The New& Improved Star Hustler

The Spring Equinox is coming nigh. Who were the original April Fools? What is Midsummer? What is the significance of May Day? We get into all that, but some mayn't like the answers. Such as why Easter/Ishtar moves around every year. (its April 8 in 2012).

Hint: it has nothing to do with the Resurrection, not that of Yeshua/Jesus anyway...

2011 Academy Awards Wrap Up

83rd Academy Awards for 2011

by Kevin J. Walker,

Film Critic for The Word NetPaper

Chris Rock when he was hosting once said “no Straight man watches the Academy Awards.” Excuse you! Plenty of we real men wouldn’t miss the annual show, its like our cinema Superbowl.

The 83rd Academy Award presentation Sunday night on ABC didn’t break any ground, offered few surprises, and had a bunch of movies that even diehard film fans hadn’t seen.

Although the Best Picture category was doubled in size to ten entries a couple of years ago, lots of people hadn't seen more than a handful of the nominated films.

"True Grit", “Toy Story 3” and "Inception" had respectable box office, but they were the exceptions. A fave choice for the critical class (not myself among them) was "Social Network" about the origins of Facebook. This was more of the Kramer vs. Kramer, modern topicality business that the Academy wisely ignored.

(People of the future won't believe that we actually made Best Picture of that divorce and abandonment story for the simple fact that lots of people were going through their own such situations at the time. Topicality isn’t everything. “Casablanca” isn’t topical, but it holds up well).

WHO SAW THESE MOVIES?

“Inception” being on the top list was good, especially for a film with art-house qualities that was also popular with the people, with its action within a dream within a dream concept.

But there were films such as "Black Swan", “Winter's Bone” , “The Fighter”, “127 Hours" and "The Kids Are All Right" to round out the listing of Best Picture that few saw. Some were in small venues, and some are still making their way around. Its not unusual to see films nominated that never played in your town, are yet making their way to you, or are already out on DVD.

The awards are showing more adult fare, even as the categories were increased to ten, to allow more marketable movies. Still, did they expect there to be lots of box office for a movie about a nutty ballerina; and a lesbian couple trying to have a child?

“Brokeback Mountain” was supposedly voted down against “Crash” because Hollywood feared the backlash of a moviegoing public who didn’t want a story about cowboy sodomites put in their faces as Best Picture.

The night was devoid of suspense or controversy, unless you want to count Leo’s release of the F-word during her acceptance speech. The network censors at ABC pushed the button on her, but lip readers could see what she said easily.

The Academy Awards broadcast experimented with their formula, turning over the duties to two young hip hosts who were also actors instead of seasoned comedians. Bet they won’t do that again.

Sometimes they need to leave well enough alone. They tinkered with the host concept, for the main part. Instead of using a veteran comedian with some decades behind them and able to think quick on their feet during a live broadcast, they tried to go for a younger demographic. Thusly did they employ Anne Hathaway and James Franco.

Franco, nominated for best actor in 127 hours" as a hiker who had to cut his own arm off to save his life and get back to civilization -- looked like a deer in the headlights to the degree that some viewers thought he was on something, while Hathaway was overly effervescent for some tastes.

Some movies were shut out that were expecting better treatment. Chief amongst these was the “True Grit” remake, up for Best Picture, Supporting Actress, and Actor, and some technical ones such as Editing among its 10 nominations. The makers of “True Grit” went hone empty-handed, no speeches for them.

Some wags suggested the voters were mad at Jeff Bridges because of “Tron 2,” and decided to take it out on him. This was much as the argument against Eddie Murphy’s his Best Supporting Actor nomination for James Thunder Early in “Dreamgirls” was doomed because of criticism for his buffoonish anti-black woman film “Norbit” of the same year, where he donned seventy pounds of latex, ala the Klumps. And “Big Mammas.”

‘KEVIE AWARDS’ FOR OVERLOOKED MOVIES?

There will be more on overlooked films when I write about the Kevie Awards. They are for worthy but overlooked movies such as the ensemble cast of “For Coloured Girls”, Robin Hood”, “RED”, “Takers”)” and even Denzel Washington’s runaway train thriller “Unstoppable,” even though it was up for a Sound award.

“Waiting for Superman” is a Kevie Awards lister of overlooked films because it wasn’t even nominated for the Best Documentary category. Politics perhaps, because of its anti-public school stance, as the makers followed some families as a lottery would determine their educational fate.

This was from the same team mind you that brought us Al Gore’s flawed opus on Global Warming “An Inconvenient Truth,”. That piece of Globaloney seems so quaint now, with the revelations of faked and suppressed data. And cities buried under winter snow.

RED CARPET REPORT: SWAGGER, AND SWAG

Gwenneth Paltrow was up for a sorta Academy award for her Best Original nominated song “”Coming Home” from “Country Strong”. She plays a CW singer on a comeback tour. Outside in the pre-Oscar arrivals and interviews, the quite good singer from “Duets” about touring karaoke singers was asked by Robin Roberts who would be the number one person she’d like to sing with?

“Jay-Zee” piped Paltrow, one of the whitest girls on the planet.

“I’m his number one fan!”

“Iron Man 2’s” Pepper Potts is played by Paltrow, but she of the five-inch high heels wasn’t nominated for that, and the film was only up for technical awards. But you better believe here will still be an “Iron Man 3,” and Four and Five…

“Has Nikki Minaj arrived yet?” asked a straight man one of our group at the Oscar Night viewing party. We had a projectorized 8-foot diagonal thing going on, the better to see the thick Trinidadian rap singer/style and trend setters. But no joy for we menfolk during the broadcasts from what I saw, and I was looking!

The women wore calf-length gowns that were evocative of Grecian influence, with one shoulder a favored style for many. The hair was swept up in buns on quite a few of the A-listers, much as Katherine Heigl does with hers. This draws attention to a graceful neck and shoulders, as well as the expensive jewelry that is leant out for the occasion.

Necklaces, earrings and brooches can be seen by a worldwide audience of about one billion people. And that’s not even counting all the people from India who watched last year when “Slumdog Millionaire” took Best Picture.

