So, yeah, Sean and I are moving back north in about a week. This obviously means that I'm leaving the Virgin Entertainment Group (nice company, shame about the management). It also means that I'm going to be taking on the family business: Indian Caverns, a roadside attraction in central Pennsylvania.

There we'll be: in an unfeasibly large house in rural Pennsylvania, running a risky business, and facing four seasons. At least I still know a couple of people in the area and Penn State is less than twenty miles away, so it won't be that isolated - and the business has some (if not great) potential - and the current winter is drawing to a close - so it could be quite good. At least for the next eight or nine months. Sean claims he's quite looking forward to it - though, for some reason, I keep flashing on Green Acres. In any event, we'll be living together north of the Mason-Dixon line for the first time in twenty-seven years. So... Hurrah!

How this came about:


And there we are. Anyway, my last day at Virgin was last Saturday. I will, of course, miss quite a few colleagues (well, a couple of them, anyway), but I can't say that I will miss working under destructively incompetent management. And, my God, are those guys inept. The one manager - the fetching Stever Ozer - that could be an asset is persistently thwarted by the neanderthals surrounding him. I could rail on at length about the sorry state of the managerial class in the United States, but I'll put that on hold for the moment. Sure, the level of sheer ineptitude that permeates our corporate culture is staggering, but, for me, it's also history. Hee-hee-hee.


bits of the mismanaged megastore
On a sadder note, it looks as though we'll be traveling without one of our cats. Dear little Shadowcat has gone missing. She was out one morning two weeks ago (as was customary) and never came back in. We scoured the sub-div for signs of roadkill, questioned neighbors, and did frequent food-rattlings in the yard to no avail. Several years ago in Ireland, Kodak the Cat similarly went missing - and turned up, somewhat thinner and much dirtier, six weeks later. She was not forthcoming about the details of her absence. But I suppose there's still a chance that Shadow may turn up. We're not holding out much hope at this stage, though.


the shadow
Meanwhile, Brian (the housemate and home-owner) asked if we wanted to move with his cat, Little Beast. And it looks like we're going to adopt the critter, even though he and our remaining cat, Toyota, don't get along all that well. Maybe the trauma of moving will help them bond. Should be a fun trip.

Aaanyway, much packing and so on lie ahead in the next few days - then a week or two with limited internet access - aaagh!

Details to follow when possible...

Tags: cat kingdom, photo/graphic, social and personal, virginal
humour: excited

How embarrassing is this? I organized this stupid Oscar competition at work, then I went and won it. I should probably recuse myself after the fact. When Lani and Chad and I were discussing the whole thing, we never really addressed what would happen if one of us won. Lani had said maybe she shouldn't enter (she organized all of the prizes - a couple of DVDs, a couple of CD soundtracks, some movie tickets, and so on), but I encouraged her to go ahead on the grounds that we were all just doing this "for fun". When I was submitting my competition form, I even had Chad "certify" it just in case there were any questions (since I'd be doing the tally), but now that it's actually happened, I feel a tad awkward.

The only problem is that, if I do excuse myself, the next highest scorer was Chad. Doh. Instead, I was thinking of disbursing the prizes to other entrants: highest scorer who didn't predict a Reese Witherspoon win gets the Walk the Line DVD, for example, or lowest scorer gets the movie tickets. Any thoughts?

For the record, this is how my predictions worked out (actually there were two sets of predictions - the Virgin predictions that I made a week ago and the ones I posted here yesterday). Where they diverge, I record the Virgin prediction first. Correct predictions appear in red [in brackets if I didn't predict them]:


PICTURE
Prediction: Crash

ACTOR
Prediction: Philip Seymour Hoffman

ACTRESS
Prediction: Reese Witherspoon

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Prediction: George Clooney

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Prediction: Rachel Weisz

DIRECTOR
Prediction: Ang Lee

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Prediction: Tsotsi

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Prediction: Crash

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Prediction: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

ART DIRECTION
Will win: King Kong / Memoirs of a Geisha

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain

SOUND MIXING
Prediction: King Kong / Walk the Line

SOUND EDITING
Prediction: King Kong

ORIGINAL SCORE
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain

ORIGINAL SONG
Prediction: In the Deep

COSTUME DESIGN
Prediction: Memoirs of a Geisha

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Prediction: March of the Fucking Penguins

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Prediction: God Sleeps in Rwanda

FILM EDITING
Prediction: Crash

MAKEUP
Prediction: The Chronicles of Narnia

ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Prediction: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello / The Moon and the Son

