Get out the calculator -- Oscar voting just got more complicated.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today took the long expected step to ensure that this year's best picture winner won't be hated by 90% of its members by going with a preferential voting system for members.
In a preferential voting system, votes for the least popular firstchoice movie are eliminated and those members' second choices are takeninto account. The process continues until a nominee receives more than50% of the votes.
Academy spokesperson Leslie Unger confirmed that the organization will apply the same preferential voting system it uses in the Oscar nomination process to best picture voting starting this winter. The news was first reported by The Wrap.
Such a move has been in the works since the Academy decided in June to expand the number of best picture nominees from five to 10. At the time, Academy Vice President Hawk Koch said that there would be a change in the voting process, stating, "We want to make sure that 11% does not win the best picture."
Under the old system, members simply voted for their first choice. With 10 nominees, that would mean a movie with one vote more than 10% could theoretically be named best picture.
Other categories will continue to utilize the traditional single-vote process to pick winners.
The change marks the first time that the Academy has used preferential voting for best picture since at least 1944, when it reduced the number of nominees from 10 to five.
--Ben Fritz
High on 'True Blood' and 'Mad Men' (and let's discuss the latter)
So we're pretty lucky, eh?
On Sunday the penultimate episode of "True Blood" aired on HBO, and it was yet another rollicking hour filled with sex, blood, magic and an array of freaky, compelling, and sometimes entertainingly dumb characters. My goodness, that show can be funny: I laughed out loud quite a few times.
The fact is, you won't find more populist or addictive fare anywhere on TV. Forget vampires -- or anything else -- as metaphors. "True Blood" works best a lurid, funny, suspenseful beach read come to vivid, Southern Gothic life. It is an entertainment, pure and simple. And what a vivaciously fun one at that.
I'll have much more to say about that show later in the week, but just note that on the same night "True Blood" aired, so did "Mad Men." That'll be the case Sept. 13 as well, when "True Blood" concludes its second season.
These two shows are so different in tone, execution and setting. Yet I just had to point out how lucky we are to be able to escape the real world in such different ways -- via the hedonistic world of "True Blood" and via the intellectually challenging "Mad Men." (Was my enjoyment enhanced by the fact that both episodes showcased truly fabulous red-headed actresses, Evan Rachel Wood in "True Blood" and Christina Hendricks in "Mad Men"? Well, it sure didn't hurt.)
Anyway, I thought it worth pointing out that we're lucky to have this kind of double-bill on our TV screens, even briefly. What a country, eh?
I'll discuss "My Old Kentucky Home," the third episode of "Mad Men's" new season, below. Please join the discussion in the comment area if you wish to.
Whew! It takes a little work to get myself into the "Mad Men" mindset after watching "True Blood."
It's like going from a really crazy, bizarre party to a graduate seminar on semiotics. Bit of a mental adjustment required! OK, I've downed a cappuccino and adjusted my cravat. Off we go.
The first time I watched "My Old Kentucky Home" a few days ago, I'll be honest, I wasn't especially enamored with it. It seemed to have a few slow or overly digressive patches, and it added only incrementally (if at all) to our knowledge of various characters.
Then again, "Mad Men" sometimes does this; it takes a breather. The first two episodes of the season were fairly eventful; this felt more like an opportunity to take stock. It may turn out to be one of those calmer episodes that sets key events in motion. And it did have some good character moments.
Between my first and second viewings of the show, I happened to talk to critic Alan Sepinwall, and he said that he thought "My Old Kentucky Home" was about class (he no doubt expands more on this in his blog post, which I haven't read yet). To me, that was a big part of it, absolutely.
But to me, the primary theme of the episode was mobility. Belonging or not belonging. Having your self-created identity questioned or accepted. Many characters were told, not in so many words but in some fashion, "You don't belong here," or "I see though you." As is so often the case on "Mad Men," they had to fight to either advance up the status ladder or retain the trappings and benefits of the identity they had created.