Designers along with manufacturers of smart phones and what have you readily donate for the swag bags for the attendees. This year they were said to cost about $92,000 if bought. The IRS is making them declare the gifts now.

SOME OSCAR CAPSULES

Natalie Portman won Best Actress for “Black Swan.” The already thin Portman lost 20 pounds to become the spiraling downward ballerina who is pushing herself a bit too hard.

Portman was but a child when she first came to notice. This was before Queen Amidala in the first three “Star Wars” epics when she was befriended by Jean Reno’s top assassin in NYC after her family was wiped out by Gary Oldman’s crooked officer in “The Professional.”

Now she’s playing romantic and comic roles in such as “No Strings Attached” with Ashton Kutcher; and earlier in the Wal-Mart based “Where the Heart is.”

There were the expected technical awards for big budget action films such as “Inception,” as expected. Visual, Sound efx awards are handed out as consolation prizes when movies are up against a juggernaut film, so they break them off a li’l taste with smaller awards.

THE FIGHTER – Amy Adams, Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo, Christian Bale

Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actress X2; Supporting Actor, Film Editing

Melissa Leo won best supporting for “The Fighter,” and she joined Christian Bale as he took the male Best Supporting actor for his role as the trainer.

Leo as the tough family patriarch was up against co-star Amy Adams in “The Fighter” about blue collar boxers and a struggling family which also stars Mark Wahlberg.

Bale the “Dark Knight” actor was John Connor in the most excellent “Terminator 4: Salvation,” and was the villain in “Shaft 2000.” Bale beat out Jeremy Renner for his portrayal of an inveterate career criminal in “The Town.”

“THE TOWN” – Jeremy Renner, Ben Affleck

Nominated: Best Supporting Actor

A heist flick combined with a story of conflicted love was written acted and directed by real Bostonian Ben Affleck.

Renner’s the childhood pal of team leader Affleck, but Renner’s short temper trigger makes for a complicated life. Even more so when he takes a hostage that Affleck falls for when he has to get close to her to find out what the Feds know of his krewe and their upcoming jobs, while Renner ominously thinks she’s a potential problem that needs to be “taken care of.”

Renner won Best Actor last year for his gung-ho bomb expert in “The Hurt Locker.” He plays Hawkeye in the upcoming Marvel spectacular “The Avengers.”

Affleck wrote the movie his brother starred in “Gone Baby Gone,” also about the blue collar underbelly of the Boston area. Renner starred in the ABC short series cop drama “The Unusuals” with Harvey Keitel, and whenever he’s in a movie that’s usually a good sign. Doubt me? My evidence: “Pulp Fiction”; “U-571”; “Point of No Return,” as well as a Spike Lee Joint or two.

“The Town” was an excellent film, and well made. But the best heist film this year wasn’t even nominated. That would be “Takers,” an ensemble film about a team that takes down high value targets, not just bags of loot from armoured cars as in “The Town.”

INCEPTION – Leonardo DiCaprio, Marie Cotillard, Michael Caine

Nominated: Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Original Score, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound editing, Sound Mixing, Cinematography

“Inception” hits you between the eyes just like when you saw “The Matrix” for the first time. You ask yourself “Did I just see that?… What’s going on?”

In the film DiCaprio leads a team of techie operatives who go into people’s dreams and extract information for high priced clients of multinationals; sorta industrial espionage meets “DreamScape.”

This new client has a different mission for them should they decide to accept it: he wants a particular nagging notion put into the head of a global competitor.

“The world needs him to change his mind” says the Japanese industrialist of his rival. And he’s right. The worlds they make in their dreams are not bound by the laws of physics overmuch, which makes for some spectacular scenes, especially the many battles as the team is set upon by the subjects’ subconscious who know there’s been an intrusion.

But “Inception” is a movie that deals with weighty philosophical issues of selfhood, free will, and reality versus what we’d like things to be. I saw it a good four times before it left the theatres, which is how I watch current films, and you should, too. Which reminds me, I’m going to see “Unstoppable” a couple more times at the Budget before it leaves for DVD.

“Inception” was that uncommon art house film that broke into the mainstream because of its compelling storyline, acting, and action, so it had wide appeal. This is why American movies are sought after overseas, even in nations that condemn us out of one side of their mouths while they load the DVD player with Hollywood releases. This is also why so many titles have the word “American” -- its like a Good Housekeeping seal for the foreign buyer.

“Inception” was a cerebral film with an ensemble cast of marketable internationals that includes Ellen Page, and found a ready audience under the direction of Christopher Nolan, he of the new Batman movies. How far we have come since some complained that “Mission Impossible” was confusing because IMF super agent Ethan Hunt used too many disguises.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND – Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway

Nominations: Art Direction, Visual EFX, Costume Design

“Alice in Wonderland” drew first blood on the broadcast portion of the show for Best Set Design. This was a Tim Burton film, and he’s known for that, after “Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure” and “Beetlejuice.”

The delightful film with lots of grrrl power has the now teenaged Alice, one of the original Sheroes, as a shape/size shifting lost girl who returns to become the champion warrior of Underland (its real name – Alice was a youngster when she first went down the hatch) as she takes up arms against Helena Bonham Carter’s tyrannical Red Queen and her Jabberwocky. Jabberwocky?

Yes, the movie freely brings in elements of Lewis Carroll’s other works – “Jabberwocky” is a Nonsense Poem that also yielded a spin-off in the movie “The Last Mimsy” from its lines, and a terrifying short science fiction story. “Alice” even throws in a li’l Hip Hop dancing. You’ll just have to see it. If you need an excuse when you order it just say “its for the children.”

HEREAFTER – Matt Damon

Nominated: Best Visual Effects

The tech awards are where you’ll find your “Harry Potter”, “Tron: Legacy”; “How to Train Your Dragon,” and so forth. “Hereafter” was in this category as well. This was a hard film to categorize. Its basic story is about a former seer who gave it all up for a normal life.

