Copious Notes

EW's New classics: Up for debate (of course)

John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Is it really the No. 1 classic movie of the lat 25 years?

Last weekend, the editors of Entertainment Weekly dropped their annual summer double issue and gave  us a good two weeks of debating material.

Is Pulp Fiction really the best film of the last 25 years?

Does Amy Winehouse's year-old debut already deserve Top 10 classic status?

Public Enemy doesn't make the Top 50?

Yes, it's another set of lists. We say that with no derision, because hey, we're going to give you some lists on Sunday. Lists are fun, because they are always a matter of opinion, which means most everyone who reads one will have some modicum of disagreement with it.

EW's new lists are pretty ambitious: The New Classics is 1,000 of the best movies, TV shows, albums, books and other stuff over the past 25 years. My favorite list was actually the final one: Tech, where they named the, "top 25 innovations that changed entertainment."

Even there though, I'd argue against ranking the iPod at No. 4, below the DVD player, Napster and TiVo. Yes, the DVD is a cool advance in home video, but it still was just another method of delivering the videos in some tangible form. The iPod introduced the concept of owning a whole album without leaving your home, or even just picking and choosing the songs you want; singles, but you choose what's a single. It's the most radical change in the distribution of recorded music since the beginning of recorded music. How do you top that?

See, arguing it is almost inescapable.

Pulp Fiction, for me, was a good place to start. I've always considered it a bit overrated, over romanticized. Good movie, snappy dialog and engaging story structure, but not quite all that.

But if you want to argue towering influence, then its No. 1 seems a bit more legit. How many Pulp wannabes have we seen since 1994? Interestingly, Forrest Gump, the movie that beat Pulp Fiction for the Oscar for best picture, isn't even on EW's Top 100. (It's worth noting that EW has always been in love with Pulp.)

There are some nice picks on the movie list, such as Blue Velvet at No. 4, acknowledging the off-kilter brilliance of David Lynch, and giving Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View a nod at No. 24. The Helena Bonham Carter starmaker ushered in the chick-flick-as-literary-costume-drama era we're still in today.

 The music list had several nice visionary choices, such as Madonna's self-titled 1983 album at No. 5, OutKast's Stankonia at No. 12, and R.E.M.'s Life's Rich Pageant at No. 32. All were great albums, and all set the stage for the artists' subsequent chart toppers -- Like a Virgin, Speakerboxx/The Love Below and Document, respectively. But then, somehow, Nirvana's Nevermind is left off in favor of MTV Unplugged. ?!

See, debating is sooooo easy. And fun.

I will also give EW props for trying to limit the number of entries from any one artist to one or two. I seem to remember years ago when Rolling Stone dropped a list of the best rock albums ever, and half the Top 10 was by The Beatles. But then, that list also gave this young rock fan a lot of listening to go do.

And this list from Entertainment Weekly seems to come at a perfect time, right before the laziest days of summer. I'd write more, but I've got some watching and listening to do.

P.S.: A very cool thing about the Top 50 stage list is that four of the shows -- Angels in America (No. 1), Elaine Stritch at Liberty (17), Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk (24) and Topdog/Underdog (49) were all directed by Frankfort's own George C. Wolf. People, we don't revere this guy enough.

Jon Stewart's Oscars redux

Just like his inaugural turn as Oscars host, Jon Stewart had some fun at his own expense once he got back to The Daily Show Tuesday night. In case you missed it, here's a little Zen, or something like that, to start your day.

Live Oscars blog

OK, kids. So, last night was the Oscars, and I got on my polar bear pajama pants, opened up a bag of chips and my laptop and "live blogged" the ceremony. If you missed, or if you are not inclined to watch TV and read your PC (I'm a John Hodgman fan) at the same time, here's how it went:

One of the first things I was wanting for the masses tonight: A chance to see Marion Cotillard as Marion Cotillard. Stunning, eh? And Marion, sorry Ryan Seacrest felt the need to mock your accent. Associated Press photo by Kevork Djansezian -- BTW, he's KD from here on out; I'm only spelling that name once.

This could go a couple of ways: Under two weeks ago, on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart was joking about not having a lot of time to prep for one of the biggest gigs of his life, this 80^th edition of the Academy Awards.

So, will the abbreviated prep lead to a looser, more spontaneous and -- Please, God, our eyelids beg you -- shorter show. Or will it seem more thrown together and directionless. One thing we can all be thankful for: Billy Bush ain'™t hosting this one. Some of you may have missed this, but he hosted the Golden Globes "announcements" and managed to insult Cate Blanchett on the first award. Now, we're not saying Jon won't insult anyone -- or may at least rib them in good nature. We'd be disappointed if he didn't.

But at least tonight, we got ourselves a real awards show. (Mutters, "It's about time.)

7:59 -- Is Johnny Depp wearing his bow tie under his collar? (AP photo by Chris Pizzello.)

8:04 -- Regis Philbin opened his George Clooney chat with a nice line, "Years ago everybody in this town wanted to be Cary Grant, now they want to be George Clooney." Typical Clooney reply: "That's because he's dead, and no one wants to be dead." Apparently  Regis missed the story that George didn't go to the Oscars until he was nominated, two years ago. (Photo of George and Sarah Larson by Amy Sancetta/AP)

8:15 -- I think when Cameron Diaz shows up people just want to talk to her. She is a lot of fun to talk to. But props to Regis for getting some insight into Daniel Day-Lewis and how he stays in character all the time from Cameron, who was in Gangs of New York with DD-L. (Photo by Amy Sancetta/AP.)

8:19 -- This kid from Ohio won a ticket to the Oscars and showed up in a stripey polo shirt?!

8:25 -- Is Regis bent on freaking out everyone in the Enchanted number? He's just done the whole, "The world is watching you," number with Amy Adams and the chorus.

8:31 -- That opening looked tres video game.

8:45 -- Jon Stewart played the monologue pretty straight. No film of him in bed with George Clooney.

