Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Today's Video Link

Here's an oddly-stylized Donald Duck selling the 1955 Hudson automobile. Since they stopped making Hudsons two years later, maybe Donald wasn't such a great idea as a spokesduck.

• Posted at 11:24 PM · LINK

Oscar Times Ten

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that beginning next year, the category of Best Picture at the Oscars will have ten nominees instead of the customary five. The official explanation is that the Board of Governors felt that last year, they had more than five qualified contenders and they thought it was a shame that good movies didn't get that special recognition of nomination.

Rough translation: Some number of powerful filmmakers and major studios pressured the Academy because they want the prestige and promotional value that comes with the nomination. A large reason for any award ceremony of this kind is to hype the product. The Academy probably also figures that it'll bolster interest in the Oscars if there are nominations for films like The Dark Knight and Iron Man. I don't mean movies based on comic books. I mean movies with a more populist appeal...the kind that traditionally get shut out of the nominations by films with loftier themes.

I don't know how this will go over. If we wind up with ten superior nominees this year, it might look like a good idea. If something with Adam Sandler in it snags a Best Picture nomination, it might not. Five is just an arbitrary number. They had five nominees in years when there were twelve great movies and five nominees in years with three great films. Now, ten will be the arbitrary number. It has changed in the past. It may change again. If it sticks around a while, we'll probably see more nominees in the other categories. And then the Oscar telecast can run another hour or two.

• Posted at 5:08 PM · LINK

Wednesday Afternoon

We seem to be having a marathon of elected officials confessing to affairs. I believe so far, they've all been men who were quite fervent in supporting the Defense of Marriage Act.

These revelations are hard on their families and supporters...but you know who's really suffering? Jay Leno. Imagine the poor guy sitting at home, playing with cars, wallowing in monologue jokes about this and no place on TV to tell them.

Attention, Conan O'Brien and NBC: How about having Jay come out and just do the first seven minutes of The Tonight Show for a while? People would love to see that...and Conan, you don't even enjoy that part, anyway. It's obvious. Letterman beat you Monday and Tuesday nights and he'll probably top you tonight, too. America wants to see late night comics take these guys apart and Jay knew how to do it.

• Posted at 1:00 PM · LINK