...and now for something of real import...My Oscar Picks!

As the Academy Awards are a mere month away, it is once again time for me to make my annual picks.

Heed these picks, for I am usually quite accurate, though sadly this time, I have not had the pleasure of viewing FOUR of the FIVE best picture nominees (through no fault of my own, as THREE of them are still only playing in select cities, of which Savannah is not considered). I have a feeling this will change soon, as lesser known best picture nominees usually receive a wider release once the nomination is bestowed. I look forward to seeing all of them before the ceremony and thus, my predictions are subject to change.

Oscars 2005: The nominations

77th Academy Awards, to be held in Hollywood on 27 February.

Best film
The Aviator - ........WINNER (they'll finally hook Marty up)
Million Dollar Baby
Finding Neverland
Ray
Sideways

Best actor
Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby
Jamie Foxx - Ray ......WINNER (shoo-in)
Don Cheadle - Hotel Rwanda
Johnny Depp - Finding Neverland
Leonardo DiCaprio - The Aviator

Best actress
Hilary Swank - Million Dollar Baby
Imelda Staunton - Vera Drake
Kate Winslet - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Annette Bening - Being Julia - WINNER
Catalina Sandino Moreno - Maria Full of Grace

Best supporting actor
Alan Alda - The Aviator
Clive Owen - Closer ......WINNER
Jamie Foxx - Collateral
Thomas Haden Church - Sideways
Morgan Freeman - Million Dollar Baby

Best supporting actress
Cate Blanchett - The Aviator
Virginia Madsen - Sideways ......WINNER (close: between Portman & her)
Laura Linney - Kinsey
Sophie Okonedo - Hotel Rwanda
Natalie Portman - Closer

Best director
Martin Scorsese - The Aviator WINNER (it's his year - they've stiffed him to many times before)
Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby
Alexander Payne - Sideways
Taylor Hackford - Ray
Mike Leigh - Vera Drake

Best animated feature film
The Incredibles - WINNER
Shark Tale
Shrek 2

Best adapted screenplay
Before Sunset - WINNER
Finding Neverland
Million Dollar Baby
The Motorcycle Diaries
Sideways

Best original screenplay
The Aviator
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- WINNER
Hotel Rwanda
The Incredibles
Vera Drake


Best documentary feature
Born into Brothels
The Story of Weeping Camel
Super Size Me - WINNER
Tupac: Resurrection
Twist of Faith

I'm BACK!

Ok, Ok, so I haven't added anything to this blog in over a month.

I'm very sorry, really I am.

What with the holiday homebound shuffle, my classes and my general pscyhic malaise concerning the recent re-inauguration of GWB and the state of the progressive movement in this country, let's just say that I have not had too much to ramble on about - at least nothing that made my heart soar - and after a year and a half of burrowing deep in to the coal black guts of the local and national political animal, even I needed a short break; a respite to scrub the dried blood off my hands as it were; a mental break so as to ward off a real breakdown later on.

So in actuality, I have had a lot to say, way too much in fact. The problem was that every time I sat down at the keyboard to spill it out, for your reading pleasure and my desperate need, I did just that: I opened the flood-gates and let it rip. An hour or so of rapid-fire typing produced a vast landscape of ranting twaddle and I would scroll down when finished, only to read through a riot of intertwined ideas and conspiracy theories; a muddle of polluted brain spillage, and it was at this point that I (wisely) either cranked the valve wide on the bilge-pump and evacuated the offending shit-storm from the hard-drive or I parked it out of sight over in my draft folder, with the thought that I might possibly visit it at a later date (this, dear reader, is doubtful - for I dilligently avoid the contents of my draft folder - for it is a shit-house that reeks of blunder and half-thoughts, all of which deserve no pardon and should be forgotten forever - sort of like an old shifty aquaintance who's been guilty their whole schemeing life and they were finally cornered by the proper authorities and tossed into jail, where they actually belong, and you know in your heart that they deserve to be there. So therefore your exhibitions of sympathy to their plight may come across as tepid at best).

So, I promise you, dear reader, to get back into the swing of things as we plunge headlong into '05 and return to my potent musings and mental droplets for the world needs to read them, and I need to tap them out.

But for now, I have to skidaddle. I've a laborious Jane Austen novel to gulp down in one dose - eegads.

Deplume 2

Earlier that same day and a mile as a bird flies from the Pastry Shop that Deplume entered after leaving the tracks, Maoudi Jones crouched in front of his television set and began messing with the knobs. His television was an older model, with a brace of knobs, gig-blasts and giz-mawads and he carefully jammed his signal between channels and sat back and watched the blazing white screen flicker...