He opened addressing the writer's strike and saying, "welcome to the make up sex." He then mocked Vanity Fair's cancellation of its annual post-Oscars bash, "to show respect for the writers," by saying, "another way they could show respect for the writers. Maybe invite them to the Vanity Fair Oscars Party . . . they won't mingle, don't worry."

Then Stewart (AP photo by Mark J. Terrill) got to the meat of the show, this year's slate of, "Oscar nominated psychopathic killer movies. Does this town need a hug? All I can say is, 'Thank God for teen pregnancy.'"

He then risked the wrath of Javier Bardem's No Country for Old Men psychopathic killer, saying he combined, "Hannibal Lechter's murderessness (don't think that's actually a word, Jon) with Dorothy Hammil's wedge cut."

Joking about Diablo Cody being a stripper turned writer, he said: "Hope you're enjoying the pay cut." (By the way, my stripper name, according to Jon's formula, would be Chocolate Patton -- though no one wants to see that. The formula is Pet's name-plus-street you grew up on.)

Of course, politics slipped in, as Stewart addressed the box-office bombs dropped about the Iraq War: "If we stay the course and keep these movies in the theaters, I'm confident we can turn this thing around . . . the audience cannot be emboldened."

Hey, we got that Stewart-Clooney moment in the previous Oscars montage.

8:54 -- I loved Ratatouille, but I do so want to see Persepolis.

8:57 -- Wow. I kinda like that makeup award for La Vie en Rose, though for a makeup artist, the woman does seem to be having an eyelash issue. But when you look at Marion Cotillard, you see what an amazing job they did turning her into Edith Piaf. It also means people really watched the French import, so maybe my upset prediction has a chance.

9:02 -- OK, Regis was trying to kill two Enchanted numbers. It is fun how well veteran Disney song writers Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz were able to lampoon Disney songs. (Amy Adams, above, sings Happy Working Song. AP/MJT)

9:07 -- Go ahead, Jon, mock my polar bear pajama pants! (If you didn't watch, Stewart said that during commercials, the stars look into our living rooms and mock what we're wearing..)

9:09 -- "It a lot of fun to do the impossible," the Golden Compass visual effects guy said. Yeah, like your box office bomb, uh, disappointment beating out some of this year's titanic movies (Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean) at the Oscars.

9:16 -- I have to stop and share this personal moment from the supporting actor montage. On Oscar night 1997, my daughter, first child, had just been born, I walked into my wife's recovery room at the hospital after holding my little girl for the first time, and Cuba Gooding Jr. was giving his, "I love you! I love everybody," speech after winning best supporting actor for Jerry Maguire. And you know what? I felt better than him.

9:22 -- Thanks to Jon for the translation of Javier Bardem's best supporting actor speech: "I believe he told his mother where the library was." That makes up for mocking my pants. No, it doesn't.

9:37 -- Tilda Swinton! Shocker! But a great one.

9:39 -- Watching the best supporting actress clips was a reminder of what a strong field that was. No wonder the major trophies got spread around between four of these ladies: Blanchett getting the Globe, Ruby Dee getting a SAG and Amy Ryan being a critics darling. Tilda Swinton (AP photo, left) had won the British honor, but the Oscar is a bit of a surprise, though not an undeserved honor. I can't forget the way she collapsed when Clooney's Michael Clayton dropped the bomb on her in MC. And what a fun woman, bringing up Batman & Robin to Clooney at the Oscars. She said he put on the "suit with the nipples," every day, adding, "On the set, off the set, hanging upside down at lunch. You rock man." That award rocked.

BTW, this is an award I wanted her to be nominated a few years ago for playing the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia.

9:48 -- Joel and Ethan Coen's Oscar for adapted screenplay pretty much solidifies No Country as a fait accompli for best pic.

9:50 -- This is the 80th annual Academy Awards, so it seems a bit of a shame that such a milestone comes at the tail end of a crippling writers strike that has destroyed several lesser award shows so far this year. Oscar is showing both benefits and repercussions from the strike.

The pace and the order of the ceremony is a bit off. It's hard to figure out where it's going and what's coming next.

But the show is moving, chewing up a lot of these technical awards early. Maybe we'll even be done by midnight. Nah, that'd like hoping Tilda Swinton will win best supporting actress.

While we can rib Oscar for its recent love affair with montages, the best supporting actor and actress montages along with the Oscar show montage at the beginning were great reminders of why we love this show, and trudge through so many of these self indulgent, boring stretches.

10:08 -- You gotta love the presence of mind of the Bourne Ultimatum sound guy who picked up on Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill's (photo, right, by Mark J. Terrill/AP) Dame Judi and Halle Berry act asking, "Do I get to kiss Halle Berry now." Adrian Brody, eat your heart out.

10:13 -- Got my upset! Marion (pre-show photo by Chris Pizzello). And she seemed genuinely surprised by the honor. Out of many clips that get shown before acting awards though, that collapsing scene from La Vie en Rose next to the actress in person were highly illustrative of why she really deserved this honor. It was highly accomplished acting for this 32-year-old actress, and hopefully it launches her to greater things (and also gets you to see La Vie en Rose, which is now on video, Unbox and all of that good stuff).

10:21 -- Oscar can go so wrong in how it presents best original songs sometimes, and often it does best when it just lets the musicians get up and present their work, like that performance of Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. A little orchestral flourish, but not a lot more , and it's beautiful.

10:28 -- Best editing is often an award married to best picture, so interesting that it went to Christopher Rouse for The Bourne Ultimatum, which is not a best pic nominee but, at three Oscars, is having a very good night.

10:30 -- One thing that struck me about that best picture list: There's been a bunch of talk about tonight's group of best picture nominees being reflective of our downer times with war, a faltering economy, domestic violence, etc. The idea seemed to be we favor downer films in depressed times. That made me think back to the late 1970s and what was winning back then. And what struck me was, that 1976 was the year Rocky upset a bunch of darker films for best picture. And the next year was Annie Hall, which was a comedy, despite a bittersweet twist. But then we did get The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer, which were more reflective of sour, serious times. So, what will tonight's best picture say about us, in 2008, 20 or 30 years from now?

