Anderson Cooper Strikes Again
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/
So apparently the Veiled Vanderbilt deigns post on his own CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED blog every Wednesday. I foresee Wednesday evenings growing exceedingly pleasant, and not just because of the all you can eat Indian buffet.

Since Anderson has nothing to say about the world, once again his post is dedicated to eulogizing something, this time it's Mike Wallace's career. I would have thought that such a eulogy would have been delivered when CBS news sank with Rather, or when Wallace died 15 years ago and was injected with Dick Clark serum. At least Bob Barker has a decent makeup job that makes him look human. Mike Wallace is a walking mass of plastic surgery. Honestly CBS, we can handle an 88-year old anchor. He can look like an old man. Or maybe it's just Wallace who is vain. That's a lot of vanity, or maybe just an unhealthy dose of vanity stretched VERY taught over a number of years on the downside of the hill.

Nevertheless, it's once again amusing to note that Cooper JUST MET WALLACE. Does Anderson actually care enough about anyone he's eulogizing to, you know, maintain a friendship with him?

I actually appreciate this post in the sense that if Anderson weren't so dense, it could be deep satire. Let's play out the possible hidden meaning of his posts:
"You Look Like A Kid" Translation: "Mike Wallace Called Me A Kid!"
When I heard Mike Wallace was stepping down, I thought, 'Goddamn is CBS desparate, they work the poor robot to the bone...errr gear. I've been suckling at the teat of MSM ever since I was an airhead kid and I remember him reading a lot of stuff to me back then too.

Then comes this, "To me, 60 minutes is still the best news magazine program on broadcast tv." Notice that cable TV doesn't count since, well, a certain someone has a news magazine program on cable TV. Oh, and then there's the whole, no real competition thing. And maybe Anderson just missed that time that 60 minutes MADE UP A STORY AND GOT CAUGHT!

Then there's "It's the only show I listen to on the radio if I'm in a car when it's on." Ignore the dangling modifiers, the circular logic. No, no, I'm sorry. Laugh at them.

Then he talks about how he flew down to Florida this weekend and sat between Mike and his wife Mary at a charity event, where he met Mike for the first time. I.E. I just met him on the way out the door.

Then Mike tells Andy he looks like a kid. And Andy responds by writing some pleasantries:
"When Mike told me he was going to be 88 years old this year, I did a double take. I couldn't believe it. He looks amazing, and has far more energy than I do."
Translation: When Mike told me I looked like a kid, I thought, you're 88 you geriatric garlic pickle. That rascal Orville Redenbacher probably hit a ball through your store window.

Then Anderson tells us how hard his life is. Apparently news is hard on his bady and brone, I mean body and brain. Poor guy. Apparently in the teleprompter reading business, you actually have to do the reading.

RE: Commenter. I don't see how my reading of the text was wrong. He says he met him only recently and goes straight into the Charity event. If anything, you prove the point that Anderson Cooper can't write. Occham's Razor says that the simplest explanation is most likely correct. Barring the evidence you've added, one ought to surmise what I did.

I think what's stranger is that you knew that Anderson Cooper interviewed Mike Wallace on depression in Feb '05. Who remembers things like that? How is that possible? Is Mike Wallace a reknowned world expert on depression? Is he personally depressed? Is Anderson? I have only the vaguest recollection of Feb '05 from my own life...how do you come by the interview schedule of Anderson Cooper so readily?

Just a thought - nearly every major periodical in America is struggling for cash. Some, like Wall Street Journal, are run in the red because their owner doesn't care if they lose money. Some, like the New York Times, don't have that luxury and are panicked.

But what would have happened if we hadn't banned smoking advertising in periodicals. Think about it - tax increases are far more punitive measures while the advertising is a second order punishment whose effect is more to discourage current smokers from trying new brands rather than scaring away potential customers. But just think...might many of those same periodicals still be surviving financially? Periodicals depend on advertising, not subscription dues, for their financial health - thus the wealth of free magazines any savvy consumer can obtain. Did any of these periodicals come out in favor of the advertising ban, thereby sealing their own financial doom?

I would think not. I expect that tobacco companies, just like most companies, would have realized by now that print advertising is a poor investment. But then again, I think most advertising is bad investment. Think about it - which is more likely to get you to try a new item priced at 5 dollars - a 5 million dollar ad campaign? or giving 1 million people coupons to try free stuff. It seems to me that most concept advertising survives only on the hope of defining one's market, on the laziness of retailers, who would rather not cash coupons with the corporation, and on the corporation's ultimate fear that it's product isn't very good, and that the more people who actually try it, the more quickly consumers will realize it's no good. After all, coke with lime in it is still in your local corner store's display case.

