February 25, 2008
Both Meghan and I sighed a sigh of relief last night when Daniel-Day Lewis won the Oscar for his performance of Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. It vindicated a cover blurb we wrote before the Oscar nominations were even announced: "Daniel-Day Lewis Hits A Gusher: There Will Be Oscars."

Of course, I rationalized that even if he didn't win, the hed would still be half true: There Will Be Oscars.

Also, I enjoyed the Coen brothers winning for what Joel has pegged as, "No Country is a horror movie to me. It's sort of a horror Western." And I really got a kick out of his brother Ethan saying that he remembered his brother and him going to Minneapolis airport to film an 8 mm movie when they were kids, called Henry Kissinger: Man On The Go. "What we do now doesn't feel that much different from what we were doing then," he added.

We have been high on both movies so it was a sort of sweet victory for all our efforts here at the magazine as well. The only miss, for me, was Casey Afflect not getting best supporting actor for his brilliant portrayal of Robert Ford in The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Of course, he was up against Javier Bardem and nobody was going to beat that instant classic hairdo, I mean, performance.

Speaking of watching movies, the new on-demand movie onslaught available instantly online is creating a divide in our culture: "People older [than 30] would rather lean back instead of forward to watch a movie," says Steve Swasey, of Netflix, who has 6,000 flicks avaiable to download. That would include me, as regards leaning back, although I'm rapidly approaching the next phase, Barca-lounger semi-prone watching, followed closely, no doubt, by the Hospice death bed flat on the back style of watching movies.

During a recent poll in Washington D.C., women were asked if they would sleep with Bill Clinton. 84% responded 'not again.'

“Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.”
—William Hazlitt