Findcate

Jupiter in Capricorn expands everything he touches, and today, shaking hands with the Taurus sun, our sense of well-being grows to the degree that we’re aligned with what it is we’re aiming toward. Sometimes meaningful accomplishment is a matter of goal-setting, but today it’s about asking for more. So where can you ask for more?

ARIES (March 21-April 19). There are those who love to provoke you — they can’t help themselves. You’re so much fun when you’re bothered. Decide not to take offense or get ruffled and they’ll stop. All they want is your attention anyhow.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). The best help you can get comes from someone whose own interests coincide with your perfectly. Find the one who, by helping you out, is actually helping himself immensely.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Keeping the peace is easy when you understand the needs, wants, limits and talents of those around you. So getting along is mostly a matter of paying attention, and being curious about others — easy for you!

CANCER (June 22-July 22). If you are in a position where you need to move quickly to obtain or change something, you’ll wind up paying too much. The most patient person holds all of the power.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Part of you is thinking about the future of a relationship as you make decisions. You’re generous because it feels right to you, but also because you want the other person to be as loyal as you are.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (MAY 12). Relationships grow closer this year. The enduring love of your supporters will be highlighted as you adventure on together. You’ll also have fun with new characters who are introduced to your inner circle. A business risk or a daring move on the job results in more money by June. Travel sparks your imagination in October. Cancer and Scorpio adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 4, 2, 1, 44 and 17.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Work is demanding. The prize goes to the person who cares the most, or at least pretends to care the most. Higher-ups need validation and respect. They’ll look for it in your eyes.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Some of your core needs are not being met. It’s time to find new resources. When those close see that you’re serious about making a change, they just might step up with a new energy and eagerness.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). You’re a private person, especially when it comes to your creativity. However, this is no time to hide out. Show and share what you can do.

A life lived on purpose is a magnet for love. This is especially true for Capricorns who are deeply fulfilled by identifying their calling, then pursuing that to the ends of the earth. He is doing this — fabulous! My concern is, Capricorns can approach finding a mate with ambition equal to climbing a K2, which can be problematic (and disappointing). Love flourishes in an atmosphere of lighthearted play.

However, he does have innate skills useful in a soul mate strategy. Just as every ambitious Capricorn envisions a picture of what success looks like before they achieve it, intentionality precedes manifestation. So just as your son masterfully intends his life achievements into being, I’d suggest he picture his life partner, write it down, followed by the other thing Capricorn does best — hold out for the best. And don’t forget to trust that love is in the stars.

Tags: 22 july, accomplishment, ambition, business risk, cancer and scorpio, capricorn, daring move, enduring love, goal setting, inner circle, job, june 21, jupiter, keeping the peace, lucky numbers, march 21, patient person, paying attention, shaking hands, taurus, ups, validation

