Morning Coffee (3/25/19)

Me elsewhere: TV news for the week.

Bill Barr’s letter summarizing Mueller’s findings, explained

This is horrifying: Mock Executions? Real Screams and Blood? Just Another School Shooter Drill

Good: Iowa Supreme Court rules that Medicaid can cover sex reassignment surgery

The Media Gaslighting of 2020’s Most Likable Candidate

And: Beto is playing to liberal fears about running a woman against Trump

Nikki Haley is wrong: Finland takes care of new moms way better than the US

Here’s what Disney owns after the massive Disney/Fox merger

I'm not sure we NEEDED this but I will definitely read it: Call Me by Your Name sequel Find Me to publish this October

Go Herodotus! Nile shipwreck discovery proves Herodotus right – after 2,469 years

Matthew Rhys as Perry Mason?!?!

Morning Coffee (3/17/18)

(Something went wacky with my post scheduling today. Sorry for the delay!)

ICYMI, I added a new Patreon reward for anyone who wants to hear about the novel I'm working on!

Sad news: Louise Slaughter, 88, 16-Term Liberal Congresswoman, Is Dead

Mueller Subpoenas Trump Organization, Demanding Documents About Russia

Dems: Trump Officials Worked With Activists To Target State Dept. Career Staff

Sergei Skripal, Russia, and the Salisbury Conundrum

Good for her: This Young Woman Is Challenging The Maine Republican Who Insulted Emma González

Oh my gosh ANDREW SHAFFER IS WRITING OBAMA/BIDEN MYSTERY NOVELS!!

Interesting analysis: Loose Oxford shirts and short-shorts – why Call Me By Your Name is this season's menswear inspiration​

Ancient Human Groups Mated With the Mysterious Denisovans at Least Twice

A Newly Discovered Difference Between Alligators and Crocodiles (I kind of can't believe we're still discovering differences between them??)

The book this is based on made me EXTREMELY ANGRY: Starz Orders 'The White Queen' Follow-Up 'The Spanish Princess'

Afternoon Tea (3/6/18)

This story on beating the lottery via math is WILD: Jerry and Marge Go Large

The Merchant Ivory: The History of Adaptations That Came Before ‘Call Me By Your Name’

On figure skating: How Do You Judge Je Ne Sais Quoi?

Say It with Noodles: On Learning to Speak the Language of Food

How a Sneak Attack By Norway’s Skiing Soldiers Deprived the Nazis of the Atomic Bomb

Afternoon Tea (3/5/18)

This piece by Nicole Chung is great: How to Write a Memoir While Grieving

The Instagram Stars Hiding Their Famous, Muslim-Hating Mom, Pamela Geller (And a subsequent update.)

Luca Guadagnino Is Love

Fascinating: The Misunderstood Byzantine Princess and Her Magnum Opus

Photos: The astonishing hidden complexity inside our sleek techie gadgets

Oscar Project 2018: Picks and Predictions!

Well, here we are. It's Oscar weekend! So I guess it's time to tell you what I want to win. For each category, you'll see links to my posts about each nominee, and then my prediction of what will actually win, my preference for what SHOULD win among those nominees, and in some cases my comments on what should have been nominated but wasn't. (Note: I'm 100% convinced that I'm forgetting A LOT of the other things I would have ideally nominated.)

I hope you've enjoyed my Oscar posts. If you'd like to support my work and get more exclusive content, come join me on Patreon!

Best Picture:
The Nominees: Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
What Will Win: The Shape of Water, though I keep going back and forth between that and Three Billboards
What Should Win: Call Me By Your Name, Call Me By Your Name, Call Me By Your Name
In a Perfect World... I'd have nominated Wind River and maybe The Florida Project in the place of Three Billboards and The Shape of Water.

Actor in a Leading Role:
The Nominees: Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Get Out, Phantom Thread, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
What Will Win: Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour
What Should Win: I'm torn between Oldman and Timothee Chalamet for Call Me By Your Name.
In a Perfect World... I'd have nominated Jeremy Renner for Wind River in the place of Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Actor in a Supporting Role:
The Nominees: All the Money in the World, The Florida Project, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (twice over)
What Will Win: Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards
What Should Win: Willem Dafoe for The Florida Project
In a Perfect World... I am COMPLETELY FURIOUS that Three Billboards got TWO slots here and Call Me By Your Name got none. I would have nominated both Armie Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg, and Hammer should have won.

