mavs-Warriors series? Remember, when the 8th seeded Warriors beat the #1 seeded Mavericks in the playoffs because Dallas couldn’t counter their fast paced offense with any interior offense? Yeah, that’s what they’re setting themselves up for. Maybe they are looking to unload that unwarranted Ben Wallace contract.

8:28- One thing I like about Joakim Noah is when he is asked a question, he gives a real answer, as opposed to the inarticulate, textbook jock response. He does so a couple times in his Stuart Scott interview.

8:30- I like these NBA Live ‘08 commercials with Arenas and Durant, especially when Arenas refers to himself as “Hibachi”. I knew a guy who used to say “cookies” any time he converted a basket, though I think referring to yourself as cookies probably isn’t deemed terribly cool in most social circles.

8:32- The Sacramento Kings select Spencer Hawes out of Washington with the tenth overall pick (in case you weren’t keeping track). Sacramento is either looking to get worse and sabotage the team for whoever buys them from the Maloofs, or they think this is a legitimate choice and they are looking to rebuild with a long term project. Jay Bilas does all he can to make this sound like a wise decision, but then says he cannot rebound and is a poor athlete (relatively speaking). Man, he must feel like a pariah at this, not only is he the first white player taken but he also has a “God Bless George Bush” bumper sticker. Umm, does he realize he is in Manhattan?

8:35- John Paxson is talking up the Noah pick, if I was them I would have traded down and gotten Hawes or Julian Wright. Even Stephen A. doesn’t like the pick. He does bring a certain energy that none of the current workman like Bulls provide, but he is yet another offensive liability in the post on a team already loaded with them.

8:38- The Hawks take Acie Law IV, the senior point guard out of Texas A&M with the eleventh pick. The Hawks are notorious for passing on quality point guards for swing forwards. They probably wanted to take Conley with the third pick but couldn’t pass on Horford. It’s a tough position, but at least Tyrone Lue isn’t the best option anymore.

8:41- Apparently, and this is not surprising, A&M didn’t win a conference game Acie’s freshman year. He explains perseverance as the reason for his ascension into the lottery. No shit. Also, he’s a (the?) nephew of Ernie Banks.

8:42- The Philadelphia Sixers have the twelfth pick as a result of being the only hopeless team in 2007 not to tank the season to improve their standing in the lottery. In fact they finished their season 17-9 and were 30-28 after trading Allen Iverson. The winning record might be attributed to rest of their division tanking, but is respectable none the less. What do they get for their nobility…

8:46- Why, Thaddeus Young of course. The freshman forward from Georgia Tech. A streak shooter with a penchant for going soft under the glass, but is the quintessential athlete. He had a 4.3 GPA (do some universities go on a 5.0 scale?) and was in NHS. I imagine that is a lonely wagon he is on at this event.

8:52- Billy King, the universally mocked NBA GM formerly with Philly, now with Atlanta, justifies the Acie Law pick while looking like he is on his way to a party with Marion Barry.

8:53- The New Orleans Hornets take Julian Wright, the forward from Kansas. Dick Vitale likes him, but doesn’t miss an opportunity to trash him compared to Al Thronton. If in the middle of the season you had said Thaddeus Young would be drafted ahead of Julian Wright, you would have been laughed out of whatever particular venue you were in.

8:56- Julian Wright is already thinking about his broadcast career. Way to keep your eye on the tiger there, Julian. Clearly he has his priorities straight. Also Stephen A. Smith is his favorite on air personality, that could be a warning flag for The Hornets, as SAS is somewhat contemptuous and confrontational.

8:59- The LA Clippers take Al Thornton, the twenty-four year old forward out of Florida State. Keep in mind this cat is about three years older than anyone else being drafted. And older than some of the best players in the league, so you are getting him pretty close to his peak. But he is the proverbial scorer. Sounds good, right? Well, not if you already have Corey Maggette and Tim Thomas.

9:01- Even if I didn’t know anything about Al Thornton, it’s pretty discernible that he is light years ahead of the previous thirteen picks. Just in his calm demeanor, his tone of voice, his responses… yeah, he’s an adult. The rest are still adolescents, at least in mindset.

9:05- Detroit Pistons, the loosest definition of “dynasty” I have ever heard of, take Rodney Stuckey our of Eastern Washington with the fifteenth pick. This is their first of two opening round picks. I didn’t watch EWU play a game this year, so I’m not even going to pretend like I know anything about him.

9:08- Stuart Scott interviews him, and it is hard to believe grades were an issue. He seems grounded and bright enough, maybe Washington (his first school he was kicked out of for poor marks) doesn’t assist students academically like everyone else.

9:10- Washington Wizards, who seem like the most obscure team in the league, take Nick Young out of USC with the pick. Call me crazy, but with Brendan Haywood and Etan Thomas occupying the paint for them, I probably would have went big. Never the less, this guy is inarguably a beast. Stephen A. Smith just repeated me verbatim.

9:12- Stuart Scott keeps bringing up the fact his brother died while growing up. I’m sure he appreciates you slaughtering his high, Stewie. Fucking idiot. Why don’t you just call my mother a fat pig while you are at it?

