In case anyone else is watching too… ;) 25 February 2007
Posted by marisacat in California / Pacific Coast, Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, la vie en rose.trackback
I just HAD to add this news report - from Australia, because of the title… 
Tension grips Hollywood as Oscars loom
26th February 2007, 4:17 WST
Hollywood was nervously bracing for a cliffhanger Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles, with four films jostling for the best picture at a 79th Academy Awards show striking for its international flavour.
The red carpet has been laid out, limousine chauffeurs are on standby and the world’s movie stars are undergoing last-minute pampering and preening ahead of Tinseltown’s biggest social event of the year.
About 3,400 guests will start arriving at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre from about 2pm (0800 AEDT Monday), where they will be greeted by a blizzard of flash bulbs from photographers shooting the world’s most star-studded fashion show.
A massive security operation is under way, with streets surrounding the Oscars venue closed down and several hundred police manning checkpoints and conducting searches to ward off potential terrorist threats. [snip]
Always something looming… gripping tension!… the endless threat of the pending…
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Rounding toward the end… I am a sucker for cinema montages (there were two) and a real sucker for Ennio Moriconne… sigh. And still, a bit of a flat souffle it ws tonight… not sure why. I had not watched for several years, then fell back in last year…
18sunset by Jean-Francois Brulotte of barraclou.com
Shall see how the finale goes…
They hate us because of our movies!
Will I have to slap my tv into shape? What network is it on? Is Joan Rivers already braying on the index channel?
I guess I would like to see Degeneres. Her American Express commercial with the animals is cool. Not that I have or endorse American Express.
I actually can recognize more congresspeople than current movie stars–though the latter’s wardrobe consists mostly of old hairshirts. Accessorized with excuses.
Draft Elizabeth Holtzman/Dick Gregory!
oops sorry! On ABC 8:30 ET I think. Not sure what time the pre-game is on ‘E’… probably any minute…
well I AM slow. The red carpet section is ongoing on ABC
Is that a female reporter in that photograph up top? Cool.
in the little brimed crownless hat? Yes… Girl Reporter. LOL When probably some dragon like Hedda Hopper/Louella Parsons should have been pictured
How many times tonight would Louella have gotten to say, “You never looked lovelier?”
And who else, as a small child, used to be scared of Hedda’s hats?
those were scary dames…
Ugh, the cutesy little vignette at the beginning. I’m so fucking sick of anthropomorphic penguins.
Frank Sinatra. He went all DD/Luscious Vagina on her. “Two-bit whore” or something like that.
two bit whore… I had forgotten who he pulled that on.
I remember he stuffed two singles into a glas “she” was holding.
LOL down and dirty! LV take a lesson!
The only Oscar film I saw this year was “The Departed,” which I frankly wasn’t impressed with.
Got roped into watching last year, for the first time since 1978. Saw Clooney. Almost barfed on my shoes. I think I’ll wait another 28 years before bothering again. :p
the only one I saw that is up for a major award was “Inconvenient Truth”. The two best movies I saw this year, “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Children of Men”, both of which only ended up w/ minor noms.
Next year in teh South Bay:
Emir Kusturicka and Pedro Almovador.
One can dream, no?
ellen is making me laugh!
best american movie most relevant to today:
The Deer Hunter.
hands down.
earth to meg and MCat,
I don’t know who that female reporter is in that photo but Hedda Hopper (who was an actress prior to becoming a loathsome gargoyle/vampire gossip columnist) does appear in Sunset Boulevard‘s final scene, playing herself. She does not appear to be in that still, but she is prominently (though briefly) featured.
yeah I would agree…
Did Christopher Walken win his Oscar for that?
I just rmemeber his story of when he did win, when the actual oscar arrived he plunked it down ont he kitchen table and said to his wife, that is a house!
JJB I had completely forgotten that!
I haven’t seen any of the nominated movies. What else is new??
Love Helen Mirren though…
miss devore,
The Sinatra incident you refer to was with a WaPo gossip columnist named Maxine Cheshire. It happened during the festivities surrounding Nixon’s second inaugural (and what a truly festive time that was!). Here’s the story as TIME reported it in 1973.
Hedda was once booted in the rear end by Joseph Cotten, of all people. I believe Hedda had published or broadcast some scurilous rumor about a lady friend of Cotten’s. He saw her at some Hollywood nightspot, and kicked her in the butt, sending her sprawling. According to one version I read, onlookers applauded Cotten for having done what so many of them would loved to have done.
ooo JJB thanks… I was trying to remember if it Sheila Graham… but had forgotten Maxine Cheshire
Hand me the purity award!
I didn’t see a single movie in 2006.
but watch out–I have dvd now.
