What Do You Mean I Don't Know Anything?

As this seems to be the day for all media commentators to be predicting who’s going to win the Oscars, here’s my judgements, as someone who has seen one of the films nominated for the big prizes (Juno). But I read enough reviews and interviews and other people’s opinions that I reckon I’m more than qualified to judge.

Best Picture

Will Win: No Country For Old Men
Why: Quick, the Coen brothers have started making good/serious films again, let’s encourage them by giving them the big Oscar. Besides, it’s making important points about masculinity and violence, but it’s still cool and full of fights.

Should Win: The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
Why: It’s real life! It’s sad! It’s based on a true story! It’s amazing he did it! It’s real life! It was hard for the actor! It’s based on a true story! Etc etc.

Best Director

Will Win: Coen Brothers
Why: See above

Should Win: Sarah Polley
Why: A woman has fooled the money men in to letting her direct a film. It’s not going to happen again for ten years, so we should give it to a woman while there’s one in contention.

Best Actor

Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Why: No-one’s seen There Will Be Blood, but we’ve seen the posters with Day-Lewis looking scary and anyway, he’s a method actor, he really suffers for it you know. And he shouts. Loads. Which anyone knows is a sign of a great performance.

Should Win: Dunno…has anyone else even been nominated? Johnny Depp
Why: He’s pretty innit.

Best Actress

Will Win: Julie Christie
Why: Oh my god! Look! There’s an old woman in a film! Am I dreaming? She’s still there! You mean it isn’t just a two-minute role? She’s still kinda attractive…for an old woman. Let’s give her a prize.

Should Win: Ellen Page
Why: She was in the only film I’ve seen of the nominations. And she was good. It would be nice for one of the performance prizes to go to a less serious piece.

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Javier Bardem
Why: We haven’t really heard of him properly before, he has funny hair (see Nicole Kidman and the funny nose) and giving it to Philip Seymour Hoffman is a bit like prize day at school, and the prize going to the same swot Every. Single. Year. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Should Win: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Why: He’s bloody brilliant in everything he does.

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Tilda Swinton
Why: She’s a bit scary looking, and has an aura of ‘artiness’, despite paying the bills by appearing in children’s films.

Should Win: Absolutely no-one
Why: As a protest about the ridiculously few good roles for women this year. Just because we’re going back to a 70’s aesthetic in film-making, doesn’t mean we have to return to the misogyny.

Publisher steps blinking into the light

As someone who spends a considerable amount of the day on the Project Gutenberg site, I’m quite excited that HarperCollins (US) is launching a test “Full Access” Program whereby whole books by leading authors can be viewed free for a month online (but not downloadable).

The idea is that just as readers in a bookshop will reader some of a book before buying it, online shoppers will be able to read as much of the book as they want, before following a link to buy it (the online copy will have the print option disabled).

There are some big literary names included (Paul Coelho pictured, and Neil Gaiman) and follows on from a HarperCollins initiative called The “Sneak Peek” program, which, you’ve guessed it, allows a ‘sneak peek’ at excerpts from some books two weeks before publication.
Of course, the company freely admit that they don’t expect many people to read the full book online, and will be monitoring how this program affects the sales of these books, but it is nice to see a publisher who is actively engaging with the internet, instead of seeing it as a behemoth come to bring the destruction of the publishing industry.

It contrasts with a new Random House project being tested, which will see small sections of books offered for a fee. As far as I can see, this approach is doomed to failure. The struggle and failure of newspaper websites that charged for content shows that there is an unwillingness to pay for online content, when we would be happy to pay for the same content in print.

Ultimately, the book publishing industry is going to have to evolve (just as it always has), to deal with changes in society. Despite the image of the stuffy traditional industry, publishers are now huge multinational companies, well able to make a contribution to changing media. Let us hope that there are more initiatives like this, as otherwise the doom and gloom will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When I Were A Lad...

Gawd bless Wikipedia. Without it, when reading an article such as this, I would get to a reference such as ‘Savonarola’, realised I had no idea what it meant, assume the piece was too high-brow for me, and move on. Now, I can find out within two minutes that Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican priest, known for religious reform.In moving on from that article I would have missed out on an interesting opinion piece. In it Simon Jenkins (former Editor of The Times), argues that the current pining for the ‘Golden Age’ of journalism is harking back to a period that never was, and that the corporate ownership of newspapers that we currently have is not the awful thing some have claimed it to be.

He contends that in fact, investigative journalism is in far healthier spirits than before and is “probably better and certainly bolder” than we have ever experienced, providing examples such as The Sunday Times exposés of cash for honours, and The Guardian’s research into Saudi arms deals, as well as less one-sided coverage of war. Moreover, when you look at the newspaper industry compared to internationally, it has a great more diversity that elsewhere.

What, however, the piece skates over is the dichotomy of standards we now have, where the broadsheets are doing all he claims they are, but the tabloids are descending further and further into celebrity tattle and muck. He does accept that newspapers are “often sloppy, inaccurate and short on dignity”, but makes no comment on the intrusiveness of the gutter press, and they way in which they have now become a major part of, and often the creator of, the stories they are covering. Tabloids in the past have had a crusading role in supporting the working classes who made up their readership, yet now look down, belittle and condemn these same people. Perhaps because they aren’t buying papers anymore.

I would agree that newspapers provide a great regulatory role on our government and other organisations, but just as he argues the lack of a golden age in the 1950s and 60s, so I would disagree massively with a Golden Age attributed to a period in which a footballer cheating on his wife is front page news for a week.

Music Wot I Like

Emmy the Great is a singer-songwriter in the vain of what some like to call 'anti folk'. Which for us normal people means a bit like Regina Spektor and The Moldy Peaches. Could there be a more perfect combination?

An angelic voice, an interesting style of phrasing and the odd crudity (not to mention a dash of tweeness) make for some amazing songs, and there's an honest emotional punch to many of her best songs that hangs around with you all day. In particular Easter Parade, Gabriel and M.I.A really work for me.

I predict that after having been on the breakthrough predictions list for the last couple of years, this is the year it will finally happen. She provides backing vocals for the fantastic Lightspeed Champion album, and is about to tour with Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly.

Essentially, she's amazing and I love her.

Henry Conway

I wonder where he gets his hair done?