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Brooke Busey-Hunt, who has a tattoo on her left buttock, has
said that if she fails at writing she will consider going back to
pole-dancing and what she calls “bed-dancing”, which she enjoyed in
an ironic, cheesy, reverse-voyeurism kind of way. Busey-Hunt,
clearly, is an eccentric, and a member of the legion of internet
exhibitionists.
It has just become obvious that she will not be going back to
work as a paid tease. Suddenly, at age 29, she is mildly rich and
famous. Busey-Hunt, a bookish vamp, now goes by the nom de plume
Diablo Cody. Under that name she has been nominated for an Academy
Award for best original screenplay for Juno, her first
feature film, one of four nominations. Diablo Cody must be a
favourite to win her category even if Juno is unlikely to
win best picture, for which it is also nominated, because it is not
a “big” film.
It may not be big but Juno is a diamond. Perfect. Ellen
Page plays the title role of Juno, named after Jupiter’s wife and
the queen of the Roman gods. Or as Juno explains in Juno,
“she was Jupiter’s wife %26#133; and really beautiful but really
mean, like Diana Ross”. Page plays the wisecracking,
Minneapolis-based, Patti Smith-adoring 16-year-old Juno (written by
the wisecracking, Minneapolis-raised, Patti Smith-adoring Diablo
Cody) at such a fine pitch that by the end you think, “She’s got to
be nominated for an Academy Award”, and the next day you read that
she has been nominated for an Academy Award. Ellen Page, too, must
be considered a favourite for best actress. Originality, wit and
sweetness don’t come along in one package very often.
Juno is part of the embarrassment of riches for the 80th
Annual Academy Awards, with the Oscars handed out on February 24.
We really are living in a golden age of cinematic literature and
film is the literature of our age. We are a fifth-generation cinema
culture and it shows. Filmmaking is imbued with the experiences of
several generations and more good and knowing and ironic films are
being made than ever before. Not a huge number but enough to keep
the Sundance Festival going and keep the Palace cinemas humming all
year.
Thus the quest for the great novel now pales beside the need for
great screenplays. People aren’t reading books any more in any
great numbers. The number of books purchased, per capita, is lower
than it was 25 years ago. An ardent but shrinking minority keeps
book publishing afloat. What most people are doing is watching,
trawling, playing, reacting. The attention span is becoming manic.
This increases exponentially as you progress down the age pyramid
towards the young.
Everything has speeded up. Watching classic films or old TV
shows, one is struck by the measured pacing and the long unbroken
sequences compared with the frenetic editing of today’s movies, TV
shows and advertising. The mass literacy of film and video is also
being driven from the bottom up, via the infinite blogosphere and
voyeursphere of the internet.
The sheer weight of this cultural shift towards the moving image
over the written word is reflected in both good and malign ways,
and one of the positive indicators is the outstanding shortlist for
the 2008 Academy Awards. Four of the five finalists for best
picture are superbly written and superbly acted films - No
Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael
Clayton and Juno - which depict America at its best and
worst and show Hollywood at its best.
The best actor category is a particularly rich haul, with five
out of five great performances by great actors: Daniel Day-Lewis,
Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen.
Given the stack of other charismatic, nuanced leading men,
including Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt et al,
this is a boom age for leading men and, until a week ago, Australia
had four world-class ones, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce
and Heath Ledger.
The women are not quite as strong this year but there is one
spectacular actress, more like a miracle, named Cate Blanchett,
Melbourne-born and Sydney-trained who is generating awe in Los
Angeles, as evidenced by the two nominations she received this
year. She must be favourite for best supporting actress for her
mesmerising portrayal of a young Bob Dylan in I’m Not There,
a film which also features, poignantly, Heath Ledger playing a
troubled movie star.
It is surely a golden age when the Coen brothers, Ethan and
Joel, are making film after glorious film, when eccentrics like Wes
Anderson and Jim Jarmusch are pumping out movies for cult
followings, and when a new generation of talented filmmakers has
dominated the Academy Awards. For all the moaning about special
effects-driven blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, there is still
plenty of soul being put into film. Traditional literature has been
served well this year, with three of the films nominated for best
picture built on critically acclaimed novels: There Will be
Blood, based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, published in
1927; Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men (2005); and
Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2002).
Given that this is the Australia Day weekend, it is worth noting
that the Australian film industry has evolved into an adjunct of
the American film industry, and this is no bad thing. It is
something government funding can’t change, cultural nationalism
can’t fix, and second-rate local screenwriting has made
inevitable.
The film industry is now globalised, drawing talent from
everywhere to the great Hollywood dream factory. Australia has
become a noted sub-contractor, as Ledger and Blanchett made so
clear during the past sad and glorious week.

Tags: actress, brad pitt, brother, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, hollywood, hugh jackman, ian mcewan, javier bardem, jupiter, nationalism, shortlist

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• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• Christie leads home charge with best actress nomination
• Baftas give strike-hit Hollywood a chance to show off the glad rags
• Amid the darkness, gems shine bright
• Soggy reception awaits Oscars stars
• Pushing the envelope

