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The Academy Award Goes To

side_oscarAs they finish polishing up the statues for tonight’s ceremony, it’s time to finish up our predictions with the major categories for the 96th Academy Awards.  So, without further ado, we begin with:

Best Picture

American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

I’ve seen a grand total of two of these, but neither is likely to win so I’ll go with Oppenheimer, which seems like the type of movie to win these awards.

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Paul Giamatti’s performance in The Holdovers is the best of the nominated work that I have seen.  Of course, it is also the only nominated performance that I have seen.

Best Actress

Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Emma Stone, Poor Things

I’ve seen none of these, so I’ll take a stab in the dark and pick Emma Stone.

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26 Rings

One week ago, Purdue defeated Michigan State to earn at least a share of their 26th Big Ten Conference championship, the most in conference history.  A road victory against Illinois on Tuesday gave them the title outright, the first time a Big Ten team has gone back-to-back in over a decade and the first time Purdue has won back-to-back titles since winning three in a row from 1994-1996.

Their 26 titles are the most amongst all Big Ten schools, followed by the squad in Bloomington, who own 22 championships.  The Boilermakers have won four of the last eight conference titles, dating back to 2017.  Matt Painter has five conference titles under his belt, one less than Gene Keady and tied for seventh in conference history.  With the season wrapping up tomorrow at home against Wisconsin, the team has little to prove next week in the conference tournament while preparing to avenge last year’s first round loss in the NCAA tournament.

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Book 9 (of 52) – None Of This Is True

None Of This Is True – Lisa Jewell

A chance meeting between two women who share the same birthday, Josie, a local housewife, and Alix, a successful podcaster, leads to a new project tracking Josie’s path as she, or at least claims to, forge a new life for herself.  Unfortunately for Alix, Josie seems obsessed with her, showing up at her home and stealing small mementos.  Alix puts up with it, though, as she feels she is getting great content that will become a winning podcast.  Instead, she ends up with more than she bargained for when Josie, claiming spousal abuse, moves in for a week.  As Alix starts to see Josie’s story fall apart, she worries she may have put her family in danger, but is it already too late?

A 2023 nominee for Best Mystery and Thriller in the Goodreads Choice Awards, None of This Is True is my first go-around with the works of Lisa Jewell.  She tells a riveting story, switching perspectives between the two birthday twins and with the purported Netflix documentary of the podcast as it is being produced.  If this is a good representation of Jewell’s work, I may need to dig into her extensive back catalog as time goes on.

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FB10: Week 6

Another slight improvement over last week, with some unseasonably warm temperatures poking through as my toe continues to heal.  Things got off to a slow start on Sunday, finishing with 3800 steps.  Monday saw a nice increase, coming just 20 steps shy of 4500.  Tuesday was just slightly worse, as I missed Monday’s total by 63 steps.  Wednesday saw a big decrease, going down to 3600 steps.  Things at work started going south on Thursday, which left me 4 steps shy of 2000.  A small improvement on Friday pushed me up to 2200 steps.  The return of nice weather, plus a trip to the grocery store, on Saturday led to my best day of the week, finishing 27 steps away from 5800.

Total steps: 26,339

Daily average: 3762.7

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Fifty Years Of Music – 1982

Fifty years ago, I made my first appeared on the Earth.  In celebration, we are going to take a look at the year-end Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for each year of my life and see what songs resonated with me at the time and if they continue to do so to this day.

We continue our look back at the music of my lifetime with 1982, the year I moved from second to third grade and turned 8.  Given my late-October birthday.  Songs from movies would be the only ones I knew from their original release.  Only 29 of the Hot 100 are familiar to me now, with 20 of them appearing in my collection in one way or another.

#96: Loverboy – Working for the Weekend
iTunes stats: N/A

The first single from the group’s second album, it topped out at #29 but was eventually ranked #100 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Songs of the 80s.

#91: Kim Wilde – Kids in America
iTunes stats: 15 plays

Released a year earlier in the UK, this first single from Wilde peaked at #25 on the Hot 100 despite heavy radio play and acclaim on MTV.

#88: Van Halen – Oh, Pretty Woman
iTunes stats: 12 plays

Intended as a non-album single before the band went on a planned hiatus, it became their second Top 20 hit, reaching #12.

#87: The Go-Go’s – Vacation
iTunes stats: 17 plays

Peaking at #8, the song was the group’s second, and final, top ten hit.

#79: The Police – Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
iTunes stats: 21 plays

Originally written for a 1976 demo, the tune topped out at #3 on the Hot 100.

#78: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Crimson and Clover
iTunes stats: 10 plays

This cover of the Tommy James and the Shondells hit from 1968 reached #7 on the chart, the band’s second-highest charting single.

#75: Laura Branigan – Gloria
iTunes stats: 13 plays

Originally written and recorded as an Italian love song in 1979, Branigan’s reworking of the tune spent three weeks at #2 late in 1982.

#73: Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’
iTunes stats: 143 plays

Peaking at #8 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #9 on the Hot 100, the song gained a second life in the 21st century thanks to, among others, the final episode of The Sopranos and, locally, its use by the 2005 World Series Champion Chicago White Sox.

#68: Jackson Browne – Somebody’s Baby
iTunes stats: 17 plays

Recorded for the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack, the song reached #7, becoming Browne’s highest charting hit and his final top ten.

#63: The Go-Go’s – Our Lips Are Sealed
iTunes stats: 17 plays

The band’s debut single, it peaked at #20, but spent 30 weeks on the Hot 100.

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The Nominees Are

side_oscarThe 96th Academy Awards are going down next Sunday night and that means it is time for another go-around of my woeful predictions.  I don’t know that I’ve heard of many of these movies let alone seen them, so, with less basis in fact than most years, here’s my uneducated predictions for the non-acting awards.

