Monthly Archives: January 2011

Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations

I’ve been meaning to get to this all week and here goes.

Best Picture: I still think that expanding this field from 5 to 10 was one of the sillier moves the Academy has made in a long history of silly moves. The ten films nominated are Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are Alright, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone.

I’ve seen 6 of the 10. The early consensus is that this is the year of Social Network with King’s Speech having an outside chance. I think Social Network is a fantastic achievement but I also think it’s a film that won’t hold up over the years. Facebook will one day fade into obscurity and this film will be little more than a curiosity. Academy voters skew old and many of them don’t vote for their favorite film (otherwise Debbie Does Dallas would probably have an Oscar); they vote for films that they think make the Academy look good and tasteful. There’s a month of hardcore campaigning ahead and I’d like to think that the dark horse here is True Grit. It’s the Coen Brothers’ most successful film at the box office and perhaps it might take home the award though I’m not ready to bet on this yet.

Best Director: Darren Aronofsky ‘The Black Swan’, David O. Russell ‘The Fighter’, Tom Hooper ‘The King’s Speech’, David Fincher ‘Social Network’, Coen Brothers ‘True Grit’. This one is Fincher’s to lose. Regardless of anything else, Social Network is a masterpiece of pacing, of taking a film that’s basically scenes of people sitting in rooms talking to each other and keeping things moving briskly. It doesn’t condescend to the audience. And Fincher already took home the DGA award. (Update January 30th: My bad, Tom Hooper got the DGA nod for King’s Speech. Guess I’ll have to break down and watch it but right now I still think Fincher deserves this.)

Best Actress: Annette Bening ‘The Kids Are Alright’, Nicole Kidman ‘The Rabbit Hole’, Jennifer Lawrence ‘Winter’s Bone’, Natalie Portman ‘The Black Swan’, Michelle Williams ‘Blue Valentine’. The only one of these 5 that I’ve seen in Portman but she gives a bravura performance and she should win in a hop, skip and a jete.

Best Actor: Javier Bardem ‘Biutiful’, Jeff Bridges ‘True Grit’, Jesse Eisenberg ‘The Social Network’, Colin Firth ‘The King’s Speech’, James Franco ’127 Hours’. Everyone loves The Dude and here, taking on The Duke, he gives a masterclass in acting. But if it’s going to be a King’s Speech sweep, Firth could win.

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams ‘The Fighter’, Helena Bonham Carter ‘The King’s Speech’, Melissa Leo ‘The Fighter’, Hailee Steinfeld ‘True Grit’, Jacki Weaver ‘Animal Kingdom’. The buzz is all around Melissa Leo’s performance but Steinfeld stands a chance.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale ‘The Fighter’, John Hawkes ‘Winter’s Bone’, Jeremy Renner ‘The Town’, Mark Ruffalo ‘The Kids Are All Right’, Geoffrey Rush ‘The King’s Speech’. This is the easiest category to predict. There’s Bale and then there’s everyone else.

Best Animated Feature: How to Train Your Dragon, Illusionist, Toy Story 3. TS3 would almost seem to be a given here. Voters will see it on the ballot in two places and think, “I won’t vote for this for best picture so I’ll vote for it here.” Unless they’re tired of Pixar winning here, in which case Dragon is a terrific film.

Best Cinematography: I’m guessing the front runner is Roger Deakins for True Grit. Wally Pfister’s work on Inception was also excellent.

Best Adapted Screenplay: My money would be on Aaron Sorkin for Social Network. Someone who has had his share of ups and downs, this is his latest comeback and the Academy will take note of that.

Best Original Screenplay: In this category I’ve only seen The Fighter and Inception and I seriously doubt either of those two films will win.

Best Film Editing: I think Social Network is going to take this one.

That’s not all the categories but most of the so-called major ones. You can see the full list of nominations here.

So which films would you vote for?

Weird Blog Stats

If I could figure this out, I suppose my blog would be a lot more popular. Over the course of the past 3 months, if I look at the most popular pages on the blog and exclude the home page, these are the top ten:

Machete – My review of the film includes two photos side-by-side of Jessica Alba showing how her nude scene was the product of CGI. And also a picture of the very hot Avellan twins. People are searching for both of those and seem to end up here.

HK Links – I’ve got a fairly large list of HK blogs here, not maintained as rigorously as I should.

Pay Duty to Bring Your Own iPad to China – Obvious why people would be interested in this.

Gay Marriages Will Save the Economy – From two years ago, this includes the video of the same name from Funny or Die, and when people search on that title I’m the number 3 result. There’s also a very nice picture of Anne Hathaway and people searching for pictures of her seem to end up here.

