Soldiers. A serious man. A great leader. A man up in the air. 2009 is, once again, the Year of the Man. Precious and An Education are two that aren’t. Ordinary women rarely take up much screen time. Nonetheless, Oscars 2009 is defined most assuredly by singular men on a quest. And I have known the arms already, known them all– Arms that are braceleted...
I was invited by the kindly folks at Disney to catch The Princess and the Frog at Disney studios for their new movie and event. If you’ve never been to one of these, they generally have them at the El Capitan in Hollywood, charge a pretty penny for your kids to see the movie and then go “backstage” to either meet the princesses or engage in whatever...
It’s all happening! The awards season is finally off. Next week, the National Board of Review will announce their winners and the films that they name will have an automatic head start. Does that mean they’ll be a close match with Oscar? Probably not. With five Best Pic contenders buried in their top ten, it was kind of easy. But with a ten by ten match-up,...
Pressing things right to the line is Lee Daniels’ controversial film, Precious. The New York Times’ Felicia Lee has written a fair-minded (in my lily-white opinion) account of both sides. There is Armond White on one side, Oprah on the other, and a whole bunch of people with varying views, in between: On his blog, Televisual, he wrote that Precious was ‚Äúby...
“What good is knowledge if it just floats in the air? It goes from computer to computer. It changes and grows every second of every day. But nobody actually knows anything.” (Don Delillo’s White Noise) I was intrigued by David Poland’s latest Oscar column, one of his best, and it occurred to me how long some of us have been at this game. Evolution...
It’s always illuminating to hear from various smart folks around the web and I feel grateful that they indulge my needling questions week after week; after all, it isn’t like any of the have any time to spare. I figure, the more intelligence we can bring to the table the better. This week we’re pondering the Governors Awards, the bad economy on the...