Actress in a Leading Role:
The Nominees: I, Tonya, Lady Bird, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
What Will Win: Frances McDormand for Three Billboards
What Should Win: Margot Robbie for I, Tonya
In a Perfect World... Daniela Vega should have been nominated for A Fantastic Woman.

Actress in a Supporting Role:
The Nominees:I, Tonya, Lady Bird, Mudbound, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water
What Will Win: Allison Janney for I, Tonya
What Should Win: Laurie Metcalf for Lady Bird

Animated Feature Film:
The Nominees: The Boss Baby, The Breadwinner, Coco, Ferdinand, Loving Vincent
What Will Win: Coco
What Should Win: Coco
In a Perfect World... Surely there was SOMETHING better than The Boss Baby to nominate.

Cinematography:
The Nominees: Blade Runner 2049, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Mudbound, The Shape of Water
What Will Win: Blade Runner 2049
What Should Win: Dunkirk, though I wouldn't mind seeing the first female cinematography win for Mudbound.
In a Perfect World... I'd have nominated Call Me By Your Name and maybe Phantom Thread.

Costume Design:
The Nominees: Beauty and the Beast, Darkest Hour, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, Victoria & Abdul
What Will Win: Phantom Thread
What Should Win: Phantom Thread

Directing:
The Nominees: Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water
What Will Win: Guillermo Del Toro for The Shape of Water
What Should Win: Christopher Nolan for Dunkirk
In a Perfect World... I'd have nominated Luca Guadagnino for Call Me By Your Name

Documentary (Feature):
The Nominees: Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Faces Places, Icarus, Last Men in Aleppo, Strong Island
What Will Win: I'm torn between Icarus and Last Men in Aleppo.
What Should Win: Icarus, though there's no bad option here.

Documentary (Short Subject):
The Nominees: Edith+Eddie, Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405, Heroin(e), Knife Skills, Traffic Stop
What Will Win: Traffic Stop
What Should Win: Heroin(e)

Film Editing:
The Nominees: Baby Driver, Dunkirk, I, Tonya, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
What Will Win: Dunkirk
What Should Win: Dunkirk, though I wouldn't be mad at Baby Driver or I, Tonya.

Foreign Language Film:
The Nominees: A Fantastic Woman, The Insult, Loveless, On Body and Soul, The Square
What Will Win: A Fantastic Woman
What Should Win: A Fantastic Woman

Makeup & Hairstyling:
The Nominees: Darkest Hour, Victoria & Abdul, Wonder
What Will Win: Darkest Hour
What Should Win: Darkest Hour
In a Perfect World... I might have nominated Beauty and the Beast here.

Music (Original Score):
The Nominees: Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
What Will Win: The Shape of Water
What Should Win: Phantom Thread
In a Perfect World... I'd have put Call Me By Your Name in the place of Three Billboards.

Music (Original Song):
The Nominees: Call Me By Your Name, Coco, The Greatest Showman, Marshall, Mudbound
What Will Win: "This Is Me" from The Greatest Showman
What Should Win: "Mystery of Love" from Call Me By Your Name
In a Perfect World... Well, "Visions of Gideon" was actually the better original Sufjan Stevens song in Call Me By Your Name.

Production Design:
The Nominees: Beauty and the Beast, Blade Runner 2049, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water
What Will Win: The Shape of Water
What Should Win: Blade Runner 2049, though both WWII movies are close seconds for me here.
In a Perfect World... Guess what, I'd put Call Me By Your Name here too.

Short Film (Animated):
The Nominees: Dear Basketball, Garden Party, LOU, Negative Space, Revolting Rhymes: Part I
What Will Win: Dear Basketball
What Should Win: Negative Space

Short Film (Live Action):
The Nominees: DeKalb Elementary, The Eleven O'Clock, My Nephew Emmett, The Silent Child, Watu Wote/All of Us
What Will Win: DeKalb Elementary
What Should Win: My Nephew Emmett or The Silent Child

Sound Editing:
The Nominees: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
What Will Win: Dunkirk
What Should Win: Dunkirk

Sound Mixing:
The Nominees: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
What Will Win: Dunkirk
What Should Win: Dunkirk