Singapore Fail Whale – Showing how a tourism poster for Singapore seems to have copied Twitter’s famous fail whale.

Best Albums 2010 – This post ended up being in Largehearted Boy’s year end round-up of listings on this subject.

Chrissie Chau Grows a Cup Size – Everyone is always searching for more pictures of Chrissie. She’s a Facebook friend and she’s done at least one shoot at my photo studio but I’ve never met her IRL.

iPad and VPN – People outside the US want Hulu and others on their iPad.

iPhone 4 No Longer Available From Apple HK Web Site – Pretty much what it says.

Osteria Ristorante Italiano at the Holiday Inn Golden Mile – When the Holiday Inn offered me a free night in exchange for a possible review and then ended up comping me on meals as well, I wasn’t sure if it fell too far outside of what I normally cover here but gave it a shot.

So, there you have the top ten. There is no common thread. Sex figures in 3 of the 10 (with photos that I got from elsewhere.) News about Apple products also make up 3 of the 10. One post on music. One restaurant review. And the Singapore fail whale.

As near as I can figure it, if I want the blog to be more popular, I should be concentrating on posts that have news about Apple products combined with photos of relatively famous women showing a lot of cleavage. Look for lots of future posts about iPhone 5 rumors combined with photos of Bar Rafaeli in a bikini.

(photo from here.)

This Is Embarrassing

I have multiple Gmail accounts that forward into a single inbox and it wasn’t until just an hour or so ago that I realized that I hadn’t seen any hongkietown email in quite some time. Checking it out, I found that due to some error those emails haven’t been getting forwarded to me since six weeks ago. I logged directly into that account and there were dozens of messages sitting there unread and unanswered, many of them very kind messages from readers related to Spikey. I’m trying to get caught up on all of these as quickly as I can and in the meantime just want to apologize to all of you.

Keith Richards’ Skull Ring (and Mine)

There are certain musicians that I have been obsessed with for years, decades even. Keith Richards is one and this particular obsession has reached new heights (or depths?) after reading his excellent autobiography. To me rock and roll isn’t just music, it’s a philosophy, a way of life. That’s probably because I hit my teens in the 60′s and back then there was a very definite division between what was “rock” and what was “pop” and anything pop was something to be disdained and even reviled. So to me, Keith Richards has always been about music and the love of music. Unlike Mick, he hasn’t been knighted and is unlikely to ever get that accolade. The best Stones songs come from him. ”Happy” is a song I almost consider a personal theme song. And the decline of the Stones as a musical force came at the same time that he sank deeper into drugs. Well, I’m not gonna write a thousand word essay on Richards and my appreciation of him; let’s just take that as played. Plus, he was very nice to my mom about 25 years ago.

One of Keith’s symbols is the skull ring that he seems to always wear. It was one-of-a-kind until, if I’m not mistaken, he had a second one made for his friend Johnny Depp. Keith’s ring was made by Courts & Hackett in London.

In 1978 the celebrated London goldsmiths David Courts and Bill Hackett were working on a small scale silver sculpture of a human skeleton. Using a real skull for reference they carved a perfect miniature replica which they then moulded. When the hollow wax skull was removed from its mould the inspiration for the ring was born. Further experimentation led to the creation of the original silver skull ring. At the same time an invitation arrived from Keith Richards to his birthday party in New York – so Bill and David decided that the new ring would make a fantastic present. From the moment he put it on his finger, the magic began and he has worn it ever since.

For reasons we can probably guess at, after thirty years, C&H is finally selling a replica of Keith’s ring.

Since Keith put on the original Courts and Hackett skull ring in 1978, David and Bill have received countless requests for a copy but their original decision that the ring should remain unique has meant that there is no replica mould and no duplicates.

Now, for the first time and only available from them is a magnificent new deaths head ring sculpted from the same human skull used for the original.

Using unique techniques developed in their workshop they have created the ultimate skull ring. Exquisite details include an immaculately carved bone structure, individual teeth and finely engraved cranium.

Crafted in solid 925 silver each ring will be stamped with the Courts and Hackett hallmark guaranteeing authenticity, date, materials used and country of origin.

So, fan boy that I am, I decided that I wanted a skull ring. I took a look at what was available in Hong Kong, at least in the shops I know, and did some scouting around on the net. I didn’t want something fancied up with jewels or patterns, just a plain, well made skull. Maybe it was just psychological but I didn’t see any ring that compared to this one. So I bit the bullet and a couple of weeks ago sent my ring size to C&H and ordered one for myself. (Their web site doesn’t list Hong Kong as a country they’ll ship to. I emailed them and they replied pretty quickly that it was no problem.)

