'Best of TBH Politoons'
Oscar Picks
Purple Gene
Purple Gene's picks for who will win tonight at the Oscars! (these are not my favorites but my predictions)
Best Picture: "Babel"
Best Director: "Martin Scorsese"
Best Actor: "Forest Whitaker"
Best Actress: "Helen Mirren"
Best Supporting Actor: "Eddie Murphy"
Best Supporting Actress: "Jennifer Hudson"
Oscar Picks
that Mad Cat, JD
OK! LET'S CUT TO THE CHASE!!!
Pan's Labyrinth - WAS THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR, BUT THE ACADEMY IS TOO BUSY POUNDING ON THE HOLLYWOOD PUD. SO THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR IN MY I-KNOW-EVERYTHING-ESTIMATION IS Little Miss Sunshine.
ABIGAIL BRESLIN IS MY PICK FOR BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS. ALAN ARKIN IS MY PICK FOR BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR.
MY BEST ACTOR GOES TO RYAN GOSLING WHO KICKED SOME MAJOR BUTT IN Half Nelson.
BEST ACTRESS? I DON'T HAVE A PICK! THEY WERE ALL GREAT!!!
OK NOW FOR THE REAL HARD ONE! BEST DIRECTOR!!! TWO HOLLYWOOD WARRIORS FIGHT IT OUT. The Departed AND Letters From Iwo Jima.
SHIT, BOTH OF THESE FILMS ARE KILLER GOOD!!! BOTH OF THESE GUYS ARE THE BEST DIRECTION THAT HOLLYWOOD HAS TO OFFER. SORRY MARTIN, I HAVE TO GIVE IT CLINT. THIS ONE IS CLOSE BUT I HAVE TO GIVE IT CLINT! IT IS SUCH A PLEASURE TO WATCH THE WORK OF TWO MASTERS, BUT THIS YEAR I THINK CLINT WON THIS ROUND.
JD
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Barbara Ehrenreich: The Jet Blue Blues (AlterNet.org)
Let's face it, JetBlue and the rest of you: Anything more than three hours on the ground isn't an airline delay, it's a hostage situation.
Lou Dobbs: Will the Democrats save their souls? (cnn.com)
The battle for the soul of the Democratic Party is under way. And the outcome of this battle will likely not be determined by any one of the rising number of candidates for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, but rather by the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill.
Maureen Dowd: A Cat Without Whiskers (The New York Times)
Mr. McCain listened with his eyes downcast, then looked the man in the eye, smiled and replied: "I'm probably going to get in trouble, but what's wrong with sucking up to everybody?" It was a flash of the old McCain, and the audience laughed.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Colorless Green Ideas (The New York Times)
The factual debate about whether global warming is real is, or at least should be, over. The question now is what to do about it.
Timothy Noah: Evicted From Wikipedia (slate.com)
Why the online encyclopedia won't let just anyone in.
Zeth Lundy: MacGuffin Pop (popmatters.com)
Randy Newman's latest Academy Award nomination makes it easy to forget how truly deceptive his songwriting really is. His music, which rarely wanders far from New Orleans R&B, ragtime, or Brill Building pop, is the stuff of familiarity and comfort, an unassuming foundation of Americana into which subversive (confrontational, even) ideas can be planted.
Matt Feeney: Quirky in a Good Way (slate.com)
Why all the hate for Little Miss Sunshine?
Reader Suggestion
NASA
Purple Gene Reviews
Women's Professional Kickboxing
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, breezy day.
We haven't had a field trip since last summer, so we hopped on the Blue Line & went to Chinatown for the New Year's parade.
While we had a great time, it was sad to see what has happened to high school bands.
Not one band had more than 30 kids playing instruments. Seemed they were so desperate for bodies to fill uniforms there was one kid marching with a bassoon, and 2 others toting concert tubas.
Razzies - 2007 will be updated shortly (if it hasn't been already).
Here are a couple of LA-links for tonight's Oscar™ festivities:
KTLA The CW | Live from the Academy Awards has a live
webcast from 3:30 - 5pm (pst). They've been advertising it as uncensored.
On The Red Carpet is from the local
ABC affiliate from which the festivities originate.
My Oscar picks -
Best Picture: "Little Miss Sunshine"
Best Director: "Martin Scorsese"
Best Actor: "Forest Whitaker"
Best Actress: "Helen Mirren"
Best Supporting Actor: "Alan Arkin"
Best Supporting Actress: "Jennifer Hudson"
27th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards
Razzies
Sharon Stone and her failed film sequel, "Basic Instinct 2," swept the 27th annual Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies, on Saturday night as they collected dubious-distinction honors in four categories -- worst film, worst actress, worst screenplay and worst prequel or sequel.
"Little Man," a comedy made by the Wayans Brothers, picked up three Razzies, including worst remake or rip-off. Brothers Shawn and Marlon Wayans were named worst screen couple and shared the prize for worst actor. Their comedy about a tiny thief who disguises himself as a baby, supposedly was based on a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, who blew off a lucrative deal with Disney over the company's criticism of his movie "Lady in the Water," received two Razzies for that film: worst director and worst supporting actor for his own performance in it.
The Razzie for worst supporting actress went to former "Baywatch" beauty Carmen Electra after a neck-and-neck fight with onetime Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy. Electra won for two films -- "Date Movie" and "Scary Movie 4."
"RV," a comedy starring Robin Williams, was the winner of the newest Razzie category, worst excuse for family entertainment.
Razzies
'Little Miss Sunshine' Wins
Spirit Awards
The road comedy "Little Miss Sunshine" won best picture and three other prizes for independent films at the Spirit Awards on Saturday, one day before competing for Hollywood's top honors at the Academy Awards.
