Monthly Archives: February 2013

Nate Silver takes another stab at forecasting the major Oscar winners. I have the feeling he could be as wrong about these as he was right in calling which states would vote for Obama. There simply isn't enough available data about how the actual voters are thinking. Noting that Tommy Lee Jones won the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Performance by a Supporting Actor might be an indicator of who's getting that Oscar if Jones won by a wide margin. But if he beat out Philip Seymour Hoffman by one vote — and we don't know that he did or didn't — then it's pretty feeble evidence of a winning trend. My sense from picking up on the "buzz" in Hollywood is that Robert DeNiro, ranked by Silver as the least likely, is going to win this Academy Award tomorrow night.

The "buzz" is also telling me Sally Field in the corresponding female category. Silver says, "If Sally Field or Amy Adams wins instead, it will probably be time for me to retire from the Oscar-forecasting business." Perhaps it is. Then again, critic Richard Roeper — who claims the best track record as a seer of such things — is saying Field is the unlikeliest winner.

The ones I think Mr. Silver will get right — Argo for Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor — are pretty easy calls. Almost every critic is saying that based mostly on "the buzz." If I had to bet on Best Director, I'd bet Ang Lee but would not be shocked by Spielberg. I'm not looking at any other awards when I say this; just hearing and reading what the Hollywood community is saying.

Silver was able to predict the vote for Obama because there were 100+ polls that showed not only how many people planned to vote for him but who they were and why they said what they said. Unlike politics, there is zero information as to what voters are thinking, why they're thinking that way…and even who they are. How many people voted for Alan Arkin last time he won? We don't know and there's no polling of the folks voting this year or any year…no info that Likely Hispanic Voters between the ages of 18 and 49 are trending towards Jennifer Lawrence. If Silver's right in categories like hers, it'll be good guesswork…but probably only guesswork.

You still have time to get in an Oscar Pool and if you do, don't think you're giving yourself an advantage to vote Silver's predictions. Your hunch is as good as his. Or mine. The only safe wager is that the morning after, there'll be a zillion messages on the 'net saying it was The Worst Oscar Show Ever. Because the morning after, there are always a zillion messages on the 'net saying it was The Worst Oscar Show Ever.

This article seeks to explain why so many delicatessens are closing. Not that all the reasons they cite are invalid but I think the author missed an important point. She mentions Junior's Delicatessen in Westwood and a Jerry's Deli in Costa Mesa as local closures that signify some kind of trend away from deli fare and Jewish culture and such. I think it's worth mentioning that all the outlets in the Jerry's Deli chain have gotten really, really poor lately…and Junior's was plunging in quality and raising prices. I love deli food but I've learned the hard way to avoid any Jerry's…and I only went to Junior's for the location, not the cuisine.

For what it's worth, my favorites in Los Angeles are Canter's on Fairfax and Nate 'n Al's over in Beverly Hills. Nate 'n Al's no longer has that great celebrity clientele. Once upon a time, you'd go in and see Milton Berle and Doris Day and Phil Silvers and folks like that. Now, on a good day, you might catch Larry King — who's partners in another deli a few blocks away but seems to still like Nate 'n Al's — but that's about it.  Still, the place is usually crowded because the food is still good. As my Aunt Dot used to say, "Potato salad to die from," which for some odd reason is a compliment.

Anyway, my point is that when a mediocre Jewish delicatessen closes, it might be because it's Jewish or because it's a delicatessen. But it might also be because it's mediocre.

Hollywood Reporter discusses why Donald Trump is likely to lose his lawsuit against Bill Maher. Do we think this thing will even see the inside of a courtroom?

Hey, in honor of the Academy Awards, watch my indecently-talented friend Christine Pedi recast Les Miserables…

It's that time of the year again. Each July at the Comic-Con International, we present something called the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. Actually, we present two of them — one to a deceased writer of the past and one to someone who's still with us. Ideally, the person who's still with us will be with us at Comic-Con to receive it in person. So around this time, I solicit nominations of who you think oughta get one. If you have a thought, I'd love to hear it but please, remember the following…