The ring arrived on Monday and it’s fucking great. It’s a serious ring. It’s heavy and it’s also incredibly detailed. I’d do some of my own photos of it but I don’t have lighting equipment to get proper shots, and the photos on their web site are already pretty good.

Up till now, there’s only been one piece of jewelry that’s “stuck” with me. It’s a ring I bought 40 years ago at a shop in Greenwich Village (on MacDougal Street in NYC) called C’est Magnifique, sterling silver around a prosthetic eye – not some cheap plastic crap but an actual medical prosthetic. As I recall, it cost US$25, and that was a shitload of money for me at the time but I had to have it.

(Not the best shot but it’s all I have handy.) That shop, believe it or not, is still in business. Every couple of years I’d go back and the woman who owned the shop would always clean the ring for me for free and we’d chat for awhile. I went back last year and she’s passed away and her son is now running the business. They don’t do the eyeball ring any more but he told me he could make up more by special order. That ring has been around the world with me multiple times. It’s not something I wear every day but it is a part of me.

Anyway, I digress, as I always do. I love this Courts & Hackett ring and I think it’s something that will be with me for the rest of my life. Right now it’s new and I’m wearing it every day, but I think I’m going to keep on wearing this every day. I’m really thrilled to have this.

Phottix PASM One Shot Competition Finals

Sunday was the final round for the Phottix PASM One Shot competition. It was great fun.

If you want to know what’s going on in the photo above and see more photos from the day and if you’d like to know who won, check it out over on Spike’s Photos.

Cathay Pacific Rugby 7s Tickets Fail

Maybe it’s because I live in Sai Kung and the fastest internet connection available here is 8mbps, while those living in most parts of HK island or Kowloon can get 100mbps and even 1 gig.

But I think it’s also the fault of HKTicketing for not beefing up their infrastructure for what they knew in advance would be a record breaking drain on their servers and bandwidth. Because every year when 7s tickets go on sale, everyone goes nuts trying to buy them and they sell out in under half an hour.

I actually got through on the web site. I got to the page, selected two tickets, logged in, clicked on “proceed to payment” and that’s when things hung. And the page wouldn’t load, giving me an error message. And I’d hit reload. And click on “proceed to payment.” And the page wouldn’t load. Repeat. Repeat. Until the page did load, telling me that my time to complete the purchase had expired and I should try again.

And so on and so on and so on until the page loaded and told me that there were no seats available. That was in Chrome. Over in IE, the Proceed to Payment page is still trying to load 10 minutes after I clicked on it.

It ain’t the end of the world. And there will be tons of tickets being scalped on AsiaXpat and GeoExpat and everywhere else.

It’s just fucking annoying that every year it’s the same goddamn thing and they never get their act together on this – because they don’t have to because it sells out anyway.

I’ve Been Better

Despite my attempts to put on a happy face and move on, I’m still dwelling on the recent past. I looked in the mirror just now and I know I look like homemade shit and I don’t really care. Also I think I’ve gained about 10 pounds in the last week from days sitting at home not really eating meals, just loading up on junk food all day long. And I’m not really sleeping.

When we brought Spikey into the vet, as I mentioned we were using a blanket as a makeshift stretcher. We put him on the examination table on that blanket and he stayed on it for the last minutes of his life, as I held him and as the vet gave him the injection that put him to sleep. (Euphemism, of course.) Eventually I left the room, paid the final bills, and told everyone we should go.

My helper reminded me that we should get the blanket back. I really wasn’t thinking about it and, odd as this may sound, it was a good blanket that I bought in Mexico years ago. So I asked an orderly to help me out.

We went back into the room. Spikey was lying on the blanket and it looked like he was just sleeping. He looked no different than he’s looked a million times before. I put my hands under his head and shoulders to lift him gently; the orderly was more matter of fact about it. The blanket was pulled out from underneath him and he just kind of flopped back on the table. His lifeless body went back down on the table, back first, his paws flopping in the air. Simultaneously he looked as if he was still alive and moving and at the same time that was the moment that I realized he was really gone.

I shifted his body, putting him on his side, putting his legs on the table, putting him in what I suppose seemed like a more natural position to me. I looked down at his body for another minute or so. I’m not really sure why – perhaps I was waiting for him to move? It is possible that I was in denial at this point – as the vet was administering the injection, as he was quietly stating progress (“Okay, his brain has stopped now. His heart has stopped now.”) I had to keep myself from shouting out, “Wait! Stop! Don’t do this! Can you roll it back somehow, can you reverse this?”

