Post Oscarem

Anyone who watched the Oscars Sunday knows, and heard repeatedly during the broadcast, how wildly unpredictable this year's awards were, full of more than a little surprising upsets. The evidence of that can be seen on the winning ballot in this year's pool. Usually, in our group, the loser is lucky to walk away from the evening having guessed only 12 correct; this year, 12 correct was enough to win the night. Unfortunately for me, those 12 were picked by my father and when the ballots were filed away, they went into storage without the requisite dollar bills still attached.

The tallies ran thus, consecutive in the reverse:

Dad, with 12 correct, won the pot.
I followed, with 11 correct
Chris had 10
Kenny, 9
Becca, 8
Mom, 7
Orrick, 6
Jake, choosing to vote against the favorites (which could have worked with different picks!), 5

Thanks, everyone, for playing. Here's hoping for better luck next year. In the meantime, keep those ballot-picking darts at the ready -- March Madness is just around the corner!

Oscar Picks

When the nominations were announced this year, I could claim the distinction (a first for me) of not having seen even one of the movies on the ballot. In the last week, thanks to a DVD-buying spree, I’ve only slightly remedied that. Conversation about The Prestige led to its purchase and viewing, which then led to a comparative purchase of The Illusionist. I’ve now seen both, which is meaningful only in the Cinematography category. We’ve also purchased Best Picture nominees Babel, The Departed, and Little Miss Sunshine; but as of this writing, only Babel has escaped the shrink-wrap. With very few sentimental favorites, my picks are purely methodical. That said, here they are.

LEAD ACTOR– Forest Whitaker. It is not insignificant that Whitaker won every single pre-Oscar award – nor, I’m sad to say, is it insignificant that he is a man of color. The Academy seems to have a reverse-racism fear of NOT awarding black nominees, which I mention here only as harbinger of picks to come; I’m sure it did not escape the notice of Academy voters that this could be the year of the black win. That said, I’m a fan of Whitaker will put my money on him.

SUPPORTING ACTOR – Though there seems to be a swell of support for Alan Arkin, he did not win any pre-Oscar awards. Not even in Boise. Though I appreciate that this category has the year’s best horse race (Haley beat Murphy in Chicago, but lost to Wahlberg with Film Critics. Wahlberg lost to Murphy at the Golden Globes) and that Eddie is generally considered a comedian, there was much talk of his surprising break-out in this role, so my money is on Murphy.

LEAD ACTRESS – Meryl Streep did win a Golden Globe, but only because the Globes honor comedies apart from dramas. Comedic performances don’t win Oscars. But you didn’t need to know that, because the only way you haven’t heard that Helen Mirren has a lock on this one (winning, like Whitaker, every pre-Oscar), you’ve been living under a rock.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Once again, one nominee won every award that leads to the big night, and that nominee was Jennifer Hudson, the American Idol reject. This is the one performance I wish I’d seen, because I truly hesitate to put my money on a TV non-star singer over an honest-to-God actor like Cate Blanchett, but knowing the libretto for Dreamgirls, I also know that you’d truly have to screw up And I’m Telling You (I’m Not Going) not to leave an impression – and by all accounts, she didn’t screw it up.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – For my money, only bet against Pixar in this category when you have a damned good reason. This year, you don't. The Globes, Producer’s Guild, and National Board of Review agree. Cars is the winner here.

ART DIRECTION – The only thing I know about Art Direction is that this year one of the nominees has a history of wins with flashy films like Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha. That nominee is up for Dreamgirls this year, another flashy musical. Consider it picked.

CINEMATOGRAPHY – It’s the only category where I’ve seen more than one nominee, but while I truly enjoyed The Prestige and The Illusionist, I wasn’t so wowed by either one from a cinematic standpoint that I’d call it a winner against movies I haven’t seen. Because voters seem to want to award Children of Men something and I don’t believe it’ll take a win for screenplay, I’ll give it a win here.

