Good morning sports fans!For a troll, normalization is the worst thing possible. Like pouring water on the wicked witch in Oz.#
Little-known fact. The initials for Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, are the same as the initials for The Big Lebowski, a classic Coen Bros movie. Can't say you never learned anything on Scripting News. #
- Here's a plot for a fantasy movie.#
- It's not necessary to actually watch Knicks games because they all seem to end the same. Last night they played the Sacramento Kings, another lottery team, and you might think here's a game the Knicks might actually be able to win. Nahh. At least they're consistent! #
- A friend who happens to be a Yankees fan is also a Knicks fan, and we talk about the team regularly. He wonders why he's a Knicks fan if they always lose. I said I know the answer. The Knicks are his atonement for being a Yankees fan. Now what does this say about me, a lifetime Mets fan? Well, one thing -- winning isn't the most important thing. And that said, unlike the Knicks, the Mets do win once in long while. Even that amount of winning requires atonement, I guess. #
- Speaking of winners, by the middle of the Oscars show last night I concluded that Get Out would win everything. Unfortunately not so. I think in a few years we will have forgotten The Shape of Water, and Get Out will have been the beginning of something new. The combination of politics, comedy, romance, tragedy and horror is hard to beat. #
- I was delighted that Allison Janney won best supporting actress. I, Tonya was a wonderful movie. It could have gotten a Best Picture nomination. And Janney was brilliant as Harding's bitter, cigarette-smoking hardass waitress mother. #
- Jennifer Lawrence and Jody Foster made the best on-stage couple comedy act. I was staring at Foster on her crutches before my attention turned to Lawrence, who is by far my favorite actress of her generation, for her irreverence, intelligence, and last night sheer gobsmacking beauty. She's beautiful the way Hedy Lamarr was. And what an actress. She's still only 26 and one can only imagine what delights await us. I'm more than a fan, I am in awe. #
- Sometimes the Academy passes on a movie that goes on to have great significance. For me, the most interesting example is The Big Lebowski. It didn't win a single Oscar. I wonder what the judges must have thought of it. A silly insignificant comedy? It's weird because TBL came after Fargo, which was much-celebrated by the Oscars. The year Lebowski would have been up for an award, Shakespeare in Love won best picture, and imho the other winners were also Big Mehs. Imho there's no doubt The Big Lebowski was the Best Picture in 1999. But you don't necessarily know it in the moment. History has a role to play too. #
- I finally saw Phantom Thread over the weekend. #
- I really liked it. But I was pretty sure I would. I'll tell you why. #
- When I first saw There Will Be Blood, the previous collaboration between Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis, the first time I watched it, I didn't like it. Too dark, too slow, not enough story, odd sad ending. Meh. But then for some reason I watched it again, and had the opposite reaction. A masterpiece. The pace was just right, and there totally was a story. It was just so slow, your mind has to get in the right gear to appreciate it. It's not an easy movie to like. But who said movies have to be easy?#
- Same with Phantom Thread. The. Pace. Is. So. Deliberate. The characters say so little. We're watching the most mundane acts. But it builds and a story emerges, and the music and the acting are superb, the story is fascinating. It's the kind of movie to watch again, alone, like you read a book, to savor every moment. #
- I wouldn't have given it Best Picture, not in the same year as Get Out, but Phantom Thread, like There Will Be Blood, will age well. #