SmartRemarks

Turns out that there really weren’t many surprises last night. My Academy Award predictions were correct for 19 out of 24 categories (which was enough to win the pool at the party I attended.  8-)  )  The only ones I missed were Foreign Film, Documentary Short, Animated Short, and both Sound categories. (Okay, those last two were a surprise. I really, genuinely expected Wall-E to take at least one of them.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2009, Academy Awards, movies, Oscars

I’m off to an Oscar party this evening, and what fun are the Oscars without a scorecard? I’ve seen most (but not all) of the nominated films, and done some reading on the various other honors handed out during “awards season,” so let me toss my hat in amongst the many, many other sites offering analysis and predictions, and go on the record with my own expectations.

(Which are not the same as my wishes:  what I think will win and what I think deserves to win are often different things. But that’s nothing new.)

Taking it from the top:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2009, Academy Awards, Benjamin Button, Dark Knight, Milk, movies, Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire

It’s been far longer than I intended since my last post. Sometimes time just runs away from you. So let me just toss off a few ideas that have crossed my mind in recent days, and get caught up…

—

First off:  the wrangling in Washington over the new “economic stimulus package” has been interesting to watch. Obama has gone out of his way to be as “post-partisan” as promised, extending an olive branch to Republicans the likes of which Dems never saw under eight years of Bush, wining and dining them, inviting input… and in response they basically gave him the finger. (Although, anxious not to alienate a public who likes him, they tried to shift their ire toward the Democratic leadership.) And the usual suspects in the punditocracy backed them up.

Basically, the GOP’s goal right now seems to be to shrink the stimulus bill down to something so small and weak that it won’t be effective… and then to blame their opponents for its ineffectiveness. All while the country at large continues to suffer, of course.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Congress, Dan DiDio, DC Comics, economy, Final Crisis, House of Representatives, Illinois, Legion, Obama, Republicans, Senate, super-heroes, television, Tom Geoghegan, unemployment

For the last few days I’ve been pleasantly distant from current events, news, and politics. Along with 19 other members of the Chicago Friars Ski Club, my girlfriend and I traveled to Taos, New Mexico to indulge in some skiing. And as always when I’m on vacation, I did my best to leave the rest of the world behind.

The travel itself was a bit of a chore… a cramped three-hour flight to Albuquerque, then a two-hour-plus drive to Taos (in a small caravan of rented SUVs), which is itself a half-hour from Taos Ski Valley proper. And the hotel we stayed in turned out to be, well, adequate at best. But the trip was well worth these minor inconveniences.

Our club is a friendly and diverse group, and in particular the couple with whom we shared our SUV were terrific company. The dining scene in Taos caters to the tourist trade, and far exceeds what you’d ordinarily expect to find in what is basically a one-main-street desert town:  in particular, I have to give a wholehearted recommendation to the Old Blinking Light, a cozy establishment with great service, excellent food, and absolutely without reservation the best margaritas (and not coincidentally, also the most potent margaritas) any of us had ever had.

And oh, yeah, then there was the skiing… and Taos lived up to its reputation! The weather was inconsistent (cloudy one day, foggy the next, gorgeously sunny the next, and so on) but not inhospitable, the snow was good (even if only a little of it was fresh), and the mountain itself was beautiful, with well-designed and well-organized trails that provided a challenge for every level of skier. I’d been warned that Taos was geared toward experts—and while I may be a black diamond skier in the midwest I tend to stick to blues out west in the real mountains—but while the long mogul runs and double-black chutes are there they don’t get in the way of the rest, and I was able to test my limits without getting over my head. My girlfriend, meanwhile, doesn’t ski at the same level as I do, but Taos is famous for its world-class ski school, and after a day in a private lesson she improved her form considerably. There was also a great little NASTAR run for the racers among us, and a terrain park at which one of our group landed, umm, one jump out of two. And it was all gloriously uncrowded—I never had to wait more than thirty seconds in a lift line. My only real complaint is that after years as one of the last holdouts against snowboarders, this was the season the resort buckled and finally let them in.

I’ll just share a few photos and be on my way, before the happy glow completely wears off…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: skiing, Taos

President Barack Obama. Has a nice feeling as it rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

It feels like taking a deep breath of fresh, clean air after eight years of holding your breath.