1. This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer. I put those points in bold because every year, people send me — in the clearest demonstration I've seen that comic books impair one's reading skills — the names of artists. One person wrote me last year to suggest John Buscema. I wrote back to him that John Buscema was a wonderful artist, not a wonderful writer. The fellow wrote back to argue, "He co-wrote an issue of one Marvel book once so he qualifies." No. Doesn't work like that.
2. Bill Finger in his lifetime received almost no credit for his work and nowhere near a respectable share of the revenue it generated. So this award is for a writer who has received insufficient reward for his or her splendid body of work. It can be insufficient in terms of recognition or insufficient in terms of legal tender or it can, of course, be both. Every year, someone writes me to say, "How can you have an award for comic book writing and not give it to Stan Lee?" Well, maybe because he's the most famous, well-compensated person in the history of the medium. Frankly, I think if I called Stan and told him we wanted to give him an award because his work was so uncelebrated, he'd slap me. Right after he fired his publicist.
3. A person can only win this award once. So far, it has gone to Arnold Drake, Alvin Schwartz, George Gladir, Larry Lieber, Frank Jacobs, Gary Friedrich, Del Connell, Steve Skeates, Jerry Siegel, Harvey Kurtzman, Gardner Fox, Archie Goodwin, John Broome, Otto Binder, Bob Haney and Frank Doyle. Those folks are therefore ineligible.

Beyond all that, it can be anyone with a body of writing work in comic books. Not strips. We've fudged the definition to include MAD but will fudge no further. My address is on this page. If you have a thought, I'd love to hear it and pass it on to our Blue Ribbon Judging Committee, none of whom has a blue ribbon. Thank you.

Fred Kaplan thinks the next war may be a cyberwar. This probably means we'll be waterboarding all our Facebook Friends.

Tuesday evening, I went to see the fabulous Shelly Goldstein perform her act to a delighted crowd at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood. The evening was a smashing success and when next she plays someplace you can see her, I'll tell you about that and about how good she is.

On my way in, I ran into a friend of mine named Saratoga Ballantine — an accomplished actress who has also co-directed a documentary I've been meaning to plug here. Saratoga and her friend Dea Lawrence made Troupers, a look at veteran show business performers, one of whom was Sara's father, The Amazing Carl Ballantine. They interviewed him and also Pat Carroll, Kaye Ballard, Bruce Kirby, Marvin Kaplan, Ivy Bethune, Justine Johnston, Allan Rich, Jane Kean, Harold Gould, Connie Sawyer and Betty Garrett. It's a terrific portrait of a kind of performer who is, sad to say, becoming extinct. The film is called Troupers.

Where can you see this film? Well, in Los Angeles it's running tonight (Thursday) on KCET, Channel 28 at 9 PM. If you're setting a TiVo or DVR, you may have to search for the name of the program on which it's airing, which is Open Call. Keep your eye out for it elsewhere as it's quite wonderful. The trailer here should give you some idea of how wonderful…

American Airlines and U.S. Airways are merging. This is good only because it will mean we'll have one less dysfunctional, money-losing airline out there.

I know this is a bad idea but to find out just why, I turn to my buddy who knows everything about airlines, Joe Brancatelli. Here's one article by Joe about it and here's another.

Dave Weigel is currently my favorite reporter for explaining what's going on in Washington. Here he explains about this sequester thing that always struck me as a lot like Cleavon Little holding the gun to his own head in Blazing Saddles.

I seem to have dredged up many a memory with my post that linked to the article on the 1989 "Snow White" number at the Oscars. Jonathan Sloman links me to an article he wrote about it which should tell you everything you could want to know about it.

I will quibble with one thing Jonathan wrote: Where he said the ceremony was watched by seventy-five million U.S. viewers plus another estimated seventy-five million worldwide. Everyone quotes numbers like that and we'll doubtlessly hear that this year's Oscarcast is being seen by a billion — or even two billion — people around the world. Nope, not even close to that. The actual ratings show us that the Academy Awards show reaches somewhere between 40 and 60 million viewers per year in this country. No statistics have ever been compiled as to how many watch worldwide — or at least if they have been compiled, they haven't been released. But let's be logical. It's an American show in English and almost wholly about American movies. Is that likely to get a few hundred million viewers in Belgium? Or Peru? I'd be very surprised if the total viewership outside the United States even equalled the total viewership inside the United States.