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Prediction: Six Shooter / Ausreisser (The Runaway)

VISUAL EFFECTS
Prediction: King Kong


I made four changes between the two sets of predictions - two from correct to incorrect and two from incorrect to correct. Either way, I got nineteen out of twenty-four - or 70% - correct. With the two combined, I got 87.5%. That clearly doesn't count, but it means there were were only three awards that I didn't see coming: Memoirs of a Geisha for Cinematography (which, on second thought, was pretty good - I just thought the Academy would go with Brokeback whenever they could), "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" as Best Song (which would have been my second guess - though with only three nominees, that's not saying much) and A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin as Best Documentary Short (which would have been the last nominee I would've guessed). When the short documentary is about the only unpredictable win, it makes for a pretty pedestrian awards ceremnony. Still, the cinematography award was a bit of an upset - though not exactly enough to have rendered the whole affair nail-biting.

All in all, though, I enjoyed this ceremony more than many in recent memory. I liked the fact that there was no sweep and that, on the whole, talent seemed to be rewarded as often as popularity. Four films (Brokeback Mountain, Crash, King Kong, and Memoirs of a Geisha) each won three Oscars, with another two - Capote and Walk the Line - taking home major awards. Cool.

Tags: movie madness, virginal
humour: on the horns of a dilemma

So Oscar night is here again. By default, the management of the Virgin Megastore Orlando Oscar competition has fallen to me - and I spent the whole of last evening collating and tabulating peoples' votes.

( For what it's worth, some of the results of the voting can be found behind the cut. )

Less interesting, perhaps, are my own predictions. For the record, they are as follows:


PICTURE

Will win: Crash
Should win: Crash

I'm likely to be wrong on this one, but I'm hoping that the Academy might just go with quality over hype. Plus half of Hollywodd was in the film and the half of Tinseltown that doesn;t want to sleep with Reese Witherspoon (who will, therefore, win Best Actress) wants to sleep with Ryan Phillippe - and Crash is set in LA, which a lot of voters call home. None of this has much to do with the fact that Crash is a vastly superior film to Brokeback Mountain, but you never know - the Academy could, for once, do the right thing.


ACTOR

Will win: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Should win: Terrence Howard

I can do a better Truman Capote impersonation. And I can certainly grunt as well as Heath Ledger, the other contender that some people think has a hope of taking home the award. For sheer acting chops, the award should be Howard's.

ACTRESS

Will win: Reese Witherspoon
Should win: Felicity Huffman

I have nothing against America's Most Recent Sweetheart, but - sorry - June Carter was just not that demanding a role. Nevertheless, everyone seems to love the pointy-chinned little bitch that nabbed Ryan Phillippe.

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win: George Clooney
Should win: Matt Dillon

Syriana should have been nominated for Picture or Screenplay, not Supporting Actor. Clooney will get this as a consolation prize. The same argument has been used for a Paul Giamatti win, but Hollywood likes Clooney more - and he's prettier.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win: Rachel Weisz
Should win: Frances McDormand

Weisz is good, but McDormand is better. Neither has that much screen time in their respective films, but Frances McDormand should be given an award every year because she's brilliant and I love her. So there.

DIRECTOR

Will win: Ang Lee
Should win: Paul Haggis

Lee should have won in 1995 for Sense and Sensibility (rather than the idiotic Braveheart that year) or, maybe, 1997's The Ice Storm (the year of the execrable Titanic), but not for this thing. To be blunt: Haggis simply did better work in Crash than Lee did in Brokeback Mountain. For that matter, George Clooney did better work in Good Night, and Good Luck than Lee did this year. Yeah, well.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Will win: Tsotsi
Should win: Paradise Now

The Academy will go with Tsotsi because they should have given this award to the similar (and deserving) City of God from Brazil four years ago and because they're too cowardly to give it to the superior Palestinian entry.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: A History of Violence

Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana took an unbearably moving story and turned it into an cold, passionless, over-extended yet underdeveloped character study that missed the point entirely. Yeah, give that pair an Oscar. I'd be happy if anything else won (well, except for Munich - but that's because Tony Kushner is a fucking asshole who should be lynched rather than honored). I'd go with A History of Violence or, failing that, The Constant Gardener. The screenplays for both put Brokeback to shame.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Will win: Crash
Should win: Match Point

As it happens, I'm glad Crash is the favorite - this may be about the only award the Best Picture of the Year takes home and it deserves all the attention it can get. But, in terms of writing, Match Point was the best script to have been filmed last year. Crash was a close second - with The Squid and the Whale a close third. Then we'd get to some of the adapted screenplays. Brokeback Mountain would still come last.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Will win: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Should win: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

Wallace and Gromit will win because Chicken Run was robbed in 2000 (prompting the addition of Best Animated Feature in 2001), but all three W&G shorts are better than their first feature. Besides, in the stop-action stakes, Corpse Bride was generally better designed and executed - and the story was vastly better-written.