Brooke Busey-Hunt, who has a tattoo on her left buttock, has
said that if she fails at writing she will consider going back to
pole-dancing and what she calls “bed-dancing”, which she enjoyed in
an ironic, cheesy, reverse-voyeurism kind of way. Busey-Hunt,
clearly, is an eccentric, and a member of the legion of internet
exhibitionists.
It has just become obvious that she will not be going back to
work as a paid tease. Suddenly, at age 29, she is mildly rich and
famous. Busey-Hunt, a bookish vamp, now goes by the nom de plume
Diablo Cody. Under that name she has been nominated for an Academy
Award for best original screenplay for Juno, her first
feature film, one of four nominations. Diablo Cody must be a
favourite to win her category even if Juno is unlikely to
win best picture, for which it is also nominated, because it is not
a “big” film.
It may not be big but Juno is a diamond. Perfect. Ellen
Page plays the title role of Juno, named after Jupiter’s wife and
the queen of the Roman gods. Or as Juno explains in Juno,
“she was Jupiter’s wife %26#133; and really beautiful but really
mean, like Diana Ross”. Page plays the wisecracking,
Minneapolis-based, Patti Smith-adoring 16-year-old Juno (written by
the wisecracking, Minneapolis-raised, Patti Smith-adoring Diablo
Cody) at such a fine pitch that by the end you think, “She’s got to
be nominated for an Academy Award”, and the next day you read that
she has been nominated for an Academy Award. Ellen Page, too, must
be considered a favourite for best actress. Originality, wit and
sweetness don’t come along in one package very often.
Juno is part of the embarrassment of riches for the 80th
Annual Academy Awards, with the Oscars handed out on February 24.
We really are living in a golden age of cinematic literature and
film is the literature of our age. We are a fifth-generation cinema
culture and it shows. Filmmaking is imbued with the experiences of
several generations and more good and knowing and ironic films are
being made than ever before. Not a huge number but enough to keep
the Sundance Festival going and keep the Palace cinemas humming all
year.
Thus the quest for the great novel now pales beside the need for
great screenplays. People aren’t reading books any more in any
great numbers. The number of books purchased, per capita, is lower
than it was 25 years ago. An ardent but shrinking minority keeps
book publishing afloat. What most people are doing is watching,
trawling, playing, reacting. The attention span is becoming manic.
This increases exponentially as you progress down the age pyramid
towards the young.
Everything has speeded up. Watching classic films or old TV
shows, one is struck by the measured pacing and the long unbroken
sequences compared with the frenetic editing of today’s movies, TV
shows and advertising. The mass literacy of film and video is also
being driven from the bottom up, via the infinite blogosphere and
voyeursphere of the internet.
The sheer weight of this cultural shift towards the moving image
over the written word is reflected in both good and malign ways,
and one of the positive indicators is the outstanding shortlist for
the 2008 Academy Awards. Four of the five finalists for best
picture are superbly written and superbly acted films - No
Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael
Clayton and Juno - which depict America at its best and
worst and show Hollywood at its best.
The best actor category is a particularly rich haul, with five
out of five great performances by great actors: Daniel Day-Lewis,
Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen.
Given the stack of other charismatic, nuanced leading men,
including Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt et al,
this is a boom age for leading men and, until a week ago, Australia
had four world-class ones, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce
and Heath Ledger.
The women are not quite as strong this year but there is one
spectacular actress, more like a miracle, named Cate Blanchett,
Melbourne-born and Sydney-trained who is generating awe in Los
Angeles, as evidenced by the two nominations she received this
year. She must be favourite for best supporting actress for her
mesmerising portrayal of a young Bob Dylan in I’m Not There,
a film which also features, poignantly, Heath Ledger playing a
troubled movie star.
It is surely a golden age when the Coen brothers, Ethan and
Joel, are making film after glorious film, when eccentrics like Wes
Anderson and Jim Jarmusch are pumping out movies for cult
followings, and when a new generation of talented filmmakers has
dominated the Academy Awards. For all the moaning about special
effects-driven blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, there is still
plenty of soul being put into film. Traditional literature has been
served well this year, with three of the films nominated for best
picture built on critically acclaimed novels: There Will be
Blood, based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, published in
1927; Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men (2005); and
Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2002).
Given that this is the Australia Day weekend, it is worth noting
that the Australian film industry has evolved into an adjunct of
the American film industry, and this is no bad thing. It is
something government funding can’t change, cultural nationalism
can’t fix, and second-rate local screenwriting has made
inevitable.
The film industry is now globalised, drawing talent from
everywhere to the great Hollywood dream factory. Australia has
become a noted sub-contractor, as Ledger and Blanchett made so
clear during the past sad and glorious week.

Tags: actress, brad pitt, brother, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, hollywood, hugh jackman, ian mcewan, javier bardem, jupiter, nationalism, shortlist

Related posts

• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• Christie leads home charge with best actress nomination
• Baftas give strike-hit Hollywood a chance to show off the glad rags
• Amid the darkness, gems shine bright
• Soggy reception awaits Oscars stars
• Pushing the envelope