Anderson Cooper 360: Ghost Written, Market Tested, Mother Approved

I like the name of his blog because it accurately depicts what happens when you read it: you end up in the same place you started. Then there's the subtext: by not using his real name, i.e. being Gloria Vanderbilt's child of priviledge, he's forgoing any ties to an institution of higher learning in addition to pretending to have gotten to his perch in life through any effort of his own.

I believe a weekly fisking is in order. Let's start with this week.

Anderson leads us off with the tempting title "3 Little Words That Changed A War". You might be led to think that Anderson has found some order from a key Iraqi figure that changed the course of the event. So what are Anderson's 3 little words? Improvised Explosive Device.

Pointing out that IED's have affected the outcome of the war is sort of like recently upgrading from a rotary phone. Perhaps Anderson is just getting a hold of this new phrase, "All that and a bowl of cherries" as well, having recently disregarded "Tubular to the max" as a bit passe. I imagine Anderson sitting in a Volvo listening to a news cut on IEDs in between singing along with "I Saw The Sun" and "Here Comes the Hot-Stepper" and thinking, "Hey, this IED stuff is blog material."

Except the end of the article is signed by someone named Barbara Starr. That's right...the Anderson Cooper blog is GHOST WRITTEN!!!! What does a talking head actually do all day that he can't put together a banal blog? How do you find other writers to contribute the appropriately banal blather that fits the Anderson Cooper image? Do they have focus groups churn out sentences? Perhaps they hire an advertising firm? Or perhaps they go the traditional route - take mediocre journalism students, crush the will to live out of them with a few years working the AP/Reuters beat, and then hand them a modest salary for what's left of their souls.

So let's find the last time the talking hair actually had something to say for himself - March 7th, when he eulogized his mother's friend. It's tough to fisk a eulogy. It might seem heartless. But let's begin - Andersoon Cooper can't write. When you want to eulogize someone, that would seem to be the time that you drop the 4th grade level stacatto that passes for Time-Life writing and break out those tricky 9th grade concepts - alliteration, consonance, simile, figurative language. But of course none of that is taught if 9th grade english because dipsticks like Andersoon Cooper need their A's.

Here's the real problem - everything. A hefty section of the eulogy is devoted to kissing up to mother Gloria, how progressive she is, how glorious in all ways. There are no less than 5 separate paragraphs dedicated to pre-eulogizing his mother and how cool she is with black people. Then, we're told the dearly departed was a great photographer, only to find the pictures sitting next to the blog, taken by the dead man to be completely non-descript. We're given no reference point for why this man's art was any good. The only quaint story we hear is how he used to lie to little children. And to wrap this menagerie of incompetence up, Anderson admits that he didn't even know the man was ill.

We have our first Mother's Day blog, running year round, on a major national website.

Anderson Cooper 360: Ghost Written, Market Tested, Mother Approved.

OSCAR REVIEW

First of all, hooray for Jon Stewart. Couldn't have been better.

BEST PICTURE:
Predicted: Brokeback
Should: Crash
Actual: Crash

I guess we all learned that race still matters more than sexual preference. Except when the director's a minority. Lesson learned.

BEST ACTOR:
Predicted: PSH
Should: PSH
Actual: PSH
We all knew.

BEST ACTRESS:
Predicted: Theron
Should: Knightly
Actual: Witherspoon
I fell down on this one - I didn't realize Witherspoon was playing someone famous. Plus Theron already won.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
PREDICTED: Clooney
SHOULD: Dillon
Actual: Clooney
How you like me now. This was sort of like Clooney's Christopher moment in the Sopranos: he got his stripes, and now he has to buy everyone dinner and watch his girlfriend's panties get sniffed by the boss. I liked Clooney's speech, especially because it demonstrated his point. I think he's more sophisticated in his kool-aid sipping than the Babses and Sarandons. He mixes some red wine into the kool-aid

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Predicted: Michelle Williams
Should: Frances McDormand
Actual: Rachel Weisz
I really fell down on this one - I thought Rachel played a more sophisticated character, and I thought the issues were foreign. I didn't realize it was about drug companies and a noble idealist. Plus it safely avoids having her spend time chasing an academy award. Yes, I'm looking at you aging comedians.

