The Avatar Effect (The Oscar Noms Are In!)

Avatar looks poised to win big at the Oscars, picking up nine nominations — including one of the ten Best Picture noms, and one for James Cameron for Best Director.  The Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker also picked up nine nominations.

First off, if I'm a betting man, it's hard to pick against Avatar.  After winning the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama, the film's all but a lock for the Best Picture nod.  I won't call it an official prediction yet (I'll make those later — I haven't seen all the nominees yet), but I would not be surprised if Avatar made a clean sweep of their nominations.  This film looks, walks, and quacks like a Titanic, just as everyone wanted it to.

The biggest loser in this Titanic-like Avatar Effect is probably The Hurt Locker.  Learn a lesson from Good Will Hunting, which went into the 1997 Oscars with (hmm...) nine nominations.  You want to know how many statuettes the movie left with?  Two.  Why?  Yep — Titanic.  Good Will was pitted against Titanic in almost every category, and only in the categories where Titanic wasn't nominated did it win.

Now, in fairness to Hurt Locker, I use the word "loser" here pretty loosely.  The film was not really well-known and didn't have a wide release.  Picking up those nine nominations is NOT a testament to how weak a year this has been, but to how powerful it is.  It's easy to placate those films with a few easy nominations, maybe a Best Director nom, and call it a day.  This film really earned all nine of its nominations.

A few surprises, which I'll list for the sake of brevity:

- Matt Damon, up for Best Supporting for Invictus, a role where he played a remarkable piece of furniture, but wasn't really given much to do in the script... 

- The Blind Side getting a Best Picture nomination, so I guess I have to see it now — welcome to the age of 10 BP nom's...

- BOTH Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick up for Best Supporting for Up in the Air — a film for which their co-star George Clooney has a good chance to pick up an Oscar for Best Actor... 

- Star Trek snubbed from the Best Picture nominee list — Wasn't the whole idea of having ten nominees to get a summer blockbuster on the list???...

That's all for now — predictions forthcoming!  I have some films to watch... 

 

Posted via web from @kystokes

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Avatar looks poised to win big at the Oscars, picking up nine nominations — including one of the ten Best Picture noms, and one for James Cameron for Best Director.  The Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker also picked up nine nominations.

First off, if I'm a betting man, it's hard to pick against Avatar.  After winning the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama, the film's all but a lock for the Best Picture nod.  I won't call it an official prediction yet (I'll make those later — I haven't seen all the nominees yet), but I would not be surprised if Avatar made a clean sweep of their nominations.  This film looks, walks, and quacks like a Titanic, just as everyone wanted it to.

The biggest loser in this Titanic-like Avatar Effect is probably The Hurt Locker.  Learn a lesson from Good Will Hunting, which went into the 1997 Oscars with (hmm...) nine nominations.  You want to know how many statuettes the movie left with?  Two.  Why?  Yep — Titanic.  Good Will was pitted against Titanic in almost every category, and only in the categories where Titanic wasn't nominated did it win.

Now, in fairness to Hurt Locker, I use the word "loser" here pretty loosely.  The film was not really well-known and didn't have a wide release.  Picking up those nine nominations is NOT a testament to how weak a year this has been, but to how powerful it is.  It's easy to placate those films with a few easy nominations, maybe a Best Director nom, and call it a day.  This film really earned all nine of its nominations.

A few surprises, which I'll list for the sake of brevity:

- Matt Damon, up for Best Supporting for Invictus, a role where he played a remarkable piece of furniture, but wasn't really given much to do in the script... 

- The Blind Side getting a Best Picture nomination, so I guess I have to see it now — welcome to the age of 10 BP nom's...

- BOTH Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick up for Best Supporting for Up in the Air — a film for which their co-star George Clooney has a good chance to pick up an Oscar for Best Actor... 

- Star Trek snubbed from the Best Picture nominee list — Wasn't the whole idea of having ten nominees to get a summer blockbuster on the list???...

That's all for now — predictions forthcoming!  I have some films to watch... 

Posted via web from @kystokes

Vikings Stadium Debate Begins Anew

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has fired the first shot of the Vikings stadium debate. The editorial board declined to take a position in the debate, instead chastising Vikes owner Zygi Wilf for shooting too low and asking Minnesota politicians to "treat the state's taxpayers like the intelligent adults they are."

Both editorial claims seem, frankly, ridiculous. Wilf is not shooting too low — in fact, he's just about right.  He's offering to pay 24 percent of the new stadium's projected costs.  Owners these days are paying about 30 percent of new stadium costs.  Public financing is the rule in today's stadium-finance world, not the exception.**  And lawmakers have treated taxpayers like adults, telling them in a very upfront manner that a projected $1.2 billion deficit makes it difficult to talk about stadium financing.

