2005 Oscar Awards Predictions
All the net is abuzz with Oscar talk, and someone has guessed using Google the winners. Personally, I think the Google index is both too slow to update, and far too old to effectively gauge current movie interest. Instead, I’d prefer to use something like Technorati to make my Oscar predictions.
There are a lot of ways to do this, of course–using a combination of averaged, weighted Netflix, Amazon, Google, Technorati, etc. data would be one way to go, but it’s almost as arbitrary as any one of the services, depending on how you weight them. The goal is to break each nominee into obvious clusters, for each award. So, I’ll just Technorati counts, even though perhaps I should weight them by authority.
- Best Picture goes to Ray
- Best Actor goes to Jamie Foxx for Ray
- Best Actress goes to Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby
- Best Animated Film goes to The Incredibles
- Best Foreign Film goes to The Chorus
But the Oscars are due in any minute–so lets see how I do!!
Update: Get the Oscar winners here. I was wrong on Best Picture, which went to Million Dollar Baby, and Best Foreign Film, which went to The Sea Inside. I did get the rest right, for a blogosphere prediction rate of 60%. Not bad, guys!
Armor Up Your Soldiers
Give Kevlar to soldiers in Iraq who need it
The Jackson Syndrome
Family’s mother moved from main trauma room to smaller room. Michael Jackson, suffering from Flu-like symptoms, occupies main room. Mother dies later after two more heart attacks. Family plans to sue. My question is, did the move to a smaller room cause the mother’s death, or contribute to it, or not at all?
Hitch: Irresponsible Comedy
Hitch is the not a movie to see if you’re planning on thinking about mathematical proofs, or life philosophy. But, if you’re bored, or tired from a ski trip, it’ll provide over two hours of great romantic comedy.
The premise of the movie is that there exists a cure for the common man: love doctor Will Smith. He’ll take a man in love, and give him the tools and polish he needs to meet and woo the woman of his dreams. With this premise, a few sad men and their objects of admiration, and a sexy protagonist reporter that Will himself ends up falling for. In the end, she exposes his “secret” to the best of her knowledge, which isn’t very good, and nearly ruins the story. The story can’t be ruined, so Will Smith goes and makes it all right, with unusual sincerity.
Critically. Is the plot somewhat thin? Yes, but it’s plausable, at least. Are there some lowbrow comedic moments, such as a food allergy scene? Yeah, every now and then. Is the love story not that romantic? Yep, but it seems more realistic for that. All in all, it’s really worth your time. Will Smith is the perfect comedian, and it’s just romantic enough to bring your lady to.
Skiiing today
I had forgotten the pleasures of downhill skiing, until I went today for several hours. Kelly and I plowed the slopes together, sticking to the easy green trails–although I wanted the hard blue/black–and had a great time. Interestingly, I could go farther and faster than her. I am still not sure if it’s the extra 30 pounds of weight (she tells me it’s not), or the slightly more expert skiis that they gave me (she tells me so). What I do know is that I’m gonna be sore tomorrow…