9:15- There has been a trade agreed to in principal between the Knicks and Blazers, in which Portland would take Steve Francis and Channing Frye (meh) for Dan Dickau, Zach Randolph and Fred Jones. Wait, what? Well Spike Lee approves, as well he should. Portland could have given up the same thing and gotten a top fifteen pick. I understand they want to get away from the whole “Jailblazers” reputation from the late 90’s early 2000’s, but they are giving up a 20-10 guy for virtually nothing. And in the East? 20-10 out west usually means 28-13 in the east. Stephen A. is yelling at us.

9:19- Sean Williams from Boston College is drafted by the Nets with the 17th pick. He was kicked out of school for “multiple rule violations” and was forced into rehab. They do not have to disclose his infractions because it is a private school, which is an additive perk to attending a school without state funds. You can kill someone, have the school cover it up and be disciplined in house, then be gainfully employed by the NBA. The American dream, no?

9:22- Golden State has the 18th pick, and takes Marco Belinelli, the 21 year old Italian who plays in a league supposedly better than the NCAA. He has been a professional since he was sixteen and looks like one of the Jason’s from the second season of The Sopranos.

9:24- The Los Angeles Lakers are primarily concerned with easing Kobe Bryants competitive pain, not sure if that can happen with the 19th pick. Jim Gray, everyone’s favorite invasive live television personality, summarizes the dire state of the storied franchise. According to Rick Bucher they are looking to trade Andrew Bynum and some baggage to Indiana for Jermaine O’Neal. Something of a lateral move if you ask me. It’s like giving up Jason Campbell for Steve McNair, if the NFL is more your thing.

9:29- The Lakers take Javaris Crittenton from Georgia Tech, yet another freshman. This one is a point guard. They bring in Dick Vitale to do an exposition on him, he takes about ten seconds to switch subjects from the topic at hand to Zach Randolph to Kobe Bryant to comparing this draft to 2003. Nothing like a little levity.

9:35- The Miami Heat, needing to retool at essentially every position other than shooting guard, select Jason Smith from Colorado State University. A 6′11 Forward with a jumper and some perimeter game. Jay Bilas points out the obvious that he never won in college.

9:37- The maligned GM of The Lakers is being stick miked by Jim Gray’s pen about Kobe Bryant, he takes three minutes to tell him and the rest of the world to piss off about Kobe Bryant and other shit that is none of their goddamn business. But he’s much more eloquent and makes several excuses for why they haven’t been able to facilitate a trade. If nothing else, Kupchak can dance.

9:40- Philly makes their second of three first round picks with Daquan Cook from Ohio State, yet another Buckeye. Apparently he is going to Miami in a trade for Jason Smith and cash considerations. From what I have seen and heard of Cook here in Columbus, Jay Bilas summarizes it perfectly, and it is a common NBA tale: great potential and ability, limited maturity and interest. A poor man’s Brandan Wright.

9:43- Rod Thorne justifies drafting another head case for The Nets and is strangely convincing. Have fun in Bedstuy, Rod. I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Oh, and Vince Carter is supposedly going to opt out of his contract extension, good times in the metropolitan area.

9:47- Charlotte and Michael Jordan have decided to take Jared Dudley out of Boston College with the 22nd pick. One would think with Georgia Tech and Boston College each having two players taken in the first round that they would have went deep into the tournament. But no, if memory serves they both lost in the first round of the NCAA tourney, GT to UNLV and Boston College to whomever.

9:49- Spike Lee is being interviewed by Lisa Saunders. He is resentful of other Knicks fans booing Isiah Thomas’ picks, and he is right, Isiah does alright (not great) in the draft, but he’s an irrational moron when it comes to free agency and every other facet of being integrally involved with running an NBA franchise. So the booing is warranted, even if it is ill-timed.

9:52- Spike ruined this pick of Wilson Chandler by predicting it correctly. Or Isiah told him what was going to happen, since that’s the type of insider knowledge you get for being loyal enough to support his ongoing employment.

9:56- Phoenix, who literally sold all their picks last year, is rumored to have sold this one to Portland as well. Phoenix will make the pick and it will be at the insistence of The Blazers. If they are so opposed to the up and coming generation, I’m surprised they haven’t dealt for Garnett yet.

9:58- They take a Spaniard named Rudy Fernandez, another 21 year-old foreigner. Whoever is doing the voice over is making the argument that if he played for a premiere college program he would have been a lottery pick. When you are Paul Allen and all you are giving up is cash for someone with all-star potential, then it is worth the risk.

10:03- Utah is on the clock, and I predict will take a white guy, if not a foreigner. Whoa, I’m wrong on both accounts. They take Morris Almond out of Rice. I want to hear who the last Rice alum was that was drafted in the first round. Okay, well, Tirico just said in no uncertain terms that one hasn’t been drafted out of the Houston school for 24 years, but no mention of who it was.

10:11- Houston selects Aaron Brooks from Oregon, a great value pick. A point guard under six feet with shooting ability and an unmatched tenacity, solid role of the dice this late, but The Rockets have little to no need at point guard with Mike James and Rafer Alston.