2-5. But if I'd seen the movies I would have been able to make a fairer evaluation. I think I also deserve credit for making my picks a month early, before all the winners got leaked by the buzz machine. Or maybe I just don't the have the knack with the ladies.

PS Ezekiel Jones - calm the bleep down. What happened to the sense of humor?

Salad and Pizza

Last night, Paula Abdul referred to 2 contestants on the chopping block in what media types are calling "incoherent" fashion, quoting Simon as saying that the reason they were in danger of being cut was that "one ate pizza and the other ate salad."

I didn't get it at first, but then I realized - the pretty blonde one was looking a little chubby in her skin tight shirt and the mannish black girl was...well, you know.

1. That got said ON AIR
2. It's really funny
3. Paula Abdul said it because she was intoxicated and Simon had this look on his face like, "You're not supposed to repeat what I whisper to you during commercial break...but yes, I am that clever."

Don't Steal My Stuff

In case you missed it, Anne Culter just took my Oscar prediction idea, subtracted the humor and added her trademark mean-spiritedness:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12857&o=ANN001

Plus she didn't research the previous year!

I know it's tough to put out a column a week...oh, no, wait, I do that...and I have a day job and a social life! Maybe she's too busy talking to hear herself think?

Weirder still, apparently she drinks with Bill Maher. And apparently Bill Maher is drinking buddies with Hugh Hefner. That'd be more interesting than most nights out at least...you'd meet Anne Coulter at the bar and you'd think, 'I wonder if someone famous is doing her.' But before you can ask, Larry King comes over except it's not Larry King, it's just his hair sitting atop a short, snide little prick with a cable comedy show...no not Dennis Miller, the one with the average vocabulary - that's it Bill Maher. And then you think...nooooo way is he doing her. So then Hef comes over and you see him standing next to Bill Maher and suddenly the Beethoven haircut makes sense - Bill Maher is trying to be a snide priggish version of Hef. He's probably even wearing a bathrobe and sniffing a polo. So anyway, Hef comes over and you look at him and you look at Anne and you think...nooo wayyyyy...

But it has to be somebody right? So let's brainstorm the most amusing people to do Anne Coulter.

My list is:
Bill Maher
Hugh Hefner
Nick Lachey and/or Matt Leinart
The nerdy kid from Parker Lewis Can't Lose
Larry King

I'll take Business Ethics for 1000

CNN.com's front page story is the cover of Time magazine. That is, the stories are the same, but rather than use the same picture, which they both clearly have the rights to, CNN is actually advertising an affiliated magazine by making the top story a story another division wrote.

The whoring ABC/ESPN do for Disney has been bad enough, but CNN actually likes to carry on as if they had journalistic ethics. It's what keeps them going every week when the ratings come out - sure, we got killed by O'Reilly again, but at least we have our principles.

If I'm going to run a news outfit, and I have a choice of sins between partisan hackery and corporate whoring, am I wrong to think that partisan hackery is the morally superior choice?

No one complained when Katrina Vander Heuvel at The Nation made the same choice to save an American institution from bankruptcy.

Your Favorite Movie is Lame: Kill Bill Vol. 1

Since someone had the gall to suggest Kill Bill as One of the 10 Best Movies of a Certain Year, the gauntlet has been laid down. We won't bother too much with Vol. 2 which is so bad, it makes Andrew Dice Clay look like Monty Python. But they were supposed to be one bad movie rather than 2, so let's treat it like a bad movie with a long intermission. The intermission was good - in between watching these two awful movies I watched a little sports, got some Popeye's Chicken and a job, bought a car, did some Madlibs, went on a trip or two. This movie had probably the best intermission of any bad movie I've ever seen.

Before we apply the cardinal sins of pretension, let's begin with what's just plain bad:

- DIALOGUE!!! Despite the lauds for Tarantino's dialogue, all the supposedly tough guy (girl) lines fall flat. They're all delivered as if they're crushing blows...but they aren't.

- CASTING!!! The key to action picks is that the actors actually look like they can kick butt, or are casually violent, or whatever fits their character. Jet Li looks like he's spent a lot of time fighting and training. Jackie Chan looks like he has a lot of fun while fighting and training. That's why they play those roles.