Brooke Busey-Hunt, who has a tattoo on her left buttock, has
said that if she fails at writing she will consider going back to
pole-dancing and what she calls “bed-dancing”, which she enjoyed in
an ironic, cheesy, reverse-voyeurism kind of way. Busey-Hunt,
clearly, is an eccentric, and a member of the legion of internet
exhibitionists.
It has just become obvious that she will not be going back to
work as a paid tease. Suddenly, at age 29, she is mildly rich and
famous. Busey-Hunt, a bookish vamp, now goes by the nom de plume
Diablo Cody. Under that name she has been nominated for an Academy
Award for best original screenplay for Juno, her first
feature film, one of four nominations. Diablo Cody must be a
favourite to win her category even if Juno is unlikely to
win best picture, for which it is also nominated, because it is not
a “big” film.
It may not be big but Juno is a diamond. Perfect. Ellen
Page plays the title role of Juno, named after Jupiter’s wife and
the queen of the Roman gods. Or as Juno explains in Juno,
“she was Jupiter’s wife %26#133; and really beautiful but really
mean, like Diana Ross”. Page plays the wisecracking,
Minneapolis-based, Patti Smith-adoring 16-year-old Juno (written by
the wisecracking, Minneapolis-raised, Patti Smith-adoring Diablo
Cody) at such a fine pitch that by the end you think, “She’s got to
be nominated for an Academy Award”, and the next day you read that
she has been nominated for an Academy Award. Ellen Page, too, must
be considered a favourite for best actress. Originality, wit and
sweetness don’t come along in one package very often.
Juno is part of the embarrassment of riches for the 80th
Annual Academy Awards, with the Oscars handed out on February 24.
We really are living in a golden age of cinematic literature and
film is the literature of our age. We are a fifth-generation cinema
culture and it shows. Filmmaking is imbued with the experiences of
several generations and more good and knowing and ironic films are
being made than ever before. Not a huge number but enough to keep
the Sundance Festival going and keep the Palace cinemas humming all
year.
Thus the quest for the great novel now pales beside the need for
great screenplays. People aren’t reading books any more in any
great numbers. The number of books purchased, per capita, is lower
than it was 25 years ago. An ardent but shrinking minority keeps
book publishing afloat. What most people are doing is watching,
trawling, playing, reacting. The attention span is becoming manic.
This increases exponentially as you progress down the age pyramid
towards the young.
Everything has speeded up. Watching classic films or old TV
shows, one is struck by the measured pacing and the long unbroken
sequences compared with the frenetic editing of today’s movies, TV
shows and advertising. The mass literacy of film and video is also
being driven from the bottom up, via the infinite blogosphere and
voyeursphere of the internet.
The sheer weight of this cultural shift towards the moving image
over the written word is reflected in both good and malign ways,
and one of the positive indicators is the outstanding shortlist for
the 2008 Academy Awards. Four of the five finalists for best
picture are superbly written and superbly acted films - No
Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael
Clayton and Juno - which depict America at its best and
worst and show Hollywood at its best.
The best actor category is a particularly rich haul, with five
out of five great performances by great actors: Daniel Day-Lewis,
Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen.
Given the stack of other charismatic, nuanced leading men,
including Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt et al,
this is a boom age for leading men and, until a week ago, Australia
had four world-class ones, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce
and Heath Ledger.
The women are not quite as strong this year but there is one
spectacular actress, more like a miracle, named Cate Blanchett,
Melbourne-born and Sydney-trained who is generating awe in Los
Angeles, as evidenced by the two nominations she received this
year. She must be favourite for best supporting actress for her
mesmerising portrayal of a young Bob Dylan in I’m Not There,
a film which also features, poignantly, Heath Ledger playing a
troubled movie star.
It is surely a golden age when the Coen brothers, Ethan and
Joel, are making film after glorious film, when eccentrics like Wes
Anderson and Jim Jarmusch are pumping out movies for cult
followings, and when a new generation of talented filmmakers has
dominated the Academy Awards. For all the moaning about special
effects-driven blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, there is still
plenty of soul being put into film. Traditional literature has been
served well this year, with three of the films nominated for best
picture built on critically acclaimed novels: There Will be
Blood, based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, published in
1927; Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men (2005); and
Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2002).
Given that this is the Australia Day weekend, it is worth noting
that the Australian film industry has evolved into an adjunct of
the American film industry, and this is no bad thing. It is
something government funding can’t change, cultural nationalism
can’t fix, and second-rate local screenwriting has made
inevitable.
The film industry is now globalised, drawing talent from
everywhere to the great Hollywood dream factory. Australia has
become a noted sub-contractor, as Ledger and Blanchett made so
clear during the past sad and glorious week.

Tags: actress, brad pitt, brother, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, hollywood, hugh jackman, ian mcewan, javier bardem, jupiter, nationalism, shortlist

Related posts

• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• Christie leads home charge with best actress nomination
• Baftas give strike-hit Hollywood a chance to show off the glad rags
• Amid the darkness, gems shine bright
• Soggy reception awaits Oscars stars
• Pushing the envelope