Visual Effects:
The Nominees: Blade Runner 2049, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, War for the Planet of the Apes
What Will Win: Blade Runner 2049
What Should Win: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Writing (Adapted Screenplay):
The Nominees: Call Me By Your Name, The Disaster Artist, Logan, Molly's Game, Mudbound
What Will Win: Call Me By Your Name (This is the only category for which I'm letting myself hope.)
What Should Win: Call Me By Your Name

Writing (Original Screenplay):
The Nominees: The Big Sick, Get Out, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
What Will Win: Get Out, though this is the category I'm having the most trouble predicting. I wouldn't be at all surprised by anything except The Big Sick here.
What Should Win: Anything but Three Billboards.

Morning Coffee (2/18/18)

Florida student Emma Gonzalez to lawmakers and gun advocates: 'We call BS'

DREAMers are at risk because of Donald Trump. Period.

Diplomats in Cuba Suffered Brain Injuries. Experts Still Don’t Know Why.

'Most of the children still have parents': behind the facade of a Bali orphanage

America's Last Princess, Hawaii's Abigail Kawananakoa, Is in a Legal Battle Over $215 Million Fortune

This is amazing and I definitely want them to make a game together: Game Developer Adam Rippon Is Having A Good Time Right Now

Anyone have an extra $2.7 million handy? ‘Call Me by Your Name’ House Goes Up for Sale

Are You Ready For Some Plump, Dewy, Moisturize-Rich SKINCARE DRAMA??

How Google Has Quietly Revolutionized Document Editing

Hmm: New James Bond novel will be a prequel to Casino Royale

Afternoon Tea (2/16/18)

This kid gives good profile: The Arrival of Timothée Chalamet

Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays

FASCINATING: How Laundry Gets Done at the Olympics

God, minerals and mud: thousands flock to Fiji's 'miracle spring'

I'll have to try these: Katharine Hepburn’s brownies are as badass as she was

Afternoon Tea (2/7/18)

Frank Ocean Interviewed Timothee Chalamet and it is a DELIGHT.

The C.E.O. Who Called Trump a Racist (and Sold a Lot of Spice Mix)

The Slick Science of Making Olympic Snow and Ice

For the Love of Independence: Romance Authors Are Literature’s Unsung Heroines

Gowns, Wurst and Protesters: It’s Ball Season in Vienna

Morning Coffee (2/2/18)

Boy do we need a break for some happy links this Friday!

ICYMI, yesterday's Oscar post: I loved Phantom Thread.

A good post to start your Friday: Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet Dance in the Streets of Italy With Call Me by Your Name Fans

Elena Ferrante's first Guardian column is up! (I finally started reading My Brilliant Friend this week. In Italian, so it's gonna take me a while.)

Whee, my friends doing awesome things: Cassandra Clare Launches 'One-Shot' Publishing Collaborative

This is very interesting and the Brits among you may be able to make some of these events! Suffragette cities: events to mark the centenary of voting rights for women

Not surprising but still delightful: Royals: They're just like us: The Royal Family Have Their Own WhatsApp Group

In other royals news, this is fun but I'm sorry this lady had to delete her Instagram because of it: Kate Middleton's Hairdresser Instagrams What She Packs For A Royal Tour With The Duchess

Amazing: Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle Went to a Michelangelo Exhibit and Thought It Was Radical

It me, as the kids say: My Self-Care Is Just Me Sorting Myself Into Ravenclaw Over and Over Again

I just BOUGHT a bag of this description so I shouldn't even look at this: 15 Office-Friendly Bags That Are Big Enough to Hold Your Laptop (I actually considered the Kate Spade one listed there but I wanted something that zipped, so I wound up at the Coach outlet and am very happy with my choice.)

Nothing has ever been more For Me than THE MATH OF MEDIEVAL TIMES.

Afternoon Tea (1/31/18)

I love Aciman's take on this experience almost as intensely as I love both the book and the film: “I Couldn’t Write Silence”: Call Me by Your Name Author André Aciman on the Oscar-Nominated Film Adaptation of His Novel

This is great and I'm SO excited to read Jasmine's book: How This Lawyer Learned to Call Herself a Writer

Indian Slavery Once Thrived in New Mexico. Latinos Are Finding Family Ties to It.