Uma Thurman looks like a stick figure model who buys shoes on Sunset Blvd. She is well-trained and well-choreographed, but we just never believe she's that tough because, frankly, she isn't. Vivica Fox is ok for her part, which is just poorly written, so much so that it kind of verges on Opie offensive. Lucy Liu is the worst. She seems like she'd have trouble taking apart a fruit roll-up let alone the daring likes of Laura Flynn Boyle, Ally McBeal. But oh wait, no, she freaking runs the Japanese Yakuza! Much of her action sequences rely on long shot and dynamic cutting because she has no physical presence. And most of the part where she takes over the Yakuza is done in anime because she can't pull that off either. Why not just use CGI? Claymation? A manakin? The only character who really works is the Japanese school girl assassin, who despite her diminuitive size emanates casual violence.

Ok, so now what's really wrong with the movie: It's less than the sum of its parts. It's got cool action, a very long suffering hero, and it's full of Tarantino's broad array of film techniques. But non of these things are put to use properly - they're just thrown in to fit whatever seems cool.

The main character has no character. Her tone shifts radically and Thurman cannot pull it together - in some scenes she's angry, in some comical, in some she's honorable, in other's brutal. Whatever happens to be cool at the time. The movie has no consistent tone, which is a big error.

All of the cinematic references have no point. They're simply to prove that, yes, Quentin Tarantino knows more about movies than you do. The first 'movie about movies', Once Upon a Time in the West, used cinematic references which altered the outcome of well-known Western scenes in order to make a comment not only about the West, but about the genre of the Western. Tarantino seems to think that it's enough to be cool by putting in references to other movies.

Then there's the revenge theme. Again in the superior Once Upon a Time in the West, the mystery is why the main character wants revenge. That drives the watcher's curiousity. Kill Bill is driven by the mystery not of why she wants revenge, which is very clear, but why she was wronged in the first place. Of course, that question is completely not dealt with in Vol. 1 leaving the viewing experience almost completely hollow.

More importantly, it puts the honus of the movie not on the main character, who is no mystery, but her enemies, who are. And nothing is done to explain them in Vol.1. What makes Vol. 2 so lame is that the explanation for why all these girls betrayed her is...NOTHING! You know what would have been cooler than nothing? ANYTHING! This took me 3 seconds to come up with: Why not have the bad girls betray Uma as a part of their own revenge paths? We are given no reason why Liu went from seeking vengeance on one Yakuza boss to taking them over. Vivica Fox has no backstory. We could imagine a brilliant device whereby they themselves were somehow fulfilling their own revenge. Then Vol. 2 could have turned their burden from Vol. 1 upside down by delving into Darryl Hannah and Bill. Instead, this film simply doesn't stand alone because the burden of the film is unfulfilled. And in Vol. 2 it is catastrophically ignored. Instead we get the stupidest finishing move ever - so lame in its attempt to be cool by being lame that it is...lame.

Of course none of this matters because Tarantino has nothing to say and never will. He just wants to make cool stuff. So he makes a movie where he thinks up all the cool stuff he can and then throws them together. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. Owen Wilson is cool. James Bond is cool. Punk Rock is cool. Owen Wilson cast as James Bond playing the Punk Rock scene probably wouldn't be that cool. In fact, it would probably be pretty lame. So Tarantino sits down and says, "Ok, chicks are cool, chopsake is cool, samurai stuff is cool, yakuza is cool, anime is cool, tough talking black girls are cool, this music is cool" and he makes a movie. But Quentin Tarantino isn't cool, and so we have to sit there watching an uncool guy's coolness fantasy.

If Tarantino would make a movie about trying to be cool, then he might actually make something that speaks to the viewer since most of us who aren't Ted Tyler are trying desparately hard to be cool. Instead, Tarantino tries to make movies about revenge, which he clearly knows nothing about - apparently revenge is flippant, occasionally comical or ridiculous, and occasionally obsessed with style.

In the end, you will only like this movie if you dig Tarantino's style. I don't.

Now then, let's go to the Cardinal Sins:
1) Preachy - No
2) Political - No
3) Psychosexual - Yes
4) Too Long - Yes, in fact so much so that they had to make it 2 movies
5) Whiny Hero - No

So why is this movie so lame? More to the point, why is it still so pretentious? Well, for that, we have to give credit to Tarantino - he's invented his own category of lame. You see, rather than rely on traditional methods of pretention, putting one's message before entertainment value, Tarantino puts himself before all previous. And Tarantino isn't a political snob with weighty messages to oppress with, no. Tarantino is an art snob who thinks he knows what art is and so he has to lord it over us - look at me, aren't I artistic? Don't I defy your conventions by paying tribute to them and mocking them at the same time? Aren't I clever?

