Mostly Quiet in the Film Year's Siberia

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At this time of the year the studios traditionally have released or are releasing their crap/filler fare, perhaps half films that, they thought, could have made it big but just didn't materialize and half films that were never intended to materialize more than cookie dough in the first place. Of course, anomalies to these dregs are, worshipped (e. g., Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), but this year has not provided any such respite.
Despite these dour days, both inside and outside the theater, small written pieces about those whom we adore and yearn for may comfort some. On this note: check out this new piece in the New York Times about the extremely talented, yet grossly overlooked, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Its "Levitt-y" - I couldn't help myself - should do the trick.

Oscars 2007: Best Score

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Although, I must comment, this year's Academy Awards were nowhere near as abhorrent as last year's. there were of course a few notable misjudgements, in my opinion, on the part of the Academy. However, the most egregious by far, for it constitutes a terrific fraud, was the award given for Best Original Score. I listed the full title, instead of just referring to it as best score, because the originality of the winner is one I question severely. While it may be my personal opinion that the battered recyclings into a general-purposes mulch which I consider the Babel score are no more than what I've just said, the dregs of an awful melange of Mr. Santaolalla's previous scores, it is not my personal opinion but rather incredible fact that the score was also the score for another work (i. e., very unoriginal). The very first episode of the popular television show 24, which aired now over five years ago, was also scored by the then relatively unknown Santaolalla. At the time, it was a very appropriate choice, but today the score is an artifact of his career. To have reinvigorated it to whatever length by literally extending its duration and then have pasted it onto a film is a bad enough move as it is. To have done so under the pretense of it being original is simply execrable; to accept an award for its originality a knowning abuse of the system. Popular insignificance is no excuse - and, when the fame of the wildly successful 24 is considered, DVD sales of its seasons tallied, the designation "popular insignificance" is even questionable. It is fully my intention by this column to at the very least call the Academy's and the film industry's attentions to this matter, to draw them to the popular, so that it may be again at least investigated. (I would think such an investigations would have already been conducted by the touchy Academy. How they could have overlooked this connection is a mystery to me. Whatever the case on their part, however,) it needs to be made public and resolved; (probable) violation of industry integrity is an ignominious blemish on industry's face and should not for its caliginous character be either unnoticed or ignored - especially where there were two far more worthy scores on that nominees' list - well done Javier and Alexandre.