The hilarious though dark-tinged tale of a deeply dysfunctional family also won the supporting-actor award for Alan Arkin; best director for the husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and best first screenplay for Michael Arndt.
The lead-acting Spirit Awards went to the stars of another Oscar contender, the classroom drama "Half Nelson." Ryan Gosling played an inspiring teacher battling a severe drug habit and Shareeka Epps won for her role as a bright student who becomes both his protege and counselor.
A third Sundance premiere, "Friends With Money," took the supporting-actress Spirit Award for Frances McDormand as a fashion designer who finds that wealth does not necessarily buy happiness.
The top prize winner at Sundance last year, the teen drama "Quinceanera," won the John Cassavetes Award for a film shot for less than $500,000.
Jason Reitman won the screenplay award for the tobacco-industry satire "Thank You For Smoking," which he also directed.
Robert Altman - nominated as best director for his final film, "A Prairie Home Companion" - was saluted with an honorary Spirit Award for his lifetime devotion to independent film. Altman died last November.
Spirit Awards organizers have created a new prize, the Robert Altman Award, which beginning next year will be given out to a film's director and acting ensemble - a nod to Altman's gift for overseeing large, overlapping casts.
Other Spirit Award winners were:
• Best foreign film, "The Lives of Others," Germany, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
• Best documentary, "The Road to Guantanamo," directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross.
• Best first feature, "Sweet Land," directed by Ali Selim.
• Best cinematography, Guillermo Navarro, "Pan's Labyrinth."
Spirit Awards
Takes Swipe At Bush
Guillermo Del Toro
The award-winning Mexican director of foreign-language Oscar favorite "Pan's Labyrinth" took a swipe Saturday at President George W. Bush on the eve of the Academy Awards.
Guillermo Del Toro told a reception in Beverly Hills that he had been surprised to learn that his film, a fable about a little girl who retreats into a fantasy world in fascist Spain, had been shown at the White House.
"I imagine Mr President finding that it was in Spanish, first of all," Del Toro told an audience at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"Having garnered praise from Stephen King, I felt it would be interesting to see what a true master of horror would think. Or a master of science-fiction if you think about the intelligence on Iraq."
Guillermo Del Toro
Wishes She Could Wed
Suze Orman
Financial guru and best-selling author Suze Orman says she wishes she could marry her partner Kathy Travis, partly because it would save them both a lot of money.
"Both of us have millions of dollars in our name," she told The New York Times Magazine in its Feb. 25 edition. "It's killing me that upon death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa."
In a wide-ranging interview, the host of CNBC's "The Suze Orman Show" talked about her seven-year relationship with Travis and her personal finances.
Suze Orman
Harvard's Hasty Pudding Man of the Year
Ben Stiller
Ben Stiller had to put on pink shoes, a blond wig and silver headband and strut against an Owen Wilson impersonator before claiming Harvard's Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award.
"Just like at home, honey," Stiller said to his wife, actress Christine Taylor, on Friday as he put on the female attire.
The event was organized by the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the nation's oldest undergraduate drama troupe.
Stiller, 41, played along with the good-natured traditional Hasty Pudding roast, which lampooned his career. He won the award decades after dropping out of film school at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Ben Stiller
Assault Case Dropped
Hank Williams Jr
A misdemeanor assault case against Hank Williams Jr. has been dismissed, nearly a year after a cocktail waitress accused the country singer of yelling obscenities and choking her at a local hotel, a prosecutor said.
"We didn't feel we had a case we could prove," District Attorney General Bill Gibbons said Friday.
Holly Hornbeak, who was 19 at the time of the alleged assault on March 18, testified that Williams, 57, left red marks and bruised her neck when he choked her.
Gibbons would not say whether Hornbeak wanted to drop the case or if the parties reached a financial settlement. A private attorney hired by her parents demanded $250,000 from Williams two days after the alleged assault, but Hornbeak denied that the case was driven by money.
Hank Williams Jr
Powder-Sized Smart Tag
Hitachi
Tiny computer chips used for tracking food, tickets and other items are getting even smaller. Hitachi Ltd., a Japanese electronics maker, recently showed off radio frequency identification, or RFID, chips that are just 0.002 inches by 0.002 inches and look like bits of powder. They're thin enough to be embedded in a piece of paper, company spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi said Thursday.
RFID tags store data, but they need to be brought near special reading devices that beam energy to the chips, which then send information back to the readers.
Shown to the public for the first time earlier this month, the new chip is an improvement on its predecessor from Hitachi - the Mu-chip, which at 0.4 millimeters by 0.4 millimeters, looks about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
The latest chip, which still has no name, is 60 times smaller than the Mu-chip but can handle the same amount of information, which gets stored as a 38-digit number, according to Hitachi.
Hitachi
Underestimate Iraqi Death Toll
Americans
Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.
When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.
The number of Iraqis killed, however, is much harder to pin down, and that uncertainty is perhaps reflected in Americans' tendency to lowball the Iraqi death toll by tens of thousands.
Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.
Americans
NYC's First In Centuries
Beavers
Beavers grace New York City's official seal. But the industrious rodents haven't been spotted here for as many as 200 years - until this week.
Biologists videotaped a beaver swimming up the Bronx River on Wednesday. Its twig-and-mud lodge had been spotted earlier on the river bank, but the tape confirmed the presence of the animal.
"It had to happen because beaver populations are expanding, and their habitats are shrinking," said Dietland Muller-Schwarze, a beaver expert at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. "We're probably going to see more of them."
Amid heavy trapping, beavers disappeared from the city in the early 1800s, according to the city Department of Parks & Recreation.
Beavers
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