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March 23, 2003

Oscar Schmoscar 11:50 pm
: I would quote Pedro Almodovar's speech but I couldn't understand it.

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Oscar Schmoscar 11:40 pm
: Why the hell did I start this? I want to go to bed.

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Oscar Schmoscar 11:30 pm
: The predictions were wrong. Tom Hanks did show up.

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Oscar Schmoscar 11:20 pm
: Nicole Kidman addresses the tough questions: "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do. And you want to honor that. And it is a tradition that needs to be upheld. And at the same time you say there is [sic] a lot of problems in the world since 9.11 there's been a lot of pain in terms of families losing people and now with the war families losing people and God bless them..."
She's no Michael Moore, thank goodness.

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Oscar Schmoscar 11:15 pm
: Barbra Streisand: No speech, just: "I'm very proud to live in a country that guarantees every citizen, including artists, the right to sing and say what they believe..."
: What a disappointment: Cameron Diaz is an open-mouthed gum-chewer.

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Oscar Schmoscar 10:55 pm
: Adrien Brody won twice. He got an Oscar. He kissed his presenter Halle Berry. Really kissed.
: The band's about to play him off and he shuts them up to make his real speech: "I'm also filled with a lot of sadness tonight because I'm accepting an award at such a strange time... [Working on his film, The Pianist, gave him a realization of] the sadness and dehumanization of people in times of war... Whether you believe that Allah or God watches over you, let's pray for a peaceful and swift resolution."
Standing ovation.
He also wished his pal from Queens, now in Kuwait fighting, safety.

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Oscar Schmoscar 10:45 pm
: Susan Sarandon gives the peace sign. Quaint.
She introduces the obits. Then she's gone. No chance for a speech.
: Steve Martin next: "Later we're doing a montage of people you think are dead but aren't."

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A word from our sponsor, CNN
: CNN breaks its silence on silencing the Sites blog. This from a longer Howard Kurtz piece on weblogs and war (which I excerpted on my warblog):

...spokeswoman Edna Johnson saying that covering war "is a full-time job and we've asked Kevin to concentrate only on that for the time being."

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Oscar Schmoscar 10:30 pm
: : Kathy Bates: "Every time an Oscar is given out, an agent gets his wings."

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Oscar Schmoscar 10:25 pm
: Get ready, world: Here comes Michael Moore (who invited his fellow documentary nominees on the stage to stand in solidarity):

We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times... We have fictitious election results... A fictitious President... We have a a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons... We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. [cue music] Anytime you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.

And indeed it is.
Boos abound.
:Steve Martin: "Aw, it was so sweet backstage. You should see it. The Teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."
Cheers.

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Oscar Schmoscar 10:10 pm
: Selma Hayek looks good in black... in glittery, low-cut, see-through black.
: Winner of minor award starts his speech: "There's so much insanity in the world right now that..." That what? That it's good to work with all the talented people with whom he worked. Wimp-out.

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Oscar Schmoscar 10:00 pm
: The Guardian lists the no-show stars -- Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki (well, then cancel the f'ing show!), Will Smith, Rings director Peter Jackson, Tom Hanks... the "waverers," Cate Blanchet and Nicole Kidman (oops, Nicole showed up)... and the "silent protesters:"

Julianne Moore (nominated for both The Hours and Far From Heaven), Pedro Amodovar (nominated for both best director and best screenplay), Adrien Brody (best actor nominee) and guests Ben Affleck and Dustin Hoffman will attend the ceremony wearing peace signs on the designer clothes. They insist, though, that this will be their one (very subtle) symbol of protest. Otherwise, they shall be keeping their opinions to themselves.

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Oscar Schmoscar 9:50 pm
: Matthew McWhatever is wearing a red, white, and blue thing on his jacket. A confusion of cause ribbons or actual patriotism?
: Harvey Weinstein looks more ready for labor than Catherine Zeta-Jones.

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Oscar Schmoscar 9:40
: For just a nanosecond, we got to see Kathy Bates disappointed that she lost the supporting-actress Oscar.
Zeta Jones looks like she's ready to nurse any second.
Well, for that matter, so does Queen Latifa.