Matt Damon of the upcoming “Adjustment Bureau” is the lead who had books, TV appearances, and lots of money from desperate people who would pay him to get in contact with their dear departed. His story also involves his chance at life satisfaction and true love, with someone who understands him.

There is a poignant part of “Hereafter” where Damon is courting a woman from his cooking class. She is sweet and appealing onscreen, and they are in the buildup phase; you know, being all super nice and trying to put on their best face for the other. Of course in time that will change, but in the beginning its all so exhilarating.

“Hereafter” is put together in a sorta Convergent plot style, where there are seemingly unconnected elements that we know have some thread that will become clear, like “Crash.”

The award “Hereafter” was up for involves the spectacular sequence of the tsunami in the south Pacific a few years ago. The daytime destruction of the resort area; people being tossed around, light poles snapping, cars being pushed backwards; the wires whipsawing through the screaming people; victims trapped under debris, and looking helplessly up through the blue water at the sun as people and parts of buildings tumble about.

It is a gripping sequence that shows up a small glimpse of what they went through. SPFX-- special effects nominees have come a long way since the Genesis terraforming sequence won for “Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan.”

Damon’s search for love against the odds are a similar part of the new thriller “Adjustment Bureau” with Emily Blunt from “Gulliver’s Travels.

THE KING’S SPEECH – Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Geoffrey Roush, Colin Firth

Nominations: Best Picture, Cinematography, Costume Design, Sound Mixing, Art Direction, Film Editing; Actor, Supporting Actress, Director

“The King’s Speech” has gained audiences because of the talk, which is remarkable and surprising to its makers for a $15 million film with no car chases or explosions.

It’s a historical drama set in the days leading up to W.W.II when a stuttering princeling is safe in obscurity and content to do princely things like ride horses and pick out whatever castle to move into for the season, is thrust into the glare of publicity when his brother abruptly abdicates the throne. They made a couple of movies about that too, since he did it for love.

Now the former Price Albert played by Colin Firth has to make radio speeches to inspire a nation to prepare to fight against an increasingly belligerent Adolph Hitler. The king’s speech therapist, played by Geoffrey Roush (“Shine” winner) has to prepare him to deliver a nationally broadcast speech, a terrifying prospect to the stuttering new King Albert of the British Crown. --kjw, netitor of the NetPaper

Personal Stories in the days after Sept. 11, 2001

The Ft. Hood shootings are considered the first act of domestic terrorism since 9-11, 2001, and the issues brought up is a reminder how some of us Africentrics, Black Muslims and even turbaned Indian Seikhs and swarthy Latinos caught some flak in the dark days after the World Trade Center Attacks.

Personal Stories in Paranoia
in the Days after September 11, 2001

By Kevin J. Walker, Netitor of the NetPaper
http://wordnetpaper.tripod.com

I remember the paranoia in the days right after 9-11. I had a beard then, and combined with my light skin and the olive drab green I often wore I got lots of strange looks. (My father was a Marine, hence the liking for green, I guess).

In the Hidden Valleys region I go to write, a farmer whose honey and apple stands I frequented told me of the utterances of another farmer that he didn’t particukaulry care for. He said the other was prejudiced and narrow minded.

Then he pointed deliberately towards his spread as I inwardly flinched. “That f------ right over there…”

“That sumbitch asked me about you ‘is he a Muslim or something? I’ve seen him around the Ridge. Is he somebody we should be worried about?’

“I told him, ‘no he’s just a regular Black person.”

This was a small town, and some allowances have to be made for the attitudes of some. But big cities aren't bastions of enlightenment and tolerability.

I lived near the airport, and was walking home after getting off gthe bus. Its always a long walk, going around an airport. A car came by way too slowly with some White male yahoos – or is that redundant on a Friday night?

“Hey, you! Allah is a pussy!” the passenger shouted.
“Dumb asses,” I thought.

“’Allah’ means ‘God’ in Arabic.”

But that would have only made matters worse, so as many others in those dark days I held my tongue and chose my battles wisely.

In the days after 9-11 I went out to the hidden valleys region of western Wisconsin where I go to write each Autumn until it gets too cold, and I was glad to be gone from the cities too. With plans going into skyscrapers we didn’t know if this was a single event, or just the start. As a survivalist since my early teens it was time to book!

So, we were in the Gander Mountain hunting and camping store in western Wisconsin getting some camping gear, and ammo for our numerous guns after the WTC attacks.

We noticed over and over how the White guys were eyeing us as we went about the store, and stacking our boxes of 9mm clips, shotgun and rifle shells. I didn’t know what their problem is; why do some people forget that the factories and stores didn’t close down when they bought their guns?

But it brought home again the realization that the only reason more Black men – and women— weren’t hung from trees and more Black townships weren’t ridden into and burned to the ground by Nightriders in the years after Emancipation and Reconstruction is because there was a balance and we had our guns locked and loaded too, thanks to the Second Amendment.

It was good for them to see that there were Black men who were jkeeping and bearing arms, and had a mindset to use them in their defense and their communities. Nothing clarifies the attention of a potential victimizer than that they might get a hole put in them by their potential target!
Others felt the sting of the dark days after September 11, 2001, people we mightn’t even suspect.

• 
   A bank officer in lacrosse Wisconsin told me that she was being treated chillily by some people; some told her to go back to where she came from.” She had a slight ethnic flair about her, with dark brown hair and eyes. Although American born and looking White to me, evidently that wasn’t enough.

I thought about Bosnia, and later in Rwanda in Africa, and how they went down the street to kill their neighbors of the other clan at the neighborhood Big Mama’s house, where they all grew up eating her food. Almost as if they were waiting for a hidden signal, and killing her, and her grandsons as if nothing ever counted; as if they weren’t even human beings worthy of mercy.

• 
  -- Three Brothas were joined by a fourth on Wisconsin Avenue, the main street in downtown Milwaukee as they were busy discussing about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the anti-Muslim, anti-Immigrant violence that has ensued with the jingoistic war talk and sabre-rattling mood the nation is now infused.

One of them brought up something that placed their talks in a new perspective. "Have you noticed any brothers wearing their kufi hats lately?" one asked.

