3.22.99

    I just heard that dang Baz Luhrman song again. On NPR they were doing a bit on the origins of the song and they spoke with Marge Schick (sp?) about her penning of it. That song just brings up some strange, deep part of me that needs comfort and reassurance. Although, that's just a part of it. Every time I hear it I think, "That's some brilliant writing." I envy it. It's inspirational.

    In the interview Schick said that while she didn't know how proud she felt of the piece when she finished it, she did know that when she was done that she had written what she had meant to write. Try to write for an audience and you'll know how gratifying that can be.

    I watched the Oscar's Sunday night and found them to be more enjoyable than years past. Perhaps it was because it was on a Sunday night and there seemed to be more time to watch. I enjoyed Whoopie but the costume changes did get a bit ridiculous. I loved Roberto Benigni. How can you not love him? He's so anti-hollywood that it's refreshing. If you haven't seen Night on Earth yet I just don't know what you're waiting for. The movie is five vignettes about taxi drivers. It utilizes actors and actresses who are from the places where each story is told: Los Angeles, New York, Prague, Rome and Paris. The foreign stories are told in that language with subtitles and the characters are wonderfully rendered. Roberto Benigni is, of course, in the Rome story and he really steals the show. Go rent it. As a bonus, the entire soundtrack is by Tom Waits.

    I'm glad that Saving Private Ryan didn't sweep the Oscar's like Titanic did last year. There were a few surprises, Judy Dench and James Coburn, who both totally deserved it but it was never clear who would win, and a few things that you expected like best original screenplay (Shakespeare) and cinematography (Private Ryan).

    The worst of the night had to be the pre-show. NBC's wasn't too bad. The guy they had asking the question managed to sound fresh and together for each new person down the red carpet. The one running on ABC, the host of the awards show, was really, really, really embarrassingly awful. It had that Revlon model, formerly the spokesmodel for Charlie Perfume ("What kind of Charlie girl are you?") and Roger Ebert paired up as Overhyper and Underwhelmed. "Charlie" kept screaming with over-exuberance reminiscent of a cheerleader at her first tryouts for junior varsity and Ebert did nothing. They kept asking really bad 'yes' or 'no' questions and then trying to talk to the actors coming up behind the poor actors still stuck in front of them. They'd run out of things to say to Helen Hunt and before she was even gone Charlie was screaming out at Kevin Costner. It was truly awful. I had this sinking feeling that it was supposed to be Siskel and Ebert standing there but since Siskel is... otherwise occupied they threw her in there.

    If you missed the dance number in the middle of the Oscars then you missed a truly amazing display of idiocy. They did, as far as I can tell, interpretive dance numbers of the five films up for Best Picture in tap. They tap-danced. Please tell me who thought they could tap-dance Saving Private Ryan? Who is the idiot? If there weren't little titles telling me what these gyrations were supposed to represent I would've had no clue. It would have been better to be clueless. A note to you tap-dancers out there: no matter how buff and toned you may be on top you should absolutely never tap-dance without a shirt on — too much jiggling in weird places.

    What the hell did DeNiro do to his hair? Midlife crisis flashback to Taxi Driver is all I can think of. Either that or the impish Scorsese convinced him that it would be the ultimate tribute to Kazan.

    I feel like I'm coming down with a new cold. I can't wait. I love being sick.