COSTUME DESIGN – Never heard of Curse of the Golden Flower. The Devil Wears Prada boasted current fashion, and The Queen was set mainly in the last 10 years. Dreamgirls’ fashion would have represented the sixties. So, as a bygone period piece without competition, Marie Antoinette gets my vote here.

DIRECTION – Yes, Eastwood is nominated here. Again. He’s won before. Scorsese is nominated here. Again. He hasn’t. All accounts say this is they year that he will.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – Here you do usually have to throw a dart, but with Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in the mix you’ve got name recognition and a National Board of Review win. Gore won’t take the nation’s highest office, but will take the Academy’s highest honor.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT – Here you’ve got a Chinese AIDS orphan, folks picking through toxic dumps, kids in the performing arts, and a pianist who loses one of his hands. In another year, the kids Rehearsing a Dream might take the sentimental votes from actors, but the true artistic heartstring puller this year is the man without Two Hands.

FILM EDITING – I watched Babel last night and could conceivably vote for it. After all, the editing team has already won once for Traffic. I haven’t watched The Departed, but it’s that team’s sixth nod, after the Aviator, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Woodstock, and Gangs of New York. So why, then, am I putting my money on United 93? Well, I read something that suggested that it’s the reason this film snuck into the Best Direction category (right along with Babel and The Departed). And hell, the only way you win an Oscar pool is to have a couple picks that nobody else does. Of course, that’s also how you lose….

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM – No foreign language film which spills over into five of the other categories, like Pan’s Labyrinth does, should be ignored. Mexico’s El Laberinto del Fauno for the win.

MAKEUP – The folks who did Click won for Lemony Snicket last year or the year before, but damn… has anybody heard of Click outside of this category? My guess is that many voters won’t have seen it and the ones who have seen Pan’s Labyrinth will be honoring that instead.

ORIGINAL SCORE – How’s this for fuzzy logic? Thomas Newman (The Good German) has been nominated 8 times now and never won. Philip Glass (Notes on a Scandal) has been nominated 3 times without winning [speed past]. Santaolalla (Babel) did win his only other nod, for Brokeback Mountain [slow down] but I watched the movie last night and don’t remember the score at all. Javier Navarrete (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Alexandre Desplat (The Queen) are unknowns to this category [stop]. Pan’s Labyrinth will take other prizes, so if The Queen is listenable at all, this will be the category where that Best Picture nominee is honored.

ORIGINAL SONG – Logic that works in other categories would suggest that the three nominated songs from Dreamgirls will cancel each other out and leave the win to Melissa Etheridge’s I Need to Wake Up (An Inconvenient Truth) or Randy Newman’s Our Town (Cars), but with a Golden Globe win for the Beyonce-sung Listen, I’m betting Oscar gold falls here.

MOTION PICTURE – It speaks highly of Little Miss Sunshine that a comedy made it into this category, but despite a nod from the Producer’s Guild (which, until recent years, was the best indicator of Oscar gold here), that’s also what will keep it from winning. That, and its director wasn’t nominated. Film Editing is another category to look at here, and Letters from Iwo Jima and The Queen failed to get nods there. All five films have screenplay writing nods, so the two top contenders seem to be Babel and The Departed. With Scorsese a near-lock for the directorial gold and a recent trend to split the director and picture honors, I’m giving Babel the leg-up in this category.

ANIMATED SHORT FILM – I’ve seen Maestro and it made me laugh, but I’m betting something else in this category can cream it. No Time for Nuts also stars familiar characters from something I haven’t seen (Ice Age). A squirrel finds a time machine? Cute, but… nah. The Danish Poet? I caught a small clip of it – the story might be wonderful, but the animation is crude and the accented narrator hard to understand. Lifted, about a teen alien going through abduction school and spaceship driving school at the same time sounds like rip-roaring good Pixar fun and I’d love to see it, but I’m betting that the sadly beautiful story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Matchgirl will win the night.