Maybe a little. But you need a stern cock-punch.

Why Do People Want to Emulate Barbra Streisand?

Every year, some potentially pudgy Californian announces on American Idol that she wants to emulate Barbra Streisand. Sometimes, she's talented. Sometimes she's not. But why on earth would anyone want to emulate Barbra Streisand? None of the male singers announce they want to be just like Michael Bolton.

Let's recap the thinking here - I want to be an obnoxious loudmouth who uses my ill-gotten celebrity, dubiously earned in the culturally vacuous late-70's/early-80's, to make sure everyone knows how ignorant I am. Is this really every young girl's dream?

If only Clinton hadn't done her, she would have disappeared a decade ago.

2006 OSCAR PREDICTIONS AND NOTES

We'll be using Ted's soon to be patented technique of counting key issues and weighing their relative importance regardless of the talent involved. Since I've not seen all the movies, I will nonetheless be issuing weighty pronouncements on which movies and performances are the best. Note that I don't give a damn about directors.

I'll then follow with my top 10 for the year and other awards including biggest snubs and most ridiculous nomination of the year.

* Means Will Win
! Means Should Win (Of those nominated)
& Means Did Not See

BEST PICTURE:
*&The Gay Cowboy Movie (Brokeback) (Social Issue+Western+MinorityDir+GayBonus AKA Brokeback Factor)
& The Gay Intellectual Movie (Capote) (Brokeback Factor+Intellectual)
! The Racial Montage Movie (Crash) (Social Issue+Token Black+Ensemble Cast)
&The Better George Clooney Lectures Us Subtly Movie (Good Night and Good Luck) (Social Issue+Black&White+Hollywood Royalty Directs)
The Steven Spielberg Movie (Munich) (Contemporary Issues-Foreign+Speilberg)

This year's contenders hit the key issues much harder than last year's making it a much more competitive field, even if all of these movies are veer towards lameness. I'd give Capote a better shot if it were in black&white. Crash won't win because it won the Golden Globe, which means it can't win again. That and it just doesn't have the social issues managerie that Brokeback does. Good Night might have had a shot if Clooney were Clint Eastwood. Speilberg's film gets it's obligatory nod as well - I'm tempted to add sex farce to it's attributes list. Do you think he'd show up if he didn't get nominated. If he hadn't put out Munich, would they have nominated that cess pool that was War of the Worlds, just out of fear. How bad does a serious Spielberg pic have to be for it to not get nominated, and I'm not talking one of those movies he farms out to the interns, like Jurassic Park 2.

Anyhow, the almost comical panoply of hot button factors for Brokeback makes it the pick. Unless Spike Lee were to direct a movie about midget Maoris in black&white, I don't see anyone beating it out ever. Unless their are issues I missed in the films I haven't seen, I can't see it not winning.

BEST ACTOR
*!&Philip Seymour Hoffman is Capote - Brokeback+Intellectual+Biopic+accent
&Terrence Howard is a black guy and drug dealer - Social Issues+Token Black Guy
&Heath Ledger is gay - Social Issues+Brokeback
&Joaquin Phoenix is Johnny Cash (Ray-blackness) - Black&White+E True Hollywood Story+accent
&George Clooney is a Crusading Journalist - Black&WHite+Biopic+Crusading Journalist

This is a more difficult choice. I think Ledger and Howard just don't have a chance because they don't have enough star power to overcome their hotbutton deficit. Hollywood stops for E! True Hollywood stories, so I'm scared of Phoenix, especially in b&w. And Clooney has collected a lot of factors in his favor. However, I'm going to go with PSH, mostly because I liked him in Almost Famous, and because I'd like to pretend that intellectual beats out crusading journalist, and I know the Brokeback factor beats out b&w.

BEST ACTRESS
&Dame Judi Dench is a classy English dame (apparenty this is acting?) - Sex Farce+accent
&Felicity Huffman is transsexual - Social Issues-Who?+Brokeback Factor
!&Keira Knightly is a Jane Austen character - Jane Austen+accent
*&Charlize Theron is a miner living in a man's world - Socials Issues+Accent+Playing Ugly
&Reece Witherspoon is an E!True Hollywood victim - Black&White+Accent

A weak crew, as is usually the case - movies are written by men. Or maybe women aren't strong characters. Who knows? It's one thing for Reece Witherspoon or whoever to claim an award for playing a real live person, it's another thing for Dame Judi Dench to claim an award for playing herself. Huffman is the darkhorse - how bad is her who? factor...if you replaced her name with any other on the list for that film, she'd win. Don't count her out - remember Hillary Swank and the chick from the Crying Game...or was that a man? So I hear Knightly was good in a good movie from a Jane Austen book, but since I'd rather Jane Austen be banished from the culture, I think the clear choice here is Theron. You've got women's lib, you've got oppressed iconoclast, you've got an accent, and you've got a beatiful woman playing ugly. It's a powerful combo.