So next year, it will be all about Emir Kusturica & the Spanish dude of
And as long as we’re in such a show biz mood, this seems like the place to post this concerning director James Cameron’s claim to have discovered the tomb of Jesus Christ. And his mother. And Mary Magdalene. It seems the latter was buried in the family ossuary because she was Mrs. Christ. Or so someone is claiming in a piece Cameron is doing for The Discovery Channel:
Can’t wait to hear what pastordan will make of this. I suppose we can expect dKos to start spewing a lot of hot air about the Evils Of Hollywood Mocking Persons Of Faith. Of course, as one skeptic quoted in the article notes “‘[i]t’s a typical Jewish burial cave of a large size[.] The names on the ossuaries are very common names or derivatives of names.’ The echo of the names of the members of the Holy Family, he says, ‘is just a coincidence.’”
w00t! It’s edjucatin’ time at the Oscars with Al Gore. Leo should have called him “President” Gore instead of “Mr”.
gwine to bed. pulling a Brando, etc.
I remember when Discovery Channel was REALLY wondeful.
N ow it seems vaguely like immaculate conception thoughts… or something.
valium just got a nod…
MCat,
Yes, it seems like Discovery Channel is becoming like one long rerun of those cheapo 70s movies like The Late, Great Planet Earth, or other such things about the Shroud of Turin, et al. Cinematic religious kitsch used to be so much subtler and entertaining. For some reason Song of Bernadette comes to mind, maybe because I’ve always thought Jennifer Jones was a much underrated actress. Still, this Cameron piece threatens to engender an extremely angry reaction, especially if it suggests that JC did not in fact rise from the dead the third day after his execution. All this sturn und drang over someone for whose existence there is no proof. And of course, if you could prove he existed through this tomb, you’re almost certainly going to prove that both the Resurrection and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin didn’t happen, and that JC may very well have been married.
At any rate, in the interests of preventing conflagrations that will cause slaughter even greater than that of WWII, I hope Cameron never takes it upon himself to find Muhammed’s tomb.
From the Globe and Mail:”
Not that statstical probabilities will have anything to do with the way this plays out . . .
Well… the pope won’t be conflicted, since we can rest assured none of them have ever believed in that great doctrine of the faith, the virgin birth.
LOL.
If he finds Muhammed’s tomb, it should be in someplace like Iowa, or suburban NJ. They need the excitement. :p
Well there ya go! Al Gore gets his statue and even the supremes can’t take that away from him.
but earlier the music man cut him off. That did seem a tad rude…
didn’t the council of something or other settle this question centuries or go … I mean, who are you going to believe, a bunch of dead bishops or some effin’ mathematicians and guys with brushes and pick-axes?
Well, I’m glad Gore’s movie won. Wonder how those Exxon would-be bribers feel tonight.
Hope you don’t mind if I post this here. Truth is stranger than fiction, as they say:
WaPo:
It’s a small, small world…
oh no post what you like. I had noticed taht as the day wore on they (not Wapo, the earlier reports) amended the title. Early on it said they were connected… then it morphed to explanation: “thru slavery”.
Probably a necessary amendment as Sharpton is so up for whomever comes callin’.
… actually, FOUR cinema montages… I spoke too soon…
A nice picture of the Gore family.
Sorry, forgot the url. Tipper looks pretty glamorous.
Link to the pic
Re: Yugoslavia–
The perspective of some here is that post-Tito, the old fascists, the Ustase and the Chetniks, were allowed to come back to Yugoslavia. They resorted to the usual stirring up of ethnic hatreds to cover the theft of Yugoslavia’s economic resources as those were being handed to pals of the new rulers. That new oligarchy suffered setbacks in elections beginning in 2000, and now there is a fairly even balance between moderate socialists and neoliberals, at least in Croatia. The right-wing nationalists have lost out.
As far as the U. S. role, if the goal was to create allies, it hasn’t been too successful. Slovenia and Croatia are keeping their distance from the Americans. Both countries are much more oriented toward Germany and Austria than the U. S. There are 150 Croatian troops in Afghanistan, but none in Iraq, and Croatia continues to have good relations with Iran (they took heat for playing the Iranian soccer team in a warm-up for the World Cup.) Croatia is trying to get into NATO, but that policy is more of a piece with its efforts to gain EU accession. So far, they have refused to take the step that would probably gain them admission–signing a bilateral treaty with the U. S. agreeing not to prosecute and extradite Americans accused of war crimes.
Of the former Yugoslav republics, the Bosnians and the Macedonians each have about 40 soldiers in Iraq. None of these countries are behaving like the Poles.
One cautionary note: I read some of the writing of the Serbs about this topic. While I wouldn’t defend the U. S. bombing, a lot of their stuff is bitter bullshit. Last week, I read an attack on Croatia from a Serb living in the U. S. She even claimed that Zagreb was the one place in the world that would welcome a statue of Hitler. Absurd. A strong anti-Muslim strain runs through a lot of that writing too. Meanwhile, in the Balkans, the Croats and Serbs are trying to work things out, build trade and ease tensions.
Europe is no different from the U. S. Politicians will use ethnic, racial and religious tensions to distract people from their efforts to rob the nation. It works some places better than others.
Looks like all the wheels are in motion:
Looking at the clip from C&L you could see all the right wing librul’s butt clenching like Spielberg (putting on hs game face)…
2004 was decided in Ohio … I think 2008 will be decided in Hollywood. I think that the Oscars finally opening up since Hallie Berry is inversely proportional to the slow creep of right wing ideologues beneath the surface… some of the shows that have come out of Hollywood like 24 and the millions of “Turrorist gonna get us” belie the lie that Hollywood is the bastion of liberalization.