LIVE ACTION SHORT – An African girl’s stories of hope, a wife leaving her mother to cook and clean for her son and husband, a rest-home father and his busy son, an evangelist in love with a married woman, and a musical comedy about competing falafel stands. Though I’m amused at the idea of West Bank Story, I marked the hapless father and son combo abandoned by Mom on my ballot: Eramos Pocos.

SOUND EDITING – The difference between this and Sound Mixing is simple once you know it: editing creates sounds that don’t already exist, mixing manages sounds that do. The team behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest also created the winning sounds behind the cries of a giant ape from Skull Island and the Orcs of Middle Earth. Not to mention wins for Titanic and Pearl Harbor as well. I say Pirates steal the gold.

SOUND MIXING – The Pirates won’t take this one as musicals like Chicago and Ray have set the (ahem) gold standard in this category. Dreamgirls – a musical mixed by the same team that mixed the winners above as well as Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and Speed – takes this one.

VISUAL EFFECTS – I really wanted to vote for Superman Returns here, as the team behind Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, and The Matrix are behind it, but overwhelming support for Pirates in this category sent me sailing with the tide.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – Come on, was Borat really “written?” Children of Men, Little Children, and Notes on a Scandal didn’t earn Best Picture nods; if any of them had been favored enough to take a runner-up slot for Best Picture, they’d get the consolation prize here. None of them were. That distinction goes to The Departed.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – Did I mention consolation prizes? With only The Departed competing in the Adapted Screenplay category, the other four Best Picture nominees are competing in this one Having picked Babel for the big win, I predict that this is where Little Miss Sunshine finds its support.

And there you have my 2007 picks.

Tune in to ABC tonight for the 79^th Annual Academy Awards (5p/8e) hosted by Ellen Degeneres!

Still Holding...

Usually, it's the little categories which stymie me, but looking over my ballot one last time, I'm still undecided on the biggest category of the night: Best Picture. Once I've done an Indian Oscar Dance, thrown a dart, and pulled out a lock of my hair, I'll post my final predictions knowing they will count as my final ballot -- something I normally complete the day of the broadcast.

It doesn't help my obsessive mania, either, to realize that for all my Oscar pool winnings, I've failed to correctly call the Best Picture in any year where my ballot originated in San Diego.

In the meantime... it's a good thing that I have very few readers. Fans of either Simon LeBon or Eddie Izzard might have staged a protest on a larger site for the comparison of one to the other, but I swear... I watched a Duran Duran concert on VHI recently and darned if there weren't just moments when Simon looked for all the world like Eddie. Had I been able to grab a certain screen capture and a good pic of Eddie clean-shaven but not in a dress, you'd see my point.

C'est la vie.

Hold Music

My friend Chris has tagged me to post my Oscar picks online. Though I have already made my decisions in the "larger" categories, I need a contemplative moment with the nominees in "smaller" categories... I'll have my picks up shortly. In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, I ask you: have you ever seen these men in a room together?

Pie in the Air

It only took me fifteen years, but I've finally done it. After ten years in the radio business and five years out of it, I've finally put together an aircheck -- the radio personality's demo reel. Essentially, it is a four-minute representation of a four-hour shift that lets prospective employers know what you actually sound like on the air: your voice, your personality, your style. Mine had to be culled from one of the very few shifts I recorded from the morning show around this time of year in 2000. While the boss was in New Orleans enjoying Mardi Gras, I recorded the shifts where I appeared not as the morning sidekick but as the morning show host. Sound quality aside (the originals were recorded mono to 6-hour VHS tapes), those shifts were pretty good, and I've pulled four minutes that include banter, public service announcements, ad copy, and news. That the material is 7 years dated, features tape hiss, and was aired on a small market radio station will not keep me from using it, as it is all that I have available. Cross your fingers for me; with the coming end of the corporate lease I've been enjoying, the need to get a job in large-market San Diego is looming. Of course, there's nothing that says I can't flip burgers if it comes to that.

