Star Sighting &tc...

I just saw wecently wed Wesley & Willow walking arm-in-arm down Wittle Santa Monica Blvd. It was pretty cute...

Have I mentioned this before?:

I think one (though certainly not the only) visceral appeals of the E-Street Band is its archetypal relationship to Robin Hood & his Merry Men.

Bruce Springsteen = Robin Hood (complete with a "rob-from-the-rich-and-give-to-the-poor" mentality)
Miami Steve Van Zandt = Will Scarlett
Max Weinberg = Friar Tuck
Patti Scialfa = Maid Marion

and of course

The Big Man, Clarence Clemons = Little John

I'm not sure which of the following is Alan a Dale...

Garry Tallent, Roy Bittan, Danny Federici or Nils Lofgren.

(The truth is Bruce/Robin is his own Alan, I guess.)

When it comes down to it, I don't know the names of enough Merry Men to make every parallel work. But I'm sure you can see the connections.

Discuss.

Spalding & Paul

We lost two greats yesterday.

Actually, we lost Spalding Gray over a month ago, we just hadn't confirmed the loss until yesterday.

I was (and continue to be) a huge Spalding Gray fan. His acting was decent, fun. But his monologues were always brilliant. I remember once laughing so hard at "Gray's Anatomy" during the Indian Sweatlodge riff that I thought I was going to die of asphyxiation. Everyone should rent his seminal "Swimming to Cambodia". Everyone. Then move on to "Monster in a Box" or some of his other great filmed monologues. They're amazing. But nothing like seeing him live. He will be missed.

As will Paul Winfield, a truly amazing actor. I met him twice when he came in to perform the roll of blind novelist "Jeffrey MacClain Robbins" on GARGOYLES. It was a joy to watch Paul and Ed Asner play off each other. Winfield brought tremendous dignity and humanity to Robbins. And he helped us tell our tale of literacy without making it too preachy. I still remember fondly the following exchange when Hudson is amazed at how Robbins can find Macbeth's address in the phone book.

Hudson: Magic book.
Robbins: Aren't they all?

Simple, but mighty.

Spalding, man... Paul... You left us too soon.

More rambles on Angel...

Well, I'm glad I chose to trust them Angel writers. I thought last night's episode of Angel, with the new Illyria/Fred was another extremely powerful and well done hour of television.

It was a nice variation on a theme in that Illyria ISN'T going to be the big villain for the season. She's now just another lost soul. An ancient demon who has to start over.

I do have a couple quibbles:

I wasn't fond of the artificial way they wrote Lorne out of the episode until the montage at the end. It just seemed like they felt they were too crowded to give his character any screen time.

It bothered me that no one could acknowledge that what was happening to Gun was an exact parallel to what happened to Wes when he stole Connor, because no one remembers Connor. That whole nobody-remembers-Connor thing still strikes me as only a step above the Bobby-Ewing-reappearing-in-the-shower/it-was-all-a-dream ploy on Dallas. But the Connor thing is more a fault of LAST season (which had its share of problems) as opposed to this season.

So I'm very optimistic that Angel will continue to be brilliant throughout its final year.

Death of Fred - SPOILERS

Last night, I finally got around to watching last week's Death of Fred episode on Angel.

Very powerful, very powerful stuff.

And yet....

You see, I'm conflicted, because Angel's writers have certainly earned my trust this year with powerful episodes, including:

--The Death of Cordelia (one of the best hours of tv and endings that I've ever seen)
--The lunatic Slayer (another great, great ending)
--Angel's turned into a puppet

But I'm a little tired of the "One of our regulars goes bad" storylines. Hell, Smallville, which I don't watch because it sucks, seems (judging by their commercials) to do this every week.

And Buffy/Angel has had it's fair share of the same thing. Just last season they did evil Cordelia and the return of Angelus. (Plus there's Angelus' original appearance in Buffy Season 2, Dark Willow and various episodic evil versions of everyone from Xander to Anya.)

So I'm just not looking forward to seeing another evil version of one of their characters. Been there. Done that. If this is Angel's last season -- as it reportedly is, then I'd have liked to push a different way. Lyndsay and the Senior Partners, for example.

But on the other hand, how can I not trust Joss and the Angel writing staff. This season has been jam-packed with amazing episodes, and last night was no exception.

So I'll just cross my fingers, and in any case, try not to weep as the last of Joss' amazing series goes off the air.

OSCAR HINDSIGHT

Back in January, I listed my choices for the Oscars -- hampered by how few movies I had seen. I made a point of saying that these were preferences, not predictions.