Come to think of it, we said, those North African styled brimless hats, as well as Kente cloth, head wraps or other outwardly ethnic garb has become rather scarce lately. Self preservation trumps fashion statements and ethnic identity any day!

And the negative attention that is being directed towards Mexican Americans and the Undocumented Illegals as they become the largest nonwhite population, and the current climate against other ethnics because of the terrorist dive-bombings is welcome news to many Black people, if they were really honest about it.

After talking with a friend of his about the backlash following the attacks, a traveler wrote in an open letter:

"I was talking to a friend Sunday on the telephone; he lives in Brooklyn. He was born in Panama, and is retired from Sears. He told me a Puerto Rican who was wearing a white skull cap was beaten half to death, as the crowd thought he was an Arab.

"Now, most Americans can't tell the difference between an Arab, a Hindu, a Sikh or an Italian for that matter. Many island-born Cubans and some Puerto Ricans in African religions wear African hats and tops-- which could make you look like what Americans think of as a Muslim or Arab. And you could get your ass whipped in New York, New Jersey, etc.

"In the right place and right suit, you could be mistaken for a Palestinian or a Muslim or even an East Indian (Pakistani), and have to run for your so-called African-mixed life.

"Normally it's no problem for me. But dressing in African clothing, or wearing an African hat could get me pulled over to the side; and sent to the back room for deep, deep questioning. Less in Milwaukee, more so in Chicago, L.A. or the East coast.

"Arabian Fest canceled their festival on the SummerFest grounds immediately after the Trade Center Bombings. White Patriots, Skin Heads, Magic Christians, and other hyped-up White Trash would have put those people in grave danger. That's just the way it is."

--30--

The New Improved Star Hustler

The Spring Equinox is coming nigh. Who were the original April Fools? What is Midsummer? What is the significance of May Day? We get into all that, but some mayn't like the answers. Such as why Easter/Ishtar moves around every year. (its April 8 in 2012).

Hint: it has nothing to do with the Resurrection, not that of Yeshua/Jesus anyway...

ACADEMY AWARDS 2008 -- ITS A WRAP

Cinema Views With Film Critic Kevin J. Walker

The Academy Awards were ho-hum this year, but it still was a spectacle. Why did an actress wear a Hefty bag? Why did a former exotic dancer wear a dress slit so high you could almost see her burning bush? Why didn't Ruby Dee win for "American Gangster?"...

OSCARS 2008 – ITS A WRAP!

It was time for Black folks to stop hogging all the awards and let somebody else win for a change. Winners this year were people whose category was English as a Second Language, if at all. France, Spain, Iran were in the house.

Ruby Dee was up for Best Supporting Actress for playing Denzel Washington's accommodating mama in AMERICAN GANGSTER which was otherwise shut out of the acting awards. Had she won at 83 she would have been the Academy's oldest recipient ever.

AUGUST RUSH's "Raise It Up" was nominated for Best Song by creators Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack, and Tevin Thomas which they performed for the ceremony in a rousing rhythmic display.

Incidentally, Charlize Theron is African American. (South African native). Her accent is Gone, Baby Gone from all the American parts she's played, and unlike people such as Sean Connery (Scotland), Eric Bana (Australia) Mel Gibson (Aus.) Nicole Kidman (Aus.) and Russell Crowe (Aus.) she doesn't go home enough to recharge her linguistic skills to get her accent back. Countrywoman Cate Blanchett's is almost on its way out. But I digress.

Daniel Day Louis won Best Actor for "THERE WILL BE BLOOD." He finally got his head on straight after saying a few years ago he wanted to retire and become a cobbler. This is his second win after "My Left Foot." He's kept his Brrritish occ-cent.

Javier Bardem won Best Supporting Actor for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, a modern Western about a botched drug deal, a missing fortune, and a brutal mob enforcer played by Bardem. He delivered his speech in Spanish, saying "This is for all of us!"

He brought his mother to the ceremonies. He's a real man. He was the lead in "The Dancer Upstairs," about a Spanish counter terrorist operative on the trail of the country's top killer.

This focus and preponderance of foreign born nominated, obscure arty films and depressing subject matter may have depressed tune-ins for the show, the lowest rated Oscar show ever, and a lame host from a tiny cable online community.

The budget movie houses have several of these films since the timing drops them into their schedules when the nominations and ceremonies are underway. The bigger chains then scramble to have them back.

Among the big films only "Juno" made any real money, over $100 million largely from the youth appeal and positive Pro Life message of a teen who eschewed having an abortion and chooses to give the baby up for adoption to Jennifer Garner and her husband.

GONE BABY GONE director Ben Affleck had his on fire baby brother Casey as lead, but the most excellent film was shut out much as "American Gangster" in nominations. Casey did get nominated for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" starring Brad Pitt. Amy Ryan was up for Best Supporting Actress as the Boston single mother whose young daughter's disappearance is being investigated by Affleck, Monaghan, Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris.

OSCAR HOSTING WAS WEAK

Jon Stewart wasn't bringing a lot of popularity to the screen with him. Goatee Boys, TwentySomethings who get their news from his fake topical news show, and latte drinkers on college campi don't count for much. But he got some points in.

Politics crept into Stewart's presentation when he commented on the struggle for primacy between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with the barest connection to Hollywood.

"Usually, whenever there's a African American or woman president a huge meteor is about to hit the Statue of Liberty" quipped Stewart in an unusually apt zinger. I'm thinking Morgan Freeman in "Deep Impact."

The prolonged writers strike made it a chance there'd be no awards show at all, like the Golden Globes, and many people were mentally divorced from the event. Then, there was the subject matter which was murderous, gloomy and overtly arty and foreign based.

All combined meant no real reasons to tune in and give almost four hours of one's life that couldn't be gotten back. I'll bet the show's organizers are rethinking how best to woo Chris Rock back to do his host thing. Comedians have been the preferred host pool since Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal and Steve Martin did such a good job in the 1980s. They followed with multiple hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock.