10:51 -- Best original song: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova! (AP photo by Mark J. Terrill.) I know Jamie G is doing a happy dance. This best song, along with last year, is sort of a memo to future big screen musical endeavors. Last year, Dreamgirls filled up the best song category and the award went to Melissa Ethridge's tune from An Inconvenient Truth -- a documentary! This year, it's the sweet song from a $100,000 indie flick taking out a Disney film, Enchanted, that flooded the category. The loveliness of this honor was illustrated by Irglova's second-chance thank you speech, talking about how she and Hansard, and most artists like them, struggle most of the time. The song, and the award, she said illustrated that, "Hope, at the end of the day, connects us all, no matter how different we are."

11:13 -- For a moment, I was afraid, lo, sure the broadcast from Baghdad would be one of those, "We show you some soldiers and then get out quick," things. But having them announce the nominees for best documentary short subject and present the award to Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth for Freeheld was very cool. Granted, it would have been (Jon Stewart's falsetto) awk-ward to have the soldiers announce the documentary nominees, since most of them were critical of the war or the Bush administration, including the winner, Taxi to the Dark Side.

11:22 -- Only four awards left. Can we beat midnight?

11:27 -- Juno told you that your teenage daughter could get pregnant and things would be alright. Juno writer Diablo Cody (Photo by MJT/AP) winning an Oscar for best original screenplay would seem to say, your daughter can become a stripper and everything will be alright. The source of both stories seemed to be summed up in her acceptance speech: "I want to thank my family for loving me just the way I am."

11:38 -- Oh, well, so much for any showdown between Kentucky's A-listers, Depp and Clooney. As predicted and earned, it was Daniel Day-Lewis on stage thanking the Academy for, "Whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town."  Kinda keeping with the There Will be Blood theme, eh? But it is striking how much rage could emerge from such a lovely man.

12:01 a.m. -- OK, I have to confess, back when I was grooving on Raising Arizona and Barton Fink, I never thought that watching Joel and Ethan Coen (AP photo by Chris Carlson, above) win a whole buncha Oscars would ring so kind of empty. It was kind of funny when they said, accepting the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, that they pick their pieces carefully because they've only adapted Homer and Cormac McCarthy. And the little bit about  making a Super 8 movie about Henry Kissinger was cute. But I dunno, they seemed blase which enhanced my feeling of blase. Maybe I just really wanted to hear Julian Schnabel give an Oscar acceptance speech.

12:15 -- Done before midnight. I don't remember that happening too many Oscar nights. That was probably reflective of the events leading up to last night: The writers strike just ended 11 days ago. So the show was really devoid of a lot of scripted stuff that helps drag us past, well, now. Jon Stewart just opened with a glorified Daily Show monologue, and away we went.

So that was good. Not so good was watching a show that celebrated great memories of the previous 79 Oscars ceremonies and realizing no new ones were made last night. I'll take Tilda Swinton and Diablo Cody's speeches, and Marketa Irglova's coda as my big memories of tonight. But really, in two or three years, I may have trouble remembering this year's Academy Awards.

But . . . if this does become the year that started wrapping up before midnight, that might be worth remembering.

For the record, I went 5-1 on my Oscar predictions, and I'm happy to miss one, if it meant Tilda Swinton gets an Oscar.

Prelude to the Oscars

Every year on Academy Awards weekend, NPR's Weekend Edition runs a great little segment in which film music expert Andy Trudeau analyzes the Oscar nominees for best original score (Click here for a webpage on the piece and audio link to it). Stay with it until the end, because his discussion of Michael Giacchino's soundtrack to Ratatouille and Marco Beltrami's 3:10 to Yuma are particularly fun, and the whole thing is a great analysis of how composers think about film.

Trudeau also gets into the Academy's wrongheaded new rule -- No way! A wrongheaded rule from the Academy?! -- that studios couldn't send voters sountrack albums  of nominated scores. The Academy wants voters to consider the scores in the context of the movies they were written for. Fair. But Trudeau correctly asserts that great movie music should be able to stand on its own.

Last night, Film Independent's Spirit Awards provided their annual Oscars prelude, with best picture Oscar nominee Juno taking the Spirit's top prize. Lexington resident Steve Zahn, unfortunately, did not pick up the best supporting male actor prize for Rescue Dawn. Chiwetel Ejiofor won for Talk to Me. Click here for the list of winners.

I had a few folks tell me they couldn't make our Oscar Picks slide show work at LexGo, so here, for the record, are my picks for who will and should win tonight:

Best Picture
Will: No Country for Old Men -- Looks inevitable
Should: Michael Clayton -- Really, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was the best picture, but among the choices given . . .

Best Actor
Will: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood -- One of those performances for the ages . . .
Should: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress
Will: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose -- From what I've been reading, she'd been campaigning for the award, and is good at it, so maybe she'll upset Julie Christie.
Should: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose --  Campaign or not, this was one of those great full-immersion performances.

Best Supporting Actor
Will: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men -- Mortal lock.
Should: Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton -- Every scene he was in was riveting.

Best Supporting Actress
Will: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone -- Iffy bet here that she'll turn her awards season fortunes around tonight. David Denby had a funny comment on Charlie Rose that critics liked her for playing, "A mouthy skank."
Should: Cate Blanchette, I'm Not There -- She was a rock star.

Best Director
Will: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men -- No longer, "those weird guys . . . "
Should: Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly -- If you truly regard filmmaking as art, award this artist. He also made the best picture of the year.

Reminder: I will be blogging the Oscars tonight, logging in around 8 p.m. So, please join me and please comment.

Oscars: A second opinion

OK, there's this guy on the front of Weekender and LexGo today weighing in with his Oscar picks. For a second opinion, I offer David Carr, the New York Times' terrific awards blogger, The Carpetbagger. He has some different takes, but it was heartening to see we share suspicions about best actress.