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Oscar Schmoscar 9:30 pm
: We interrupt this boredom to bring you a war update... That was quick.
: We're 45 minutes in, suffering through a speech for animated short film (how can you say "Chubbchubbs" and sound like an adult?). No sex. No embarrassment. No humiliating speeches. No great gowns.
: Paul Simon singing... It's just like VH1.

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Oscar Schmoscar 9:10 pm
: Sorry, did I doze off already?

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Oscar Schmoscar 9:00 pm
: Jennifer Connelly looks good in black, too.
The place looks like Six Feet Under.
: First tears of the night from Chris Cooper, a supporting actor who says, "In light of all the trouble in this world, I wish us all peace."
Wimp.
: J-lo! J-lo! Ah-ha, she's not in black. Black makes your butt look big, you know.

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Oscar Schmoscar 8:50 pm
: Is it my bad memory, or wasn't the first award always supporting actress? Now it's animated feature. Nevermind. Cameron Diaz is presenting. She looks good in black.
: Not only do they play off winners if they talk more than 17 seconds, they pull the microphone down, as if to say: America is not excited about you anymore. Cruel.

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Oscar Schmoscar 8:40 pm
: Steve Martin seems as nervous as an Iraqi colonel.
: Martin: "A movie star can be many things. They can be Democrats... or skinny."
: "They can be any sex, race, or religion, sometimes all in one weekend."
: "Remember, there are no losers here tonight. But we're about to change all that."

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Oscar Schmoscar 8:35 pm
: Steve Martin: "You probably noticed there was no red carpet tonight. That'll send 'em a message!"
: I'm sorry, but Renee Z is funny looking.
: Everybody is wearing black. Once again, I'll ask: What are we mourning? This isn't 9.11. We're winning!
Oh, that's right, Hollywood doesn't want us to win.

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Oscar Schmoscar: 8:20 pm
: I never thought I'd beg to see Joan Rivers. I never thought I'd beg to see Melissa Rivers! I never thought I'd beg to see Barbara Walters. But I'll take them all now, please.
Watching Hollywood without its cheering crowd -- without its audience, damnit -- is absurd. It's sad. It's ridiculous.
Nobody wants to look happy.
I'll ask again: What are we mourning? We're winning the war!

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Oscar Schmoscar
: 8:10 p.m.: The pre-game show is boring. The stars aren't looking pretty. This is going to be a disaster.

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Flags
: Matt Welch blogs about the NY Post adding a flag to its flag. Journalism quakes. Aw, to hell with the J-school nitpickers. I used to work at the Chicago Tribune and they had a flag on the flag all the time. These are American papers.
Vive l'America!

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Finally, a reason to watch the Oscars
: Ken Layne reports that his blogbuddy Dave Barry was recruited by Steve Martin to write for tonight (alongside my colleague from long, long ago: Bruce Vilanch... one of the most creative writers I've ever had the pleasure to know).

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The White House weblog
: Good idea, eh? Why shouldn't Bush have a minion looking at the news through his glasses. Every other weblog has a perspective, so would his.
Why, look, with links, this is the White House weblog: a page with quotes from media all over the world reporting on warm welcomes from liberated Iraqis. All it lacks is the links (and the occasional link to Instapundit hoping for traffic in return).

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Western Islam
: A teacher at the Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans named Sarah Walen writes a piece in Arab News that is as frightening as it is nonsensical. She starts by arguing that this war is all about Israel but then drops that point an launches in to a screed about how our real goal is to somehow denude Islam.