Taking a lesson from Grabbingsand's blog, I've created an account with YouSendIt, a file sharing program that will allow me to e-mail this audio concoction to prospective employers when the opportunity arises. Thanks, GS, for your frequent audio posts and this very stealable idea!

If I've done this correctly, you should be able to hear the aircheck here for the next 7 days.

In other news... my parents are returning to San Diego this evening for another two-week stint. It will be the first time in several months that my mother has made the trip or that either one of them have been here for more than a week. It could be a very busy time, not conducive to blogging. Excuse me if I seem to disappear for a while.

The improv group will gather Wednesday for a meet, greet, and get comfortable with each other session which will clue newbies like myself in to the format of the program. After discussion earlier this week with a lady who does this on a weekly basis, I'm a little less terrified -- she assured me that the audiences ENJOY it when you mess up. What can be better than that? And, a month early, this one-night-only fundraiser is already selling out. Should be great fun.

On the following Monday, I'll be auditioning for another show; but don't hold your breath to hear tales of this one -- to audition, I've got to do a dread monologue. Now, darn it, I'm going to TRY, but not one of my acting accolades were earned through this form of the craft. In fact, I have yet to earn so much as a role from this method of audition. I can only hope that this attempt will break the trend. And, for good or bad, I will be the first auditioner the director sees. Having read the script well in advance, I responded immediately to the posted notice and was given the very first audition slot, which could hurt more than it helps, leaving ample time over two days for other actors to leave a better, fresher impression on the auditor. So... cross your fingers for me once again.

Finally, looking backward rather than forward, I must mention Valentine's Day. It was a very bloggable event, sadly left unblogged as the week progressed. Instead of the traditional gifts of candy calories and soon-to-die plants, Orrick gave me a day trip northeast to historic Julian, famous for its gold rush history, still quaint Main Street, and fresh apple pies. I fell in love, as I am wont to do, with the old fashioned pharmacy soda fountain/diner where we ate our tasty lunch and enjoyed the rest of the day perusing antique and craft shops while taking many pictures of the horse-drawn carriages that populated the street.

At the Julian Pie Company, a sign on the door read "OPEN Coffee's on... Pies are Ready" under which another sign instructed one to "begin smelling." Orrick and I shared a slice of the blueberry pie (delicious) rather than apple, but we took one of those famous treats home for his parents to share. Soon, the Julian pies will be available for shipment anywhere in the US. And I, for one, highly recommend them.

Show's Over, Folks! Nothing to See Here.

Closing... for Bracknell... and Earnest-y! (Sung to the tune of Springtime for Hitler).

After nearly four months of rehearsing and performing together, the cast of Earnest has scattered to the winds after closing the show Saturday night. As always, my feelings about this are mixed. I'm ready to move on to the next project, but sad to lose the company of a very pleasant group of people. If there is one thing I can say for the Chula Vista theatre, its that I've truly enjoyed the people I worked with and had much fun in both productions I've done there. That hasn't been true everywhere.

At the cast party, we were treated to a DVD slide show of photos our light tech Gary had taken during rehearsals and preview. Much care and effort went into producing the disc and we each walked away from the evening with a copy of our own, which was very nice.

We also walked away with somewhat expensive DVD copies of the show. I must admit, these were a bit of a thorn in my side as our producer decided to have some local Scorsese with a digital camera take over the filming duties from a very nice fellow who has traditionally done it (analog) at a much cheaper price. I was not particularly interested in paying more than I would for a Hollywood Blockbuster to have a copy of my 15 minutes of stage time, and after devoting a quarter of a year to the thing, I certainly didn't want to pay more for my video viewing than our audiences had paid for tickets to see the show live, but it could not be avoided. Not without forgoing the video completely, which I couldn't talk myself into doing. So, I paid my $17 and took the disc home, only to find that one of my favorite altered lines to deliver was completely missing from the video! Whether Scorsese had forgotten to charge his battery and lost the moment to a power change or he's a Democrat who objected to the line "Untruthful? My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He's a Republican," I'll never know. But one of my biggest laugh lines ain't there.