This ideology has slipped into every US motion film… I didn’t read the Devil wears Prada but was discussing the movie with colleagues to find out that the end was changed where the upitty boss woman (as Luscious Vagina would call her cunt bitch whore)… destroys her marriage because she works… where that is not the case in the book. Why did Hollywood seem to think that the meme woman works therefore woman loses husband… is more marketable.
If anything…what Gore won tonight was not needing an invitation by the Hollywood power elite of the likes od Spielberg and the other assholes who backed Arnold for Gov… Yet another door welded shut by Hilliary and co that Gore just picked open.
Out of the mouth of non politician… Charles Barkley ( who better to quote… Kos??… there is slim pickens out there) made a very astute observation… Although he likes Obama he is under no illusion that Obama can win… and as a matter of fact neither can Hilliary… which leaves only the white dude… Edwards… who may win the primary like Kerry but will be trottled in the general for lack of everything besides hair condiditioner.
If Gore is strategerizing… I think it is best to let the American people come to that conclusion themselves while staying out of the firing line. I thought Carter was very telling… last time he dragged his feet (playing by the rulz) giving Dean a non endorsement endorsement… this time Carter has come out before Gore has even announced… my guess in a demonstration that those who are willing to put there head in the lions mouth… will this time have adequate back up.
I am glad that Obama made 1 million at one event in Hollywood… but I do recall a certain unknown governor did the same by eating a turkey sandwhich on screen….
Let’s just say things … got way more interesting….all quiet on the thread thug front …. mebbe MB is polishing up his piece on Chevron…
DT:
Spielberg irritates me with his fixation on the “Greatest Generation” and WWII. There had been several good antiwar movies in the 70s and 80s, then came “Private Ryan” which really was a return to the John Wayne genre as far as I’m concerned. The whole “good war’ meme invites the grim reapers to sell the next one as “good.”
Spielberg has helped prepare the ground for the sowing of permawar.
I saw this scrolling down the diaries list at dKos and found it interesting (the link is to the author’s site):
“Why Liberals Have No Answer for Pat Dollard”
Ezekiel,
Yes, set it down in gold on lasting pillars:
It’s always easier to blame The Other for your problems than to educate yourself about your situation, and take responsibility for changing it.
liberalcatnip,
I guess this can be considered an addendum to your Haaretz story:
Yeah, BushCo. certainly does know all about getting results.
On reading further in that story I linked to above, I came across this passage, which really ought to have been either pushed further up, or incorporated into the lede somehow:
I’m not sure if the real story here isn’t that the VPOTUS has to sneak in and out of a country which is allegedly one of our closest allies in the GWOT because said country’s military/security infrastructure is working hand in hand with the enemy.
JJB #48. Sy Hersch (and others) have written about AQ Khan, the inventor of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb. Khan more or less confessed to having dealings re nuclear secrets, with Iran:
And from Sy Hersch, who asks the questions a lot of people were asking about AQ Khan, Pakistan and maybe, the Outing of Valerie Plame:
I remember this and on many of the online forums at the time, people were asking why Cheney, Bush et al were okay with letting Pakistan basically hide Khan and protect him from questioning.
Also, it was said that Khan was freely involved in nuclear arms dealing and was accomodated by the UAE (used their ports) – don’t know how true all this is, but it was never investigated nor the msm cover it much. And Cheney and Khan were said to be ‘friends’.
Then there was the fact that Valerie Plame/Brewster Jennings were supposedly on the trail of WMDs going to Iran/Iraq. Once their cover was blown, that was the end of the mission.
So, I’m wondering why Cheney is visiting Musharraff now. I doubt it’s out of concern for our national security. Could he be asking for cooperation from Khan to say that it was true, that he, Khan, did passed nuclear secrets to Iran?
I don’t know but I still wonder why no one cares about AQ Khan, not even enough to find out who he sold his secrets to.
Why do I think Cheney did not volunteer to go to Pakistan, but is doing penance.
New Thread Out on the links (not about golf…)
Another weird aspect about that AQ Khan affair, where everyone involved seemed to get just wrist-slaps or walk free is the matter of the Israeli citizen and South African businessman Asher Karni, who was caught while trying to obtain 200 high speed electronic ‘nuclear triggers’ and redirect them illegally/clandestinely to AQ Khan’s people.
Karni was convicted in US courts in 2005, and sentenced to 3 yrs, but his lawyers were working on getting it whittled down. He may even be out by now.
Frontline and this blog had good reports on the strange case.
Pakistan’s government was among a few other Muslim countries calling for a diplomatic solution to the Iran standoff this weekend. I don’t think Cheney’s visit had anything to do with getting tough with the Taliban. He could have done that with a phone call. I think it was all about Iran.
I think this quote is highly relevant, considering Hersh’s revelations about Cheney’s office funding Sunni groups:
RAZZIES !
(Thanks for the reminder, Smithee.)