As I periodically note here, some days I just get worn out and don't have it in me to write anything about the Trump-created hell hole, even if it concerns the Democratic debate, or the release of private texts from Trump's personal lawyer, the henchmen he worked with and members of the administration team which underscored the threats to our nation's own ambassador and that Trump was all involved with this as a personal matter.
Quick side note: as much as the texts suggest that the threats to Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch could conceivably have been life-threatening, and as much as I understand why they had to be treated that way, I don't think that they were, actually, threats on her life. Never mind that the GOP Congressional candidate Robert Hyde who was communicating appears to have a history as a crass, pompous blowhard who it's hard to imagine would have contacts with Ukrainian assassins. More to the point, given that the texts were willingly handed over to the F.B.I by Parnas himself, it seems improbable that he would do so if he was involved with a planned assassination of a U.S. official. And a quick side note on the debate: I watched for about a half-hour, was glad that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seemed to get past the silly controversy about whether or not he ever told her that a woman couldn't be elected president -- though I'm sure their supporters won't let it die -- I thought it was all very dull since the candidates seemed tense, not wanting to screw up anything just days before the election. Okay, so those are the quick side notes. Instead I thought I'd write about some fluffery, in this case related to the Oscar nominations. Mind you, as I write this, I don't know what the nominations were. I'll check them out at some point. But I have an addendum to a very good piece that my pal Mark Evanier wrote here on his site. The short version is that someone had written him all frenetic that Little Women had received a Best Picture nomination, but not one for Best Director, and how in the world could this injustice possibly be?! Mark explained (at more detailed length) that a) two different groups vote for those two categories, and b) there were nine nominations for Best Picture but only five for Best Director. So by pure math, there had to be at a minimum four directors of a Best Picture nominee who couldn't get a Best Director nomination. At its foundation, Mark's excellent explanation is all that you needed to know to answer the question. There was one additional point that I thought should also be addressed which I think (especially as a screenwriter) is important -- When Academy directors are voting on Best Director, they are looking obviously at the direction and the direction only. When Academy members are voting are Best Picture, they are looking at the direction…and the writing -- and acting, and editing, music, costuming, production design and how it was all produced. So, the voters are looking at two totally different things. A film can be wonderfully directed but just not interesting on several levels. Or be just professionally directed though no more than that, but be a wonderful experience overall I always like to point out two movies, released around the same time. The 1982 film One from the Heart was one of the most inventively-directed and well-produced movies, but so boring to audiences and flopping so hugely that Francis Ford Coppola (who financed the film himself) lost his studio. Two years earlier, The Gods Must Be Crazy from South Africa, shot on a shoestring budget was a terribly-made, jumble of an amateurishly-made movie with disjointed jump cuts that was a total, utter, unabashed joy and such a big hit that it spawned a sequel
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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