ART DIRECTION

Will win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Should win: King Kong

Something tells me that the Academy will go with period and location over damned excellent art direction. The design of King Kong - especially the New York sequences was nothing short of brilliant. Geisha, while worthy, was pretty much been there, done that. I actually went with Kong as my vote in the Virgin competition, but suspect that Depression-era New York won't do it for the bulk of the west coast voters.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: Brokeback Mountain

This was the one area where Brokeback genuinely excelled. No one can fault the lighting or camerawork here. I'd put Batman Begins as a close second, but I suspect it doesn't stand a chance.

SOUND MIXING

Will win: Walk the Line
Should win: King Kong

Not only was the sound in King Kong stunning, it was loud - which tends to attract the non-technical voters in this category. However, the general voter also tends to favor musicals - and they will most likely use this as an oblique way of honoring Johnny Cash and giving the film a second award. I also went with Kong for this one in the Virgin competition, as well - but the consensus vote there convinced me that Walk the Line might prove as popular with the Academy voters.

SOUND EDITING

Will win: King Kong
Should win: King Kong

Again, it was good and loud - and Walk the Line wasn't nominated.

ORIGINAL SCORE

Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: Brokeback Mountain

Santaolalla's score was the best thing about this movie and I suspect that the two John Williams nominations will cancel each other out. Otherwise, the Academy would no doubt have gone with a typically overproduced score with a big orchestra and swelling major chords. They may still go with Geisha or (as a boobie prize for Spielberg) Munich, but I think Brokeback will slip through.

ORIGINAL SONG

Will win: In the Deep
Should win: In the Deep

Thematically, In the Deep tied into the film's subject matter extremely well - plus it's a good song. It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp is a contender, but I suspect it's a bit too edgy for a votership whose average age is roughly 107. Travelin' Through is too innocuous, despite Hollywood's love for Dolly parton. It'll be ebough to see her on the stage of the Kodak Theater.

COSTUME DESIGN

Will win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Should win: Memoirs of a Geisha

Apart from Ziyi Zhang's performance, this is the one thing that Memoirs had going for it. Besides, apart from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which was just too garish for the Academy), the other nominees are just too lackluster.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Will win: March of the Fucking Penguins
Should win: Murderball

For me, this was a bit of a toss-up between Murderball and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Unfortunately, the best documentary iof the year (The Aristocrats) was not even nominated. Instead, I suspect the Academy will go with one of the worst films of the year - and one of the worst documentaries ever made.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

Will win: God Sleeps in Rwanda
Should win: The Death of Kevin Carter

The Academy will go with God Sleeps in Rwanda because it has Rwanda in the title and they may feel bad about snubbing last year's best film, Hotel Rwanda. In fact, The Death of Kevin Carter
is not only closer to Hotel Rwanda thematically, it is also the superior fimlm.

FILM EDITING

Will win: Crash
Should win: Crash

I don't think anything else stands a chance.

MAKEUP

Will win: The Chronicles of Narnia
Should win: The Chronicles of Narnia

Star Wars: Episode XXVII The Return of the Attack of the Snood</i> probably deserves it, and would no doubt have one if it hadn't been the twenty-seventh installment. Instead, I expect it will go to relative newcomer Narnia.

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Will win: The Moon and the Son
Should win: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

Jasper Morello is more fully realized, more interesting visually, and more technically accomplished, but The Moon and the Son is cuter and has a "message". I first thought Jasper Morello might be good enough to sway the Academy (and voted that way on the Virgin ballot), but they'll probably end up going with cute message.

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

Will win: Ausreisser (The Runaway)
Should win: Six Shooter

This is total guesswork. I'm only backing Six Shooter because it's Irish. In fact, I predicted it would win in the Virgin competition - because it's Irish. But Ausreisser is both foreign language and issue-oriented and both are often popular in this category.

VISUAL EFFECTS

Will win: King Kong
Should win: King Kong

They were simply the best.


And now it's off to the red carpet...

Tags: movie madness, queerness, virginal
humour: contemplative