THE OSCARS

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Yes, it was too long. Categories like Doc Short Subject, Live Action Short Film and Animated Short Film can be given out the night before like they do with some other awards. The silhouette guys were okay once but c'mon. Anyway, below is my score. (Oh, yeah, there were a lot of women in the group I was watching with and fashions were a major topic. So, above are the ones I liked.)

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BEST PICTURE: WRONG (it was The Departed)

BEST ACTRESS: Helen Mirren, The Queen RIGHT

BEST ACTOR: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland RIGHT
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls RIGHT
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine RIGHT
BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, The Departed RIGHT
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: WRONG (it was some German film...I think)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Little Miss Sunshine RIGHT
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Departed RIGHT
ANIMATED FEATURE: WRONG (it was Happy Feet)

Not too shabby. I won the prize last night for most correct picks.

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Yea, Mr. Scorsese. About time. Will somebody trim his eyebrows for him?

MY OSCAR PIX

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Like I said I haven't seen most of the nominated films but I'm going to guess anyway. Why, you ask. Cause I'm in two Oscar pools and I like winning.

My picks:

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BEST PICTURE: Babel (big global drama with a message -- kind of movie the Academy likes. See Crash from last year)

BEST ACTRESS: Helen Mirren, The Queen (anyone else will be a major upset)

BEST ACTOR: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland (he's won every other acting award)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls (again this is pretty much a sure thing)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine (this will be for his whole body of work but Gumby from SNL could snatch it away)

BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, The Departed (if he doesn't win then that will be tomorrow's headline about the Awards)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Pan's Labyrith (this one should've been in the Best Pic category)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Little Miss Sunshine

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Departed

ANIMATED FEATURE: Cars (my guilty pleasure)

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Tomorrow we'll know how good I did.

OSCARS ARE COMING

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Okay, I’m an Oscar junkie. Although it’s like eating popcorn, totally enjoyable at the time but forgotten the next day. Trivia: In 1944, the list of nominated films for Best Picture went from ten to five.

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The following films from AFI’s Top 100 American Films of All-Time did not win Best Picture. In fact they were not even nominated.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Rear Window (1954)
North by Northwest (1959)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Psycho (1960)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

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The worst Best Picture Winners in my little opinion are:

Crash (2005) Still can’t get myself to watch this film
American Beauty (1999) Navel fluff
The English Patient (1996) Can’t fall asleep and don’t want to take a pill then watch this
Driving Miss Daisy (1989) B-O-R-I-N-G. Period.
Chariots of Fire (1981) I think I saw this. Forgettable if I did.
The Deer Hunter (1978) Over-rated b.s.

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How many films nominated for any award this Sunday have I seen? Not many. Although I will see The Prestige, Blood Diamond, Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, Notes on a Scandal, Dreamgirls, An Inconvenient Truth, and Letters from Iwo Jima at some point. Maybe Babel. Maybe. I did see:

Cars
The Departed
The Devil Wears Prada
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Poseidon
United 93

My favorite movie last year was Casino Royale. (And don’t tell anyone … I really liked Cars, too.)

WORDS FOR WRITERS

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Check out Cliche Finder (http://www.westegg.com/cliche/). Type in a word and see how many "cliches" pop up. Fun stuff.

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Thanks to my buddy, Mark, for this link. I need to start writing again so I'm starting with this simple blog.

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

from

The Lord of the Rings:

The Fellowship of the Ring

LILLIAN STIRES-NEWMAN
1934 – 2007
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My mother passed away in her sleep last Thursday. She was seventy-two.

Mabel Lillian Davis was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her parents were Ben C. Davis and Bertha Joan (Hall) Davis. She had two older sisters (Mildred Lee {Millie} and Martha Leone {Toni}), one brother (Herbert Ray), and one younger sister (Margaret Louise {Lou}).

She preferred being called Lillian. She hated the name Mabel and in later life stopped using it all together. Her family nickname was Dickie. I have no idea how she got the nickname. Once I heard that her sister Millie gave it to her but I never heard why.

Mom was married twice. First, to my father Norman Stires Jr. (Dad died at the age of 42 from a massive heart attack.) Then to Gary Robert Newman. (Gary passed away four years ago from congestive heart failure.) While family members have always told me that my Dad was the love of my mother’s life, I can say firsthand that Mom and Gary had a wonderful marriage and always took good care of each other.

An aside: Several months ago, Mom told me that she was worried about when she got to Heaven. She knew, without doubt, that my Dad would be the first person she saw. That would be absolutely wonderful but she was worried about it, too. I asked her why. She said she didn’t know how she was going to explain to Norm who Gary was.

My mother and father had two children -- my younger brother Hugh Timothy and me. (Tim was killed by a drunk driver in 1985.)

She had one grandson (Tim’s son) Brian Timothy.

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Rest in Peace, Mom.