Brooke Busey-Hunt, who has a tattoo on her left buttock, has
said that if she fails at writing she will consider going back to
pole-dancing and what she calls “bed-dancing”, which she enjoyed in
an ironic, cheesy, reverse-voyeurism kind of way. Busey-Hunt,
clearly, is an eccentric, and a member of the legion of internet
exhibitionists.
It has just become obvious that she will not be going back to
work as a paid tease. Suddenly, at age 29, she is mildly rich and
famous. Busey-Hunt, a bookish vamp, now goes by the nom de plume
Diablo Cody. Under that name she has been nominated for an Academy
Award for best original screenplay for Juno, her first
feature film, one of four nominations. Diablo Cody must be a
favourite to win her category even if Juno is unlikely to
win best picture, for which it is also nominated, because it is not
a “big” film.
It may not be big but Juno is a diamond. Perfect. Ellen
Page plays the title role of Juno, named after Jupiter’s wife and
the queen of the Roman gods. Or as Juno explains in Juno,
“she was Jupiter’s wife %26#133; and really beautiful but really
mean, like Diana Ross”. Page plays the wisecracking,
Minneapolis-based, Patti Smith-adoring 16-year-old Juno (written by
the wisecracking, Minneapolis-raised, Patti Smith-adoring Diablo
Cody) at such a fine pitch that by the end you think, “She’s got to
be nominated for an Academy Award”, and the next day you read that
she has been nominated for an Academy Award. Ellen Page, too, must
be considered a favourite for best actress. Originality, wit and
sweetness don’t come along in one package very often.
Juno is part of the embarrassment of riches for the 80th
Annual Academy Awards, with the Oscars handed out on February 24.
We really are living in a golden age of cinematic literature and
film is the literature of our age. We are a fifth-generation cinema
culture and it shows. Filmmaking is imbued with the experiences of
several generations and more good and knowing and ironic films are
being made than ever before. Not a huge number but enough to keep
the Sundance Festival going and keep the Palace cinemas humming all
year.
Thus the quest for the great novel now pales beside the need for
great screenplays. People aren’t reading books any more in any
great numbers. The number of books purchased, per capita, is lower
than it was 25 years ago. An ardent but shrinking minority keeps
book publishing afloat. What most people are doing is watching,
trawling, playing, reacting. The attention span is becoming manic.
This increases exponentially as you progress down the age pyramid
towards the young.
Everything has speeded up. Watching classic films or old TV
shows, one is struck by the measured pacing and the long unbroken
sequences compared with the frenetic editing of today’s movies, TV
shows and advertising. The mass literacy of film and video is also
being driven from the bottom up, via the infinite blogosphere and
voyeursphere of the internet.
The sheer weight of this cultural shift towards the moving image
over the written word is reflected in both good and malign ways,
and one of the positive indicators is the outstanding shortlist for
the 2008 Academy Awards. Four of the five finalists for best
picture are superbly written and superbly acted films - No
Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael
Clayton and Juno - which depict America at its best and
worst and show Hollywood at its best.
The best actor category is a particularly rich haul, with five
out of five great performances by great actors: Daniel Day-Lewis,
Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen.
Given the stack of other charismatic, nuanced leading men,
including Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt et al,
this is a boom age for leading men and, until a week ago, Australia
had four world-class ones, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce
and Heath Ledger.
The women are not quite as strong this year but there is one
spectacular actress, more like a miracle, named Cate Blanchett,
Melbourne-born and Sydney-trained who is generating awe in Los
Angeles, as evidenced by the two nominations she received this
year. She must be favourite for best supporting actress for her
mesmerising portrayal of a young Bob Dylan in I’m Not There,
a film which also features, poignantly, Heath Ledger playing a
troubled movie star.
It is surely a golden age when the Coen brothers, Ethan and
Joel, are making film after glorious film, when eccentrics like Wes
Anderson and Jim Jarmusch are pumping out movies for cult
followings, and when a new generation of talented filmmakers has
dominated the Academy Awards. For all the moaning about special
effects-driven blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, there is still
plenty of soul being put into film. Traditional literature has been
served well this year, with three of the films nominated for best
picture built on critically acclaimed novels: There Will be
Blood, based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, published in
1927; Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men (2005); and
Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2002).
Given that this is the Australia Day weekend, it is worth noting
that the Australian film industry has evolved into an adjunct of
the American film industry, and this is no bad thing. It is
something government funding can’t change, cultural nationalism
can’t fix, and second-rate local screenwriting has made
inevitable.
The film industry is now globalised, drawing talent from
everywhere to the great Hollywood dream factory. Australia has
become a noted sub-contractor, as Ledger and Blanchett made so
clear during the past sad and glorious week.