FILMS HONOURED WHAT FEW PEOPLE SAW ON THEATRES

Denzel Washington capped off the show presenting the Best Film award. He won the Best Actor Academy Award winner for "Training Day" in a year for what has been termed the African-American Oscars for the tripartite wins that night (Halle Berry for "Monster's Ball;" Washington; and Sidney Poitier for Lifetime Achievement).

"Thank God for teen pregnancy" in 'Juno'," which this year passed for a Feel Good movie, quipped Seattle based conservative radio talk show host and critic Michael Medved of this year's "empty" crop of gloomy and/or murderous movies: SWEENEY TODD; THERE WILL BE BLOOD – which wasn't a rip off of the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises, but about a morally conflicted oil businessman of the late 1800s played by the victorious Daniel Day Lewis.

"What is 'No Country For Old Men' about? That if you come across $2 million dollars in the desert from a drug sale gone bad and a shootout, don't pick it up?" Medved asked.

OSCARS BECOMING ENTERTAINMENT WORLD'S SUPERBOWL

Prince had a jamming post-Oscar party in the Hollywood Hills. Of course, many people have to with a lot less.

I've been to Oscar viewing parties, both sanctioned and not. (They'll send lawyers after you, if they can catch you. Smart ones don't advertise it, but people know. There actually is a law that you can't show broadcasts of sports or movies even for free without an Exhibitors license. Around the Superbowl is when you hear of that. So, all those patio and lawn parties with the projection TVs or flat panels might get you a terse letter.

Usually they don't bother, they're too busy trying to close down the bitTorent movie downloaders who are doing for feature films what happened to the CD and music sales! More on that in the Technical articles, and the evolving Web ver.2.0

The Oscar ritual is becoming a growing type of cultural Superbowl. Instead of just a night, it starts days before with gatherings and fittings and parties and sightings. It seems to be evolving much as Halloween has, which has long been snatched from the kiddies and now is the second most expensive holiday season.

The Superbowl and Academy Award seasons fill the void of the long period of drought between the end of the month long Thanksgiving and Solstice season and the growing March 17th multi-day bacchanalia of St. Patrick's Day.

The Spring Equinox celebration we call Easter, from its older name of Ishtar, from Persia and thereabouts, would be the next one after that. Go read about the Real Reasons For Tha Seasons.

ABC knows how to use what they have. They front loaded their Oscar pre, post and next day God Morning America shows to boost their lineups. Barbara Roberts had her customary interviews; Jimmy Kimmel Live's late night show and his foul-mouthed girlfriend the comic and cable show star Sarah Silverman had dueling ribald cuckold videos.

"I'm wearing 'JC Pen-ay' – from the after 5 section," quipped GMA co-host Robin Roberts as she reclined on the loungers on the Oscar set the next day. Really? Are they from the same line as Tar-Zhay? (Target!)

Roberts kept her hair on this time, but is as prone to take it off if it gets uncomfortable or in the way. When she did her runway model dare a few weeks ago she doffed the hairpiece she wears while she undergoing her chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer.

I had a lady friend whose head was close shaven. I liked it a lot, because she had the head shape for it. When she grew her hair back I didn't like it as much, although she had ear lobe-length hair when I met her. But I digress.

Since ABC was the sponsoring station, they had access to all the good stuff, while the other networks' news shows used the after ceremony setup where they let people blab on and on, with the photogenic back drop. This way there's no nagging music-hook about to usher you off the stage while you're thanking the nanny and the gardener, et cetera while the show drags into the night.

ABC also used the opportunity to push "Pushing Daisies" co star and Broadway singer Kristin Chenowith, who does some on the limits pushing show about her pie shoppe partner who has the power of resurrection over anything dead. You have to be there. It will be covered in TeleViews. It also stars Chi McBride, and Ellen Green who does her own singing. You know her as Seymour's boo from "Little Shop of Horrors."

DIABLO CODY – THIS IS WHY SOME WOMEN SHOULDN'T GET TATS

Diablo Cody, tatted up best Screenwriter for "Juno," was a refreshing departure from the cutesy gown wearing chicks in the ceremonies and red carpet. She didn't even bother putting makeup on that thing on her right arm nor wear a single sleeve over it, as some did. Screw 'em she seemed to say. Hers was at the upper limit of respectability and almost looked like some wayward jewelry.

This is why smart women who plan on going nice places someday don't get large red/blue/green obtrusive tattoos. They don't go well with gowns, although Tractor Pull Redneck chicks don't think they'll ever have to care. Or apparently Mary J. Blige who had them on both arms, looking like a Thug Babe who wandered into the ceremonies on her way to a Gangsta Rap concert in the same building.

Blige's tat wasn't a li'l one like Viveca Fox's either, a little fox on her left upper arm which was even in "Independence Day." (I looked at her a lot. The Late Bloomer from Chicago had a shake dancer scene, not to speak of her humorous amorous scenes in the hilarious "Booty Call" with "Ray" Best Actor winner Jamie Foxx.

Cody also seemed a little like the character Juno, and thanked her parents who loved her "just the way I am." She probably has an interesting history which we will no doubt be exposed to. It turns out that she went to high school in Chicago Land area. She was always adventurous, her friends said of the former stripper and exotic dancer. We could tell that from Cody's dress, with a slit so high up her thigh you could almost see her Burning Bush!

We'll know much more of her; winning Oscars will do that to/for you, as well as pumping up the receipts of a movie that is still in theatres. Watch your papers for the ads, with the little man statuettes marking them as something you want to see.

RED CARPET MICROSCOPE TRAINED ON STARS;
COJO'S BEST & WORST DRESSED– SWINTON WEARS A TRASH BAG;

Jennifer Hudson, last year's Best Supporting Actress winner for "Dreamgirls" and praised for her fashion sense didn't reproduce it this year. She seems to be noticeably slimmed down this year. She should take Mo'Nique with her wherever she's been going.

Marion Cotillard, the Best Actress winning star of LA VIE EN ROSE period biopic on the life of French chanteuse Edith Piaf was mah-velous, and like "Muriel's Wedding" star Toni Colette was transformed back in real life into a lovely creature. Goo-gobs of raven hair spilling over her shoulders, she was in a cream coloured gown as she accepted her award in heavily French accented English.