But just for fun, let's you and I revisit my choices and see how I did.

Again, keep in mind that I wouldn't allow myself to pick anything from a film I hadn't seen. And since I hadn't seen MOST of the nominated films, that left me with few choices in many categories.

PICTURE:
GW: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
WINNER: LOTR: ROTK
Comment: No-brainer. I'm 1 for 1.

ACTOR:
GW: Johnny Depp
WINNER: Sean Penn
Comment: Didn't see Mystic River. Have no doubt that Penn was probably great. But I still feel that the academy does not appreciate comedy and a win for either Depp or Murray would have been nice to see. I'm 1 for 2.

ACTRESS:
GW: Keisha Castle-Hughes
WINNER: Charlize Theron
Comment: Everyone tells me she was amazing, but I never saw Monster. In fact, Keisha was the only nominated performance I saw. This is no big surprise. I'm 1 for 3.

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
GW: Alec Baldwin
Winner: Tim Robbins.
Comment: I liked Robbins speech. Again, I didn't see his performance. I'm sure he was great. But I know Baldwin was great. I'm sinking here at 1 for 4.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
GW: No pick.
WINNER: Renée Zellweger
Comment: Didn't see ANY of the nominated performances. I'm 1 for 5.

DIRECTOR:
GW: Peter Jackson
WINNER: Peter Jackson.
Comment: I pretty much stuck with the ROTK horse and scored well, obviously. I'm 2 for 6.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
GW: Walsh, Boyens, Jackson
Winner: Ditto
Comment: I'm 3 for 7.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
GW: Coppola
Winner: Coppola
Comment: I'm 4 for 8. Batting 500 now after the acting awards decimated me.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
GW: no pick
Winner: The Barbarian Invasions
Comment: I'm 4 for 9.

ANIMATED FEATURE:
GW: Finding Nemo
Winner: Finding Nemo
Comment: I'm 5 for 10.

ART DIRECTION:
GW: ROTK
Winner: ROTK
Comment: I'm 6 for 11.

SOUND MIXING:
GW: ROTK
Winner: ROTK
Comment: I'm 7 for 12.

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
GW: Master & Commander
Winner: M&C
Comment: Hey I even won in a tech category where ROTK wasn't nominated. I'm 8 for 13.

SOUND EDITING:
GW: Pirates
Winner: M&C
Comment: Oh, well. I'm 8 for 14.

ORIGINAL SCORE:
GW: Shore
Winner: Shore
Comment: Duh. I'm 9 for 15.

ORIGINAL SONG:
GW: Into the West
Winner: Into the West
Comment: Okay, now I've heard all five songs. Sting's song seemed really great. But at the time I'd ONLY heard Into the West. I liked it, so I picked it and it won. I'm 10 for 16.

Documentary Feature:
GW: no pick
Winner: The Fog of War
Comment: I'm 10 for 17.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT:
GW: No pick.
Winner: Cherno0byl Heart.
Comment: I'm 10 for 18.

FILM EDITING:
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
Comment: I'm 11 for 19.

MAKEUP
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
COmment: I'm 12 for 20.

COSTUME:
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
COMMENT: I'm 13 for 21.

ANIMATED SHORT:
GW: no pick
winner: Harvie Krumpet
Comment: I wonder now if I did see that Ice Age short somewhere. Like on the DVD maybe? Doesn't matter. I know a lot of people were routing for Roy to win. Wonder what he would have said? High road or low road? Anyway, I'm 13 for 22.

LIVE ACTION SHORT:
GW: Two Soldiers
Winner: Two Soldiers
Comment: I think this was the single award that I had the most invested in. Turns out it was favored. I had no idea. It was the only short I had seen, but I went out of my way to see it because "Two Soldiers" by William Faulkner is my all-time favorite short story ever. The movie isn't quite as good as the story, but it definitely does it justice. I was so happy when it won. And I'm 14 for 23.

VISUAL EFFECTS:
GW: ROTK
WINNER: ROTK
Comment: Final tally: 15 for 24.

Eleven of those fifteen were the ROTK sweep. The other four were for Two Soldiers, Nemo, Translation's script and M&C's Cinematography.

Of the nine I missed, five were in categories I made no pick whatsoever, per my self-imposed rules. One of those five plus three other misses were in acting categories, where I hadn't seen the winning performances, so couldn't vote for them. That means that the only category where I feel I really "guessed" wrong was in Sound Editing where I went with Pirates over M&C.

Not too shabby.

Wanna hear about my day?

