Oscar Oscar Oscar...

As you all know by now, this is the 51st annual Academy Awards. Two hours of sparkling entertainment, spread out over a four-hour show.~~Johnny Carson

Does a film being nominated for or winning an Academy Award (Oscar) affect whether or not you want to see it? Not really.

Have you ever watched a movie based solely on the fact that it was nominated for or won an Oscar? Nope.

How many of this year's nominees have you seen? 1 Which ones? Howl's Moving Castle

Do you think the film and/or actor deserved the nomination? YES

Are there any you wanted to see but have not managed to do so yet? Yes: Capote, Narnia, Harry Potter, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line, Munich, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Pride & Prejudice, The Corpse Bride, and Wallace & Grommit. No, we don't get out much. I will see them all eventually.

(Courtesy "Musing on Movies")

As far as a detailed commentary on the nominations, I'll leave it to Jeffrey Overstreet since I pretty much agree with him across the board.

CGI Captain

I've decided to remove the sidebar "What I'm Watching at Home" list, because it's a pain to update, manually, in my cheapo freebie blog courtesy of the wonderfull folks at Blogger. Henceforward I'll just comment on films in a brief entry if watchable, link to a lengthier entry if warranted, or refrain from posting at all if the thing is a bust. If it's very lucky, the offending awful film might get mention over at my Romance Novel Roundup.

Anyhoo: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. As a film: watchable diversion. As a CGI extravaganza: WOW!!! Very light on plot and with pretty much no character development, it's not exactly a masterpiece of storytelling...but it does have Jude Law, Angelina Jolie (all too briefly), and Gwyneth Paltrow, who opted for the frugal "three facial expressions only" (ernest observer, disarming cheerfulness, angry girl) acting style in this one. By the time the credit crawl showed up, I was pretty much convinced that the film really exists as promotional material for Computer Generated Effects shops. The whole thing was shot on a blue screen set, and even the Evil Genius bad guy was stock footage. Very well integrated stock footage, but still, just more of the "see what we can do these days!" kind of thing. The net result was that I felt I had just watched one of those films you see at a World Expo that is really advertising or educating in a very entertaining way.

Surprise!...not

Serenity (from Firefly) 100% Moya (from Farscape) 81% Millennium Falcon (from Star Wars) 81% SG-1 (from Stargate) 75% Nebuchadnezzar (from The Matrix) 75% Galactica (from Battlestar: Galactica) 69% Enterprise D (from Star Trek) 69% Bebop (from Cowboy Bebop) 63% You scored as Serenity (from Firefly). You like to live your own way and do not enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you that you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you. Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? v1.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Thanks to alert reader JT in Quebec for this spiffy quiz!

(Also: Is it just me, or are these folks just the best-looking darn crew ever? Am I right?!)

Update: JT does it again! Here's another great review of the show at Spiderman's Web.

Archie McPhee does it again

Are you as tired of all of those chirpy bright wristbands as I am? Well, if you're not, then bully for you. The rest of us are grateful for Archie McPhee, purveyors of fine rubber chickens and other pop sundries. Need a Skull & Crossbones shower curtain? Punching Nun puppet? Brain-shaped jello mold? You don't? Well, that's ok, you can spend your hard-earned cash at the mall, but I'll choose St. Archie every time. I particularly like the yellow wristband, because by the end of the day that's usually about where I stand.

Blog Watch: Faux Herzog

What if Werner Herzog kept a diary? OK, he may very well keep a diary, but it's probably not as funny as this. This should also serve as a warning to us bloggers: beware of pompous, self-absorbed, obtuse entries. They're only good reading if they're meant to be amusing...

It's the Little Things

Why am I so happy that, just now, as I was putting the insulator on the outdoor spigot (going to be in the 20s tonight)I looked down and saw a rat head at my feet? Because it means that one of my on-duty cats finally got one of the rodents that have been tunneling around the barn! Go team!