It was partly about class, but in a larger sense, it was about movement -- up or down the food chain, into or out of an identity. That is one of the things I love about "Mad Men" -- the way it takes seriously the idea that we are what we will ourselves to become. What does that will do to us, emotionally? How easy or hard is it to succeed as the persona you've invented? Some shows view self-invention in a condescending way, but on "Mad Men," refreshingly, inventing a durable, useful personal isn't seen as false or wrong or deceptive -- it's seen as necessary. Yet it's not without its cost.
All those thoughts rolled around in my brain for a few days, and when I watched it again with those themes in mind, "My Old Kentucky Home" did demonstrate a unity, a cohesiveness. It was interesting to see how different characters' strategies played out. So I ended up on the side of liking the episode, though I can't say it's a favorite. It's more of a transition episode, which is only appropriate, I suppose, for an episode about the difficulty of mobility.
And of course, how could I not enjoy, at least mildly, an episode in which Peggy gets high? Come on, that's got to be something we all wanted to see. I loved how Elisabeth Moss played every single note of the "smoking in the office" sequence so perfectly. There was her chin-forward, bold declaration of intent: "My name is Peggy Olson, and I want to smoke some marijuana." OK then! Plus there was her brilliant timing on the line, "I am so high."
But no matter how high she got, she remained Peggy. She hung on to her status. As she reminded her slightly creepy secretary, she had an office with her name on the door, a secretary to serve her and bring her water, and Peggy did not have to be afraid of anything. And of course this was all in keeping with the Peggy we have come to know. She's been though a lot, and she knows she can overcome the worst (but as Don has, she may one day learn that that is an affliction in and of itself -- your relentless survival instinct cutting you off from everything except your ambition).
Peggy was in charge of that weekend work session every step of the way. From putting Paul in his place ("You never ask me how I feel about anything, except brassieres and body odor and makeup." Oh snap. You go, Pegs) to coming up with the best Bacardi ideas, Peggy led the team throughout. She may have gotten high, but she never lost control. As we've seen, Peggy is open to new experiences and, as we saw last week, even adopting new personas -- it's all part of her strategy to ascend beyond what was expected of her. She'll try anything if it helps her get a leg up.
It may cost a lot, but she really does expect to get everything she wants. She's not fearful, like her secretary. But maybe Peggy should have a bit more fear. That much boldness can be dangerous for a woman in a tenuous position like hers -- the only female copywriter at a very masculine firm. Then again, without her youthful energy and a sometimes willful blindness to the obstacles ahead of her, Peggy would never have gotten this far.
Given that this episode was all about assessment and exclusion, there was "Mad Men" Subtext Theatre all over the place. The most enjoyable Subtext Theatre moment had to be when Joan met the now-married Jane. What their exchange boiled down to was this (if you take away the vague pleasantries):
Jane: "Well, look at me, swanning around in my fancy designer hat while you working gals go to have your pathetic lunches at the cheap diner."
Joan: "Hello, man-stealing wench."
Jane: "It's great to see you too, Joan. Have you noticed I'm even thinner? Also, I'm rich now. Jealous much?"
Joan: "As if, child. I have a doctor husband. He may be a creep and a half, but he'll earn. Translation: I'll be as rich as you someday."
Jane: "Whatever you say, dear. By the way, you're my servant and I can boss you around now. Have one of your girls run down and flag down my driver, there's a good secretary!"
Joan: "Now I will shoot lasers out of my eyes and kill you where you stand."
Oh Joanie. We know nothing good is going to happen with CreepRapistHusband. Joan sacrificed so much to be with this toolbag, and it's beginning to dawn on her that it may not be worth it. Instead of him pulling her up a few notches on the class scale, she's having to drag him and his dead weight up.
He may not get that promotion at the hospital. Joan's clearly going to have to play her cards right to ensure that her CreepRapistHusband has even a mediocre career. And how long before she finds CreepRapistHusband getting it on with some candy striper at the hospital?