Tags: actress, brad pitt, brother, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, hollywood, hugh jackman, ian mcewan, javier bardem, jupiter, nationalism, shortlist

Related posts

• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• No country for bad screenplays
• Christie leads home charge with best actress nomination
• Baftas give strike-hit Hollywood a chance to show off the glad rags
• Amid the darkness, gems shine bright
• Soggy reception awaits Oscars stars
• Pushing the envelope

Brooke Busey-Hunt, who has a tattoo on her left buttock, has
said that if she fails at writing she will consider going back to
pole-dancing and what she calls “bed-dancing”, which she enjoyed in
an ironic, cheesy, reverse-voyeurism kind of way. Busey-Hunt,
clearly, is an eccentric, and a member of the legion of internet
exhibitionists.
It has just become obvious that she will not be going back to
work as a paid tease. Suddenly, at age 29, she is mildly rich and
famous. Busey-Hunt, a bookish vamp, now goes by the nom de plume
Diablo Cody. Under that name she has been nominated for an Academy
Award for best original screenplay for Juno, her first
feature film, one of four nominations. Diablo Cody must be a
favourite to win her category even if Juno is unlikely to
win best picture, for which it is also nominated, because it is not
a “big” film.
It may not be big but Juno is a diamond. Perfect. Ellen
Page plays the title role of Juno, named after Jupiter’s wife and
the queen of the Roman gods. Or as Juno explains in Juno,
“she was Jupiter’s wife %26#133; and really beautiful but really
mean, like Diana Ross”. Page plays the wisecracking,
Minneapolis-based, Patti Smith-adoring 16-year-old Juno (written by
the wisecracking, Minneapolis-raised, Patti Smith-adoring Diablo
Cody) at such a fine pitch that by the end you think, “She’s got to
be nominated for an Academy Award”, and the next day you read that
she has been nominated for an Academy Award. Ellen Page, too, must
be considered a favourite for best actress. Originality, wit and
sweetness don’t come along in one package very often.
Juno is part of the embarrassment of riches for the 80th
Annual Academy Awards, with the Oscars handed out on February 24.
We really are living in a golden age of cinematic literature and
film is the literature of our age. We are a fifth-generation cinema
culture and it shows. Filmmaking is imbued with the experiences of
several generations and more good and knowing and ironic films are
being made than ever before. Not a huge number but enough to keep
the Sundance Festival going and keep the Palace cinemas humming all
year.
Thus the quest for the great novel now pales beside the need for
great screenplays. People aren’t reading books any more in any
great numbers. The number of books purchased, per capita, is lower
than it was 25 years ago. An ardent but shrinking minority keeps
book publishing afloat. What most people are doing is watching,
trawling, playing, reacting. The attention span is becoming manic.
This increases exponentially as you progress down the age pyramid
towards the young.
Everything has speeded up. Watching classic films or old TV
shows, one is struck by the measured pacing and the long unbroken
sequences compared with the frenetic editing of today’s movies, TV
shows and advertising. The mass literacy of film and video is also
being driven from the bottom up, via the infinite blogosphere and
voyeursphere of the internet.
The sheer weight of this cultural shift towards the moving image
over the written word is reflected in both good and malign ways,
and one of the positive indicators is the outstanding shortlist for
the 2008 Academy Awards. Four of the five finalists for best
picture are superbly written and superbly acted films - No
Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael
Clayton and Juno - which depict America at its best and
worst and show Hollywood at its best.
The best actor category is a particularly rich haul, with five
out of five great performances by great actors: Daniel Day-Lewis,
Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen.
Given the stack of other charismatic, nuanced leading men,
including Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt et al,
this is a boom age for leading men and, until a week ago, Australia
had four world-class ones, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce
and Heath Ledger.
The women are not quite as strong this year but there is one
spectacular actress, more like a miracle, named Cate Blanchett,
Melbourne-born and Sydney-trained who is generating awe in Los
Angeles, as evidenced by the two nominations she received this
year. She must be favourite for best supporting actress for her
mesmerising portrayal of a young Bob Dylan in I’m Not There,
a film which also features, poignantly, Heath Ledger playing a
troubled movie star.
It is surely a golden age when the Coen brothers, Ethan and
Joel, are making film after glorious film, when eccentrics like Wes
Anderson and Jim Jarmusch are pumping out movies for cult
followings, and when a new generation of talented filmmakers has
dominated the Academy Awards. For all the moaning about special
effects-driven blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, there is still
plenty of soul being put into film. Traditional literature has been
served well this year, with three of the films nominated for best
picture built on critically acclaimed novels: There Will be
Blood, based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, published in
1927; Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men (2005); and
Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2002).
Given that this is the Australia Day weekend, it is worth noting
that the Australian film industry has evolved into an adjunct of
the American film industry, and this is no bad thing. It is
something government funding can’t change, cultural nationalism
can’t fix, and second-rate local screenwriting has made
inevitable.
The film industry is now globalised, drawing talent from
everywhere to the great Hollywood dream factory. Australia has
become a noted sub-contractor, as Ledger and Blanchett made so
clear during the past sad and glorious week.