“Be more like Turkey used to be” is the new motto for peace in the Middle East. Especially in Islamic states. Because as Osama Bin Laden proved unequivocally to a doubting West, few things are more powerful than a powerful idea.
And few ideas are more powerful than Islam.
It is Islam’s all-pervasiveness that alarms the West and pushes it toward this pre-emptive war. What the West wants now, the United States included, is a Middle East where Islam is shorn not just of obstinate leadership, but of its sometimes explosive, primal force....
The Shariah of course will be the first thing to go, Western culture having totally stripped the law of its power to cause fear and instill obedience. No more of those “barbaric” punishments. The West has spoken.
Islam will soon exist throughout the Middle East only in the way that Westerners find most palatable — stripped down to its ornaments. The new Islam will consist of poetry, architecture, and voluminous costumes that Arabs will occasionally put on for weddings or state occasions, recalling how modestly they used to dress in obedience to God’s will in the days before the last Iraq war, much as Swedes and Danes and Germans now throw on the occasional traditional costume. A few presents for Eid and perhaps a few days off every few years for the Haj will round out the religious calendar. Once in a while, you can get a permit from your city council to barbecue a goat or a sheep.

Oh, if only we could keep cutting off the hands of thieves! Now those were the days, my friends, we thought they'd never end....

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Via satellite
: ArabNews reports that sales of satellite dishes soared as soon as the war in Iraq began.

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The future of journalism
: Reading this war through weblogs, Tim Bray [via Hammersley] asks:

Is the future of journalism no more than putting somebody smart where the action is and letting them post what they see in real time?

Well, I'd say it is still more than that. But smart people where the action is with these tools will be more and more prevalent and valuable and important. (That's why CNN made the wrong move with Sites; they should be learning through him just as I am learning through my weblogs.)
Hammersley's own take on l'affair Sites

More than likely, it’s Sites’ breach of contract that’s the issue. Plus, on a more day to day footing, his use of damn expensive satellite time....
Still, CNN have absolutely nothing whatsoever to be afraid of when it comes to blogging technology. None of the big media operations do. In fact, the cool stuff we cobble together is all to the good when it comes to the BBC, or CNN, or even, say, The Guardian or The Times. Damn cheap, completely robust, easy to use, beautifully extendable Content Management Systems are the big meeedja’s dream, not their upcoming downfall. They know this as well as we do: Sites wasn’t shut down because he was blogging. He was shut down because he was blogging when he was meant to be working for CNN.

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Al-Jazeera: the new CNN or a bad guy?
: At the Centcom briefing just now, the general took a question from an Al-Jazeera reporter and then promptly scolded his network for showing the pictures of the prisoners and of what were purported to be dead U.S. soldiers.

: Michael Wolff, the media columnist from New York magazine, then asked the general whether he would consider Al-Jazeera hostile. The general was too smart to take the bait.

: In 1991, we saw images of prisoners frequently; ditto Vietnam.
I found it worse to keep hearing about them and not see them; that's why I put up the images captured by various news web sites. See them or don't.

: I've been watching Al-Jazeera via the link I posted on my warblog two days ago. I've not seen any of the tape; I hope not to.

: Now here's the bigger question: What is the impact of the Arab world having its CNN? We heard much about that after 9.11 and during the Afghanistan war but that was different; much of the visible Arab world was trying to distance itself from our enemies in those fights. In this one, Al-Jazeera is a powerful tool. Wrongly used, it's a propaganda tool. Properly used, it's media and a tool for informing people.
The whole world is watching Al-Jazeera to see how it acts and whether it is a tool for propaganda or for democracy.

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Images of the prisoners
: You can see images taken from the Iraqi tape of American prisoners of war here.

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Oscar, Schmoscar
: No doubt, this will be the weirdest Oscars ever, with stars not sure whether they should show up, whether they should save the flag (red, white, and blue or just white), whether they should look happy, or whether they should do their best to look smart and concerned (hey, they're actors, they can pull it off).
The Guardian says they'll all be in "gown-down" mode. So what is this, the mournful Oscars? What are we mourning for?
There have been disagreements over who's coming. There have been lots of reports that Tom Hanks is not; I've seen one that says he is coming.

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Shock and awe, redux
: This morning on the BBC World Service, I heard the Iraqi minister of information say that coalition forces were facing Iraq's own "shock and awe" in Umm Qatr. A reporter for the service later said that what we are facing there is small-arms fire.

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This morning
: I'm of the air for about two hours this morning; will be back blogging as soon as I get home and take the tie off. Please also see my warblog.

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