This kind of enthusiasm about the inauguration of a new president is unlike anything in living memory—certainly not mine, at least, and I’ve heard the same thing from folks considerably older. It’s a wonder to behold.

Obama’s name and image are everywhere. He’s on book and magazine covers, he’s on banners hanging over city sidewalks. He’s on soda bottles and baseball caps, coffee mugs and children’s drawings on refrigerators. At the gym yesterday I saw a young woman wearing a T-shirt reading “I (heart) Obama.” Major newspapers have published extra print runs of their Nov. 5 victory editions to sell off at $5 or $10 a pop.

Americans are ready, more than ready, to feel optimistic and idealistic again. After eight years of oppressive despair and decline, the country has (not for the first time in its history) won itself a second chance, a chance to correct the errors of its ways… and proved it deserved that chance, all at the same stroke… by the actions of its citizens at the ballot box.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: climate, diplomacy, economy, Grant Park, inauguration, Obama, polling

At the moment this post goes live…

We’re finally done with him! Bush is out of here! The sunovabitch is gone, done, finished, he’s through, he’s hitting the road, he will darken our horizons no more.

Good riddance.

And if no other punishment is forthcoming for what he’s done to this country… may he be cursed with self-awareness.

Tags: George W. Bush

Sorry I haven’t posted for a few days. But the holiday interregnum is now well and truly over, and the ordinary part of winter has commenced. Kids are back in school, the full staff is back in the office, and as of today the new Congress has been sworn in.

(Of course, that last part took place absent the junior Senators from Minnesota—although Franken’s win in the long, long recount, finally certified yesterday, is heartening, Norm Coleman’s legal challenge will delay things further despite being almost certainly doomed to fail—or Illinois—one can’t help but feel a little bit sympathetic to Roland Burris, but rejecting him as a symbol of Blago’s hubris is the sensible thing to do, and Burris certainly knew what a minefield he was stepping into. From Delaware Joe Biden is actually still there, until his successor is formally appointed on January 20; and likewise New York and Colorado will need new appointees Very Soon Now too, when Hillary Clinton and Ken Salazar move on to the cabinet.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Al Franken, Apple, blogging, Congress, economy, Gaza, Illinois, Israel, Obama, resolutions, Senate, transition, unemployment

What, another top ten list? Sure, why not. It’s that time of year. Everybody’s doing it.

These are selected only from among films released in Chicago in calendar 2008, and (far narrower than that) from films I’ve actually seen—which is far from all of them, since no one’s paying me to be a critic (more’s the pity). Spoiler Warning: plot points may be revealed below.

Caveats:  this is an entirely personal and subjective list (of course).  2008 was a bit of a mixed bag, cinema-wise; there were a handful of great films, but not very many good ones, so assembling this list took a bit of effort. No guarantee of entertainment value for any third party is intended or should be inferred, and the author specifically disclaims responsibility for any time or money readers may consider to have been wasted on any of these movies. In other words, you’ll probably disagree with me about something. Tough! That’s what the comments section is for.

1) Milk

It begins with death, ends with death, and has death in-between, along with significant portions of prejudice and injustice. The one thing it doesn’t have is despair:  this is one of the most life-affirming movies I’ve seen in ages. Gus Van Sant captures 1970s San Francisco with what feels like easy naturalism, and Sean Penn turns in a brilliant, affecting performance way outside his usual type in the title role.

2) Wall-E

Pixar scores again. In many ways this film, especially the near-silent first half, evokes the terrific silent-era work of Charlie Chaplin, with the good-hearted but hapless hero contending with outrageous circumstances increasingly beyond his control. That the hero happens to be a trash compactor seems almost incidental. It’s irrestistably funny, moving, suspenseful, and (of course) beautiful to look at. Along the way, it also offers gentle lessons for kids and adults both about the undesirable consequences of rampant consumerism.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Dark Knight, Iron Man, movies, super-heroes, Top 10 lists

Here’s a little something to liven up the party tonight, or any other festive occasion! Once you’ve tried real eggnog, you’ll never touch the godawful prepackaged supermarket stuff again. It takes a little time, but it’s worth it. As with my earlier pie recipe, I hybridized this from a wide assortment of published recipes, so I feel no compunctions about sharing it as my own…

Homemade Eggnog

Ingredients:

6 eggs
3/4 cup superfine or confectioner’s sugar
1 cup rum (light or dark)
5 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup heavy cream

Preparation:

First, put two or three metal bowls and the beaters from your hand blender in the freezer to chill.

