The Dog Ate My Homework

Stopped by my local video store to check on the results of their Oscar contest. I correctly predicted 17 of last Sunday's Oscar awards.

Turns out the winner correctly predicted 21, second place was 19 and third place was 18. So I was only one prediction away from a prestigious third place tie.

Earlier tonight I went to the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard to see a screening on the four Oscar nominated Documentary Short Subjects. (I wrongly predicted this category by taking a guess based on the titles of the documentaries.) Too bad I missed the screening prior to the Oscars, because I definitely would have predicted correctly in this category that "A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin" would win.

It's a great look at an early star of CBS radio, Norman Corwin, who wrote thirty minute poetic, dramatic plays that ran once a week on the radio. His broadcast on VE Day, May 8, 1945, "On a Note of Triumph" is considered by many experts to be the pinnacle of the glory days of radio. He couldn't manage the transition to television and was quickly forgotten.

The other three nominees were all very good:

"The Death of Kevin Carer: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club" about a white photojournalist in South Africa who killed himself only a few weeks after winning the Pulitzer Prize for his famous photo of a starving toddler in Sudan being carefully watched by a vulture.

"God Sleeps in Rwanda" (my prediction) about the Hutu genocide in Rwanda of the Tusis. This massive slaughter left so few men alive that women have basically been left to rebuild the nation -- and are succeeding in ways the men never could.

And "The Mushroom Club" -- a very moving documentary about the real-life victims of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.