Makeup was also simple. Celebs' mouths didn't look like they'd sucked on raspberry Popsicles before they came out of the house.

"Way too many people are getting dressed in the dark" complained the designer, commentator and Entertainment Tonight correspondent CoJo.

Anne Hathaway – "That wasn't a dress, it was a float in the Rose Bowl Parade," CoJo said of her red ruffled number. Red was the order of the night for women. Nobody much cares what straight men wear to the Academy Awards. They wear black tuxes.

There are some women who can do no wrong on the red carpet walk. They have their own style and seem to always know what works for them:

Nicole Kidman; Cate Blanchette; Kelly Preston; Cameron Diaz; Helen Mirren; Renee Zellwegger; Jessica Alba, Hillary Swank.

"This is what a star is supposed to look like," he said of Swank. The stringy actress and two time winner favours bare arms and shoulders, and simple but elegant designs.

"Take note, take pictures and study for next year, girls."

CoJo also liked Katherine Heigle's red Grecian retro one-shouldered number, and proclaimed her the night's fashion Numero Uno.

PASSION FOR FASHION SQUAD --
RIVERS DUO GET CATTY ON THE RED CARPET WALK;
THE ROCK IMPRESSES THE FASHIONISTAS WITH HIS COOKIN'

Mom Joan Rivers and her daughter Melissa The Merciless cover the red carpet, their acerbic wit and rapier commentary have become a part of the other broadcasts that cable has instituted. E! and other webcasts have become a growing part of the Oscar ritual which is a type of cultural Superbowl.

Tilda Swinton – "She looked like a guy;"

"…Like she was going to a kd Lang concert" both interchangeably said, like a verbal tag-team on WWF.

"Kerri Russell always looks good, retro old school;

"Her hair looked like a Donald Trump comb over" one of them said of another actress;

Anne Hathaway's thinness: "A lot of these actresses are too thin, like they're doing a remake of 'Schindler's list' Joan said, although she liked the train part of Hathaway's outfit;

Heidi Klum's "ortho neck brace" large collar to her red dress, "like she fell asleep in a Gay airline flight" and just kept wearing the neck pillow.

"I didn't like it either, but if you're 200 feet tall you can get away with it," added Melissa Rivers. Klum was on the arm of her hubby the British crooner Seal.

Joan gushed about Duane "The Rock" Johnson and his stylish tux, fitted to his athletic frame.

"Finally, Clooney has a run for his money, men are getting into the act. And this guy was a wrestler, now he's a movie star," and now one with fashion sense. That's a "Game Plan."

TILDA SWINTON'S VAMPIRELLA GETUP;
GET HER A BLOOD TRANSFUSION – STAT!!

MICHAEL CLAYTON co-star Tilda Swinton, another Brit much like fellow countrywoman Cate Blanchett who often plays red-blooded American roles, came in for a good ripping up over her shapeless black shroud looking getup.

"She looked like she was wearing a big old sack. 'oh look, were recycling...'

"She's a statuesque beauty, with those big green eyes; we need to see her body... and she was wearing a sack. Belted at least," sniped Jill, a commentator on NBC's Today Show.

About the pasty No Makeup look that a few others employed an unconvinced Joan opined "We want our movie stars to look beautiful."

"People don't want to see you the way you roll out of bed" said a Sistah actress.

Some of us have seen Tilda's physical gifts before. In the most excellent film "The Beach" she and Leonardo DiCaprio had some vigorous and sweaty edge of the bed activity, with her in the superior position.

The leader of the expatriate community near the Malay Peninsula then imperiously told him "Now get some sleep. I may wish to have sex again in the morning," as she turned away from him and plumped her pillow.

How come I never meet women like this?!

NEXT: We'll have a satirical, political list of contending films linked to the presidential candidates and those around them. –kjw

Last Total Lunar Eclipse For Almost 3 Years -- by The New, Improved Star Hustler

The Word NetPaper Science Series

Last Total Lunar Eclipse Of 2008

By the New and Improved Star Hustler

Skywatchers are going to have a busy time in the next couple of nights. There's a shoot-down scheduled of an errant spy satellite, and a lunar eclipse during a time when people are still up.

The space shuttle Atlantis just landed, and they skedaddled out of the way just in time. The Navy is going to shoot down a crippled satellite the size of a school bus with one or possible two missiles to keep it from crashing back to earth, I mean Terra. They also strongly advised trans-Pacific flights to avoid the large debris field area west of the Hawaiian Islands and partway to Japan.

Speaking of trans-pacific flights being downed by the Military Industrial Complex, I wonder if they can work this angle into the new season of "Lost" on ABC? They're throwing everything else in!

The thing never really worked as it failed shortly after launch, and is slowly working its way back to the bottom of the gravity well it came from. Aside from the fact that it has a ton of frozen poisonous hydrazine rocket fuel, there's some circuitry and stuff the government would rather other countries not see.

Real regular rocket fuel is kerosene. But for some special applications they sometimes use hydrazine, which is toxic as hell. There is the fear that it may survive a return descent since its sealed in a container and frozen.

Did you know that there are over a hundred spy satellites overhead the planet at any one time? The Hubble space telescope NASA uses actually is a refurbished KH-11 (code named "Keyhole") spy satellite, just pointed out instead of down. The new ones can read a newspaper over someone's shoulder, so They say.

As the military Industrial Complex gets new toys they give away their old hand-me-downs, such as the ArpaNet, renamed the Internet; and their old 24 satellite network that is the backbone of the Global Positioning system. They don't need that old stuff anymore.

Those GoogleEarth maps are from their old stuff. With it, you can see you and your neighbors' houses and yards if you punch in the addresses. Try it sometime. People have been genuinely freaked out. (And backyard sunbathers and amateur Nudists as well!) If you have an old computer and memory be advised the program takes a lot of visual and graphics memory, and will lock your system up good if you're running multiple applications.

