• Congrats to the navy for a great shoot down. No, seriously. Here’s the video. Anybody who thinks that is an easy thing has no idea.
• Speaking of which, they are starting to see broken up pieces of the bird entering the atmo.
• To add to the fun, the satellite shoot-down took place just as the moon was going through an infrequent lunar eclipse. I took a look at it during a few phases of the eclipse. A pic of the eclipse I took with my nifty new Canon PowerShot S5 IS camera is featured on this post. I know I could have taken a better shot, but I’m still kinda getting used to the controls on the camera, and it was frickin’ freezing out (nearly zero degrees). Still, the pic turned out pretty good for being only a partially manual shot.
• Occasionally, The Onion will have a news story that just strikes my funny bone perfectly. This is just such a story. I was tearing up, laughing so hard while reading it.
• Oooooh, David Fincher is directing a graphic novel adaptation, Black Hole. I’m there.
• Then there’s word that Leonardo DiCaprio is involved in a LIVE ACTION remake of Akira. I’ve got no idea if they can even come close to making it work. I like Akira, and I’ll admit that the last act of the movie makes zero sense. I have to imagine them reworking it, somehow. But if they could somehow bring the first 30 minutes to life, with anywhere near the style that the animated film has, I’ll wanna see that.
• More and more cast members are being added onto the roster for the Buffy Paley Center event. Now Alyson Hannigan and David Boreanaz have joined in on the fun. But hey, if Alyson is going, where’s Alexis Denisof?
• Coolness…
• Was your science fair project better than these? Too funny…
• The HD-DVD walls continue to crumble. The major remaining HD-DVD supporting studios, Paramount and Universal, have officially jumped ship as well.
• Help Stop Darth Weinstein. I haven’t actually seen Fanboys yet, though I’ve wanted to for some time. The reason I really want to see it just goes to underline the true nature of Fanboys in general. I want to see it because it stars Kristen Bell. Doesn’t hurt that it’s about Star Wars/fans. But yeah, this movie has had a stupid, tumultuous history trying to get to an actual release.
• Here’s an amusing little entry in the GMail Team Blog
• Congrats to Monk for a seventh season pickup
• iPaper - a hopeful new attempt to kill the PDF. It’s certainly a faster platform (what isn’t?).
• A nifty presentation of the newest version of the $5 bill (and some cool pics and info on previous versions)
• The Sharper Image has filed for chapter 11
• Gotta love code developers (credit for this one goes to Drupal’s always-excellent and fun Jeff Eaton)
• Meanwhile, Juno continues on it’s steady run

• Go, Amazon, Go…
• Huge congratulations go out to Juno for passing the $100 million mark (well, worldwide, but so little of that is foreign that it’ll roll past the domestic $100 million mark any day now). That’s a big achievement for a low-budget, indie-style movie to pull off. On top of their 4 major Oscar nominations, the folks involved in that film (my favorite of 2007) are surely giddy. The tenacity that it’s shown at the box office is impressive.
• An amusing approach to the insanity of cellular hardware manufacturers and their immediate disinterest in any hardware they’ve already produced, in immediate favor of whatever their next model is. I’ve got an AT&T 8525 (a re-branded HTC Hermes) which has served me well, but the lukewarm support for the device is a surprisingly altruistic situation for an industry that I’ve seen abandon models before most consumers have even got their grubby little paws on ‘em.
• I’m sure I’ve mentioned the site before, but InterfaceLIFT.com is my most highly recommended source for fantastic photographic (primarily) wallpapers. Particularly high-res, widescreen ones. It’s intended as a MAC-centric site, but their archive of material is great for any of us high-res, widescreen monitor fans. Such is the case with this most recent example of a cool photo.
• For those interested in Microsoft certification, they have extended their free “second shot” promotion until the end of June.
• This is old news by now, but the title to the new Bond film is one of their truly stranger choices: Quantum Of Solace.
• Also slightly old news by this point, but very, very cool, is the fact that Disney/PIXAR is releasing the Toy Story films in new 3D transfers.
• Another great Dilbert Blog entry. This time, resulting in a surprisingly good song.
• Speaking of Dilbert, you may have noticed (unless you view my posts via RSS) that I added the flash-based, official Dilbert strip digest widget to the side of the site. Not sure if I’ll keep it. Thought it was cool and figured I’d give it a run. Cool that the archive is to feature the strips in color, no less.
• Geek lust: Canon Rebel XSi