10:14- Andy Katz is explaining that the threat from the Chinese Government is to restrict Yi Jianlian from playing in the NBA should he be drafted by Milwaukee. If you live in that city, or the state of Wisconsin in general, how do you not take that personally and vote Republican in 2008? They’re going red anyways, but why not at least leave a slim possibility open, China? Sorry, it is getting slow ’round here.

10:16- Detroit is going to make the 27th pick as soon as ESPN wraps up profiling Seattle’s new GM, Sam Presti.

10:19- And the beleaguered Pistons take Aaron Affalo, probably the most overrated player in all of college basketball this past season, which is probably why he left early and went in the late first round. Why is Detroit stockpiling guards? I guess they are assuming Chauncey Billups has no intention of sticking around and they know Rip Hamilton cannot do anything but hit a mid-range jumper and play a little D, but didn’t they just let Ben Wallace leave town and currently have a front line who averages 55 years of age? Between, Sheed, McDyess, Webber and Maxil, they might have to get a Country Kitchen Buffet in the clubhouse.

10:25- San Antonio selects another foreigner, Tiago Splitter from Brazil. There is some guitar riff that keeps accentuating in the background, which means you know he’s good. Much like the Spaniard drafted by Portland, he cannot play until the 2008-2009 season, thus explaining why he might have slipped.

10:30- Phoenix takes Alando Tucker, who before the championship game of the Big Ten tournament was a projected top ten pick, but then was clobbered against Ohio State and decimated in the NCAA tournament. Vitale is endorsing his virtues, but it seems like bullshit. If he plays he will put up numbers because he is in Phoenix, but will struggle to even get minutes on that squad, considering he is the first player Phoenix has drafted with the intentions of keeping in two years.

10:34- Philly is drafting 30th to close out the first round, and I simply do not have it in me to extend this charade for another hour and a half when we are at a good stopping point.

10:37- David Stern announces the Miami-Philly pick, making it official. Philly drafts a Findland native named Petteri Koponen to conclude the first round. He is nineteen and and has played little competitive basketball, another foreigner who will not play professionally for a couple years, says Ric Bucher. Still, he is at the draft with his thirty person family and they are ecstatic, and that is what the draft exemplifies: Pure ecstasy at the promise of realizing a kid’s dream. Regardless of what happens from here on out, he’ll have this moment.

With that sorry attempt at succinct eloquence, we are capping this. It was entirely too long and I immediately regretted the decision to cover this. We might be back later on Friday with a set of links or something, it remains undetermined.

Another slow TV weekend. In terms of scripted series, the most riveting TV I saw was a Sopranos trailer. And that actually came immediately before an HBO special, wher Jerry Seinfeld was presented with the first annual Comedian Award. Normally I would never watch something like this, but since it was on HBO and I had been playing football all day, my energy was at a cautionary low and couldn’t afford to do much else.

This wasn’t a typical award presentation, nor was it what I initially believed it would be: a roast; HBO had Robert Klein (older generation), Chris Rock (younger generation) and Gary Shandling (Seinfeld’s peer) join Seinfeld on stage with moderator Anderson Cooper (what?) to talk shop for about forty minutes before some figurehead at HBO did the actual presenting of this manufactured Comedian Award (Ironically enough, Seinfeld had laid into the cluelessness of hollywood executives only twenty minutes beforehand).

At first I was surprised all three of the guests agreed to participate in this. Honestly, why would the three of them want to come on national television and figuratively tickle Seinfelds balls for an hour? But stand-up comedians are the probably the closest knit fraternity in show business. There seems to be a profound sense of respect and admiration these four had for each other. And I am sure the nature of their profession is directly related to whatever bond they may have formed over the years, as it unique to almost any other profession, entertainment industry or otherwise.

And, as one would expect, anytime you can get multiple comedians in a televised conversation/interview, it is always worth watching. Ricky Gervais interviewed Larry David for his show in London and it was probably the funniest thing I have seen all year (Note: this interview is on Youtube and is divided into five parts, the links for the other four are in the right hand column). Professional comedians have a certain ebb and flow when they get together that is astonishing to witness, their minds are somewhat twisted so rarely can they see eye-to-eye with an entertainment journalist or someone of that nature and the interview is always comprised of nervous, non-responsive laughter by the interviewer.

But anyhow, the event turned out to be a successful telecast. All four comedians had their moments (with Gary Shandling probably having more than his fair share) and Cooper did a decent job conducting the interview. I personally have never been the biggest fan of Seinfeld’s stand up routine. But Seinfeld? That’s an entirely different story. His and Larry David’s series has been just as influential for sitcoms as The Sopranos has been for dramatic series’.

The only problem being, instead of inspiring innovative comedy, Seinfeld has precipitated several desperate replications, looking to capitalize on the same premise with slight modifications. Where as The Sopranos, as discussed before on this sight, has resulted in something of a small screen revolution, wherein networks are more susceptible to taking risks with creative storytelling and introspective character development as opposed to the hodge podge slew of criminal investigation shows we are accustom too (I’m looking at you, CBS).