Obviously I need to try THIS: The Cult Skin-Care Brand Whose Secret Ingredient Is Being Dirt Cheap

So interesting: Photos from a Slowly Modernizing Bhutan

Oscar Project 2018: Call Me By Your Name

(A general note as we start this: If I say a movie is worthy in a certain category, that just means on its own merits in a vacuum, not that it's necessarily my pick for the category. So I may say yes to a bunch of Actors in a Leading Role or whatever and then at the end you'll get my actual pick for each category.)

Movie: Call Me By Your Name

I'm having trouble even articulating how much I loved this movie (and how good I thought it was - those don't always go together). I'd usually be hesitant to say a movie was the best of the year before seeing at least all the Best Picture nominees, but I would be ASTONISHED if anything but this ends up as my pick. I haven't felt this strongly about a movie in... years, at least. I've barely been able to think about anything else since I saw it, but at the same time it's made me want to learn and read and play music and write things - saying something is "inspirational" is often so cheesy, but this really was, for me. Obviously the central romance is getting most of the attention around this movie, but for me what made it so great was the way that romance was completely intertwined with the characters' feelings about art and music and history and literature. This is the only movie I can think of that really portrayed the way it feels to be a teenager as I remember it.

In addition to its four nominations, I think this should have also been nominated at LEAST in Actor in a Supporting Role (preferably twice over but CERTAINLY Armie Hammer, who had a difficult, subtle role I honestly wasn't sure he'd pull off), Directing, and Cinematography, and I'd probably also put it in a bunch of other places like Editing and Production Design and Music (Original Score). Give this movie all the awards.

Availability: It's in limited release but widening, so you SHOULD be able to find it if you're willing to drive a bit. Hopefully these nominations will increase the availability in coming weeks.

Nominated In:
Best Picture: Yes yes yes. As I said, I feel ridiculously strongly about this movie - both in that I loved it but also that I thought it was a great film. I don't think it will win but it SHOULD.

Actor in a Leading Role: Yes. The audience is in Timothee Chalamet's character's head for the entire movie and he carries it admirably, especially given how young he is. (And he's PERFECT at making the character feel like a real teenager who is old for his years in some ways, rather than just an adult.)

Music (Original Song): This is for "Mystery of Love" by Sufjan Stevens; you can see the music video (with footage from the film) here. I might actually prefer his other song for the film, "Visions of Gideon," but that's a very small quibble; both songs are great and he absolutely deserves the award.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): YES YES YES. As I mentioned above, I really love the novel, but as I read it I was thinking about how hard it would be to get an adaptation right, for two main reasons: a lot of why it's so great is the writing itself, which can be hard to translate on screen, and it's very interior and I was afraid of lots of awful voiceovers to compensate for that inner monologue. But the script was PERFECT and I can't believe James Ivory has never won an Oscar and he better win this one.

Oscar Project 2018 Begins!

Oscar nominations are out! (That's the official site, and it includes a handy printable checklist.) As usual, I'll be trying to see as many nominated movies as I can, and between now and Oscar night I'll write you a post about each movie, with a few general thoughts as well as my assessment of it in each category in which it's nominated. Then at the end I'll tell you my pick for each category as well as my predictions for what will actually win. As I've mentioned, this year I'm doing an exclusive Oscar Project Diary for my Patreon patrons as well - just $1 a month to get those posts.

So where are we starting? Let's look at the numbers. A total of 59 movies were nominated this year, for a total of 122 individual nominations. I've done slightly better than usual, before the nominations - I've already seen 13 movies that comprise 48 nominations, or almost 40%. And a lot of the ones I haven't seen are pretty easily accessible, so FINGERS CROSSED. As always, it will probably come down to documentaries, foreign language, and animated that I have trouble finishing.

My very quick takes on the nominations: there weren't many cases where I was mad at specific things getting nominated, but I was mad about a lot of things that were missed. This will come up more but off the top of my head:

• Wind River was completely snubbed and I thought it was definitely in the top ten movies of the year; I'd give it at least Original Screenplay and Cinematography nominations.
• Call Me By Your Name got four nominations but I thought it deserved at least six more.
• I really thought The Florida Project would be nominated much more. I'm less surprised about All the Money in the World but it deserved more.
• Very happy to see both a woman and a person of color on the Directing list.

Come back for my first movie post tomorrow!