BTW, if your are so inclined , join me here Sunday for a live blog of the Oscars, starting at 8 p.m.

Oscars: A depressing bunch

Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men, one of five mostly downbeat Academy Award nominees for best picture, this year. Photo by Richard Foreman, courtesy of Miramax Pictures.

Oscar is in a funk this year, and we’re not talking about the writers’ strike.

Of the films nominated for best picture at this year’s Academy Awards, four are patently dark, depressing tales — Atonement, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. The remaining film, Juno, gets its comedy from the dark subject of teen pregnancy.

But then, Oscar has never been little Mr. Sunshine. You have to go back 10 years, to Shakespeare in Love, to find a best picture that was pure sweetness and light, and it was a surprise winner over Saving Private Ryan.

No, having a roster of downer films gunning — and in the case of No Country, we do mean gunning — for best picture doesn’t set 2008 apart. The surprise is that judging from the hype last fall, these aren’t the grim tales we thought we’d be celebrating.

Last year was supposed to be the year filmmakers finally started dealing with the real-life events of this decade.

Movies such as Rendition, Lions for Lambs and In the Valley of Elah, loaded with Oscar-winning writers, actors and directors, were going to bring the realities of our current struggles with the Iraq War and global terrorism to the big screen and awards season.

Instead, they and other films like them have been soundly shut out at the box office and on award ballots.

Oscars: Kentucky's leading men are in the dance

Actress Kathy Bates and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis announce the nominees for best actor Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. Copyrighted Associated Press photo by  Chris Pizzello.

Two-fifths of the field for this year's Oscar for best actor hail from Kentucky. Of course, George Clooney and Johnny Depp will probably have to clap for Daniel Day-Lewis when he takes the prize for There Will Be Blood, but you know, honor to be nominated and all that.

This is the second Oscar acting nomination for Clooney, who won best supporting actor his first time at the party in 2006 for Syriana. The same year, he was also nominated for writing and directing Goodnight and Good Luck. For Depp, it's the third nomination, and he has yet to win.

The fortunes of Depp and Clooney's movies diverged.

Michael Clayton, a hard-boiled drama in which Clooney played a "bag man" for a high-powered New York law firm, also scored nominations for best picture, and best director and best original screenplay for Tony Gilroy. That's nice redemption for Gilroy, a first time director who had to campaign get Clooney to agree to be in his film. Clayton also scored nominations for Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton in the supporting acting categories and James Newton Howard for the film's score. At seven nominations, Clayton got the second most nominations along with Atonement.

There Will Be Blood  and No Country for Old Men received the most nominations with eight each.

Sweeney Todd, for which Depp won the Golden Globe for best actor in a motion picture-musical or comedy, fared much worse than people were guessing when it came out in December. Thought to be a contender for best picture, it failed to score in that category or best director for Tim Burton. That's a bit of a surprise considering Todd won the Golden Globe Award for best picture-musical or comedy, and Burton was a nominee for best director. You have to wonder what's happening to musicals in Oscar's eyes after both Todd and Hairspray, well-reviewed musicals this year, were shut out of best picture, and Dreamgirls failed to make the field last year. After Chicago virtually revived the genre and won best picture, conventional wisdom seemed to be that if you put up a good musical, trophies would come your way. But now, getting nominated seems to be tough.

Joining Depp, Clooney and Day-Lewis in the best actor race are Tommy Lee Jones for In the Valley of Elah and Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises. Day-Lewis has to be considered a formidable front runner for his performance as a ruthless silver miner turned oil man in Blood. It helped that he  won the Golden Globe Award for best actor in a motion picture-drama. It would be his second best actor Oscar, as he won in 1994 for In the Name of the Father.

Best picture seems wide open though, with Atonement the Golden Globe winner for drama, facing off against critics' darling No Country for Old Men, everyones' darling Juno, and Blood, which seems to have momentum as it's moving across the country. Clayton seems like the only sure thing to not win.

Of course, the big question, with the writers' strike, is whether there will be a ceremony Feb. 24.

UPDATED: Golden Globe Awards -- Making the best of it

The Insider host Lara Spencer announces Cate Blanchett as the winner of best supporting actress in a motion picture. No word as to whether she chose to make a disparaging comment about Blachett's performance in I'm Not There at the Beverly Hills ceremony. Copyrighted Associated Press photo by Mark J. Terrill. Below: Access Hollywood's Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell hosted the TV version of the Golden Globe announcements. Copyrighted photo by Jack Guy for NBC.

UPDATES BELOW

At the end of one of the freakiest weeks in awards season history, we had -- ta-da -- Billy Bush doing  analysis at the podium?!

"At the end of the day, it's a woman imitating a man," he said, right after Cate Blanchett won the Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress in a motion picture, giving the Aussie actress' win an instant cold shower.

Eh, this was about the best we could probably expect from the Globes, which spent most of last week scrambling to figure out what to do with the ceremony, which was scuttled by the Writers' Guild of America's strike against Hollywood producers. Even up until Saturday night, it was a tad confusing as to whether we, the viewers at home, would see an hour or half-hour announcement of the awards. It turned out that there was a half-hour press conference in Beverly Hills, while NBC showed an hour-long announcement show with Bush and his Access Hollywood co-host Nancy O'Dell.

The awards themselves did little to clear up the Academy Awards race. Atonement won the award for best motion picture drama, but the dramatic acting honors were split between Daniel Day Lewis for There Will be Blood and Julie Christie for Away from Her. In the comedy and musical categories, where the honor invariably will go to a serious musical if there is one, Johnny Depp won for his performance in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which also won for best motion picture comedy or musical. Really, Sweeney may have the most traction heading into the Oscar race with those wins, as the drama awards and supporting acting and directing honors, which are not split between dramas and other stuff, were spread around. If anyone truly appears to be in a stronger position thanks to the Globes, it would be veteran French actress Marion Cotillard, a surprise, though highly-deserving winner for best actress in a comedy or musical for La Vie en Rose.