Maybe last nights special will invoke some young, thoughtful writer/producer to piece together a series that doesn’t revolve around thirty something’s hanging out and making insipid conversation about their jobs/boyfriends and/or girlfriends. But let’s just say I am not holding my breath. If nothing else, last night made me nostalgic for a day when the number one sitcom on television was not Two and A Half Men, and a series like Arrested Development wasn’t taken off the air in its prime.

I may write a TV blog, but I have always had a vested interest in film. One of the few nights that these two mediums collide is for the Oscar Awards, so I figure I mine as well spend three hours logging the show as I am going to watch it anyways. I tend to think these awards are trivial and innocuous and tend to go to less deserving nominees, but the Oscars are the gold standard, so, what the hell? Just like with the Golden Globes, I apologize for any and all typos.

8:30pm: The broadcast opens with numerous actors, producers, writers directors and the like spouting out superlatives about everything industry related. It pretty much epitomizes why the general public feels a disconnect with hollywood. Nice job, production teams.

8:35: Nothing really interesting is taking place here. But it’s been five minutes and I am supposed to be commenting, so, there it is.

8:37: Ellen Degeneres is hosting, significant drop off from Jon Stewart but I don’t think the crowd there was really into Stewart’s comedy last year, as it required the audience members to laugh at themselves. She takes a few jabs at the oddly high number of British nominees present at the show, goes into a extended bit about how nervous she is. She randomly calls out Abagail Breslin, the girl from Little Miss Sunshine, and while I know she is an actress rather than a pop musician, everytime I see a child celebrity now I see Britney Spears. Yeah, pretty grim.

8:43- She goes into a musical that is meant to celebrate the nominees. Fittingly enough, they all stand up to dance to the song, effectively celebrating themselves.

8:45- Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman present the award for Best Art Direction. A foreign film always walks away with this one so I put my money on Pan’s Labyrinth….1 for 1. See you give them a few technical awards so they can snub them on those that are more notarized. It is a damn good movie and since I have no idea what constitutes sound art direction, I’ll buy it.

8:49- Wow, this has been a really humorless show, and Maggie Glyhennhal is not going to change that. She talks, very, very earnestly about the scientific and technical awards from the night before. It’s nice to see them get some recognition, for a change. Considering that the only box office locks nowadays are Pixar films, this is probably warranted.

8:53- Will Ferrell is singing a ballad about how the Oscars ignore comedic movies, it is kind of absurd that they are that pretentious to pretend like they don’t exist. Comedy is extremely difficult to pull of successfully, just ask Rob Schneider. Jack Black comes out and screams threats with Ferrell to all the actors at the show. John C. Reilly comes out singingly reassures them that they can make the transformation to dramatic film. Its pretty good. Certainly Will Ferrell is trying to, I have no doubt he will go all Jim Carrey on us after seeing Stranger Than Fiction.

8:57- Will Ferrell does this immediate transformation from satirist to presenter when he deadpans, “Here are the nominees for makeup, achievement in makeup.” Obviously they aren’t giving an award to Mel Gibson’s film Apocalypto, and Click is another nominee in this field, not a chance they give an award to an Adam Sandler movie (and a bad one at that), so it is blatantly obvious that they are giving the award yet again to Pan’s Labyrinth… 2 for 2. The producers drive the winners with half broken English off the stage with the wrap it up exit music.

9:00- Abagail Breslin and Will Smiths kid present the nominees for Best Animated Short. These kids are entirely too mature for ten year olds. It’s weird. Breslin fumbles with the lines on the monitor, and Baby Will points it out. The person comes up to accept it, then they have the two ten year olds present yet another award for Best Live Action Short Film. Ari Sandel wins for West Bank Story, apparently its a dramedy about Palestinians and Israelis and takes place between a fallafel stand. He gives a speech about the “little guy” trying to make it in Hollywood. Between the child stars and the guy pleading with Hollywood to give him and everyone else like him a chance, this entire segment felt a little exploitive.

9:04- In the great tradition of presenting the nominees for Best Picture over the course of the broadcast, we are shown a montage of random footage for Letters From Iwo Jima, which I have regrettably never seen, though I wouldn’t have a problem with it taking home the hardware.

9:11- And here comes… the Hollywood Sound Effects Choir? Really? In case you’re wondering that’s exactly what it sounds like: a collection of adults making noises that coordinate with the footage being played behind them with there throats and various appendages. I for one, am just glad that the guy who makes song beats by snapping his fingers can find some work.

9:14- Carrell and Kinnear present the award for Best Sound Editing, they do the “It’s a Lot like sex” metaphor gag (because you can do that with anything, really). I am giving it to Letters From Iwo Jima, mainly because they showed clips of it a few minutes ago. 3 for 3. Apparently one of the winners had a father who survived Iwo Jima. Must have been emotional, he thanks all troops throughout time and singles out his father.