She's endured the rigors and hardships of her own career, and she's endured the trouble it took to find this guy -- a guy who is the product of a culture in which medical residents gathering to gawk at the body of an unconscious female patient is not only accepted but giggled about at parties.
And all that effort, all that endurance, was probably for nothing, a realization we saw dawning in Joan's eyes as she played that accordion. I just know they're going to make Our Joan suffer even more this season. But it'll all be worth it if she ends up stabbing CreepRapistHusband with a carving knife.
The two social events of the episode -- Joan's dinner party and the Derby Day celebration -- were all about status-checking and attempts to buff up images. CreepRapistHusband wanted to seem like a future Chief Resident. Roger and Jane wanted to seem like a happy, loving couple, instead of an aging playboy and his not-too-bright young bride. Greg may have saved his image, thanks to Joan.
But Don has Roger's number, and the bad blood between the men runs deep. Roger tries to be his bluff, charming self with Don, but the tensions between them come to a head and the subtext becomestext. No mincing or words here: Don tells Roger he's made a terriblemistake, and Roger has lost status as a result. Roger's actions havegiven the world permission to judge him, much as the world (rightly orwrongly) judged Nelson Rockefeller for marrying Happy. That kind of transgression is not something Roger can gloss over with a band, a buffet and an open bar.
Roger, who wants to break the rules yet retain his status, retreats to resentment and exclusion. Thegreat thing about private clubs, he tells Don, is that "you get tochoose your guests." Roger's telling Don that he's got Don's number --he knows that Don doesn't really come from this world.
Don doesn't much care that Roger senses this. Don has always known this -- that he's not really "one of them" and he'll always have to live by his wits. This, I suppose, was the point of the bar scene between Don and the man in the white dinner jacket -- to point out that for those not to the manner born, "it's different inside." These two men are always consciousness of their otherness, of not quite fitting in.
Not that I didn't enjoy the old coot reminiscing about his john boat as Don showed off his mixology skills, but didn't we already know this about Don? That he was not born to the elite, nor even the middle class, nor even the lower middle class? This scene felt like a restatement of things we already knew, though I suppose we may not have known that he lived in both Illinois and Pennsylvania as a child. There's a Fun Fact for us.
If the old coot turns up again, then that scene will have had a payoff. Truth be told, I was expecting the payoff in this episode, but it didn't happen. Hmm. I kept expecting him to turn up again and turn out to be some industrial magnate who might be able to throw Sterling Cooper a sizable piece of business. If he doesn't turn up again, I'll chalk up the scene as a "Mad Men" Digressive Moment and leave it at that. As digressions go, it wasn't too oblique, just somewhat redundant, when it comes to Don's past as Dick Whitman.
Long as I'm talking about things that bugged me a bit, I also thought the focus on Peggy's secretary was kind of overdone. Why was she there? Why didn't Peggy send her home? I think she was there so that she could judge Peggy and the other copywriters, and so that Peggy could make that final, hopeful (and a little bit condescending) speech. It just felt odd, and somewhat contrived, that the woman turned up at all, let alone sat there all day on a Saturday. But the episode needed the pot smokers to have a disapproving audience, I suppose.
Was the fearful secretary meant to be a cautionary tale -- was she what Peggy would have become, had she not been taken under Don's wing? Perhaps we were meant to recall how servile secretaries were meant to be back then -- and be reminded once again at how far Peggy's come. A long way, baby.
One final note before the hail of bullets -- is it just me or did Sally's slow walk down the hall to Gene's bedroom remind you of a similar scene in "5G," when Don went to see his brother? (There was another tense walk with an unexpected result at the end when Don went to find Betty -- and far from having a fight prompted by drunk Jane's lack of tact, they passionately embraced).