Best Original Screenplay

Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall
David Hemingson, The Holdovers
Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer, Maestro
Screenplay by Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, May December
Celine Song, Past Lives

I’ve seen a whopping two of these films, so I’m going to pick my favorite of the two, The Holdovers.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Barbie
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Tony McNamara, Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

I’m assuming this will be the start of a big night for Nolan and Oppenheimer.

Best Animated Feature

The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Once again, I’ll go with the one I’ve seen.

Best Cinematography

Edward Lachman, El Conde
Rodrigo Prieto, Killers of the Flower Moon
Matthew Libatique, Maestro
Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer
Robbie Ryan, Poor Things

Seems like I’m going all in with the atomic bomb movie.

Best Costume Design

Jacqueline Durran, Barbie
Jacqueline West, Killers of the Flower Moon
Janty Yates and Dave Crossman, Napoleon
Ellen Mirojnick, Oppenheimer
Holly Waddington, Poor Things

This seems like as good a place as any for Barbie to get on the board.

Continue reading →

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Book 8 (of 52) – The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes

Sixty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, the future President Snow is chosen as a mentor to a tribute for the 10th Hunger Games.  Looking to secure his place in the Capitol after the Snow family lost everything in the war, he skirts the rules, sneaking food to his tribute, helping her sneak in rat poison to enhance her chances in the arena, and helping her avoid the poisonous snakes sent in to kill the tributes.  After his tribute wins the Hunger Games, he is found out and forced to join the Peacemakers, sent to District 12 and hopeful of reuniting with his tribute.  He eventually finds his way back to the Capitol and finds himself on the fast track to power.

A full decade after the release of Mockingjay, the third and final entry in The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins is back with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel that takes place 64 years prior to the events of the main series.  It doesn’t appear as though Collins had much success with anything else in the intervening years, which I guess explains why she went back to the well after all this time.  The story, focusing on the 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow a mere ten years after the rebellion and the tribute he fell in love with, wasn’t necessarily.one anyone was looking for and one that moves very slowly.

What comes next, both for Collins and the franchise?  Nothing announced, and we are four years out from this book’s initial release.  I guess we’ll see if this is now the end of the story for Panem and its residents.

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FB10: Week 5

A slight improvement over last week as my toe starts to heal.  Sunday and Monday ended up nearly identical, both finishing above 3800 steps with just a 6-step difference between them. Things fell off a cliff on Tuesday, as I needed 9 steps just to reach 1700.  Wednesday saw a nice bounce back, going up to 3700 steps.  A slight decline on Thursday left me 4 steps shy of 3200.  Things improved again on Friday, coming 23 steps away from 4300.  A trip into the city with Michael to see Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue on Saturday led to my best day of the week, finishing with 5200 steps.

Total steps: 25,791

Daily average: 3684.4

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Fifty Years Of Music – 1981

Fifty years ago, I made my first appeared on the Earth.  In celebration, we are going to take a look at the year-end Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for each year of my life and see what songs resonated with me at the time and if they continue to do so to this day.

We continue our look back at the music of my lifetime with 1981, the year I moved from first to second grade and turned 7.  This year, we start to see songs that I remember from their original release, though, in this case, it is due to movies and television.  Only twelve of the Hot 100 are familiar to me now, with nine of them appearing in my collection in one way or another.

#94: Devo – Whip It
iTunes stats: 22 plays

The new wave classic spent 25 weeks on the Hot 100, peaking at #14 in November of 1980.

#76: Billy Squier – The Stroke
iTunes stats: 13 plays

Squier’s first and only single to hit the pop charts, it topped out at #17.

#71: The Police – Don’t Stand So Close to Me
iTunes stats: 11 plays

Reaching #10 on the charts, the song took home the 1982 Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

#65: Queen – Another One Bites the Dust
iTunes stats: N/A

At 31 weeks, it was the longest charting song of 1980, spending fifteen weeks in the top ten, thirteen weeks in the top five, and three weeks at #1.

#62: Neil Diamond – America
iTunes stats: 16 plays

Featured on the soundtrack to Diamond’s film The Jazz Singer. the song reached #8 on the Hot 100 and was Diamond’s sixth chart-topper on the Adult Contemporary chart.

#46: Pat Benatar – Hit Me with Your Best Shot
iTunes stats: N/A

Peaking at #9, the song, which Benatar no longer plays to protest school shootings in the US, was her first Top 10 hit in the US.

#25: Juice Newton – Angel of the Morning
iTunes stats: 14 plays

Written by Angelina Jolie’s uncle in 1967, the track, which earned Newton a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary-Pop Vocal Performance, Female, reached #4 on the Hot 100.

#11: Joey Scarbury – Theme from The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)
iTunes stats: 28 plays

Quite possibly the first single I even owned, the song spent a total of 18 weeks in the Top 40, peaking at #2 in mid-August.

#9: Dolly Parton – 9 To 5
iTunes stats: 12 plays

The theme song from the movie of the same name, the tune was released as a single in November of 1980 and reached the top of the charts in January.

#6: Kool & the Gang – Celebration
iTunes stats: 16 plays

A wedding reception staple for the last 40 years or so, it was the band’s first and only single to reach #1 on the Hot 100.

#5: Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl
iTunes stats: 19 plays

In one of the slowest climbs to the top of the charts, the song spent 19 weeks on the Hot 100 before reaching #1.

#1: Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes
iTunes stats: N/A

Originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon in 1974, this cover by Carnes spent nine non-consecutive weeks atop the charts on its way to winning 1981 Grammys for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year.