SUPPORTING ACTOR
*George Clooney is a Noble Conspiracy Victim - Social Issues-Foreign+Playing Ugly
!Matt Dillon is a Racist But Somewhat Noble Cop - Social Issues+Complex-Comeon, Matt Dillon?
Paul Giamatti is a Gutsy Comedic Sidekick - Social Issues-Already Ugly
&Jake Gyllenhaal is the Other Gay Cowboy - Social Issues+Brokeback Factor
William Hurt is a Wry Gangster in a Non-Comedic Film - None

First off - William Hurt is my inexplicable choice of the year. It's one thing that he has no hot button issues. Then he has no great lines. In fact, his character is TERRIBLE. And he STINKS in it. He ruins the movie. The movie is this weighty, serious pulp novel and in swaggers William Hurt, swirling in his leather chair and cracking wry jokes to the audience. What the hell? Who thought that was a good idea? He doesn't even stand up!

Secondly, Clooney would be my solid second, and may win out. The question is whether he's hollywood royalty or not. More importantly, what happens when, someday, someone is nominated for two movies. Are they going to show him/her twice in the split screen. I think they should have a body double so that when he/she loses, one can look really happy and we can still have the satisfaction of the other one being crushed, bitter and jealous. Or maybe they could just have Bill Murray do that.

Giamatti was nice but come on, he doesn't touch the social issues with his character, and he's probably playing himself anyway. And they're the wrong social issues.

That leaves us with Dillon and Gyl...the other gay cowboy. Dillon's character is complex and compelling so all he had to do was not screw it up. In this he succeeds. So really, this award should go to the writer. That said, come on, it's Matt Dillon. Did anyone else see Wild Things and take the time to watch his performance. Outrageously bad. It's like giving an Oscar to Keanu. By process of elimination, it goes to the gay cowboy. I can't really see him up there winning, so I'll hedge my bets and say that Clooney is a strong choice here, but...you know what, I changed my mind. Clooney's going to win.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
&Amy Adams is Someone I've Never Heard Of
&Catherine Keener is In A Gay Intellectual Movie - Intellectual+Brokeback Factor
!&Frances McDormand Decided to Take a Role This Year - Women's Lib+MerylStreep Factor
&Rachel Weisz is a Possibly Not So Innocent Noble Conspiracy Victim - Social Issues-Foreign
*&Michelle Williams is the Wife of a Gay Cowboy - Social Issues+Brokeback Factor

I originally thought McDormand would win, but she's too good. I'm going with the Brokeback sweep here. Incidentally, the one person I know who's seen her performance said that all the Brokeback guys in the audience laughed when her character finds out that her cowboy is gay. That's not cool.

THIS YEAR'S SNUBS:
OVERHYPED BLOCKBUSTER DIVISION - King Kong. I would have thought the Oscars would try to redeem this by giving it a nod or two. I guess Peter Jackson isn't Scorcese
TEPID FILM SET IN ASIA DIVISION - Memoirs of a Geisha.
SPIELBERG DIVISION - War of the Worlds
OVERHYPED BLOCKBUSTER SEQUEL DIVISION - Star Wars III. Come on, he even made Darth Vader George Bush...not even a little love for all that work?
GOOD EPIC DIVISION - Cinderella Man
BILL MURRAY DIVISION - Bill Murray taking stock as himself in Broken Flowers

MOVIES I WISHED I'D SAW:
The Whale and the Squid
Wallace and Grommit
Grizzly Man
Corpse Bride
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

TED TYLER'S OFFICIAL BEST 10 FILMS I SAW THIS YEAR:
1. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
2. Match Point
3. Cinderella Man
4. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
5. Crash
6. Kung Fu Hustle
7. 40-Year Old Virgin
8. Broken Flowers
9. Be Cool
10. Get Rich or Die Tryin' (OK, so I didn't see it. But in a terrible year for movies, why the heck not?)