Keep in mind I usually go to bed at about 2am. Last night/this morning was no exception. I had to set the alarm for 4:30am in order to get to the airport and get through security (which is ever-mutating and unpredictable) in time to catch my flight outa this burg.

Did I mention that today is Friday the 13th?

I'm not usually superstitious about Friday the 13ths, because my wife was born on a Friday the 13th, so I kinda consider it a lucky day for me.

But my flight was cancelled. Not delayed. Cancelled. Some equipment malfunction and no back-up plane to take it's place. The current plan is to try again tomorrow. Wish me luck.

So anyway, came home and we decided to go to the movies: "MIRACLE".

Many of you are too young, but many of you are old enough to remember the 1980 Winter Olympics and the "Miracle on Ice" U.S. victory over the unbeatable Soviet Union team. I was 16 and saw the game on ABC. My father had also only recently bought our first VCR, and we actually have the game on tape.

This movie brought back SO many memories. It is incredibly well-made, and Kurt Russell is amazing in it. The truly phenomenal thing about the film is that I knew exactly how it was going to end, but I was nevertheless on the edge of my seat the entire time. Not as seat-edgy as I was 24 years ago, of course, when I DIDN'T know the outcome, but still...

I recommend this film to anyone, whether or not they are interested in hockey.

Meanwhile, I have a headache and am, for obvious reasons, quite tired. So if I start to ramble, well...

Last week I had three celebrity sightings over a three day period.

Saw what's-his-name (I'm blanking out) the Quantum Leap guy who plays Jonathan Archer on Star Trek Enterprise at the Yellow Balloon, which is a kid's haircutting place. I was there with my two kids. He was there with his two sons. (Or at least I assume they were his sons.)

Later that afternoon, I saw Nancy Travis from "Becker". I was at a bowling alley with my two kids. She was at the alley with her son. (At least I assume it was her son. Maybe she traded kids with Archer for the day.)

Two days later, I saw Melissa "Laura Ingalls" Gilbert at Jamba Juice. She's currently the president of the Screen Actors Guild. She's about my age. She ordered a smoothie. The Jamba guy asked her what size, and I wanted to say "Give her a half-pint." But I figured she didn't need that joke from me. And it wasn't that funny anyway. My kids weren't there. Neither were hers or Archer's.

Disney. I probably shouldn't comment on this AT ALL.

I'm afraid I'm not one of the big Eisner-bashers. I worked for him during the Eisner/Katzenberg team-up years. And I'm not saying it was a piece of cake, but I had to pitch to the man once every six months, and I have no complaints about that era. He bought Gargoyles afterall. Course, I had to pitch it to him three times, but he still let us make the show. And for me personally, things got worse when Eisner STOPPED making the final decisions about which shows Disney TV Animation should make. Back then, when he gave the green light, other divisions either got on board or got out of the way. Now, all decisions are made by committee. I don't envy TVA's current execs and creative types. It's much harder to get a green light. And much harder to get a show made. The buck of course ultimately stops with Eisner -- even for this new way of operating, but people bitch about his micro-managing. And he never did that to us. But his complete removal from our process created a system which I think is arguably much worse.

In a war between Eisner and Roy Disney, it's hard not to want to side with the guy who literally carries the Disney name. But I have to admit that my Disney concerns are more parochial. The division I'm still (after all these years) most interested in is the TV Animation Division that (I like to think) I helped build with guys like Gary Krisel, Bruce Cranston, Jymn Magon, Tad Stones, Karl Geurs, Alan Zaslove, Tom Ruzicka, Michael Webster, etc. And frankly, I just don't know what Roy thinks of our old stuff. I know that back in the day, he WOULDN'T let us use characters like Mickey, Donald, Goofy, etc. He didn't think we could do them justice, I guess. He didn't stand in the way of a show like Gargoyles, but I never once heard an attaboy from him. And I did from Eisner.

Does that mean anything ten years later. Probably not. But it makes the whole sitch kinda gray and murky for me loyalty -wise.

But in a war between Eisner and Comcast? Well, I have no idea what would truly be best for the company, but it would be hard for me to see Disney lose it's independence and become merely a subsidiary of a larger conglomerate... and frankly aren't these conglomerates LARGE A DAMN NUFF ALREADY?

I don't have the answers to any of this.

Disney vs. Pixar. Or more accurately Eisner vs. Jobs. Again, hard not to want to side with Jobs, but I've been reading the Business sections on this, and Jobs seems to have made the deal impossible to make financially. Now the reason he may have done this may be because Eisner pissed him off beyond the ken, I have no idea, but there was no way anyone acting in Disney's fiduciary interest would give up 50% share of two Pixar movies in exchange for an on-going relationship with Pixar that would only have amounted to fixed Distribution fees. That just doesn't make financial sense to me as a Disney *but not a Pixar* stock holder.

