#843 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Thursday January 25)
“The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want”—Charlie Munger (Thanks, Ron Cappello)
Good morning,
A potpourri today…
THE SCRIPTER AWARDS
As long-time friends and readers may recall, I co-founded the USC Scripter Awards some 35 years ago. My fellow co-founder was Marjorie Lord (later Volk). She was Danny Thomas’s wife in Make Room for Daddy and, as I told her while she was alive, was one of my crushes from serialized TV (along with Marlo Thomas, Dawn Wells, and Barbara Eden). But I digress…
The Scripter Awards are given to the best book made into a movie and the best book made into an episodic series. It is the only award given to both the writer of the written material from which it was derived and the screenwriter who adapted the book. It always is interesting to hear acceptance speeches in which the process of adaptation is discussed and the typical mutual admiration the screenwriter and the author have for the work of the other.
This year’s finalists in the film category, to be revealed at the event on March 2nd, are:
American Fiction
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Poor Things
Origin (based on the non-fiction book Caste)
Variety calls Scripter “a strong bellwether for the Oscars’ best adapted screenplay category.” In fact, it was “right” in predicting the winner in seven of the last ten years and only once was the winner not a Scripter finalist (although that year, I voted for the ultimate winner to make the list of finalists). Of the finalists, I voted for four of the five last year. This year, I selected only three of the five finalists.
The finalists for best adapted screenplay are:
American Fiction - Cord Jefferson
Barbie - Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig
Oppenheimer - Christopher Nolan
Poor Things - Tony McNamara
The Zone of Interest - Jonathan Glazer
While I think there are several very strong contenders, I have my prediction, which was my vote…and that is Oppenheimer (and I suspect I’m one of the few who actually read the tome upon which it was based).
The only reason my choice may not win is if the Academy decides to give the award to Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach as a consolation for Gerwig not getting a nomination as Best Director for Barbie.
Episodic series to be addressed next week.
ARE THERE ANY SWING STATES LEFT?
As the election season unfolds, it’s important to note how the country not only is polarized, but there are few places where the battle ultimately will be fought.
Factoids from a Washington Post investigation:
The winner of the “general mass” (the popular vote) has been won in two of the past six elections by the person who lost the White House. In both of those cases, it was a Republican who won. CONCLUSION: The electoral college bias, originally envisioned for purposes that no longer apply, really matters.
In 2020, only 10 states and two congressional districts were targeted by Republican or Democratic nominees’ campaigns. This is down from 26 contested states on average from 1952 to 1980, according to political scientists Daron R. Shaw, Scott Althaus and Costas Panagopoulos in a soon-to-be published book.
Only one in four Americans lived in contested states in 2020, down from three out of four in these earlier contests. If Florida is not in play, that percentage drops to 18% in battleground states in this year’s election. “It’s now getting to the point where you are probably talking about 400,000 people in three or four states. That is what it is getting down to,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist. Yikes!
Thirty-three states have voted for the same party in each presidential election since 2000.
We definitely live in two different countries…
MEANWHILE, IN ISRAEL
Over 100 hostages remain in Gaza. The stories of serial sexual violence committed by Hamas, allegedly for greater purposes, continue to mount. The devastation of Gaza continues, with over half the buildings in some state of destruction, 26,000 dead and over 60,000 wounded (yes, I know, these are the Hamas Health Ministry numbers, but they likely are a pretty good proxy, and horrible if even only half the number). Israel has taken out some key Hamas leaders but the war seems far from over and the war objective of complete annihilation of Hamas seems far away.
In the meantime, Netanyahu pursues this aggressive, but as yet unsuccessful, military barrage. No less than former Prime Minister Ehud Barak says to Netanyahu, “for the love of god, resign.”
The war objectives always should have been (a) rescue of the hostages, (b) crippling Hamas’s ability to commit similar crimes in the future, (c) pacification and rebuilding of Hamas, and (d) installation of a governing authority in the interim, while pursuing a permanent solution.
But there are no clear war objectives and one must wonder if a prolonged war, with victory “just beyond reach” is exactly what Mr. Netanyahu wants. He already is on record as opposing a Palestinian homeland and has encouraged settlers and mollified the radical right. The longer the war drags on, the inevitable end of his governing coalition will end. It is as if he is motivated by anything it takes to maintain power and stay out of jail.
It sounds creepily like someone here in America. When an individual leader feels under threat, they will take nearly any action to preserve power and remain free of the consequences of the law.
Have a good day,
Glenn