Tags: actress, brad pitt, brother, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, hollywood, hugh jackman, ian mcewan, javier bardem, jupiter, nationalism, shortlist

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Brooke Busey-Hunt, who has a tattoo on her left buttock, has
said that if she fails at writing she will consider going back to
pole-dancing and what she calls “bed-dancing”, which she enjoyed in
an ironic, cheesy, reverse-voyeurism kind of way. Busey-Hunt,
clearly, is an eccentric, and a member of the legion of internet
exhibitionists.
It has just become obvious that she will not be going back to
work as a paid tease. Suddenly, at age 29, she is mildly rich and
famous. Busey-Hunt, a bookish vamp, now goes by the nom de plume
Diablo Cody. Under that name she has been nominated for an Academy
Award for best original screenplay for Juno, her first
feature film, one of four nominations. Diablo Cody must be a
favourite to win her category even if Juno is unlikely to
win best picture, for which it is also nominated, because it is not
a “big” film.
It may not be big but Juno is a diamond. Perfect. Ellen
Page plays the title role of Juno, named after Jupiter’s wife and
the queen of the Roman gods. Or as Juno explains in Juno,
“she was Jupiter’s wife %26#133; and really beautiful but really
mean, like Diana Ross”. Page plays the wisecracking,
Minneapolis-based, Patti Smith-adoring 16-year-old Juno (written by
the wisecracking, Minneapolis-raised, Patti Smith-adoring Diablo
Cody) at such a fine pitch that by the end you think, “She’s got to
be nominated for an Academy Award”, and the next day you read that
she has been nominated for an Academy Award. Ellen Page, too, must
be considered a favourite for best actress. Originality, wit and
sweetness don’t come along in one package very often.
Juno is part of the embarrassment of riches for the 80th
Annual Academy Awards, with the Oscars handed out on February 24.
We really are living in a golden age of cinematic literature and
film is the literature of our age. We are a fifth-generation cinema
culture and it shows. Filmmaking is imbued with the experiences of
several generations and more good and knowing and ironic films are
being made than ever before. Not a huge number but enough to keep
the Sundance Festival going and keep the Palace cinemas humming all
year.
Thus the quest for the great novel now pales beside the need for
great screenplays. People aren’t reading books any more in any
great numbers. The number of books purchased, per capita, is lower
than it was 25 years ago. An ardent but shrinking minority keeps
book publishing afloat. What most people are doing is watching,
trawling, playing, reacting. The attention span is becoming manic.
This increases exponentially as you progress down the age pyramid
towards the young.
Everything has speeded up. Watching classic films or old TV
shows, one is struck by the measured pacing and the long unbroken
sequences compared with the frenetic editing of today’s movies, TV
shows and advertising. The mass literacy of film and video is also
being driven from the bottom up, via the infinite blogosphere and
voyeursphere of the internet.
The sheer weight of this cultural shift towards the moving image
over the written word is reflected in both good and malign ways,
and one of the positive indicators is the outstanding shortlist for
the 2008 Academy Awards. Four of the five finalists for best
picture are superbly written and superbly acted films - No
Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael
Clayton and Juno - which depict America at its best and
worst and show Hollywood at its best.
The best actor category is a particularly rich haul, with five
out of five great performances by great actors: Daniel Day-Lewis,
Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen.
Given the stack of other charismatic, nuanced leading men,
including Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt et al,
this is a boom age for leading men and, until a week ago, Australia
had four world-class ones, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce
and Heath Ledger.
The women are not quite as strong this year but there is one
spectacular actress, more like a miracle, named Cate Blanchett,
Melbourne-born and Sydney-trained who is generating awe in Los
Angeles, as evidenced by the two nominations she received this
year. She must be favourite for best supporting actress for her
mesmerising portrayal of a young Bob Dylan in I’m Not There,
a film which also features, poignantly, Heath Ledger playing a
troubled movie star.
It is surely a golden age when the Coen brothers, Ethan and
Joel, are making film after glorious film, when eccentrics like Wes
Anderson and Jim Jarmusch are pumping out movies for cult
followings, and when a new generation of talented filmmakers has
dominated the Academy Awards. For all the moaning about special
effects-driven blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, there is still
plenty of soul being put into film. Traditional literature has been
served well this year, with three of the films nominated for best
picture built on critically acclaimed novels: There Will be
Blood, based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, published in
1927; Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men (2005); and
Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2002).
Given that this is the Australia Day weekend, it is worth noting
that the Australian film industry has evolved into an adjunct of
the American film industry, and this is no bad thing. It is
something government funding can’t change, cultural nationalism
can’t fix, and second-rate local screenwriting has made
inevitable.
The film industry is now globalised, drawing talent from
everywhere to the great Hollywood dream factory. Australia has
become a noted sub-contractor, as Ledger and Blanchett made so
clear during the past sad and glorious week.