LUNAR ECLIPSE — AGAIN

This has been a busy 18 months or so for Lunar eclipse watchers, and it had better hold us as the next one won't be for a couple of years. But there's a total Solar eclipse that some travelers might get a piece of this summer that we'll get around to talking about in a few months. Some people have booked cruises to watch it from the Ocean, southern Africa is a prime viewing spot and travel agencies are busy.

We have another Total Lunar eclipse this late Wednesday night. The Earths shadow starts to creep along the lunar disk at around 7:45 with Totality about 9-10, and finally ending about 11 pm. All times are Central Standard Time, or can be figured out on based on Universal Greenwich Time Hour 6, from their England observatory. Historically and scientifically for African Descended History Month, Midnite at Greenwich UT is labeled Zulu Time, in honour of their fierce African adversaries!

• LUNAR DISK ECLIPSE STARTS: 7:43 pm
• TOTALITY BEGINS: 9:01 pm
• DURATION: c. 50 mins, until 9:51 pm
• ECLIPSE ENDS: 11:09 pm

These are all Central Times by the way. Chicago, St Louis, Little Rock, and Houston are in the same time Zone. This is the best one to figure things out from, and I'm not just saying that because I live in Cudahy, an exurb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Astronomy, and Sky & Telescope magazines are based here, the bibles of backyard amateur astronomers and Stargazers.

Also, there are the temples/observatories of note, such as the world's biggest Old School refracting lens telescope in William's Bay, next to Lake Geneva. (It was featured in the movie "Chain Reaction" with Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman; Brian Cox, and Rachel Weisz about a breakthrough in Cold Fusion).

The University of Wisconsin has an Antarctic data link to a subterranean observatory where they've been watching for the spontaneous decay of a proton. Which theory says might not happen during the age of the Universe, or 50 million years, whatever is soonest.

But they're watching anyway because they're not going to take anybody's word about it, (these are Wisconsinites after all). And if seen and quantified it would answer some really Big Questions about the future of the cosmos. Talk about having a lifetime job! But I digress.

The eclipse, the last of the total lunar kind until late 2010, will be visible over almost all of North and South America, with a sliver of Alaskan peninsula during still daylight, so they may miss out. The cloudy weather has been pushed away, and that's the good news. The bad news is that its an Arctic front that's doing all the pushing.

Temperatures here tonight in Wisconsin are in the low negatives, like minus –10, with Wind Chills in the range of minus –20s. We can handle that, we're from here. Go see the maps on the Astro/Science links above and at the end of the article for more; that's how I get so smart!

The Earth's sunrises and sunsets played out on the surface turn the Selene/Luna/ the Moon a coppery reddish hue, with some ominous freakish looking black shadows sometimes.

This lunar eclipse will occur when there are plenty of people still up, and like other lunar eclipsi lasts a really long time because the earth's shadow is lots bigger and more spread out than the Moon's, which has no blurring atmosphere. Unlike Titan which is a gigantic moon of Saturn, that aside from having a substantial methane atmosphere is bigger than the planet Mercury. We have some plans for that place! They will be detailed in another Star Hustler article.

Here's the email send-out to we lucky subscribers of SpaceWeather.com:

______________

Space Weather News for Feb. 19, 2008

http://spaceweather.com

LUNAR ECLIPSE: On Wednesday night, February 20th, the full Moon will turn a delightful shade of red and possibly turquoise, too. It's a total lunar eclipse — the last one until Dec. 2010. Sky watchers in Europe, the Americas, parts of the Middle East and Africa are favored for good views of the two-hour event. Visit http://spaceweather.com for full coverage including maps and timetables, live webcasts and discussion.

SPY SATELLITE UPDATE:

The US Navy's first attempt to hit malfunctioning spy satellite USA 193 with a missile could come on Wednesday night during the lunar eclipse. This is based on an air traffic advisory warning pilots to steer clear of a patch of Pacific Ocean near Hawaii just when USA 193 is due to pass overhead.

Until the satellite is shot down, it remains visible to casual sky watchers during evening passes over US and Canadian towns and cities; experienced observers say the decaying satellite is sometimes as bright as the stars of Orion, making it an easy target for unaided eyes and off-the-shelf digital cameras. Details, photos and more information are available at http://spaceweather.com.

Subscribers to Spaceweather PHONE (http://spaceweatherphone.com) will receive email and telephone alerts when the spy-sat is about to appear over their backyards.

You are subscribed to the Space Weather mailing list, a free service of Spaceweather.com.

______________

That's it for the New & Improved Star Hustler. Next, we ask – and perhaps answer – in another Black History Month Special: – Were there Ancient African Explorers to the Americas?

____________

¿Where There African Wayfarers To The Americas?

ANCIENT EXPLORATIONS OF THE TRAVEL GRIOT

¿Where There African Wayfarers To The Americas?

¿What About The The 'Black Irish' and Brownies?'

• The African-Celtic Connection

by Kevin J. Walker

walkernet@gmail.com

Cristoforo Colombo was a latecomer, as a newly released study confirms there is tantalizing archeological and linguistic evidence that African explorers in antiquity may have reached parts of the Americas from the Carolinas down to Brazil.

We explore some of these suppositions, as well as legends of "Brownies" in Ireland that may have been a First Contact between Africans and their long ago lost brethren who lost their dark skins, broad noses and wooly hair during their sojourn in Ice Age Europe.

Included is an article posted by Reuters News Service on the Internet just as the finishing touches were being placed on this article on Ancient explorers to the Americas. It just further ratifies what many researchers have observed as mounting evidence shows this continent was criss-crossed by many different peoples over millennia.

by Kevin J. Walker,

Netitor of The Word NetPaper

BROTHA SCIENCE

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The following article was posted by Reuters News Service on the Internet just as the finishing touches were being placed on this article on Ancient explorers to the Americas. It just further ratifies what many researchers have observed as mounting evidence shows this continent was criss-crossed by many different peoples over millennia:

Experts doubt Clovis people were first in Americas

By Will Dunham
Thu Feb 22, 6:42 PM ET
Reuters Limited

The Clovis people, known for their distinctive spear points, likely were not the first humans in the Americas, according to research placing their presence as more recent than previously believed.

