Oh my word, you make feel sooo bad. I drink bottles and bottles of water on my job. I gather them all up in a safeway carrier (or the like) in my car, then tie the handles and dump them in the trash! I also leave the tap running when I brush my teeth... however, I recently got a new car and it's engine is much smaller and I always use unleaded fuel. Still, I can do more.

It was good to see Al Gore receive so much praise. The DVD is at my local rental. Ultimately, the title of the documentary says it all, doesn't it.

As for Leo, at a time when girls were swooning over him, I shunned him. Then came Titanic, and I remember saying, in this movie I can tolorate him. (Infact, if I remember right, he didn't even turn up for the Oscars that year, leaving a message on James Cameron's answer maching saying, "Sorry, man, it's just my bag..") He's grown up and now, this young man is shaping up to be a major force.  Now, I admire him. Now, to me, he's an actor. An actor's actor and deserves to be working with industry giants. He missed out last night, but give it time. I can see it happening.

Poor Kate Winslet. It appeared she failed to prevent that glimmer of dissapointment that crossed her expression. I believe her day will come too.

It was a fun ceremony (I switched off the TV at 5:30 a.m. lucky I'm off work today) It is a major glamour fest, some say a crap shoot, but I like to think that ultimately, most of the time, the artistic merit of the movies and all those involved, whether they're writers, actors, or grips, shines bright. We know the difference between the fame/spotlight seekers and the those who ache for real artistic expression, quality and truth. And the latter (when the system gets it right, dare we mention Judy Garland losing to Grace Kelly and Streisand's many snubs) take home that little gold statue that says 'This time, you did your job well and were the best...'

I have a couple of actor friends. To see them strolling that carpet having received a nomanation would thrill me to the limit. Now that would be worth staying up until 5:30 a.m. for!

 

I know your day will come Jen.  And every little bit we do to help Mother Nature adds up.  I don't own a car, there's enough of them on the roads already.
 

Dearest Jen,

Having been a huge fan of yours since "The Lost World" debuted here in New York, I'm so delighted to join your blog. Thank you for being so accessible to your fans. (Didn't they tell you when you become as successful as you are, you're supposed to ignore us?)

Thanks for your insights into this year's Oscars. I ran my office's Oscar pool and was delighted that the winner of the pool was our building's hard-working doorman. I haven't seen any of the major nominated films yet myself. I almost always wait until they make it to cable. The ones I'm most looking forward to: "Last King of Scotland", "Flags of Our Fathers" and its companion piece "Letters From Iwo Jima", and "Little Miss Sunshine". Although not having seen that film yet, I am glad to see Alan Arkin get one for his distinguished body of work. However, I guess with Eddie Murphy as with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in earlier years, there might be an "SNL" curse at the Oscars.

What I wonder about "The Departed" is how someone could put Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon in one movie and expect everyone to tell them apart. I'm slightly kidding. But anyway it is about time for Scorsese's win. I surely would have awarded him in 1985 for one of his lesser-known films, "After Hours", even more than the many others from him that are often cited as films that Oscar snubbed. I don't think that "After Hours" got any nominations at all.

As for "An Incovenient Truth", since I work in a Manhattan office which does not recycle, I think I'm the only employee who takes my empty soda cans over the subway to Brooklyn every one or two weeks. Management would probably not be happy to see the empty cans in my bottom drawer. As for the effort, it's not the money but just the idea of feeling that I as an individual am a positive factor in each way I affect the world. (Well, some weeks it's the money.) Actually, I always used to enjoy the reporting of John Stossel, but I feel his reporting has become much too obviously leaning toward the conservative platform. One absorbing ABC News special he did a couple of years ago was about untrue things that are taken for granted as being true, or are sold to the public as being true. One example was that he claimed recycling is unnecessary because, he said, there was still plenty of space for our garbage to be stored. He claimed it is only a liberal agenda that has sold the idea to the public about such space running out. Perhaps I'm overstating his claim, but I don't think so. Anyway, I think that now that "An Inconvenient Truth" is there and can have its own individual claims either definitively proved or disproved (likely the former) by anyone looking into them, I think that it's greatest accomplishment is that they cannot simply be dismissed by a political mindset. I hope that Stossel will do a follow-up where he takes into account the info from the film and elucidates what his own updated views are on environmental issues. Not to get too political, but one definite villain in the story of environmental protection is the current Bush administration, as they were so unaccepting of the dire connotation given by the phrase "global warming" that they actually instituted a policy that any reference to it coming out of the White House was to instead use the phrase "climate change", because their research indicated that term would seem less urgent to the American public--a policy of euphemism instead of action. I don't think they covered such political moves in Gore's movie, which positively suggests they didn't want politics to get in the way of the importance of people of all views seeing it. But that does leave more material for the next documentary, maybe from Michael Moore (although his treatment of Charlton Heston in "Bowling for Columbine" was quite unforgivable).

As for DiCaprio, I did find a stand-up comedienne's comments funny in 1997 when "Titanic" was in initial release: "All these young women are saying about Leo 'he's so sexy ... he's so sexy'. Come on, he's twelve!" Maybe the reason I found it funny at the time was Leo had just been an "add-a-kid" on "Growing Pains" playing someone who I thought was supposed to be younger than the younger brother on the show, and suddenly he was the adult romantic lead.

I've been so glad to see every one of your guest shots recently. They'll have to do one where one of your "CSI" or "Shark" characters escapes from prison and is out for revenge against whichever team was involved in convicting you. I hope you will be doing a lot more fight scenes like those you did on TLW. My own view on fantasy violence is that except in rare cases it has an entirely positive role and may actually be the opposite of real violence, and could even be antidotal to the real thing. Of course it could be hazardous to the actors involved. I did read in an interview that when she was filming a scene for "Cleopatra 2525", a stuntman's kick to Victoria Pratt's head connected like it wasn't supposed to and knocked her out for a few minutes. I have wondered if you ever had any mishaps in your fight scenes.

I'll be here often looking forward to all you have to say. My very warmest wishes.

Barney O'Neill
 

my dream  is to walk the red carpet one day too
 

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A spam advertisement posted within a thread on somebody's blog? Is that a first? Actually I did encounter something today even lower: I went to a wrestling news site, and at the bottom of the page was a headline alluding to a big story about two of the WWE divas. I clicked on it and it led to a pop-up ad. I back-buttoned to look at the link again. Then I noticed that under it was a statement saying something like "The above link may contain false information and may lead to an unrelated third-party advertisement." Just now, I checked that wrestling site again, and it now has a different false headline with a similar disclaimer line, the current headline claiming that Randy Orton, one of the company's most popular wrestlers, has been fired. Actually, there is currently reason to believe such a headline, as Orton was being disciplined for unprofessional conduct behind the scenes this past week, and an announcement is actually expected that an even bigger WWE star is about to leave the company. But this was indeed a false headline. So what I wonder is, how could a news site of any type allow such an advertisement to intrude upon the professional ethics of their business. I wouldn't expect such a thing from The New York Times or ABC News, but I guess the ethical standards of online news are still being written.