Academy Awards Predictions

After looking at the nomination list, this is what I foresee the Academy Awards turning out to be.

Actor In A Leading Role
George Clooney - Michael Clayton

Actor In A Supporting Role
Javier Bardem - No Country For Old Men

Actress In A Leading Role
Ellen Page - Juno

Actress In A Supporting Role
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

Animated Feature Film
Ratatouille

Art Direction
The Golden Compass

Cinematography
No Country For Old Men

Costume Design
Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Directing
No Country For Old Men

Documentary Feature
No End In Sight

Documentary Short
Freeheld

Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum

Foreign Language Film
Katyn

Makeup
Norbit

Music (Score)
The Kite Runner

Music (Song)
Enchanted

Best Picture
Michael Clayton

Short Film (Animated)
Peter & The Wolf

Short Film (Life Action)
Le Mozart Des Pickpockets

Sound Editing
Transformers

Sound Mixing
Transformers

Visual Effects
Transformers

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
No Country For Old Men

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Juno


Feel free to discuss the selections and perhaps your own choices in the comments.

Super Tuesday 2008

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday -- the big one. It's fairly safe to say after Tuesday, we'll have a good idea who the Democratic and Republican nominees will be...but probably not. Regardless, if you are of voting age and in a state where primaries are held tomorrow, please vote. If you're at a decent polling place, it will take a few minutes. Yes, one vote matters.

Saying one vote doesn't matter is like saying your voice doesn't matter. If that's how you feel, than don't complain. If they raise taxes, go to another war, do something you don't like, then shut up. You get the right to critique if you actually took part. The only other problem is what if you don't agree with the main candidates? Find a side party. You may think you're "throwing your vote away", but Ron Paul as a "Republican" got more electoral votes than the other lesser known Republican candidates. Even if he loses, politicians and the general public sees he at least has a following, which is all it takes.

WGA Strike to Last Much Longer

According to a statement found on the WGA website today:

This is Larry Gelbart. In all my decades as a member of the WGA I’ve learned a few lessons about strikes and negotiations, the most important being that it’s never over ’til it’s over, no matter how much the lady singer might weigh. As fellow and sister members of the Guild, you know how important the issues are for all of our futures, and for those to whom we will one day hand our pens. Over the coming days you will be getting calls asking you to join in to continue with the picketing. I ask you to set aside all the rumors, all the second-guessing, I ask you to set these aside and pick up a picket sign instead. I cannot stress how vital it is for all of us to show our commitment to our leadership during this current round of negotiations. Thank you.

This leads me to believe that talks aren't going as well as planned and/or the the producers think the writer's will eventually cave. Especially since the producers won't feel any big loss in shorter strikes.

I think the beginning is starting to set in, with the Oscars possibly being next to nonexistent and the toll is being taken on the spring lineup of television. With many Fall TV shows being prepared with spring and summer shooting, a strike into May will definitely hurt next year's lineup.

Movie's usually have long development times and an effect on the movie industry will be quite noticeable after a six-month plus long strike.

Super Bowl Showdown

Giants over Patriots, even though according to their records and the I Am Legend screenshot below, Patriots should win.

Pierre Henry's "Psychic Rock" -- Like Futurama Intro

I found this on Digg a long time ago. This video bears a remarkable resemblance to the Futurama Intro. Enjoy.

CeltX and a Couple of Good Quotes

I remember complaining about in an earlier post that I thought CeltX couldn't put subtext in the middle of character speech. I'm not sure if this was true of the version I had, but the newest version allows you to select text, left-click and give format options, such as parenthetical. You can then copy and paste the parenthetical correctly where you want to in the script. If there's a more intuitive way of doing it, let me know.


Pulled these from the Screenwriting WikiQuote page:

[Screenwriting] is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It's about as simple as that.
-James L. Brooks

So the writer is the only person who's taking absolutely nothing, and 120 pages of it, and dirtying it up in such a way that it's gonna gross hundreds of millions of dollars and make a lot of people happy.
- Paul Guay

Blogging Tools

Here's a list of the tool's I've been using so far for blogging. If you have any additional ideas or tools that you've used/seen used in blogs, let me know.

1. www.blogger.com
Obviously, I'm using this to host my blog.

2. analytics.google.com
Using this to track individual traffic data per day and seeing where people go on my site.

3. www.feedburner.com
To track RSS feed popularity.

4. www.technorati.com
To track overall relative blog popularity.