• OK, the big news of the Oscar nominations for today got a bit eclipsed by the surprising death of Heath Ledger. Sad to hear of that, of course. It’ll be a bit weird watching The Dark Knight. Anyway, as far as the Oscars go, I was pretty happy with the results. Frankly, I think I’m happier with this list than I have been in years. I’m finally gonna have the motivation to getting out and seeing Atonement and There Will Be Blood (both of which I have wanted to see but haven’t gotten around to). I’m absolutely giddy that Juno got 4 of the major nomination categories. And honestly, it’s the 4 categories that it most deserves to have gotten - Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody), Director (Jason Reitman), Actress (Ellen Page) and most awesome of all, Best Picture. In fact, 2 of the Best Picture nominees are in my personal top 5 list from my recently finished 2007 Film Retrospective list (Juno & Michael Clayton). I definitely liked No Country For Old Men, but think it could have been a bit better (then again, perhaps I’d have a different opinion on a second viewing). The film score category, which has sucked beyond the telling of it the last couple years, has 2 great nominees in the list: Michael Giacchino’s Ratatouille and Marco Beltrami’s fantastic 3:10 To Yuma (which amusingly I actually have playing, by coincidence, as I type this). This is the first nomination for both of them. And as two of the greatest composers currently in the game, they both deserve it. I’d be thrilled for either of them to win. I haven’t yet heard the score to Atonement, but Dario Marianelli is a talented composer, so I imagine it’s good. I haven’t heard The Kite Runner’s score yet either, but I’d have doubts about it since I was anything but impressed with Alberto Iglesias’ 2006 Oscar nominated score to The Constant Gardner. And James Newton Howard did a good job with his score to Michael Clayton (not sure that it stands out quite to the level of Oscar nomination, but it’s certainly better than nearly all the nominees in the last couple years). Speaking of Michael Clayton, it’s great to see it pick up a number of nominations, including the biggest set of acting nominations for the year, deservedly so. I had it in a number of the categories in my list as well. And it’s fantastic to see Philip Seymour Hoffman get the supporting actor nomination for Charlie Wilson’s War (he was beyond fantastic in that film). Oh, and nice to see Tommy Lee Jones get some long-overdue attention for his excellent performance in In The Valley Of Elah. Anyway, I’ll get a spreadsheet of my predictions/choices posted in the near future, as usual.
• BTW, speaking of Juno, I hadn’t been paying close attention to the box office performance of the film. I’m happy that it’s doing phenomenal. It looks like it’s amazingly going to cross the $100 million line. It’s officially Fox Searchlight’s biggest money-maker to date, by a comfortable margin, which is only going to continue to increase. The staying power of the film is impressive, and great to see.
• The teaser for JJ Abrams’ new Star Trek film has gone live on the official site. I belive Abrams may be able to pull it off. It’ll be worth it just for Michael Giacchino’s score.
• A picture is indeed worth 1000 words. Most of them amusing words.
• Cool. The real camera behind Cloverfield.
• Oh, and speaking of Cloverfield, I’ll want one of these. I’m not much of an action figure type person, but this one would be very cool. I’m sure I’ll want one even more when they post some pics. The price will keep me from picking one up, though…
• Some neato job ads from the 30’s & 40’s.
• In memory of Heath Ledger, I think I’ll pop on A Knight’s Tale (my favorite film of his) while I do some work on other stuff…

“Yeah, I’m a legend. You know, they call me the cautionary whale.”

Favorite movie of the year, plain and simple. What higher praise can I give? I’d be thrilled to see a movie like this get Oscar attention.

Writing: First time screenwriter (and former stripper…) Diablo Cody (real name: Brook Busey) pulls off a strikingly smart and amusing character drama. With casually sharp dialog and a carefully restrained sense of eccentricity, it’s hard to not be engaged and entertained.

Production: In recent years, I’ve found it interesting how many second generation directors of prominent industry vets have not only shown themselves as good as their parent, but have surpassed them. There has been the likes of Sofia Coppola and Jake Kasdan (and brother Jon Kasdan is a possibility as well). But if there’s a prime example of such, it would be Jason Reitman, son of legendary comedy director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Stripes, etc). It was hard to say for sure about Jason after just one movie, his absolutely fantastic Thank You For Smoking, but now that there’s a track record of two films to judge, it’s clear that he’s got more directing chops than his father. This movie is beautifully shot, with a goal towards simplicity. It’s brilliantly edited, with a pitch-perfect sense of timing and narrative. And it’s got a sense of irony and comedic timing like few others.

Cast: Ellen Page - performance of the year. The remarkable thing about that (aside from her young age) is that it’s not for an overtly dramatic performance. This is a dramatic performance hidden inside a comedic and eccentric delivery. I have to believe this is one of the hardest performances to pull off so perfectly. With a character that’s endearingly so off-center, you have to be careful to not take it too far. I mean, to announce the news of her pregnancy to the father, she sets up a discarded easy chair and a throw rug outside his house with a smoking pipe in her mouth, delivering the news with quirky confusion and flippant casualness. Her performance is simply perfect. It took me a bit to figure out where I recognized her from, until I realized she had played Kitty Pride in the third X-Men film (she’s the third actress to play the role in the films, and I was impressed with her in the role). Incidentally, I couldn’t help but be reminded by one of my all-time favorite TV performances while watching Ellen Page in this role - that of Caroline Dhavernas as Jaye Tyler in the absolutely fantastic series Wonderfalls. Perhaps it’s a young, cute, brunette, Canadian thing. But their performances are not entirely unalike. Michael Cera is equally charming and also a bit off-beat. The two of them play off each other effortlessly and awkwardly, simultaneously. Jennifer Garner does an admirable job as a somewhat reserved but quietly desperate character, turning in an excellent performance (as always). Then there’s Jason Bateman as the somewhat overwhelmed father-to-be, playing the immaturity with amusing maturity (for whatever sense that makes). Then enter the truly caring parents played so wonderfully by Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons. Simmons had been in Jason Reitman’s previous film, Thank You For Smoking. It’s still in the style of his typically frank performances, but this one has plenty of heart behind it (very unlike his Thank You For Smoking character). And Janney pulls off some great scenes. Then there’s supporting performances from folks like Rainn Wilson and Olivia Thirlby. Wilson plays a small role of a store clerk, and gets in some great dialog delivery in his one scene. It took me a bit to figure out where I recognized Thirlby, till I finally put it together that she was the actress playing the daughter in Kidnapped - a performance I was impressed with while watching that under rated show.

Music: Music plays a key part in the movie. A number of the characters in the film are musicians, and they talk about music quite a bit. Add to that the fact that the songs are featured prominently as almost a character of their own in production. The closing scene of Juno & Bleeker sitting on the steps playing the song is an excellent little coda. Outside of the folksy songs, the score itself is also quite quaint and folksy. It works effortlessly.

“You should’ve gone to China, you know, ’cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.”