9:17 James McAvoy (the kid from Last King Of Scotland) and Jessica Biel present the award for Achievement in Sound Mixing. I’m calling Flags of Our Fathers takes this one… 3 for 4, goes to Dream Girls. Psshh, whatever. That movie is pretty much a live album, you could play a record and it amounts to the same thing.

9:20- Rachel Wiesz presents the award for Best Supporting Actor. Eddie Murphy is a stone cold lock (as are all the other major acting awards tonight). I would love to see Jackie Earl Haley get it for his role as a pedophile in Little Children or Djimon Hounsou get it for Blood Diamond, or… lets just say of the five nominees Eddie Murphy is the last person I would give it to…. wait, hold on a second, Alan Arkin gets it for Little Miss Sunshine. What the hell? He gets choked up in his acceptance speech while thanking his family. 3 for 5.

9:24- Degeneres pretends like she is attempting to force a movie script on Martin Scorsese. They show some cryptic stage set that has something to do with the movie Happy Feet, I kind of missed it because I am typing at a feverish pace.

9:29- Footage of The Departed, our second nominee for Best Picture! Was a helluva morality film. Again, wouldn’t mind if it won, though I think Alan Arkin pulling the surprise upset for Best Supporting Actor is a premonition for the rest of the evening. Randy Newman and James Taylor perform “Our Town”, nominated for Best Song from Cars. It’s pretty bleak for a children’s film. They go straight from that to Melissa Etheridge performing “I Need To Wake Up” from An Inconvenient Truth while environmental facts scroll through on the backdrop. Everyone in the audience looks really pleased with themselves.

9:35- Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio come onto the stage and Leo immediately asks him if he has anything he would like too announce. This is an original venue if he were to declare his bid for the presidency, not sure it is a helpful one, however. They throw us a few suggestions to help the cause of Global Warming, DiCaprio asks him again if he has anything he would like too announce, he builds up as if he were going to and the exit music overrides him.

9:42- After the last spectacle from Gore and his lap dog, Degeneres says, “Since the show is green, my producers have asked me to recycle some jokes from earlier in my career.” Does some jokes about Gilligan’s Island to illustrate how comedy is constantly evolving.

9:43- Cameron Diaz presents the award to the obvious Happy Feet for Best Animated Film. He is, intentionally, dressed like a penguin. 4 for 6.

9:45- Ben Affleck (He still is welcomed around this crowd) presents a montage of different films that featured characters who played writers, just to show you how self indulgent Hollywood is. It’s long…

9:50- Helen Mirren and Tom Hanks present the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Departed seems like the safe bet here, Borat is nominated, but it’s not necessarily a great screenplay. All of these nominees are really good, and in some cases great films (though I have never seen Notes On A Scandal). Oh well, At least they are acknowledging a comedy… 5 for 7. William Monohan adapted the screenplay, gets up on stage and says, “Valium does work”. The writers are always the most clever of award show recipients.

9:58- Halfway point, Ellen Degeneres walks out in a harness with a Oscar in it. Nice touch.

10:00- Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wears Prada present the award for Best Costume Design, I have the same movie winning the award because its set in the clothing industry. Emily Blunt, like I reiterated several times in my Golden Globes log, is utterly gorgeous. She does not disappoint here and her appearance is appreciated…. 5 for 8. Goes to Marie Antoinette, that awful Sofia Coppola follow up to Lost In Translation. The women who wins also did the design for Barry Lyndon, the old Stanley Kubrick film. Which, isn’t it the same design? She refers to Kubrick as her “Master”, little intense.

10:05- Tom Cruise presents the humanitarian award to Sherry Lansing, who was apparently the first women to head a major studio. Apparently she raises money for cancer, stem cell research, and education. She has since left show business and to focus all the money and power she yields on her nonprofit organization.

10:10- Degeneres has Spielberg take a picture of her with Clint Eastwood for MySpace. She is doing a solid job tonight.

10:12- Gwenyth Paltrow presents the award for Best Cinematography, Children of Men is the pick here and that film has to walk away with something, it’s too poignant to not get anything. So yes, this is a biased pick. But yes, it’s still deserving… Damn, Pan’s Labyrinth takes home its third award. I am not sure if it’s because they’re Spanish, but everyone involved in this movie sounds like they are in a cult, and the director of the film is their leader. 5 for 9.

10:16- Shadow interpretation of Little Miss Sunshine, I am guessing that’s what the Happy Feet business was earlier in the broadcast.

10:19-Naomi Watts and Robert Downey Jr. (Still using the Jr., huh Rob?) The latter pokes fun at his own drug abuse in the 90’s. They present the award for Best Visual Effects. I have Superman Returns in this one, just because between the three its the most overall award worthy movie… goes to the guys from Pirates of The Caribbean 2, 5-10. Damn, I am batting .500 right now. The head honcho of the four winners thanks Jerry Bruckheimer, that has to be a first at The Oscars.

10:23- Catherine Dinhou (sp?) and Ken Watanabe claim they are there to celebrate the history of Foreign influence in the film industry and they do so with yet another not so tightly kept montage. We have had like twenty minutes of montages now, and while I enjoy them as well as foreign films, I am in the process of developing carpel-tunnel.