I don't claim to have a solution to this problem.  But as this debate apparently gets underway again, it's important to start with a few recognitions:

I think it's characteristic of Minnesotans to set unrealistic expectations when they argue over stadiums.  Think about the Twins' situation:  Everybody wanted Carl Pohlad to pony up for the stadium.  It eventually took an immediate threat of contraction to jolt everyone back to reality, and immediately to the conclusion that the Twins were a part of our community worth keeping and cherishing.

I also think it's also characteristic of Minnesotans to be overly-cavalier about their relationships to the sports teams in town.  (If I hear the term "Good riddance" one more time on a Strib comment board about the Vikings, I think I'm going to grow horns.)  But when the chips are down, the reality is that most Minnesotans care more deeply about the Vikings than they wish to say, not because they're beloved in the community, but because they bring money and development to this state, even as the second-least valuable franchise in the NFL.

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**As a brief aside, Wilf is offering to pay about 24 percent of the proposed Vikings stadium's estimated $800 cost.  So far as we know, NFL owners of teams who've moved into new stadiums in the last ten years have kicked in, on average, just under 30 percent of the stadium's costs.  A few years ago, Chicago's Soldier Field was renovated with 100% public funds.  Even the city of Arlington, Texas, raised taxes to help Jerry Jones pay for his football fortress for the Cowboys.  Wilf may be shooting a little low, but he's well within an appropriate range.

Posted via web from @kystokes

The Teflon Era: Minnesota Twins Baseball in the Metrodome

Anyone in Minneapolis a weekend ago knew The End was nigh.  Signs of the Apocalypse abounded in the final regular season games:  Delmon Young was hitting.  Starting pitching clicked.  Comeback after comeback.  A 163-game season.  In the end times of the Metrodome, we learned pigs indeed can fly — and so can Carlos Gomez.  Unfortunately, this weekend, The End itself came without fanfare, and the team of destiny submitted quietly and predictably:

Ground ball, Jeter has it, throws across, Harris is out, the Yankees win and complete the sweep. 

It's hard to be completely surprised by any of it.  We've grown used to how the Twins make these miracle September runs to the finish.  Cite the stats repeated over and over these past weeks to a Twins fan — 17 wins in 21 games, the only team to close out a stadium with a division title; to come back from 3 games down with 4 to play — and you're likely to get a knowing smile.  "It's September baseball in the Teflon Era," they'd say.

Unfortunately, the quick playoff exit isn't surprising either (and there's a point at which one cannot use the fact that we've drawn the Yankees as opponents in 3 of our last 5 trips to the ALDS as an excuse).  I'm disappointed the Twins couldn't make a miracle playoff run to bring their Metrodome tenure full circle.  It would've been spectacular, but it also wouldn't have fit.  The team always enters the playoffs as a team of destiny, and always fails to perform in the playoffs' klieg light. The 2009 ALDS looks exactly like October baseball in the Teflon Era.

What I find the most surprising, actually, is the effusive sentimentality among fans that the Teflon Era is over in Minnesota.  For one, I'm surprised I'm getting so sappy and teary-eyed about it — I guess when they dig up home plate on national television, that's a cornerstone of my childhood they're digging out.

Still, I'm surprised we Twins fans are able to squeeze any sentimental value out of the FieldTurf at all.  After all, the Twins may have arguably had their best years in the Metrodome.  Still, those years are vastly outnumbered by a lot of really, really bad years.

In the stadium's first 19 years, the team finished above .500 four times — two of those were the World Series years.  Despite the team's surge in 1987, 1988, 1991, and 1992, the team's predominant story line over the 28 years of Metrodome baseball has been one of rebuilding and, more recently, of a complete renaissance.  But even during that renaissance (let's call it 2001-present), the Twins have languished in their quest to join the league's elite:  they are 6-18 in postseason baseball since 2002 — only 2-9 at the Metrodome.  Even including the championship years, the Twins aren't above .500 in the postseason (22-26).  The Twins are vaunted as "piranhas," and feared for their fundamentals, but still, the team can't quite crack the inner circle of elite MLB franchises — and their archaic view of the business of baseball is the culprit.

From an economic standpoint, the franchise has outgrown the Metrodome, and now heads for a place where it can expand without a roof to stunt their growth.  If there's a destiny for this team of destiny, it's for greener pastures, open sky, and — in all likelihood — for a bigger payroll.  Hopefully, if there's a lesson learned in the front office from the last year of the Teflon Era, it's that the game has changed, and the Twins must use the financial advantage of the new, taxpayer-funded stadium to fuel this team's growth.  And as Twins baseball enters the Target Field era, there's clearly a lot of growing to do.