Click here for a complete list of Golden Globe winners.

Jamie Gumbrecht is usually our TV person, and as a lot of you know, she's off in Iraq right now. But we will note that months ago, she pointed out AMC's Mad Men, which was a big winner for best television show drama and best actor in a television drama for Jon Hamm. For our own TV watching, we'll cheer Tina Fey's win for best actress in a TV comedy for 30 Rock though whine Pushing Daisies didn't get something. Now we have to hope that the writer's strike doesn't kill it.

It would be nice if it killed this kind of awards show, and maybe served as a catalyst for getting the writers and producers back to the bargaining table.

Yes, the hour-long announcement show was quick and efficient. But the big, bloated and often unpredictable ceremonies are part of the fun of awards season for fans. Last night had no sense of occasion. It did have Billy and Nancy, who no one has ever looked to for critical commentary on movies and TV, analyzing the awards on the fly. Access, after all, is a gossip show, not a show about the art and craft of film making. From the duo, we got -- ahem -- gems like this:

~ Bush telling us we shouldn't see Depp's win for singing in a musical as a surprise because he came to Los Angeles singing in a rock band, as if that and leading a Stephen Sondheim musical are the same thing.

~ O'Dell acting surprised at Julian Schnabel's win for best director of a motion picture as if she'd never heard of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly -- right now, word is it will open later this month in Lexington. Apparently everyone who has seen it has been blown away, so it wasn't such a surprise if you were paying attention.

We will give the Access hosts some props. It was nice to see someone making a point about how silly the comedy and musical combo categories are, as Bush did several times. And O'Dell got in a funny inside dig when the show trotted out a nearly 10-year-old clip of Angelina Jolie in a pool, wearing a see-through dress, after her first Golden Globe win. Pointing out the clip has been shown numerous times on Access, O'Dell said, "Yes, the show is produced by men."

Funny. But this writer's strike is getting less amusing by the day.

~ I knew it felt sorta lonely watching the Globes last night. According to the Associated Press, NBC's broadcast ranked fourth for its time slot and only 7 percent of the TV audience last night.

~ According to the World Entertainment News Network, George Clooney wants to get involved in mediating talks between the writers and producers.

Golden Globes 2008: Award Show haters, this one's for you

Writers walked the picket line at CBS in Los Angeles Jan. 7. Copyrighted Associated Press photo by Ric Francis.

You could debate through an entire three-hour epic whether the writers or producers or both lose in the decision to scrap the lavish Golden Globe Awards ceremony in favor of an hour-long press conference Sunday night. But there is a clear winner: Anyone who hates long, drawn-out award shows.

You don't have to worry about any half-soused star hijacking the microphone for an extended, incoherent speech. There will be no teary actress getting "played off" by a merciless orchestra. Fear not the inexplicable montage of movie clips from movies with titles that tangentially relate to global warming, or something as random. And the self-congratulatory spiel from the presenters . . . well, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will probably still find a way to make that happen.  But it will seem more in line with the proceedings, which reportedly will be a televised "press conference" where winners will be announced and it is hoped some actors may show up to accept their trophies.

The Golden Globes are, of course, the latest casualty of the strike by the Writers Guild of America, which has brought virtually all scripted television programming and movie making to a halt -- David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company and, as of Monday, Tom Cruise's United Artists Films have reached independent agreements with the guild. The press conference, couched in between several live and recorded specials is an attempt to salvage something from the program that was originally supposed to constitute most of NBC's programming Sunday night.

There are a few questions for NBC News here, like, are you supposed to be the tourniquet for your entertainment division when its business goes sour? What's the deal with calling this a "press conference" when no other broadcast outlets can cover or carry it. (Print journalists will get in. Yay, us!)

It would be a shame if this is finally the year Johnny Depp, one of our Kentuckians on the Hollywood A List, finally won after seven previous tries but didn't get to savor the moment. I'd love to hear what Johnny, who is nominated for Sweeney Todd, would do for an acceptance speech. But now it looks like we'll have to wait for the Oscars, if even then. If writers and producers don't get back to the table and negotiate, that Feb. 24 ceremony is imperiled too.

But you know, after Sunday, we may decide we like this one-hour-and-done format.

National Board of Review gives Clooney awards momentum

More awards, more Kentucky flavor. The National Board of Review announced its 2007 film awards today, and George Clooney is its choice for best actor for his performance in Michael Clayton. Tim Burton was tapped for best director for his big screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring Bluegrass State-native Johnny Depp -- who else stars in Tim Burton movies?

Both movies made the NBR's Top 10 for the year, though its best picture and big winner overall is the Coen Brothers' violent drama, No Country for Old Men. It also won for best ensemble cast and best adapted screenplay. Click here for the complete list of winners from Variety.

Oscars post mortem

Post mortem is such a cliche for these pieces, but when your best picture winner is The Departed . . .

~ There was a lot of talk, including the lead off of Ellen's monologue, about how international this year's Oscars were, including best picture nominations about global communication, or lack of it; World War II, from the Japanese perspective; and British royalty and citizenry, though the Royals are really nothing new to Oscar. But ultimately, the Academy Awards are an American honor handed out in Hollywood, and that is what ruled the day. I mean, you don't get much more Hollywood than Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola handing Martin Scorsese the best director prize. (copyrighted AP photo, right) (I would have hated to be a director that beat him, since anyone else probably would have been booed.) And then, Mr. Tinseltown Jack Nicholson gives Departed's producer the best picture prize a few minutes later.

So much for globalization and independents. And I will invoke a new rule in my prognosticating: Absent a clear winner from another corner, go with the most Hollywood movie of the bunch. And The Departed sure had that, with multiple generations of current and former A-list actors on the screen. You don't have to venture far on the net to find grumbling that the Oscars blew it, particularly folks who felt Babel was much better and more important than Scorsese's gangster drama. Departed will go down as yet another belated honor given to an unworthy film, along with Al Pacino's best actor prize for Scent of a A Woman (1991). But Hollywood doesn't really care. What was that David Letterman said about rich people giving trophies to other rich people?

