Best of Oscar

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences hasn’t had it easy in recent years: public interest in their prestige event, the Oscars, is waning; TV viewership is shrinking… While it’s certainly way too early to write an eulogy for the Academy Awards, there’s the growing feeling that the academy needs to fix a few things if it wants to retain the relevance of its premier awards show.  Because Oscars’ problems are home-made: year after year, the academy nominates movies in the Best Picture category that almost nobody has heard of. Of course most summer blockbusters won’t have enough artistic merit or substance to qualify for the honors. But when even commonly held blockbuster master pieces like The Dark Knight and Wall•E get snubbed in favor of obscure titles with little exposure it’s hard to get excited for the show, let alone stay engaged through a four-hour TV marathon. That’s certainly true for Victoria and I, who hadn’t seen a single one of this year’s Best Picture contenders. All are supposedly great films, but that doesn’t count for much when you’re watching the ceremony and don’t have anybody to root for.

So this year we made a resolution to watch all five nominees before the big awards show on February 22. Our behavior is certainly debatable, because it actually feeds into Oscar’s fundamental problem: huge marketing campaigns specifically designed to sway the public’s opinion, as well as that of the voting members. The Oscar as a marketing tool, rather than a legitimate and objective acknowledgment of last year’s best work. Do we really want to reward that? But usually the nominated movies are good, and we have never tried this before. It’s a fun experiment – let’s see if we manage to squeeze all five movies into the next two weeks! I’ll post our thoughts on each movie as we go along. Up tomorrow, for the first review: The Reader, starring Kate Winslett, Ralph Fiennes and David Kross. See you then!

R.I.P. Aeris

No drama this time, just old age.  This was one of the first birds I got, before I even met Victoria

Down to two budgies for the time being. It’s somewhat quieter in the house right now, but the two remaining birds are big talkers. And we’ve been talking about starting to “staff back up” after the Superbowl.

Blog Fu

My blog fu is weak these days, as Gunnar would say. There’s actually several topics that I want to write about, like Gears of War 2 (which I finished a couple of weeks ago), Resistance 2 and The Reader. I started working on BBelief2008 again and, with a couple of month’s perspective, realized what a monster that level is. I just haven’t found the time and energy to post. Part of the reason is that I changed my work routine. I’m not taking my laptop to the office anymore and strictly use my work computer for…well, work stuff. So there’s no time to scribble down things during a lunch break, for example. It makes for a more concentrated and efficient work experience without distractions, but often results in me not wanting to touch another computer when I get home in the evening. I usually opt for doing something with Victoria (or turning on the PS3 or 360) instead. It certainly demonstrates how little I really need the internet during the day. Checking CNN.com or your personal email once is informative. 20 times per day not so.

I figure I’ll get back to regular posting soon, just need to shake off the lethargy. In the meantime, I’d like to give a few shoutouts:

• To Victoria, who just gained another year of wisdom and beauty.
• To Grant and Virginia, who decided to get married.
• To Gaurav and Summer, who did get married last years and who are now expecting a baby.
• To Kerstin and Olli, who had a baby
• To my brother Guido and his fiancee Sarah, who (almost) set their wedding date for this summer.

Gonna be a busy year! I guess I should get ready… And post about it when things come to pass.

Silent Reviews

American Idol San Francisco – Kind of…
American IdolLouisville – Yes
Deja Vu (screenplay) – Yes
Obama Inauguration – Yes

Silent Reviews

American Idol Phoenix – Yes
American Idol Kansas City – Yes
Ravens/Steelers game – No (judged by entertainment value)
Cardinals/Eagles game – Kind of… (Eagles comeback started making things interesting)

Feed Hiccup

The WordPress 2.7 upgrade introduced some RSS hiccups, causing http://www.worch.com/feed to not reliably forward to my Feedburner page anymore. Hopefully, those problems should now be resolved. If you’re already subscribed to the page, please take a second to check if that subscription actually does point to http://feeds.feedburner.com/worch. If not, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!