Make the eggnog “base.” Separate the eggs. Put the egg yolks in one of the bowls, and beat at medium speed. Gradually add one-half of the sugar. Continue beating until the mixture is pale and thick; this will take 7-10 minutes. Gradually add the rum, and continue beating until frothy. Put it in the refrigerator to chill.

Whip the egg whites. Put them in another chilled bowl, and beat (with clean beaters) at high speed until they form soft peaks. Put this in the refrigerator as well, and take out the yolk mixture.

Add the milk. Pour it gradually into the yolk mixture, beating with a hand whisk as you go. (If you use the power mixer at this point, it’ll spatter everywhere.) Add the vanilla and nutmeg at this point as well. If you like more “punch” in your eggnog, feel free to substitute up to two cups of additional rum (or brandy or bourbon) for an equal amount of milk.

Add the whites. Remove the beaten egg whites from the refrigerator and fold them into the milk/egg mixture, using a whisk or soft spatula. Don’t worry about being too gentle; they should be fully combined.

Whip the cream. In another chilled bowl, whip the cream at medium speed, adding the remaining sugar gradually as you go. Stop when it’s just starting to thicken:  you’re not making dessert topping here, so it needs to be drinkable.

Add the cream. Fold the whipped cream into the eggnog mixture, gently but completely. Transfer to a large pitcher or punch bowl, and cover.

Chill. Return the finished eggnog to the refrigerator for at least an hour, or as long as overnight. Serve in small coffee cups or festive mugs, with additional sprinkles of nutmeg for garnish. The finished product should total about 96 ounces (more or less, depending on how much you whipped things), so it’ll provide about 12 servings.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Tags: eggnog, holidays, recipes

A completely subjective list, of course. But what the hell… aren’t they all?

Going in to 2008, one could hardly open a magazine or flip a channel without hitting a media comparison to 1968. It was 40 years ago (a nice, round number), and it was a paradigm-shifting political year that looked familiar, with an open competition for the presidential nomination in both parties, all while a war was on overseas.

As it turned out, 2008 was a momentous year in its own right, arguably the most significant year in decades, and without question one we will all remember vividly. But it was not assassinations and riots that made its mark in the history books, unlike in 1968; it brought distinctive events all its own.

There’s not really a lot of room for debate over the two most significant news events of the year, and the annual AP survey of news editors corresponds with what almost all of us would surely conclude on our own, a point-counterpoint of encouraging and discouraging developments:

1) The presidential election of Barack Obama

I’ve already written quite a bit about this one, of course… but suffice it to say that it’s historic for the fact that he’ll be the first African-American president; it’s historic for the fact that he won with a (generally) upbeat, honorable, serious campaign; and it’s historic in that it marks a realignment back toward progressive politics after a generation of destructive radical conservatism, and after eight years of arguably the single worst president in American history. How Obama really performs in office of course remains to be seen, but what he’s accomplished so far this year stands on its own.

2) The worst economic meltdown in our lifetimes

Written more than a little about this, too, of course. It seems almost quaint now to recall that when I started this blog, back in mid-September—although we now know that we were already nine months into a recession—it was still possible to ask “how bad is the economy?” and wonder if it would still get worse. Within days, everything started to go to hell in a handbasket… in a way that seems to have created a destructive feedback loop, where every new development just exacerbates what came before. Homes foreclosing, jobs disappearing, businesses (and entire industries) collapsing, credit freezing, investments evaporating… we’ll remember this for a long time, no matter how much we might prefer to forget it.

After that, the choices grow more arguable. My assessment:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Blagojevich, Chicago, climate, Congress, economy, Election 2008, financial crisis, FISA, history, Illinois, international, iPhone, journalism, Madoff, media, Obama, Top 10 lists