10:29- Clive Owen and Cate Blanchett present the award for Best Foreign Lnguage film, Pan’s Labyrinth should be a lock with the way things have gone tonight… wow. 5 for 11. It goes to The Lives Of Others, heard of it, never seen it. Maybe this will inspire me to do so. Probably not.

10:32- Ellen Degeneres has some fun with the thing they are doing the shadow interpretations with, the acrobat team they have doing these shows sidles her and they form the Snakes On A Plane logo. She comes back out and says, “There naked”. Reminds me of this bar at Caesars Palace in Vegas called, “Shadow Bar”, where there are naked women dancing behind the same projector they are using at The Oscars, only I thought it was a video being put out as opposed to an actual women dancing behind the screen, I unknowingly struck up a conversation with a women at the same bar, she began to complain about her job, and I simultaneously signaled to the the screen with the shadow, and said, “At least you don’t do that for a living.” Turns out she did… needless to say the conversation ended shortly thereafter.

10:33- George Clooney comes out and presents the award for Best Supporting Actress, now Jennifer Hudson is definitely, unquestionably and unmistakably a lock for this one. 6 for 12, back to even par.

10:38- I like how an award show celebrating artistic achievement, cannot escape being interrupted by ABC promos for Dancing With The Stars.

10:40- Babel is nominated for Best Picture.

10:42- Eva Green and someone Spanish guy are presenting the award for Best Documentary Short Subject. These are all too obscure to pick a winner for. In case you’re interested it goes to The Blood of Yungzhou District. Nothing else to really add to that.

10:44- Jerry Seinfeld presents the award for Outstanding Documentary Feature, An Inconvenient Truth is yet another unquestionable winner. Seinfeld does a really tired stand up routine that is, dare I say, too Seinfeldian. Despite Gore’s film being a lock, there are some decent nominees with Jesus Camp, Deliver Us From Evil and Iraq In Fragments. Seinfeld does appropriately say they are all incredibly depressing nominees. “Truth” takes it, the guy who I am assuming was the director is deathly serious about his cause. 7 for 13.

10:49- Clint Eastwood presents an award for lifetime achievement to Ennio Morricone. He is stumbling with his delivery, and as the camera fades out from his presentation to yet another montage, Clint, not realizing his mike is still on, mutters to a producer, “I should have worn my glasses”. Celine Dion serenades to a really disinterested Morricone and his entourage who are sitting in the balcony box seats pushed off to the side.

10:58- A stunningly confused Eastwood still has to present the award. He accepts the award in Italian, which is new. Eastwood is claiming to know Italian and interprets what he is saying. One would figure thirty-five years of scoring American films that Morricone would have gone out of his way too pick up a little English. Anyways, it’s weird because everyone keeps applauding for him before Eastwood translates. He could be saying the holocaust wasn’t real or something and they would have no idea. I’m not buying Eastwood is translating this properly. Either way, it is what it is.

11:06- Speaking of broken English, Penelope Cruz and Hugh Jackman present the award for Best Original Score, though I haven’t seen the movie, I like the music they play in the trailer for Babel, so we’ll make that the pick…. 8 for 14. I’ve got a three game winning streak going right now.

11:09- Degeneres pokes fun at Jack Nicholson, something no one has had the balls to do. But amazingly he takes it well and no repercussions are suffered. She introduces some small video segment about The Academy of Motion Picture of Sciences. The video is sped up for yet another joke about people being time consuming at award shows.

11:11- Poker Superstar wannabe Tobey Maguire and Kristin Dunst present the award for Best Original Screenplay. I’ve got Little Miss Sunshine in this category, for just the subtle originality and humor of it… 9 for 15. The writer for it Michael Arndt, had to quit his job as an assistant for Mathew Broderick to write the film. So naturally I was expecting him to be a young guy, turns out he was in his late thirties (presumably). Good move, dude. You went from picking up cappucinos for the star of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to winning Oscars.

11:18- Jennifer Lopez comes onto stage, whom the voice over guy peculiarly introduces as “an excellent reason for Hi-Def television” (had to be improvisation on his part). Lopez (who, again, I am surprised is still getting invites to shit like this) introduces the cast of Dream Girls, who are singing a song from the soundtrack…

11:25- … Or at least that’s what I thought, as they have been performing for six minutes now and are now starting there third song. So when I said “A song”, I actually meant, “the entire fucking soundtrack”. Beyonce and the third woman that isn’t Jennifer Hudson are stunning.

11:28- Queen Latifah and John Travolta (Scientologists are out in full force tonight) present the award for Best Original Song. DreamGirls is winning this one, they are nominated three times and they are five nominees so it’s not really fair… you have to be fucking kidding me? Melissa Etheridge gets it for her song “It’s Time To Wake Up” from the Gore documentary. Two things, how does a movie that doubles as a musical get looked over for a repetitive rock song from a documentary? Also, when did documentaries start winning musical awards? They are just desperate to honor Al Gore in any way for anything. 9 for 16.

