If...

The late Heath Ledger does win a posthumous Oscar tonight for playing Batman's old nemesis "The Joker" to perfection last summer...it'll be as much about his tragic death AND Hollywood's penchant for method driven portraits in dementia as it'll be about the actor's own ahrd work and devotion to the craft.
Conservative commentators will predictably blow a gasket over another film pyscho winning an Oscar...which is true but then again a generation ago lugubrious historical epics with wax-work performance styles ATE Oscar statues for breakfast.
Time passes new cliches replace old ones.
To me, it's just interesting and possibly a little liberating that a performance in a comic book adaptation merits such an award...we've come a long way from Flash Gordon haven't we?

Believe the Hype....

It really is a bravura performance from Mickey Roarke as a washed up grappler Randy the Ram Robinson in "The Wrestler".
Granted the script is nothing new, but all the performances are taught and realistic....Roarke in particular paces his performance so very carefully thru the film that in the very end you see just why his character is so hopelessly self destructive...and it's not because of drugs or booze or anything else, Randy the Ram never grew up...he opted for a very violent and childish form of fame (pro wrestler) and when went it went south, it is no wonder he can't reconnect with his daughter hold a job or escape his fate in any way.
Oh and kudos to Marisa Tomei (damn that girl just doesn't quit on herself) and Evan Rachel Wood, nothing phoney about either performance.
If Mister Roarke cops the penultimate bookend on Oscar night, then he will deserve it no question.
Oh and his feud with Chris Jericho sounds fake and I mean that in a good way.

Seen on CNN...

a short feature news story on how business owners are turning to astrologers and astrology to survive the current recession.
In fact, the captioned soothsayer in the story was referred to as a "LICENSED astrologer".
Never mind the fact that astrology is nothing but a bad understanding of planetary dynamics married to primitive notions of prognostication...what I wanna know is HOW does one become LICENSED in a spurious pseudo science like astrology?
ANd morever, forget the poor small business owners who go in for this rubbish, WHY doesn't CNN take a few minutes out of it's relentless 24-7 schedule to investigate the "licensing" of astrologers?
HUH?
HUH???
HUH????