Poor Sally, dreading being called on the carpet for stealing Gene's money. Yet the old man, whom everyone is assuming has lost much of his mind, hasn't really changed all that much. He's still emotionally aware enough to know that Sally is terribly guilt-ridden, and he doesn't have to punish her more.
Or perhaps this is a change in Gene? Was he always this kind to Betty? If so, that would explain much of her great devotion to him.
But isn't it ironic that the man whom everyone thinks has lost his status, and maybe his mind, shows compassion. He doesn't make a big fuss over Sally's mistake. He accepts her as the flawed yet sweet little girl she is.
Lucky Sally.
Hail of bullets:
Pete's to the manner born, but Don has to be the one to tell him not to hand out his business card. Because Pete's a clod, socially, but Don is not. Another example of a "friend" attempting to halt or impede someone who's moved on and moved up: Paul Kinsey and his college buddy. You get the impression that Paul used to be the subordinate in that relationship -- the unsophisticated Jersey kid under the influence of a would-be Romeo (by the way, both of those guys as successful ladies' men? Ha. I don't think so). Now Paul's a fancy Madison Avenue type, and his college buddy is an unemployed dope dealer. Hence the pal's attempt to remind Kinsey of his unglamorous roots and -- twisting the knife -- his implication that Kinsey was fired from the Princeton Tigertones. Eventually the two men smooth things over, but not before Kinsey asserts his status and proves that his pipes are still golden. Kinsey's Ivy League ego actually required three people to wrangle it and cut it down to size: Peggy ("Paul helps me sleep"), his college pal ("I guess that's why they have scholarships") and Smitty ("We get it. You're educated"). Yet Kinsey remains Kinsey. He's charmingly dense and will always have a gigantic ego, no doubt. Yet his touchiness about being accused of being a bad singer indicates a charming vulnerability. So we love Kinsey, despite his denseness. Carla is awesome. She doesn't let a crabby old man boss her around, and you have to love her tart replies to the confused Gene ("We don't all know each other"). One of the best things about the episode was the way it quietly yet masterfully played with our expectations of whether Gene would play the race card. Which didn't quite happen, but it was the elephant in the room. Two things I didn't love so much: The awkwardly long song that Roger sang in blackface. First of all, blackface. I know that was (and in some cases, still is) done by clueless idiots, and maybe Roger's performance went on for a long time in order to make us feel as uncomfortable as Don became. But in the final analysis, what did it prove? That Roger is a ham who loves attention? That he wants everyone to think of him and Jane as an entertaining couple? That he's out of step with the times if he thinks blackface is a laugh riot? Whatever the point was, I wish the scene had gotten there sooner. I didn't hate the Pete-Trudy dance, but again, did it have to be that long? I'm sure the internets are on fire with people who loved the sight of those two cutting a rug, but I think the scene proved its point -- that those two can be annoyingly united and intensely, cluelessly perky when they want to be -- and then it kept going. Then again, Joan playing the accordion -- loved it. Loved. It. Sponsored Link: Amazon's Mad Men Store
Review: Jon Nakamatsu and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 — a heavenly pairing
Nakamatsu leaped into the concerto with beautifully enunciated lines in the weekend's San Jose Chamber Orchestra season opener: now crisp, now feathery, ending in an extended trill, smooth as ice cream. Such grace and control: figure skating came to mind; cool, calm and collected.
Naked Stranger Takes Art Of Photography Show
A photograph of a 53-year-old naked man, sitting on a child's chair, beat out 15,000 other entries from across the world. The photographer did not expect his subject to strip, he says, but the result helped him win $2,000.
RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Justice for Indigenous Leader's Murder21 Years On
JAMBALÃ", Colombia, Aug 28 (IPS)One night in February 1988 in the native Nasa territory of Jambaló, in southwest Colombia, soldiers barged into Etelvina Zapata's home and snatched her 21-year-old son, barefoot and clad only in shorts, accusing him of working with the leftwing guerrillas.
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