~ Hollywood also has been pretty blatant  about not caring if we all have sleep-deprivation hangovers the day after it's big, bloated show.

It used to be we complained about the big production numbers -- Rob Lowe and Snow White, anyone. Not so much, anymore. But this year's Oscars were loaded with all of these little bells and whistles like the Pilobolus dancers and the comedians' number (copyrighted AP photo of Jack Black and Will Ferrell, left) that just made the show drag. The rest of the ceremony should be like the last awards. Take it from a live blogger. All night, I could get up a fairly substantial post about an award before the next envelope was opened. Then, bam-bam-bam (how Departed), actor, director, picture.

If they could run the whole show at this pace, it might not scare off people who usually only stay up until midnight for New Year's Eve.

~ While George, Johnny and Ashley were all on the sidelines this year, a Kentuckian did finish in the money last night. Louisville native Bub Asman, who now makes his home in Union, Ky., earned an Oscar for sound editing on Letters from Iwo Jima. He shared the Oscar with his editing partner Alan Robert Murray (copyrighted AP photo of, L-R, Murray and Asman, right). They were also nominated for Flags of Our Fathers and have been nominated twice before, for Space Cowboys in 2001 and Eraser in 1997.

Oscars: The show

Welcome to Copious Notes live Oscar blog. We are watching the awards, cheering, second guessing, looking to see if we can discern any trends that will tell us who's gonna win best picture before tomorrow. So, read along, hit the comments button if you want to share any thoughts. Also, check out Jamie Gumbrecht's It's All About, for thoughts on fashions, the show, etc. By the way, all the photos here come from the Associated Press and they are copyrighted (I know, I'm such a spoil sport):

12:24 a.m.

A few months ago, the film world seemed to think everyone would rally behind yet another Broadway musical turned big screen blockbuster. But the rallying turned out to be behind Marty Scorsese and his singular vision for bringing the underworld to the big screen. The Departed swept the major all-inclusive categories -- picture, director, editing and screenplay -- and gave a director people were practically mourning for the empty space in his trophy case his long sought Oscar.

When history looks back on this year, it will likely see The Departed's victories as some kind of mass lifetime achievement honor for the director of Taxi Driver (1976), Goodfellas (1990), Raging Bull (1980) and other Scorsese classics that never managed to win like this more routine effort.

The funny thing is, we always seem to be telling artists to stretch and try different things. And that's what Scorsese seemed to be doing with Gangs of New York (2002) and The Aviator (2004). But it was when he got back to familiar turf that the Academy finally gave up the gold.

One minor complaint. Oscar has usually been pretty good, it seems, at keeping artists away from presenting awards to projects they are involved in. But, the rules don't seem to apply to Jack Nicholson, The Departed Star who was up there presenting the best picture Oscar to The Departed.

12:05 p.m.

Peter O'Toole apparently wanted to turn down his honorary Oscar in 2003, saying he still hoped to, "win the bugger outright." It really doesn't look that's going to happen, which frankly seems to be a bigger shame than if Scorsese ended up without an Oscar. And there was a palpable sense of disappointment on O'Toole's face when Forest Whitaker's name was called.

But it did lead to the most hearfelt speech of the night. Sometimes, things just don't fall together the right way.

Man, do you think the Oscar show producers knew what was going to happen in the director category when they marched Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas out there to give best director? Scorsese had a better night than O'Toole.

11:55 p.m.

You know, usually when the winner talks about their distinguished fellow nominees, you think, "Yeah, yeah." But when your competition includes Dame Judi, Meryl, Kate and a heckuva a performance by Penelope, Helen Mirren's accomplishment is all the more impressive. That was actually one of the best of her numerous acceptance speeches. Loved the "gold star" bit. She should have taken the Union Jack up on stage.

11:43 p.m.

And, the mo' shifts back to The Departed. Or does it? Nothing is abundantly clear tonight. But if Scorsese gets his Oscar, as we all assume he will, it would be hard to imagine The Deaprted winning, director, editing and adapted screenplay and not getting best picture. Then again, in 1999, Saving Private Ryan went to the last award with the editing and director prizes, and last year, Brokeback Mountain had director and adapted screenplay (it was not nominated for editing), and they both lost the big award. I'm not going to bed yet.

11:27 p.m.

Dontcha love the way Bill Condon directed that Dreamgirls number into the movie's signature silhouette? Dreamgirls went down wailing, didn't it.

Oscar just never was terribly kind to Dreamgirls, was it? Supposed to be a lock for a best picture nomination, even the win. Didn't happen. Eddie was supposed to have best supporting actor in the bag. No. Nominated three times -- THREE times -- in best original song, and the award goes to the issue song from the documentary. Wow. You have to think that the three nominations in the last category split the vote among Dreamgirls supporters. (Post script: Jimmy Kimmel had a satirical look at the Inconvenient Truth song, as if it was Al Gore rapping, a la Hard Out There for a Pimp. It felt like it was 2005 all over again.) Producers and studio bosses will spend years trying to figure out what went wrong with Dreamgirls, so it doesn't happen again.

11:15 p.m.

Now, we are really wondering. Arkin and now the best original screenplay award for Little Miss Sunshine. Screenplay Oscars can be precursors to best picture. They can also be the bone voters throw a movie that ultimately won't get the big award. What's it going to be for Sunshine? We won't actually have anymore precursors for Sunshine, because that was the last award it could win before best picture. Meanwhile, Babel and The Departed have editing and director coming up.

11:06 p.m.

Babel finally has it's first award, original score. And it is one of those ones that indicates a feeling of overall quality in a movie. Hmmmmm.

