Oscar the Green Grouch

I was pretty stinkin' cheesed off at the Academy's "Al Gore Love-Fest" Sunday night. The awards given to An Inconvenient Truth for best documentary and to the positively icky Melissa Ethridge for the song "I Need to Wake Up" honestly make my stomach turn. This was clearly a case of Left-Wing liberal Hollywood at work. But the more I thought about this, the more I have reconsidered. I think this was more of the Academy on their environmental soap box. Now don't get me wrong, the Dems act as if they invented environmentalism (psst... Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican), but this was the Academy being green. They have had far greater opportunities to wave their liberal flag high but didn't. Left-wing conspiracy theorist Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 didn't even get a nomination. They have made strong efforts to keep speeches from getting political, including several winners getting the "musical hook". Even when Michael Moore did win an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, when he started bashing Bush he got booed off the stage in addition to his early exit music. Hey, we all know that Hollywood is full of liberals, but at least the Academy has the decency to keep their awards ceremony as neutral as possible and, with all due respect to actual documentary film makers, if they want to hand out an award to a documentary and a song for environmental reasons I'll let it slide... until they nominate Hillary for best actress.

Marty, Marty, Marty

I couldn't help but cheer for Scorsese's Oscar win Sunday night. He has directed some of the greatest American classics and has always done so with class and dignity. A true film historian (something near and dear to my heart), Scorsese won not only for The Departed, but for his own film history. In my blog before the Oscars I emphatically declared how Marty would definitely NOT win. I was truly pleased to have missed that one. What's even better is that is really wasn't the sympathy vote. I think the Academy really did love this film and although the politics of Oscar never completely disappear, Scorsese really did earn his Oscar.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

Well, with just a few hours left until the 79th annual Academy Awards, I better get busy with my predictions. I have spent the last few weeks finishing up making my rounds to see as many of the Oscar nominees as possible (final tally: 89 of the 113 nominees).

Enjoy!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Usually playing a deaf/mute teen with daddy issues will get the Academy drooling all over themselves to hand you the Oscar, but Rinko Kikuchi's performance in Babel won't stand a chance against the unstoppable Jennifer Hudson giving the performance of many lifetimes in her Dreamgirls debut.
My heart goes out to Adrianna Barazza, the Mexican nanny in Babel, who is absolutely stellar. In any other year, she wins.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Although Eddie Murphy has the momentum coming into tonight, having won the Golden Globe (joke of an award) and the far more respectable Screen Actors Guild award, I think this category will provide us with the most likely upset with the Oscar either going to Blood Diamond's Djimon Housou or to Mark Wahlberg.
Walhberg was positively electric every time he was on screen in The Departed. If there is an upset in this category, I hope it is for Marky Mark.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
With four of the nominees in this category also getting Best Picture nods, this is one of the tightest races. Historically, the screenplay categories are where the politics of Oscar rears its ugly head, giving the award to "the best picture that will never win best picture". Consider past winners Fargo, L.A. Confidential, Pulp Fiction and this year's likely recipient Little Miss Sunshine.
If Babel pulls of the mild upset in this category, look for it to possibly ride it all the way to a Best Picture win as well.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
With The Departed the lone best picture nominee up for adapted screenplay, it shouldn't even be close, especially against lightweights such as Little Children and Children of Men. And uh... did I mention Borat? Now that is one of the most mysterious nominations I have ever seen.
Notes on a Scandal could upset The Departed's apple cart here and it wouldn't be the first time that Scorsese found himself scratching his head at the Oscars.

BEST ACTRESS
I feel like Denny Green, former Arizona Cardinal's head coach who gave one of the best post game meltdowns after blowing a huge lead against the Chicago Bears this year. If you want to crown Helen Miren, then crown her! She is who we though she was! However, this category (along with supporting actor) could provide us with another upset, and one of the more major one's in recent memory. Judy Dench's performance in Notes on a Scandal is remarkable and could help validate the Academy's decision to give her an Oscar for 8 minutes of screen time in 1997 for Shakespeare in Love. But it would be a shocker for her to beat Helen Miren. The other ladies in this category are all afterthoughts.

BEST ACTOR
Well, there are three ways the Academy could go here.
1. Sentimental - Peter O'Toole in Venus
2. Conventional - Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland
3. Surprising - Leonardo DiCapprio in Blood Diamond

As much as I love Peter O'Toole (pound for pound the second or third greatest actor... EVER), the Academy is off the hook for the sentimental choice by having given 7-time loser O'Toole a lifetime achievement award in 2003. Eight will not be the charm for him. As much as I can't stand Leonardo DiCapprio (pound for pound something less than O'Toole) I think he turned in the best performance of the year.
That being said, Whitaker has everything going for him, showing the charming (and not so charming) side of an infamous tyrant who most of the Academy voters will remember. He's got the look, he's got the voice and in a few hours he will most likely have the Oscar.

