Claire's Life

When a person sets out to watch every single movie ever awarded "Best Picture", a person learns things about the entertainment industry, film preservation, public libraries, special effects, and oneself. Among these lessons is, "it is currently easier to get ahold of very old or very new movies than it is to get ahold of movies of intermediate age." This is due to the intersection of copyright law and the law of supply and demand. Brick-and-mortar libraries tend to keep newer movies in stock, so as to attract patrons who just  missed them in theaters. Online streaming services tend to have easier access to old stuff that's passed into the public domain, or at least into the domain of cheap royalties. Movies of middling age might, or might not, pop up in either place. I say all this by way of explaining why, for the fourth entry in this tournament, I have skipped forward in the timeline of Oscar-winning films, to  Chicago  (2002) vs.  Birdman  (2013)

My sister organized a book-themed bridal shower for me this weekend. The following was the most popular game. Directions : Read each quote below and determine if the quote is from a published book or if the bride wrote/said it. Get 1 POINT for each correct answer, 2 EXTRA POINTS if you correctly attribute a quote to a specific book, and 3 MORE POINTS if you identify the book's author. "In those days the people did cry unto the Lord, 'Uh, a little help?'" "What Dad means by 'see' of course, is 'drive past at 67 miles per hour.' Dad feels it is a foolish waste of valuable vacation time to get out of the car and actually go look at an attraction." "Today, the homemade antenna fell off the wall and got eaten by the robot." "Act confidently, never say 'I don't know,' and when all else fails, keep 'em busy." "You cannot use a bone saw for many things, besides sawing bones." "I need t

When Entertainment Weekly  published its 66-movie bracket, they devoted the bottom-left corner to the "Blockbuster Era," aka 1979-1998. Bryan and I skipped ahead to that section because we'd already seen Titanic  (1997). Which brings us to... Blockbuster Era, Match 1:  Titanic  (1997) vs.  Platoon  (1986) First Contestant: Titanic There have been 11 films entitled Titanic, but only one of them has won Best Picture. I refer, of course, to the supersized James Cameron flick that came out in 1997 and was immediately responsible for every song on the radio being replaced by Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." This  Titanic  was in theaters for almost 10 months and broke the record for domestic box office gross. Critics have advanced several explanations for its success, including the amazing star-making performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet; the innovative special effects; the director's loving attention to the human details of a co