Caroline Nell finally succumbed to the Sandman and went to bed. I think she was disappointed, but I told her I don't think I made it all the way through the Oscars until I was 12. I wanted to stay up in 1978 to see if Star Wars won, but didn't quite make it.

Here are Spider-Man and Mary Jane with the original screenplay award.

10:53 p.m.

I like Clint fumbling with the proper term for film composer. Like he doesn't do that himself.

No Presidential announcement from Al Gore, but there was the predicted win for Inconvenient Truth. But geeze, if Al had shown all this charisma in 2000 -- the, getting played off bit with Leo -- he probably wouldn't have had time to make a movie last year. He's been one of the best things about this dull ceremony.

Jamie, can you tell me what the Celine Dion song was all about? I realize Ennio Morricone is a great composer, but that song hasn't been over five minutes, and I can't remember it. Oh, and Clint also translates Italian.

10:44 p.m.

There was no midnight for Jennifer Hudson. Despite some grumbles that a distaste for front runners might leave her in her seat on Oscar night, voters bought into the story of American Idol reject turned Oscar winner, and gave her the big prize. And it is a richly deserved honor. The week has been filled with talk of how audiences broke into applause after Hudson's performance of And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going in Dreamgirls, and I experienced it. I joined in the ovation. And when you scratch below that song, there was a powerful performance as Effie, a proud, talented woman, who didn't quite fit the mold of superstar. That's a story Hudson lived on Idol, and told in Dreamgirls. Irony is, since it's not an original song, we didn't get to hear her belt the big song on the big night. But congrats, Cinderella.

10:35 p.m.

Well, there went Pan's Labyrinth's night. Three out of four ain't bad, but The Lives of Others was considered a strong contender, if not a favorite in the foreign language category. I haven't seen it -- hey, I hear a lot of the Academy voters haven't seen the foreign films either -- but Lives looks awfully intriguing and has a lot to say.

10:24 p.m.

A quick revisit to best supporting actor: Eddie Murphy is apparently in the running for Spike Lee's James Brown biopic -- and that completely makes sense. If that's the case, not winning here may be good. If he plays the Godfather and has a great performance -- a la Jamie Foxx -- but he's  already won an Oscar for Dreamgirls, he may have a little trouble getting best actor if everyone thinks they honored him for a similar role.

BTW, The Pirates Oscar for visual effects reminds us: no Johnny Depp this year for playing Capt. Jack.   

As much as I am getting annoyed with how slow this ceremony is going -- 10 categories left here at nearly 10:30, by Caroline Nell's count -- I did like the montage of foreign language films you really should see.

10:09 p.m.

Marie Antoinette was widely believed to be the shoe-in for costume design. Of course, there were hopes, with Sofia Coppola at the helm and the Oscar bait of historical drama, that Marie would be a bit more of a factor in the overall awards. It is kind of amazing, when you look back, how many movies each year look like they are going to be factors on Oscar night, but never make it to the dance. After last year, you'd have had to think George Clooney's Good German would have been in the game, and in the last category, Little Children seemed to have Oscar aspirations. Oh . . . well . . . maybe next year.

9:57 p.m.

Doesn't the full title of Borat sound like it should be one of those thick sounding flicks in the short subject category or something like that?

Anyway, The Departed getting the adapted screenplay Oscar bodes well for the film, and particularly Scorsese. Not huge well, because it was by far the best-known film in the category, save for Borat, which seems a little far-fetched in the screenplay category since so much if it was improv. But Notes on a Scandal, Little Children and Children of Men were all lightly seen, and the dialogue was really sharp in Departed. The story was just a bit convoluted. OK, Chris Connely just affirmed nothing is becoming clearer. God love Tom Hanks.

9:44 p.m.

I know there's a celebratory post coming for Happy Feet over at It's All About.

9:39 p.m.

I cannot complain about hearing James Taylor and Melissa Ethridge sing, but are either of those songs award worthy? Just more to fuel the case that the best song category should be knocked off.

All the funny and artistic bits are cool, but this ceremony is crawling along.

9:26 p.m.

Upset No. 1. Alan Arkin for best supporting actor. Did we talk about a Sunshine trend, or does this just mean tonight is really more unpredictable than we thought? Arkin wasn't getting O'Toole-like talk, but there were comments that he was a little bit overdue. The Letters from Iwo fan in me wonders if the Oscar for Sound Editing might mean more people saw the movie than we thought.

I love Ellen's patter, giving Scorsese the screenplay.

9:03 p.m.

Wow! Big Pan's Labyrinth trend forming here. Too bad it won't take us to best picture, but it looks better and better for foreign language feature. Honestly, you could not shake the images from that movie for days after seeing it (he says, like he's shaken them). This really should be a notice for you to see Pan's, if you haven't.

You know, between Jack Black's line about his Nickelodeon Award and Jaden Smith and Abigail Breslin presenting the animated short award, my 10-year-old girl is finding a lot to relate to, here.

8:50 p.m.

OK, award No. 1, art direction, tells us nothing, but hooray for Pan's Labyrinth, which was really pretty undeniable in this category. Often Oscar opens with one of the supporting actor awards, but I guess they didn't want to have Jennifer Hudson's coronation that quick.

8:45 p.m.

Nice opening. Funny, weird lines from stars, a little Ellen being Ellen and a gospel choir.

8:39 p.m.

Did Ellen just say she drinks chardonnay from a box?

Last thoughts

Before the show, a few last thoughts:

I'm getting a funny feeling about Little Miss Sunshine. I just keep reading things like, the SAG award for the ensemble should tell us something, with such a split field, people who like a comedy could push it throuh. I dunno, it makes some sense, and I'm getting a feeling. BTW, who did I place my bet on this morning?

I mentioned my hometown critic, Mal Vincent (photo, right): loved, Loved, LOVED his summation of the best director race this morning:

BEST DIRECTOR

Clint Eastwood for "Letters From Iwo Jima," Martin Scorsese for "The Departed," Stephen Frears for "The Queen," Alejandro González I?árritu for "Babel," Paul Greengrass for "United 93"

OK, go ahead and give it to Scorsese. Can we get a rest from the endless discussion every year at this time about how he is a great director but has never been honored?