11:34-This is four minutes over the schedueled time, and there is no end in site. They still have yet to give out the two lead acdting awards, Best Director and Best Picture, and God Knows what else, so I am currently regretting doing this. Little Miss Sunshine, another nominee for best picture. Maybe it’s not the speeches the Academy needs to cut down, maybe its the fucking montages.

11:36- Will Smith gets on stage and begins to pontificate about the American embodiment before showing yet another montage of Michael Mann films. And when I say that, I am not sure what capacity he is involved in all of these. I know some he directed and some he didn’t. Maybe I misheard Smith and these are just films Mann enjoys. They vary from Dr. Strangelove to Magnolia to American Dreamz, so yeah, I am not sure what that was all about.

11:40- Kate Winslet presents the award for Best Editing. I am guessing The Departed… 10 for 17. She is going to get like three seconds to give her speech.

11:44- Jodie Foster introduces the “these are people who passed away in the last year” montage. Does anyone know what the criteria is to qualify for this? Is there a certain number of films one has to play a hand in? Any input would be appreciated.

11:52- We are now an unapologetic twenty-two minutes over the scheduled airtime. Actually, Degeneres apologizes. But takes two minutes to do it. Phillip Seymour Hoffman presents the award for Best Actress and is prompt about it. Helen Mirren is a lock for her role as Queen Elizabeth in, The Queen, I hear Judi Dench was in rare form in Notes On A Scandal and I am rooting for Kate Winslet (she’s like the Scorcese of actresses). But Helen Mirren, an insider favorite is a lock… 11 for 18. The voice over fun fact for Mirren is that an Indian psychic told her she wouldn’t reach the pinnacle of her career until her forties. Oh, so its like every other profession for Mirren. Also, its just a guess, but that guy was a decade too early.

11:56- Chris Connelly informs us that every picture nominated in the Best Film category has won at least one award. I am not a historian of this stuff, but I doubt this award has ever been this wide open. I picked a bad year to do this, as the telecast looks to stretch well into four hours, there is absolutely no sense of urgency. We aren’t even getting exit music forcing recipients off the stage anymore.

Midnight?!- Degeneres is pretending to vacuum and in a vein attempt for this hour at humor, bitches about her work detail. Its too late for me to still be laughing, she is handling it as well as possible though.

12:02- Reese Witherspoon presentes the award for Best Actor, all the nominees seem deserving. Peter O’Toole is the crowd favorite, I am pulling for Gosling, but it’s Forest Whitaker’s award… 12 for 20. This is an impressive list of nominees considering how poor I thought 2006 was for films. Whitaker gives an emotional speech about his plight in the acting field. He’s lucky he doesn’t get exit music-ed off the stage. When he walks off he looks back over his shoulder like he just beat the shit out of the crowd.

12:06- Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas present for Best Director, they do some schtick and there is a reason these guys never took a stab at acting. Now they are speeding things up by neglecting to show clips of the films and opting to just read the nominees. Scorsese deserves the award, I am rooting for him, I think he is the most deserving and the crowd is pulling for him. He gets a standing ovation when his name is announced. 13 for 21. They show Scorsese walking off the stage with the three presenters and its safe to say that George Lucas is misplaced.

12:12- The Queen, your fifth and final nominee for best picture. Nicholson and Diane Keaton present the award, I am guessing Little Miss Sunshine, but it’s nothing more than a shot in the dark, Keaton presents the nominees and Nicholson reads The Departed as the winner. Does that happen often? Where a person who was integral to the making of the winning film reads his own movie? I finish the night at 14 for 22, and after hours of actors, directors, musicians and the like, some random producer named Graham King is the last person we hear from. He acknowledges everyone involved with the making of the film including his family.

12:19- Degeneres mine as well be shoving Mr. King off the stage with a broom when she steps onto the stage to sign off, so only 49 minutes over the allotted time for the show. Pretty sloppy on The Academy’s part. If you actually read this entire thing, you deserve a statue of some kind.

Sorry for the delay. I guess that’s the consequence of The Superbowl: late blog entries. Anyways, I am sure you are all thrilled to be back at work, currently I barely have the mental capacity to write anything at all, so writing something of substance is totally out of the question. Luckily for me every network bows down to the magnificent ratings power that is the NFL title game, and I have yet to watch last night’s Extras, so there is nothing new to discuss.

So let’s talk about Superbowl ads. My memory is a little foggy, but the people I was watching the game with clearly enjoyed the one where the two were playing Rock-Paper-Scissors for the last Bud Light. In yet another play on the inanity that is the paper beating rock, the guy who picked rock whipped one out at chucked at the guy’s forehead, probably killing him. Until he protests the result, “I threw paper”; without skipping a beat, his potential murderer retorts, “I threw a rock”. The second commercial than had some fanfare was the one witht he four women sitting in the car, and dozens of men begin to remove their clothes and molest the car, while the four women look on in horror, at the end a caption reads, “Guys just can’t seem to keep their hands off it.” Little can be derived from this other than the people I watched the game with are idiots.