Meanwhile, my friend of many decades, Alan Light, writes…

Thanks for directing me to the article "I Was Rob Lowe's Snow White." I attended the Oscars in person that year, and the two days of rehearsals prior to the telecast. A friend who was working on the production company that year invited myself and another friend out from Iowa.

I vividly remember sitting in the audience during the rehearsal of the Snow White number, watching it performed over and over again. The first time or two my friend and I looked at each other with our jaws on the floor…."They think this is good?"…and by the tenth time we were numb.

I took a photo of Army Archerd and Snow White during the rehearsal (photo above) and I had my picture taken with Rob Lowe at the Governor's Ball after the show. Cameras were strictly prohibited, of course, but being the tourist from Iowa, I snapped many photos with my pocket 35MM film camera anyway, including great shots of Lucille Ball taken a month before she died as I stood next to her on the red carpet during the arrivals. Talk about surreal for a guy from Iowa. Nobody yelled at me for taking pictures at any time, so I got braver and braver. My all-access pass did not include the Governor's Ball, but when the telecast was over my friend and I had the choice of going back to the hotel or trying to crash it, so we displayed our badges prominently, grabbed some papers from somewhere and looked as though we were talking about something important as we passed the guards at the entrance to the Ball. Nobody stopped us. Once inside, taking photos was like shooting fish in a barrel.

All of my photos are online here — several hundred of them. Anyway, thanks again for directing your readers to this article.

Thanks, Alan. Some fine shooting there. I suspect what made the number so notorious was the awkward reaction of the stars who were approached during it…something that couldn't have been anticipated in rehearsal. I further suspect that since then nothing at the Oscars is spontaneous if they can help it. Billy Crystal running out into the audience to sit on Jack Nicholson's lap…that couldn't have been a surprise to Jack.

Finally! Something you can believe in on Fox News…

I was talking with Stu Shostak last night and he mentioned some comedians he thought were awful. A couple of them were folks I think are hilarious but I understood why he didn't. I'd seen those comics perform live, meaning I saw long sets. He was judging them by five minutes on some talk show. I used to do that too but I've come around to another viewpoint and a big reason was Sam Kinison.

You remember Sam Kinison. I vividly recall several times I saw him up at the Comedy Store doing a half-hour or forty minutes. This was early in his stardom when he hadn't quite "made it" by any reasonable standard and his laments about how crappy his life was rang true. Not long before he died, I saw him with Superstar Headliner status on stage at Bally's in Las Vegas and that material didn't work so well. Not in that context. But of course, by then his act largely consisted of doing his famous yell at the audience. Then they'd yell back at him. Then he'd yell back at them. Then they'd yell back at him. Then he'd yell back at them. I once heard Steve Martin explain why he gave up doing stand-up. He said it was because audiences didn't want to hear him do actual material. They just wanted to hear a medley of his catch-phrases.

Back at the Comedy Store, Kinison was incredible. He would stalk about the stage, obviously saying a lot of what he said on other nights but not in a strict, memorized delivery. So much of it felt so honest and so much of it was grippingly, fall-down funny. If you never saw the guy in that setting, you missed a lot and I don't think it's there on his record albums, either. I've seen most of the great comedians of my generation live and Kinison, those nights up at the Store, was as good as any of them.

That was then and there. When I saw him on TV, I thought he was boring.

A little of that was because of censorship. A little more of it was because any act loses some amount of immediacy and contact when you see it on TV as opposed to in-person. Most of the difference, I think, was that Kinison was just a guy who needed room. He had a great 40 minute act and a lousy seven-minute one. It's like how your favorite 300-page novel might not be so wonderful if someone yanked out a 20-page excerpt. Some comics can score in six minutes and some can't.

I keep that in mind now when I see a disappointing stand-up spot on some TV show. Some new comic performs, fails to impress me and I think, "Gee, that was as bad as Kinison was when he did stand-up on Letterman's show." That might be as good as that new guy gets but there might also be more to him than that. Stu said he didn't like Paula Poundstone. If I'd only seen her on TV, as he has, I might feel the same way. But I've seen her in person and enjoyed her act tremendously. Just something to think about.

As we count down to the Oscars, Hollywood Reporter remembers the disastrous opening number for the ceremony in 1989. That was the one with Snow White, Rob Lowe and Merv Griffin. Take a look.