BEST DIRECTOR
It is not, I repeat NOT Scorsese's year. If Marty wins this year it will be an upset. For the Academy to give him the Oscar for The Departed would be an indictment on his previous work, saying that this was better than Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, The Last Temptation of Christ, etc. I don't believe the Academy can or will declare The Departed as Scorsese's finest work. They didn't do it with The Aviator and I don't think they will do it tonight and, as they did two years ago, the Academy will hand Clint Eastwood the Oscar instead of Martin Scorsese.
If you want an upset here look no further than Alejandro González Iñárritu and his work on Babel. This film built up a lot of energy and that could translate into a win here.

BEST PICTURE
Well, I thought last year that Crash was "the best picture that couldn't win best picture" and I was delightfully proved wrong. I hope the same is true for Little Miss Sunshine but I'm not holding my breath. The last (and I think ONLY) time a film whose director didn't get nominated won for best picture was Driving Miss Daisy 16 years ago. Tonight's award should go to Letters from Iwo Jima a tremendous feat of film making from Clint. It is ambitious, challenging and completely different than anything he's ever done before. I guess all those Kurosawa remakes as westerns he did rubbed off on him.
Babel just might raise the flag on Mount Suribachi. It has a lot of nominations and bigger upsets have happened (see Crash and Shakespeare in Love). But tonight will be Clint's third double-double (picture and director) cementing him not only as a Hollywood acting icon, but as a legendary director.

I'll be back to blog tomorrow undoubtedly with my tail between my legs congratulating Martin Scorsese, Eddie Murphy and Borat!

Enjoy the awards!

Looking for Someone to Back on American Idol?

How about this guy?

Chris Sligh is the son of missionaries in Europe, went to a Christian school and Christian college. And on his American Idol bio, lists his heroes as: "Jesus, and my Dad." He is also very funny and smarts off to Simon Cowell.

Oh...and he sings great. Vote early and often.

A World Without America?

A while back I posted a link to 10 Doughty Street, a new web-based news agency in the UK offering a conservative alternative to the usual anti-America, anti-Israel bias of the BBC.

Here is their latest offering. Have a look:

Heros and Brats: A Night of Contrasts

Watched an amazing episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition that featured the family of an ex-Marine (yes, I realize there is no such thing as an "ex" Marine) who was an unsung, mysterious hero of 9/11—rescuing two Port Authority police officers from the rubble.

There was flag waving, Marine semper fi-ing, the singing of the national anthem, tears and lots of expressions of gratitude for our service men and women.

Afterwards, I flipped over to watch the second hour of the Grammys where the voting members of the Recording Academy were smugly sending out a big "bite us" to our men and women in uniform by awarding the Dixie Chicks every award they could.

What a contrast.

It was so clear that the awards were more about making a political point than the musical merits of "Not Ready to Make Nice" (a title that is, itself, a politcal point) that even the usually clueless Natalie Maines had to acknowledge it their final acceptance speech of the night. She said something like, "Obviously someone is exercising some free speech...sending a message..."

Yes. Message received. The reality chasm between regular Americans and the entertainment industry elites is wider than ever.

Radio: A New Golden Age?

Britain is a little ahead of the U.S. in terms of migration to digital radio. So perhaps we can look to the UK for a glimpse of where we're headed.

If this article in the newspaper, The Independent, is any indication, good things are ahead:

"The digital revolution and the expansion of new ways of accessing information through the internet has given a huge boost to one of the older and more traditional forms of electronic media - the radio.

According to figures released yesterday, the digital age has created a new golden age of radio, with the number of listeners in Britain at a record high of more than 45 million every week."

Keep in mind that that listenershhip figure is out of a total British population of 60 million.

Men are from Mars; Women are Direct Mail Readers

As our beloved clients know, we encourage regular email communication as a complement to, NOT substitute for, traditional direct mail fund-raising.

It's very tempting for cost-conscious managers to think they can stop spending all that money on stationery, printing and postage and just start emailing instead. But in the words of The Spleen, from Mystery Men: "BIG. . .MISTAKE!"

We have always warned that, in married couple households, one member may be the email reader while the other is the mail reader. There is now fresh research to validate that assumption.

Response Magazine recently cited a study by Vertis Communications which showed that women were much more likely to read paper mail than email.

Clearly the best strategy for an organization is to deliver it's messages on parallel tracks--paper mail + email. This is precisely what we help our clients do.