Last night I was out with some friends. I couldn’t drink because I had the car but being with friends did serve to distract me; I was able to joke and not think about stuff. But I went to bed around 11. I tossed and turned. All I could think about was that image of his body on the table after we removed the blanket, of that moment of realization that he was truly gone. I got up. I went downstairs and had a cigarette and tried to distract myself by playing some games on my iPad and then wrote those two brief blog posts. I went back up to bed around 12:30 and again, tossing and turning, that image the only thing in my head. I fell asleep around 2, woke up several times during the night, finally dragged myself out of bed at 7:45 and was in the office before 9:30.

Obviously this is not good. Hopefully it will pass in a few days. I’m in need of some distractions. I need to snap the fuck out of it. You may have noticed it’s not something I’m necessarily good at.

The Impossible Dream

Here’s the line-up for the 2011 Coachella festival. There are more groups playing in this 3 day festival that I want to see than I could shake a stick at. Unfortunately, most of them will never play Hong Kong even on their own, let alone as part of a festival, so standing around and shaking a stick in time to the music playing in our earbuds is our only option.

I’m not saying that at my age I’d want to camp out in a field for three days thousands of feet from a stage, surrounded by tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, craning my neck for a glimpse of the video monitors and straining to hear the music. But I’d like to have that option. And I’d be really happy to attend just a single day of this …. probably Saturday if forced to choose.

Then again, my mother and her cousin will be having a shared 90th birthday party at some point close to these dates, maybe the timing would work out ….

Hero?

I’d mentioned Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globe jokes yesterday. I didn’t realize how much of a furor they’d create – a veritable tempest in a teacup. Some are saying he’s being shunned, some are saying the reaction is proof that American’s have no sense of humor (at least about themselves). Me, I found most of it funny, some of it tired but on the whole I think that some balloons require getting a pin stuck in them, especially award shows, especially the silly ones, and more than a few celebrities can use a bit of deflating now and then. If anyone was seriously offended by any of those jokes, that must mean they came too close to the truth for comfort. And if anyone who was not the target of those jokes was offended by them, those people need to get a life.

My First Favorite Album of 2011

Probably not a shock to anyone that in my current mood, I’m playing a lot of blues. For those who are interested, my tastes lean to Chicago blues, especially stuff from Chess Records. Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, those guys are gods to me.

But I am surprised to be caring about a Gregg Allman album after all these years, because I never even bothered to listen to his solo stuff after that first album, which I do still enjoy. When I heard his new album was produced by T Bone Burnett, I figured I should at least check it out and since I like almost everything Burnett’s produced, I knew I’d like this one.

It’s called Low Country Blues and it’s Allman’s first solo album in 14 years, recorded immediately after he received a liver transplant last year. Burnett sent him a bunch of songs to choose from and these are the ones that made it to the album (listed with the original writers):

Floating Bridge (Sleepy John Estes)
Little By Little (Junior Wells)
Devil Got My Woman (Skip James)
I Can’t Be Satisfied (Muddy Waters)
Blind Man (Bobby Bland)
Just Another Rider (Gregg Allman & Warren Haynes)
Please Accept My Love (BB King)
I Believe I’ll Go Back Home (Traditional)
Tears Tears Tears (Amos Milburn)
My Love is Your Love (Samuel Maghett)
Checking On My Baby (Otis Rush)
Rolling Stone (Traditional)

Some you may recognize, many you won’t.

The back-up band is Dr. John on piano, Doyle Bramhall II on guitar, Dennis Crouch on acoustic bass and Jay Bellerose on drums.

The first song is acoustic blues and I found myself thinking, there’s that trademark Burnett sound, he’s getting close to self-parody here. But it turns out that the album is virtual tour through a variety of blues styles. Blind Man has a big horn section and smokes, as any proper Bobby Blue Bland cover should. Please Accept My Love should remind you of classic New Orleans. And so on.

If Allman had been making records like this all along, I never would have lost interest in him. I’m glad he’s back.

I’ve also been revisiting a favorite, extremely obscure favorite of mine from 1973, Islands by Cyrus Faryar.

This is a beautiful, genre-defying piece of work, some folk, some rock, a backing band that included Don Preston (from the Mothers of Invention) and Collin Walcott (from Oregon) and produced by the great John Simon. Stop by my house, I’ll play it for you sometime.

From Faryar, I always segue to Tim Buckley, almost always Buzzin’ Fly from the Happy Sad album, when he was just starting to stretch from folk into something of his own invention, his amazing voice and deceptively simple lyrics. Or if I’m in a seriously weird mood, I’ll jump up to Sefronia, his next to last album.

And then ….