By Staff
The New Jersey native promised to behave. Oscar “is 78, I'm 43. I will defer. I'm not an anarchist. I'm a comedian.”
I hope he was funny. I'll have to tune in to “The Colbert Report” for the truth(iness).
Best picture: It usually goes to the most-nominated film (eight to six each for “Crash” and “Good Night, and Good Luck”), the winner of the Directors Guild award and movies set in the past.
As predicted here Feb. 13, the gay cowboy movie, “Brokeback Mountain,” seemed a lock over the complex racial movie, though I rooted for “Crash,” which pulled the upset.
Not since 1980's “Ordinary People” has the winner not been nominated for editing.
Best director: I picked Ang Lee, “Brokeback Mountain.”
Best original screenplay: I picked “Crash.”
Best actor: I picked Philip Seymour Hoffman for “Capote,” the gay writer.
Best actress: I picked “Desperate Housewife” Felicity Huffman as a man turned mom in “Transamerica” over Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash in “Walking the Line.”
The last six Oscars went to babes downgrading their looks, and two seasons on “Sports Night” as Dana Whitaker seems so long ago.
I love Reese to pieces, but she played second fiddle to Joaquin Phoenix, who didn't win. Go figure. My only miss.
Best supporting actor: Tough category. Paul Giamatti (“Cinderella Man”) should have been nominated last year for “Sideways.” Matt Dillon could have been the surrogate for the “Crash” ensemble cast.
But they've got to give George Clooney something for his hat trick of acting in “Syriana” and directing and co-writing “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Why not here? He's come a long way from the mulleted handyman on “The Facts of Life,” “Sisters” and Dr. Doug Ross on “ER.”
Best supporting actress: Historically, the surprise category (think Marisa Tomei). But Michelle Williams, the semi-bad girl Jen, who deflowered James Van Der Beek on “Dawson's Creek” before perishing in the finale? I went with Rachel Weisz, “The Constant Gardener.”
A study by Chicago's new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
About one in five people thought the right to own a pet was protected.
Bait and switchgrass: President Bush grandly called in his State of the Union address for renewable energy research.
Did you see that the budget he sent Congress, however, lopped $28 million in funding for such projects. Talk is cheap.
My favorite energy idea out there? That's easy. San Francisco, which wants to recycle all of its waste by 2020.
Norcal, its garbage hauler, announced plans to develop a system for turning pet waste into methane that could heat homes or power turbines for electricity. Then there would be a use for cats.
Their idea is to create a huge bio-digester for the waste left by 240,000 dogs and cats. Norcal plans to place receptacles in parks in a pilot program scheduled to start within a year.
As for the stench, the bio-digesting process is said to act as a deodorizer.
Quips, quotes and qulunkers: “(President Bush) finds himself in an exceedingly odd position for a post-Reagan Republican. He is acting like a Democrat, standing for abstract principles and high-minded long-term projects in the face of a public demanding easy answers and immediate results … Bush is beginning to sound as … out of touch as Woodrow Wilson must have in 1919 (selling the League of Nations) … His support for the Dubai ports deal is reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's support for relinquishing control of the Panama Canal - difficult to explain politically but in the nation's best long-term interests … Wouldn't the new Arab owners be even more conscious of security? … When Democrats succeed at being high-minded - as Bill Clinton did when he bet the future of his administration on the abstract principle of fiscal responsibility - they do so only because they pay close attention to the realities of governance.”
in Time magazine
David Edmondson, former RadioShack chief executive, resigned after admitting he had no college degree, let alone the two listed on his resume.
Obits: William Cowsill, 58, lead singer of the family pop band the Cowsills that inspired “The Partridge Family,” died in Alberta, Canada, after suffering from numerous ailments, including emphysema. News of his death came the same day the family famous for “Indian Lake” held a memorial service for bassist brother Barry, who drowned in flooding after Hurricane Katrina.
Curt Gowdy, 86, who earned 13 Emmys, died in Palm Beach, Fla. The Wyoming native's sportscasting spanned Super Bowls to “The American Sportsman,” but I remember his NBC baseball games of the week on Saturdays.
Dennis Weaver, Deputy Chester Goode in the TV Western “Gunsmoke,” the New Mexico deputy solving New York crime as (Sam) “McCloud” (1970-77) and the dad in “Gentle Ben,” died March 3 in Ridgway, Colo., of cancer complications. He was 81, same age as Don Knotts.
Otis Chandler, former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, died Feb. 27 at 78. The newspaper won seven Pulitzer Prizes during his 20-year tenure, which ended in 1980.