He lost predicted wins for "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" and even for better films such as "Goodfellas," "Raging Bull" and "The Last Temptation of Christ."

"The Departed" is fine work. Take it. Give us a rest. The main interest is in how this win affects the best-picture race. Will Scorsese's win carry over into that vote?

Should win: Doesn't matter

Prediction: Martin Scorsese for "The Departed"

Now, to the big show.

My one word about fashions

Look at the man in this photo (a copyrighted, of course, AP photo): One best actor nominee Forest Whitaker. I would like to draw your attention to his attire. Tuxedo and bow tie. I don't care what any formal wear company or dealer tells you, long ties are not formal wear. Good for business, a party, the theater, not formal wear. Forest gets it. Daniel Craig gets it. Leo doesn't. (As you may note by my photo, I'm sort of partial on this subject.)

Also digging the older ladies: Helen with her Union Jack, Meryl looking like, "Oh, I swing by here every year or so."

I also like how people like her and Alan Arkin seem so unimpressed with all of this. Kinda reminds me of interviewing Robert Duvall at the Barnstable-Brown party a few years ago. He wanted to talk horses, and I don't mean the Derby horses. The horses on his farm. Tres cool.

And we are live . . .

Running around the house, trying to get prepped for the show . . . taking out the trash . . . making some dinner (not too much, because we have four hours of chip consumption ahead) . . . throwing the beloved polar bear jammie pants in the dryer . . .

E! is on in the background . . .

Al Gore (copyrighted AP photo, right), referencing William Hung, and declaring She Bangs a favorite song (next to Tipper, Ms. "Parental Advisory"), and then recovering to plug Melissa Ethridge's Inconvenient Truth tune, I Need to Wake Up, for best original song -- has a song from a documentary ever been nominated before? I read some rumor (wishful thinking?) that if Truth wins, AlGore announce for President from the stage.

One thing about the E! commentators: If the Scream films are the best credit you can conjure up for Liev Schreiber, you're telling us a lot about you . . .

Jamie is already on, analyzing the red carpet action, so go see her.

OK, off to make dinner for No. 1 son . . .

Last stop before Oscar

Little Miss Sunshine won the best feature honors at the Independent Spirit Awards, the final fest before Oscar night -- unless someone in L.A. is working up something for brunch today. It was also a good night for Half Nelson, with Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps winning the top acting honors. That means that at 17, Shareeka may be the only female not named Helen Mirren to win a best actress honor in a movie this year. (The copyrighted AP photo by Reed Saxon, left, is of Shareeka after her name was announced.) A few years ago, Heather Svokos -- who has since left us for the pointy boots country of Fort Worth -- and I started including a "should have been nominated" category in our Oscar picks, and Shareeka was a strong contender for me in both actress and supporting actress slots. I ended up going with Maggie Gyllenhaal (I stop here to note my pride at being able to spell Gyllenhaal and Schwarzenegger without looking them up) for SherryBaby and Carmen Maura for Volver in those categories. For our picks, and a glimpse at Camille's brilliant Oscar's illustration, click here.

I love Oscar picks pieces. I e-mailed my mom and told her she had to tell me what Mal Vincent, my hometown critic for The Virginian-Pilot, picked in this morning's paper. I'll be scouring the Internet, looking for picks pieces, and while it's fun to see how well everyone does at prognosticating, I particularly enjoy seeing what writers cast as their own votes.

Probably the upset I would like to see most is Abigail Breslin for best supporting actress in Little Miss Sunshine. It won't happen. I have nothing against Jennifer Hudson and a blog post from November, before Dreamgirls buzz started swelling, to prove it. But re-watching LMS highlighted how real she was, and how much she was the heart of that wonderful film. There was a comment in the Oscars edition of Entertainment Weekly that some voters think child performances are a product of editing, and I pondered that weighing Hudson against Breslin (Copyrighted AP photo by Gus Ruelas, right). And the answer to that came from, of all places, the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra's recording sessions for Naxos Records. Producer Tim Handley said that a lot of people think classical recordings are all about editing. But, he pointed out, when it comes to a performance, you cannot edit in what is not there. All film performances are edited, and if that brings into question the acting of child stars, then we have to wonder about Meryl, too, and no one is doing that. With all the money in the world, George Lucas couldn't edit or CGI a good performance out of Jake Lloyd in Star Wars -- Episode I: The Phanton Menace.

One whisper you keep spotting in pre-Oscar reporting and blogging is that Little Miss Sunshine may just pull it out and win for best picture. Who knows. At this point, I wouldn't count anything out, and in my own picks piece I say Letters from Iwo Jima should win (my money, figuratively, is on Babel). But I sure wouldn't mind seeing LMS win, or anything except for The Departed. If Scorsese's routine gangster drama wins, it'll take a little restraint for my post-best picture post not to sound like one of Sgt. Dignam's cuts.

Don't forget, Jamie G and I will be blogging the Oscars tonight. Log on, read, comment . . . it'll be like a party, except we'll all be looking at  different wallpaper.

OK, time to get some sleep so I'll make it through the Oscars (after catching The Killers on Austin City Limits). Also . . . must contemplate difficult questions like what chips and dip to have on hand for the show, and if I should buy new jammies or go with the beloved polar bear lounge pants to watch the awards. Too much information?

In the meantime, click here for the Indie Spirit award winners, here for the Carpetbagger's irreverent take on that show, and here for the traditional AP account.

Fun with Oscar and Pachelbel

So, you don't have a date to the Oscars yet? Well, Oscar.com is here for you. Take the "Your Perfect Oscar Date" quiz to pick up a beauty or beau  for the red carpet. Check out how I did: I said I was looking for a date age 40 to 49, Aquarius (only because I like that song), with blonde/red hair, green eyes and a free spirit.