But life goes on....

This week, I will probably be getting in touch with light-tech Gary's wife, who runs an improv theatre company. In an exciting and terrifying turn of events, I agreed to perform at a local theatre's fundraiser, a performance in the completely improvisational nature of Whose Line is it, Anyway? I'm proud to have inspired the confidence of the producers, but having never done improv of any kind I'm more than a little nervous about it, too. So, I'm enlisting help and guidance -- and I expect to have a whale of a good time.

Fortunately, the show will take place on April Fools Day, so should I look like a fool in the effort, it will not be completely inappropriate!

And I take a certain comfort in knowing that I can't POSSIBLY improv anything less watchable than a certain Nashvillian playwright has produced in the last year. Right, Anne-G? ;)

Found a Fourth!

A not-so-random Google search this afternoon turned up evidence that a fourth reviewer graced our production recently, and it's a shame that none of us had read this review because this guy or gal actually seemed to enjoy it, rolling nicely along with its editorial changes. Once again, to spare my blog the hits of other not-so-random interested Googlers, I'll post only the part that pertains to me unedited here. All other real names have been removed.

Jack Worthing and Algie Moncrief on this side of the pond? In the ’50s? Well, why not? Satire, deception, the importance of appearance and a well-chosen word are commodities not limited to 19th century London.

[The director sets] Oscar Wilde’s classic... in 1952 New York City and the Hamptons, changing characters’ names and spellings along the way. Cecily Cardew is now a wide-eyed American bobby-soxer, Miss Prism a Latina, butler McLean a plaid-wearing Scot, and the plot plays out to the musical stylings of Dean Martin and Frankie Laine.

The satire of the monied class remains, as do cucumber sandwiches and the essential silliness of the plot. Lady Bracknell has been democratized to Mrs. Bracknell (Kelly Lapczynski), but she remains a snobbish battleaxe interviewing prospective suitors for her daughter’s hand. Family is important and she is not about to allow Jack Worthing, who was an infant left in a handbag in Grand Central Station, to marry Gwendolyn. “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune,” she says. “To lose both looks like carelessness.”

...[The production] proves that Earnest is a winner, regardless of its setting and time period. Among the actors, my favorites are Lapczynski’s wonderfully annoying Mrs. Bracknell and Bob Christiansen’s dual roles as McLean and Rev. Chausible. Other favorites are dewy-eyed Cecily and [actor’s] proper-but-aching-to-escape-mom’s-clutches Gwendolyn.

... If you’re looking for a few hours of fun, take in this updated production of Wilde’s classic.

Noting that one of my lines was quoted, Orrick said that there'll be no living with me now. ;)

These Vagabond Shoes

This Sunday, during our last matinee performance, Frank Sinatrat came backstage to visit me and in the process made a new friend. Hershey, the shot glass cow, made his trek to San Diego from the City that Never Sleeps with my stage daughter, Gwendolen; and his escapades here are reported north to his original owner. After Frankie serenaded his new buddy with a rousing, if broken, rendition of "New York, New York" the two were inseparable, cavorting through the theatre like they'd known each other for years.



Frankie, never far from a camera, took some shots as Hershey tried on McLean's Scot's red beard and made a tour of my makeup kit, among other things. Though Frankie's a good pal, he's not above keeping the occasional bit of photographic evidence on hand should he need to call in a favor. You know how it is with those Rat Pack types.

Still, should a few of the more innocent shots find their way to the tabloid press, Hershey's original owner should be pleased to know that the cow is safe, happy, having fun, and has a friend. What more could one desire?

Murphy Avoided

The lights did not go out during the final scene of our show last night. How we managed to keep Murphy at bay, given his bait, I am not sure, but keep him at bay we did. The show started almost 15 minutes early, as planned, without holding terribly long for audience. The 15-minute intermission was cut to 10. And the show came down 10 minutes before the scheduled blackout, allowing us to dress and exit the theatre before the dark.