Tags: actress, brad pitt, brother, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, hollywood, hugh jackman, ian mcewan, javier bardem, jupiter, nationalism, shortlist

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• Baftas give strike-hit Hollywood a chance to show off the glad rags
• Amid the darkness, gems shine bright
• Soggy reception awaits Oscars stars
• Pushing the envelope

The Associated Press

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — It’s long been a puzzle for Christian astronomers, and now a professor from the University of Notre Dame thinks he has it figured out — almost, anyway.

His quest: discovering just what “the star in the East” was that led wise men to travel to Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

As a theoretical astrophysicist, Grant Mathews had hoped the answer would be spectacular — something like a supernova. But two years of research have led him to a more ordinary conclusion. The heavenly sign around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ was likely an unusual alignment of planets, the sun and the moon.

Not a lot was written about the star in the Bible. In the Gospel of Matthew it says: “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.”

The star, though, has long been immortalized in Christmas songs, plays and movies. Astronomers, theologians and historians for hundreds of years have been trying to determine exactly which star might have inspired the biblical writing. German astronomer Johannes Kepler proposed in 1604 that the star was a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in 7 B.C.

The advantage Mathews has over Kepler and others who have pondered the question is that he had access to NASA’s databases.

“In principle, we can see any star that was ever made from the beginning of time if we knew where to look. So the question is, could we find a star that could be a good candidate for what showed up then?” he said.

Mathews found several possibilities. He began by posing three questions he would ask when trying to find the answer to any astronomical event: When did it occur? What were its characteristics? Did anyone else see it?

The Gospel of Matthew indicates Jesus was born in Bethlehem when Herod was king. Roman historian Flavius Josephus wrote that Herod died after an eclipse of the moon before the Passover. Mathews said among the possibilities are 6 B.C., 5 B.C., 1 B.C. or 1 A.D. The star could have appeared up to two years before the wise men arrived in Jerusalem, he said.

Mathews believes that means the Christmas star could have appeared anywhere from 8 to 4 B.C.

Among the characteristics written about the star was that it appeared before sunrise, and it appeared to “rest in the sky.” Mathews also found writings from Korean and Chinese astronomers of an event about 4 B.C. which described a comet with no tail that didn’t move.

Using that set of facts, Mathews found several possibilities, including supernovas, novas and planetary alignments.

Mathews found two possible supernovas in the right period but said one was probably too low on the horizon to be seen. The other supernova is known as Kes 75. But it was 60,000 light years away and may not have been particularly spectacular.

“There’s no real convincing evidence this happened right at 2000 years ago, but it could be in the range of being right because it’s in the right location,” he said.

He also found a number of nova that also could have been the Christmas star. The one he thinks is the most likely candidate is known as Nova Aquilae V603. The problem with novas and comets, though, is that they were believed in ancient times to be a sign of disaster, not a portent of good things to come.

For that reason, Mathews believes the Christmas star is most likely an alignment of planets. He said there are three likely times for this:

* Feb. 20, 6 B.C., when Mars, Jupiter and Saturn aligned in the constellation Pisces.

* April 17, 6 B.C., when the sun, Jupiter, the moon and Saturn aligned in the constellation Aries while Venus and Mars were in neighboring constellations.

* June 17, 2 B.C., when Jupiter and Venus were closely aligned in Leo.

Mathews believes the April 17, 6 B.C., alignment is the most likely candidate. It makes sense because he believes the wise men were Zoroastrian astrologers who would have recognized the planetary alignment in Aries as a sign a powerful leader was born.

“In fact it would have even meant that (the leader was) destined to die at an appointed time, which of course would have been significant for the Christ child, and may have been why they brought myrrh, which was an embalming fluid,” Mathews said. “Saturn there would have made whoever was born as a leader a most powerful leader because Saturn had the strength to do it, in their view.”

Mathews concedes, though, that any of the other events could have been the famed star. Unless a document is discovered that allows historians to more accurately estimate exactly when Jesus was born, it will be impossible to say what caused the light with absolute certainty, Mathews said.

Tags: cate, hero, jupiter, planets

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