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Migration

A word on logistics: this weekend the address of this blog will be changing. Blogger is no longer allowing you to use FTP publishing, which has been my method of choice these past few years. I actually like the Blogger interface (I know everyone loves WordPress, but, eh...) but regardless of which platform I use, there's no getting around the fact that in the switch I have to move from the directory /blog/ to using subdomain nomenclature.

So if you wouldn't mind kindly updating your links to this humble blog, I would be much obliged. A pointer will remain here, but nobody likes a redirect. The new address will be:

http://blog.pmgentry.net/

Although again, I won't be switching over until this weekend. Just giving my devoted readers advance warning.

Virtual Oscar Pool

Oscar time! I meant to post this earlier and encourage a blogger Oscar prediction pool with a fabulous prize. But, a little late for that. Maybe next year.

These are predictions for what films will win awards, not what I think should. I haven't even seen half these movies.This year is particularly hard to predict, given the expansion of the Best Picture category and the use of the preferential voting system--history will be less of a guide. Remember, ballots were due last Tuesday and many were mailed in much earlier, so events of the past few days (such as the lawsuit against Hurt Locker) won't have an effect.

Best Picture
I'm sticking with Hurt Locker. James Cameron is widely disliked in the Academy, Hurt Locker is topical, would be the first for a woman director, and was riding the zeitgeist during the voting period. The one unpredictable element is the smear campaign, which had a random assortment of veterans complaining of inaccuracies in the film, and the leaking of an email in which a Hurt Locker producer had urged his friends to not vote for Avatar (it's technically illegal to disparage other films, even just in a private email.) While these accusations could be damaging, my feeling is that they were so patently the result of maneuvering on the part of rivals that I suspect voters won't be swayed. Also, not that it matters, but it was a pretty good movie too.

Best Director
This is solidly for Kathryn Bigelow.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges is by all accounts a lock. I finally saw Crazy Hearts last night, and it is indeed exactly the sort of performance the Academy loves.

Best Supporting Actor
Very tricky one; I would say pretty much a toss-up. Look for this category to go as a consolation prize to films like Invictus, Lovely Bones and Inglorious Basterds that aren't going to win much else. If pressed, I suppose I'll guess Christoph Waltz.

Best Actress
Also wide-open. Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren are the types that win Oscars just for sneezing, but I have a hunch that won't happen this year. My money is on Carey Mulligan. If Sandra wins, I will shoot myself.

Best Supporting Actress
The Up in the Air vote will presumably split. Nine was panned, and between Maggie Gyllenhall and Mo'Nique, I think I would bet on the former.

Best Animated Feature Film
One of the best rosters for this category ever. Up was a good movie, but not one of the best, and I think there is definite Pixar fatigue out there. It might win if Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox split the vote. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Coraline's loyal base might see it though. Again, though, what a great year for animation.

Best Screenplay
Perhaps The Hurt Locker, but I think this might be Inglorious Basterds main prize for the night.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Similarly, I think this will be allotted as the consolation prize to Up in the Air, although Oscar votes do like a literary name, and Nick Hornby wrote An Education. Still, I bet on Reitman and Turner.

Best Song
When will Disney learn that offering up more than one song means you split the vote? Apparently not this year. I presume this is a lock for the theme from Crazy Heart.

The rest I leave up to you--tune in next week to discuss the results!

Grim Times at the Public University

It's been a rough few weeks (well, decades) for public education. First, the University of California spirals further into flames, spilling over from the constant battles over funding into paroxysms of student-on-student violence. Them another flurry of articles about the ongoing determination of some administrators to trade SUNY Binghamton's well-known academic success for a paltry, feeble attempt at pushing one (not all, just one) of their athletic teams to success. Now, this news from down here in Virginia. From the Post:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has urged the state's public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing in a letter sent to each school that their boards of visitors had no legal authority to adopt such statements.

In his most aggressive initiative on conservative social issues since taking office in January, Cuccinelli (R) wrote in the letter sent Thursday that only the General Assembly can extend legal protections to gay state employees, students and others -- a move the legislature has repeatedly declined to take as recently as this week.

I strongly believe in public education, and find abhorrent the trend towards the privatization of public institutions, a particularly popular approach in this state. But at moments like this, it's hard not to wish for more independence from the state legislature. Back in California, privatization meant limiting marginalized students from access to higher education. Ironically, here in Virginia, the opposite might be true.