It was not simply starting early and cutting intermission that saved us, however. Even accounting for those changes, we shaved 10 minutes from our running time. With our light tech urging us from his booth to pick up the pace in the final scenes, performances became flustered and hurried for fear the lights would dim at any second. And so the video of the night's performance should be very interesting to watch when it is delivered.

Of course, as anyone involved with theatre will tell you -- it's always SOMETHING on the night the show is taped. Always.

As for today: Orrick and I will be on rat-catching duty.

San Diego is rife with rats and the weather has turned cold, so it was no surprise, really, when evidence of the first rat was discovered under the hood of my car. I do, after all, come home late at night bringing with me a warm engine. But evidence of a second rat (or mouse) has been discovered in the apartment, where the little fella has been chewing the kitchen linoleum and leaving tiny gifts from both ends of the process.

Maintenance has been called but is slow to respond to the work order.

There has been a lot of work here at La Apartment Complex lately. Each building in turn is being painted, with the landscape around each building getting intricate attention which no doubt disturbs the rodents' nests. As their homes are disrupted, they are bound to go somewhere, and it seems that at least one has chosen to share a roof with me. Ain't that sweet?

My new roomie has also chosen to make a mess and break things without paying a single cent towards the rent, and that ain't right. He's even ignored the sonic PestChaser electronic rodent repeller we plugged in by his lair. So, I get to do what millions of roommates worldwide can only dream of doing to such lodgers. I get to kill 'em!

Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

Be vewwy vewwy quiet.....

Third Mention

Last weekend, Theatrescene's "Behind the Scenes" writer Jenni Prisk saw the show.

Sadly, one [show] you might miss is The Importance of Being Earnest at OnStage Productions in Chula Vista. Set in New York in the 1950s against some attractive backdrops of the city skyline, I’m not sure why most of the cast had to assume English accents. Kelly Lapczynski plays a formidable Mrs. Bracknell (no lady in this one) and there is some earnest acting from the rest of the cast. One of my favorite plays, I really wanted to enjoy it, but left disappointed.

For my own part, however, I hope that being called out by my (correctly spelled) name in this instance as a "formidable" character is a compliment.

If it's not... don't tell me.

It's Rats Time of Year Again

Loyal readers may remember that in July of 2005 I posted that a rat had cozied up in my engine compartment and made a feast of my spark plug cables -- an event that took a bit of diagnosing at the time. Then, visiting San Diego, I was driving my father's company vehicle. Upon diagnosis, I took a picture of the engine compartment and the gifts my little rat friend had left behind after his evening meal. It looked, well, exactly like this.

Now, living in San Diego and driving my own vehicle, I have been compelled once again to take a glimpse of my engine compartment. You tell me, dear reader, does this look ominously familiar?

Methinks I've had another visitor.

Woo-Hoo! I guess it was about time to figure out who my friendly neighborhood Chrysler dealer was in these parts, anyway.

Meanwhile... tonight is the night of the Big Blackout Show in Chula Vista. What I failed to mention in my previous post, the reason I am all but positive that Murphy will not be able to resist munching on our 15-minute cushions the way the rats love munching on my engines is this: we are taping tonight. You KNOW that the Murph won't be able to resist a temptation like that one.

One way or the other, the cast and crew should be done with the show and released to the world not long after 10 p.m. tonight, and we are taking advantage of the fact by celebrating with a Birthdays Party afterwards. Dressing room investigation not long after my own special day turned up the intriguing fact that every one of us, including our light tech, will have celebrated the anniversary of our birth while bound to this show. Granted, our rehearsal schedule was somewhat longer than usual due to the number of holidays we had to work around, but that not one of our natal days falls outside the four month constraint and into one of the other eight months of the year is reason enough to our minds to demand a collective celebration. And celebrate we will.

But we'll do it somewhere a bit north of Chula Vista. Somewhere the lights are still on.