The Oscars, Star-Studies Style
Even Feather-Haired George is Guiding You to My Other Post
Here’s a push to go check out my new post on the Oscars and stardom over at my other blogging home, Antenna.
I also just collected a massive amount of links for my students as they prepare to write/discuss The Oscars for class this week. Check them out below — and add any of your own in the comments section.
- Gawker’s General Wrap-Up
- Ye Good Olde People Magazine Best Dressed Section
- Another Best Dressed Section (More Clickable) Plus the Worst Dressed.
- Lainey Gossip was there and has some good dish/commentary.
- What Dudes Say When They Have to Watch the Oscars
- Inside the Oscars’ own ‘Kanye Moment’
- Roger Ebert’s Recap
- On the Oscar-Winning Short Animated Film Logorama (including the film!
- The Wins for Precious (Or: Mo’Nique Speaks)
- The Endlessly Snarky Hollywood Insider Nikki Finke’s Live-Blog (comments = hilarious)
- Look at how this year’s Oscar Ratings Stack Up (fascinating graph):
- Schmalzy self-coverage of the Vanity Fair Post-Party
Friday (Sorta Star) Links
Don’t know if this will become a regular feature or not, but here are a few things I’ve found interesting of late:
- Alex Cho has a new column on Lady GaGa and queer performativity over at FlowTV — and it’s excellent.
- Disagreeing with some of the points in this post by Jonathan Gray over at Extratextuals on the new Mad Men marketing campaign, but interesting nonetheless.
- Oh look! My dream job! At Middlebury! I especially appreciate the transparency that Jason Mittell (with his department’s blessing) is applying to the job search process — so intimidating for young ABDs such as myself, but this makes me feel less freaked out.
- Speaking of liberal arts colleges, Whitman just made the Top Twenty at Forbes’ rankings, which use a unique algorithm to account for student satisfaction, class size, happiness, etc. Whitman not only beat out several of its usual small liberal arts foes (Carleton, Kenyon, Middlebury) but several of the ‘big ivories’ as well, including Dartmouth and Cornell. Those of you who attended Whitman with me (or before or after me) know exactly why this is gratifying: Whitman has long prided itself on a holisitically satisfying college experience, but is generally shafted by traditional rankings due to its obscure location (and the fact that it’s in the West, which is more of a drawback than one might think), as the U.S. News and Report rankings (and others) are often heavily weighted towards the opinions of other administrators, some of whom are locked in their regional bubbles. We don’t say it’s perfect for nothing. (The only thing I’d chage would be to put a taco truck on Ankeny). I couldn’t be more proud to be teaching there next Spring.
- Anne Thompson has moved her industry blog from Variety to Indiewire — she hopes to use it more editorially now that she’s free from Variety control, and I’ve definitely seen signs of snark surfacing. She recently posted on her ‘essential cinema bookshelf’ — the books that everyone in the industry should read — a list that includes my advisor Tom Schatz’s Genius of the System, which is the only ‘academic’ book on the shelf.
- The Sports Guy, who I secretly love, recently posted an extended column using dozens of quotes from Almost Famous to recap the NBA season. Brilliant.
- Finally, it’s a few weeks late, but I really enjoyed Alyx Vesey’s take on the new ‘Fabric of Our Lives’ commercials (including one with Zooey Deschanel) over at Feminist Music Geek. Now those commercials seem to be popping up everywhere — including my computer screen.
Three days until the beginning of my comprehensive exams…I’ll probably need to blog to blow-off steam.