But on a larger scale, I can’t recall enjoying a single commercial and I haven’t for at least ten years. One, because they’re commercials. Two, there is so much expectation for them that they often fall flat. As little as ten years ago, Superbowl commercials were regarded as secondary. A reason you could feed to your disinterested significant other who may want to engage in some other activity when the game is on, “You can watch the commercials” was always a great persuader. Any other day, such a suggestion might be misconstrued, as it sounds more like a chore than entertainment. But before the internet over-saturated superbowl commercial hype, they were worthwhile. Now we have anticipatory articles, review articles, contests, debates, news segments, and a million different people interpreting dozens of commercials a million different ways. I can’t think of any other faction of a media event that is blown out of proportion like this. Now the significant other prepares for the commercials more so than you do the game (which admittedly, can have it’s positives alongside its negatives).

And not to completely kill everyones buzz, but ultimately they are trying too push a product, when that is the main objective the room for creativity is marginalized (such is the problem with the majority of studio films nowadays. They are more interested in extracting the money out of your pocket than telling a great story). I just have a difficult time getting all in a huff over a few predictable quips conjured up in some ad execs office that are meant to brainwash me into buying a razor, a soda (At some point it can’t be worth the investment for Coca-Cola to keep pumping these out) or a car.

Again, I wasn’t exactly the bastion of sobreity last night and I didn’t make a point to watch all of the commercials (I missed the heralded K-Fed ad), but therein lies the problem: I didn’t really feel a need to. There is some backlash worth noting, it appears Superbowl commercial hype is now counter-productive. At least with me… and that doesn’t really matter because I do not have any money to buy shit with anyways. So just disregard all of this.

I know I promised synopsis’ of The Apprentice and Extras, and I’ll get to that in the near future. But tonight I decided to log the Golden Globes. I am not sure why I am doing this, today is my birthday and I am logging a second-tier award show? Shouldn’t I at least be getting drunk? Never mind. Also, Forgive any possible typos, I wrote this as the show aired and was typing a mile a minute. If I missed anything, blame it on my lack of an editor…

8pm- The show kicks off immediately, everyone is already glossy-eyed as the Geroge Clooney reads the nominees for best supporting actress in a comedy or musical. It goes to Jennifer Hudson for her role in Dreamgirls. Haven’t seen it, but apparently everyone else has as she makes some joke that I don’t get. She holds back the tears and thanks literally everyone she can identify.

8:06- Justin Timberlake hands out the award for best song, they introduce him as “star of the film Alpha Dog“, how has Timberlake gone from easy boy band target to “film star”? The award goes to Prince for his song in Happy Feet (Is Prince really an appropriate correlation for a kids movie?). His music plays for an elongated ten to fifteen seconds before the producers realize he isn’t there.

8:11- Adrian Grenier and Eva Longoria are paired together as the two non-believeable actors on commercially viable series, unfortunately they are not announced as such. They introduce someone who gets the title of “Miss Golden Globe” named Lorraine Nichols. Who else is in favor of abandoning arbitrary titles? Anyways, they present Jeremy Irons with the award as best supporting actor in a miniseries or TV movie.

8:15- David Spade and Tina Fey present the award for best actress in a dramatic series. It should go to Edie Falco, Evangeline Lilly is the crowd favorite, it goes to Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer. She makes a joke about making Nicholson laugh and how pleased she is with herself. It is clearly the first time she has won an award like this.

8:24- Some woman introduces Babel as the first film nominated for best drama, never saw it, but would like too at some point. Looks like Traffic crossed with Syriana.

8:25- Rene Zellwegger salutes the Hollywood foreign press. Someone is making a bid for next years show. She introduces Phillip Burke, who is their president. He is as uptight as one would assume him to be. The crowd is laughing either with him or at him, it’s hard too tell.

8:28- Jessica Biel and P. Diddy present the award for best supporting actress in a mini series, TV Special or comedy. Goes to Emily Blunt, no idea who she is but good lord is she easy on the eyes. As any smart up and coming actress, she is sure too pontificate about the brilliance of everyone in the room.

8:31- The entire cast of Heroes goes on stage to present the award for best Actor in a drama. Two of them actually speak, Hugh Laurie takes it for his provocative role as the rogue doctor in House.

8:40- Charlie Sheen introduces Bobby, the second film nominated for Best Picture. He forces his brother, Emilio Estevez, the diector of the film (his first since Men At Work, too stand up and accept applause. Emilio hesitates, Sheen forces the issue, something tells me this isn’t the first time they have gone through this.

8:42- Steve Carell presents the award for best animated feature film, what I have come to understand is that Cars is a lock. Because it is talking cars instead of animals. I am pulling for Monster House because humans are protrayed through the wonder of digital animation. But it goes to Cars. I was talking with a friend earlier today, we capped at twenty years before Hollywood acting is a non-existent profession.

8:46- Joaquin Phoenix presents the award for best actress in a motion picture motion or comedy. Toni Collette is the crowd favorite for Little Miss Sunshine along with Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada. I would prefer Collette but predictably it goes to Streep, who could now build a small fort inside her large mansion with all the awards she has won. She cracks a joke about having literally