Using advanced radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers writing in the journal Science on Thursday said the Clovis people, hunters of large Ice Age animals like mammoths and mastodons, dated from about 13,100 to 12,900 years ago. That would make the Clovis culture, known from artifacts discovered at various sites including the town of Clovis, New Mexico, both younger and shorter-lived than previously thought.

Previous estimates had dated the culture to about 13,600 years ago. These people long had been seen as the first humans in the New World, but the new dates suggest their culture thrived at about the same time or after others also in the Americas.

Michael Waters, director of Texas A&M University's Center for the Study of the First Americans, called the research the final nail in the coffin of the so-called "Clovis first" theory of human origins in the New World. Waters said he thinks the first people probably arrived in the Americas between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago.

"We've got to stop thinking about the peopling of the Americas as a singular event," Waters said in an interview. "And we have to start now thinking about the peopling of the Americas as a process, with people coming over here, probably arriving at different times, maybe taking different routes and coming from different places in northeast Asia."

Waters and co-author Thomas Stafford, a radiocarbon dating expert, tested samples from various Clovis archeological sites to try to get a more accurate accounting of their age. Technological advances enabled them to more precisely pinpoint dates for some Clovis sites excavated in North America.

The theory has been that the Clovis people first migrated out of northeast Asia across the Bering land bridge from Siberia into Alaska and traveled through a ice-free corridor into North America, populating that continent while their descendants journeyed into South America.

Asked who were the first people in the Americas if not the Clovis, Waters answered, "That's a good question." "I think that's what we've got to work toward -- a new model for the peopling of the Americas, and I think we need to create a coherent model that's based on genetic data, geological evidence as well as archeological data."

________________________________

The idea of seafaring Africans exploring Europe, let alone the Americas, is something that traditional scientists don't give much credence. (Aside from the willful ignorance that the Phoenicians weren't North Africans, whose influence spread to our linguistic constructs, hence the name "Phonics").

But the close-minded historians or propagandists can't ignore what has been shown to be pervasive bi-coastal evidence of contact, as the Americas were traversed by many ancient explorers. Some stayed, some just got a peek, took some notes and specimens back, and left.

After the Ice Age ended that blanketed Europe in a mile-high and thick sheet of glacial ice, explorations north and south commenced with force. The "Black Irish" stories may be far older than the shipwrecked Spanish Armada in the 1800s that was said to be the source of dark-haired, dark skinned Irelanders.

The Celtic stories of "the Brownies" of the British Isles who have been given short shrift by the concentration on seemingly related magical Leprechauns, may have been the recordings of their culture encountering the first waves of exploring and migrating Africans who traversed the Straits of Gibraltar, or sailed from Western Africa.

The cryptic stories of antiquity have fueled many speculations, but also left many clues:

• There is a curious settlement remnant in the Carolinas that is said to contain pre-Slavery "Negroid bones" and armour

• Lost Settlements of various types are spoken of, including a tribe of red-haired Caucasian-resembling savages in the south American jungle. They may have been the remnants of a failed outpost who devolved into barbarism after losing contact with their European colonial bosses

• The large Olmec Heads of Mexico are undoubtedly depictions of flat-nosed, thick-lipped African explorers carved into boulders by tribes not known for their fanciful art; they tended to depict what they actually saw, like their versions of photographs.

• There have been coins and beadwork found in South and central America that have analogs in Western Africa, with tribal stories on both ends of not only contact, but trade that continued for years

In fact, its little known but the explorer Christofo Columbus was earlier posted in Africa where he supposedly came upon this knowledge, including the Central American coins and artifacts, which he used to convince the Queen and King of Spain to back his quest.

This is what really set him upon his search of the land that he was all but certain was across the vast ocean to the West. He thought it was the long-sought Sea Route to India, hence the enduring misnomer of the aboriginal peoples they encountered.

¿WAS GULF CURRENT ANCIENT SEA FREEWAY?

Interestingly, the stories of African Sailors coincides neatly with the known Gulf ocean currents that exchange the warm waters from South America up along the Eastern seaboard north to Ireland, and down again back to western Africa. This is phenomenon is also the spawning ground of Atlantic hurricanes, fed by the warm waters to the south where the sun is more stronger. All of our strong Atlantic hurricanes form from winds off the coast of Western Africa.

This is a "Free Energy "conducting system for sailors, although its a long way around. Its called the Humboldt Current.

In the global climactic disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow" with Dennis Quaid and a pre-"Brokeback Mountain" Jake Gyllenhaal, this warm ocean current energy exchange was shut off, leading to the freezing of Europe which is kept much warmer by it despite its northern latitude. That last part is a fact; in my science studies we were told of this phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the Chinese in the early 1400s were also sending out expeditions and getting in on a piece of the action. Their extensive archives hold information about encountering a land far to the East that researchers have said point to landmarks in northern California, thanks to their detailed notations.

If you want to see something interesting, go search online and pull up a detailed map of northern California and Oregon. Many of the smaller settlements have Russian names! They came across the narrow Bering Straight across from Alaska, which they'd settled, and drifted southward to northern Oregon and points beyond.

This is an example of how contacts between peoples can be traced by place names, and terms for common items.

The Americas had long been traversed by many different peoples, over several millennia. Crossing the Bering Strait from Russian Siberia to Alaska wasn't an activity that was stopped when the Asiatic explorers chanced it during the various Ice Ages.

FURTHER LINES OF INQUIRY:

I know you're busy, but if this was easy everyone would be doing it. The college Professor in me can't resist assigning homework and extracurricular activities. These are easy though, especially if you have the Internet, cable service or a DVD player at home.

WEBSITES: Ancient Earthworks Society website:

(Search for "John Anthony Smith and Sphinx")

Walker's Photos of Pyramids, Vatican Mummies and Hieroglyphs:

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Jim Scherz of Wisconsin has considered Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" saga as a story about cultures and historical events in the Mississippi region. Jim is with the Ancient Earthworks Society in Madison, the state capital. Check out the Ancient Earthworks Society website for more of their Midwest explorations.

_________

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