I'm tired and murky. And you know what, I didn't see Brother Bear, but my kids liked it. And I LIKED TREASURE PLANET!!! Quite a bit, actually. So I wish people would stop knocking the movie. I think Disney botched the marketing on it and then sabotaged the thing by writing it off after one weekend before word-of-mouth even had a chance to help them off.

I'm bummed that Disney dismantled it's Tokyo Animation division. For personal reasons, that bums me out more than what they did in Florida and even to their Burbank Features staff. But it's all a bad sign.

Just depressing.

I'm not even coherent now, am I ?

I'll stop rambling and try to answer a couple questions.

See you next week ... unless the plane doesn't take off again tomorrow.

Heading out of town...

I'll be out of town tomorrow and all next week.

No internet access while I'm gone, so I'll be back here at ASK GREG on 2/23/04.

Have a great Valentine's Day,

Greg

LAST NIGHT'S CHAT

I'd like to thank everyone who participated in last night's chat.

Props especially go out to Mooncat for moderating and logging the thing.

To Matt for suggesting it (more-or-less) in the first place.

And for Gorebash for hosting it.

Finally, I'd like to send a personal shout out to "Beth Maza". I had forgotten that that was your screen name, and I'm afraid I was so busy answering questions that it didn't register when you came in the room. Of course, I remember you and your REAL name.

Beth Maza was the con-chair for the very first GATHERING in Manhattan in 1997. She almost single-handedly organized the convention and got me there (against all odds, I should add). We all owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Me most of all.

Next to Gorebash, no one besides Beth did more to bring me into the fandom at the beginning. Thanks. (And I hope you see this.)

FEELING CHATTY...

Hey gang,

Just letting everybody know that I'll be stopping by the Station 8 Chat Room (http://s8.org/chat/gargs/) on Thursday, February 5th, 2004 from 4pm-6pm PST (that's 7-9pm Eastern).

Hope to see you all then.

OSCAR NOMINATIONS

This is an interesting exercise for me. One which mostly demonstrates how few movies I get to see.

The Oscar Noms came out and are in today's paper. So I'm going to list my choices.

But here's the main rule. I can only choose from movies I've actually seen. The result is that there are entire categories (including at least one major category) that I can't vote in at all:

Supporting Actress
Foreign Language Film
Documentary Feature
Documentary Short
Animated Short

Of course, I reserve the right to make changes later if I see more movies. Also, these are NOT predictions. I'm not trying to guess who the Academy will chose. I'm simply stating my preferences...

PICTURE: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
Haven't seen Mystic River or Seabiscuit. Didn't care for the tiresome Master & Commander. I enjoyed Lost in Translation, a movie which snuck up on everyone, but I don't think it was quite as good as everyone said. I'm sorry that The Cooler didn't get nominated, but in any case it's hard not to vote for LOTR: Return of the King over either Master or Translation. I think that both of the first two movies were better than the third, but as I've stated, this isn't a Return of the Jedi scenario. This is an amazing movie on every level. The bar was set incredibly high by Jackson's first two films. And he still made it over by any reckoning.

ACTRESS: Keisha Castle-Hughes, WHALE RIDER
Well, I haven't seen In America, 21 Grams, Monster or Something's Gotta Give. So Keisha was my only option. But that's okay. I wasn't too wild about the 2-D movie, but the kid was great. Doubt she'll win, but, hey, I'm routing for her.

ACTOR: Johnny Depp, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
Haven't seen Mystic River, Cold Mountain or House of Sand and Fog. That leaves Depp in Pirates and Murray in Translation, both terrrific comic performances. I'm choosing Depp, the more obvioulsy comic turn, because (a) comedy is rarely rewarded by the Academy and like to break that barrier and (b) as good as Murray is, he's kinda playing himself. But this was a VERY tough choice for me.

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alec Baldwin, THE COOLER
Haven't seen 21 Grams, In America, Mystic River or the Last Samurai so all that leaves is Alec in Cooler. But even more than Keisha above, I'm thrilled to have Alec as my choice. I saw The Cooler this past Saturday and REALLY loved it. William H. Macy and Maria Bello are also brilliant in it, but I'm not at all surprised that Baldwin was nominated. He's a great actor.

DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson, RINGS: KING
Haven't seen Mystic River or City of God. Didn't care for Master & Commander. Liked Lost in Translation, but Jackson's efforts on Return of the King are stunning.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Walsh, Boyens, Jackson, LOTR: ROTK
Havent's seen American Splendor, City of God, Mystic River or Seabiscuit, leaving Rings my only option. But again, I like the screenplay so it's a fine choice. Looking forward to the extended version though.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Coppola, LOST IN TRANSLATION
Haven't seen Barbarian Invasions or Dirty Pretty Things or In America, which leaves me a choice between Lost and Finding Nemo. No contest. Nemo is a cute little movie, but it's far from being my favorite Pixar script. Translation is fascinating.

ART DIRECTION: Hennah, Lee, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Girl with a Pearl Earing, Last Samurai or Seabiscuit. Which leaves me with a contest between LOTR and M&Commander. This was actually a tougher call. I didn't care much for M&C, but it looked damn good. But I think LOTR was a greater overall achievement.

ANIMATED FEATURE: FINDING NEMO.
Haven't seen Brother Bear or Triplets of Belleville. So that leaves Nemo only. Again, not a brilliant film, but it has some brilliant stuff in it, so I can vote this way with a vaguely clear conscious.

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Boyd, MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
Haven't seen City of God, Cold Mountain, Girl with a Pearl Earing or Seabiscuit, which leaves only M&C, which again looked great. So, fine.

SOUND MIXING: Boyes, Semanick, Hedges, Peek, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Samurai or Seabiscuit, but it leaves three great choices, M&C, ROTK and Pirates. I'm gonna give the edge to ROTK. I seem to be sweeping with them. Can't help it. Note that Christopher Boyes is up for bother Pirates and Rings. That's pretty good odds, but an even bigger bummer, I'd imagine, if he loses.

SOUND EDITING: Boyes, Waters, PIRATES
Boyes is looking good for some award. Sound editing on Nemo, Pirates and M&C were probably all great. But I have a softer spot for the fun of Pirates. One of the few categories where I HAVE seen all of the nominees.

ORIGINAL SCORE: Shore, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Big Fish, Cold Mountain or House of Sand & Fog, which leaves Howard Shore's brilliant ROTK work and Nemo, which was just okay.

ORIGINAL SONG: "Into the West", Walsh, Shore, Lennox, LOTR:ROTK
Well, I'm a big Annie Lennox fan to begin with, and the song was very moving to me, so this is an obvious choice. Throw in the fact that I haven't seen Mighty Wind, Cold Mountain, Cold Mountain or Triplets and it was also my only option. The good news is that so far, there hasn't been a category where I have declined to pick a winner because I only had one option. So far, even in categories with only one option, I've genuinely liked that one option.

COSTUME DESIGN: Dickson, Taylor, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen Girl with Pearl, Samurai or Seabiscuit, which again leaves M&C and LOTR. Went with LOTR for cause. Great costumes across the board.

FILM EDITING: Selkirk, LOTR: ROTK
Haven't seen City of God, Cold Mountain or Seabiscuit, leaving YET again M&C and LOTR. No brainer. Half the time in the M&C battle scenes I couldn't keep basic track of who was doing what.

MAKEUP: Taylor, King: LOTR:ROTK
Another of the categories where I have seen all the nominees. Pirates had great make-up, truly. And I came very close to giving this one to Pirates. But just that one Orc was so damn good, and he was just the tip of the iceberg. M&C is also in the running, but why?

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: "Two Soldiers"
I haven't seen the other four options, but I have seen Two Soldiers, based on a William Faulkner short story that just happens to be my all time favorite short story ever. I made a point of seeing this short and was not disappointed. It's really great.

VISUAL EFFECTS: Rygiel, Letteri, Cook, Funke, LOTR: ROTK
And the last of three categories where I've seen all the nominees. Any other year and Pirates (but not M&C) would have challenged for this award. But ROTK, right?

So what's the final tally...

11 for LOTR: ROTK, including picture, director, song, score, screenplay and a half-dozen tech and craft awards. I think that's a clean-sweep. And I'm not generally a sweepy kinda guy. But the true geek in me has been awakened by this trilogy.
2 for Pirates, including Depp's brilliant performanceand a tech award.
1 for WHALE RIDER's kid actress.
1 for THE COOLER's Alec Baldwin.
1 for LOST IN TRANSLATION's keen screenplay by Sofia Coppola.
1 for FINDING NEMO. Best animated feature, won perhaps by default, though I liked the movie.
1 for MASTER & COMMANDER for cinematography, another default win perhaps, though it certainly looked gorgeous.
1 for "Two Soldiers", a personal favorite that may be the award I'm most routing to be right about.

And then five categories where I couldn't vote at all.

That's it.

Bye.