layouts and Oscars

I'm fairly pleased with my new blog layout. I've been meaning to move the All Consuming stuff to the right, add the links of the tv shows I'm watching at the moment, and move that stinkin title (and perhaps change it, but to what?). So, the layout works for me. I still need to mess around with the author links, alphabatize it and cut some of them out (I've heard really good things about Sean Wright's book but to be honest I haven't read it and my library doesn't have it). Should I also make two headers? One for genre fiction the other for "L"iterature? Should Alison McGhee be bookended by Neil Gaiman and Greg Keyes? Well...maybe.

You know, I'm not sure I will discriminate. I do need to organize, but I enjoy Ann Patchett's work as much as I do George Martin.


A while back when I posted the list of Oscar Nominations I mentioned that I intended on posting my thoughts about each of the major categories. And then I didn't. I was thinking about that recently and the trouble I have this year is that I've seen a very small handful of nominated films and until last week had only seen one Best Picture nominee.

I've now seen both Crash and Brokeback Mountain and if the race is between the two films (as it very well may be and Roger Ebert believes it is), then I wholeheartedly support Crash.

Ebert has something very interesting to say about quality films today and why they are mostly coming from small studios.

We are entering an era when the studios do not often attempt to make Best Pictures, and most of the nominees are generated by independent filmmakers and specialty distributors. This may say more about audiences than it does about studios, which would cheerfully make good movies if they thought they could sell them. - Roger Ebert

He may be right. Or, if major studios would push the small films, maybe the small films would make more money. And, I think, it is a matter of financial expectation. A film that costs $90 million to make but earns $135 million is a great success and because it has eclipses the hundred million mark reaches a certain status (though the two hundred million mark is now the real mark of status). But, if a studio spends $15 million and earns $35 million, plus DVD, video, and the overseas market...shouldn't this too be considered enough of a financial success to make a studio want to continue making these small movies? $20 million of US theatre profit (minus promotional) isn't to be sneezed at. And if some of the huge pictures aren't even making this, then what does it matter if the huge movie makes $125 million if it made $3 (dollars) of profit? Or, loss?

What was I talking about again?

Anyway, I dig that Roger Ebert is high on Amy Adams as the likely Best Supporting Actress winner. Gotta support the Minnesota girl whom my wife knew and saw perform at Chanhassen.