I recently snagged the domain tomboone.com, so I’ve decided to move my blogging there. I’ve archived a lot of posts from No True Bill along with comments, so NTB will continue to live on there. The new site will also incorporate the library and technology posts I’ve been writing over at Library Laws, so now all my blogging, regardless of the topic, will be collected in one location.

This will be the last time I post to No True Bill, so update your bookmarks and RSS readers. The party is now online at tom boone dot com.

In honor of the return of tags (Thanks, Josh), here’s a little something for you:

http://thekickback.com/rickroll/rickroll.php

Consider yourself rickrolled.

For the second time since I started this blog, I’ve suffered a pretty comprehensive crash of the system. All the data seems to be intact, but any customizations, images, etc. seem to be gone for good. My theme is gone. I can probably rebuild it, but I’m not sure if I have all the graphics that go with it. Also, the plugin I’ve been using to add tags to my posts is no longer compatible with WordPress, so all my tags are useless. WordPress itself now supports tags, but I never bothered to convert mine into the core system.

But the good news is I am back online.

Perhaps my cynicism is making me a conspiracy theorist, but isn’t it awfully convenient that, just a month after the Bush Administration was embarrassed by the revelation that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program, Iran has seemingly handed President Bush a shiny new reason to threaten war against the Muslim nation?

I wonder, if Iranian naval ships were sitting just outside American waters in the Gulf of Mexico, would our Navy simply ignore them, or would there be a tense confrontation as our military sought to protect our waters from foreign invasion.

I finished The Ruins, by Scott Smith tonight, and what a memorable way to start my year of reading. I can’t really say much about the story without giving away too much to those of you who haven’t read the novel. Smith is definitely not one to shy away from the inevitabilities of a bleak situation. There was a stretch toward the end of the book’s first half when I became impatient because nothing was happening, yet once I reached the midway point suddenly several horrific things happened all at once. A very good book, and as a result I probably won’t be taking up gardening anytime soon.

As if we needed additional proof that Blockbuster Video’s days are numbered…

We think the ultimate solution is a kiosk in a Blockbuster store and outside of a Blockbuster store that… will be able to distribute that content to your portable device.

That’s what Blockbuster chief executive James Keyes had to say recently to attendees of a CitiGroup investor conference about the future of video rentals.

At a time when Netflix is delivering streaming movies to your computer, Amazon is automatically routing movie rentals to your TiVo, Apple is ready to rent movies through iTunes, and Comcast is perfecting lightning speed downloads of pay-per-view movies to your TV without a cable box, how can Keyes possibly think that consumers will have any interest in going to an in-store kiosk to obtain what they can get cheaply and instantly in their own living rooms?

This kind of stubborn adherence to outdated business models is even more inexcusable coming from the head of a company that owns what was once the most promising source for legal movie downloads, Movielink.

As I was researching my Oscar nomination predictions, it occurred to me that the biggest movie story of 2007 was the emergence of not one but TWO stars of the porn comedy The Girl Next Door as acting heavyweights. Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) and Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood) both had significant roles in that 2004 movie and are now strong contenders to land Oscar nominations. Does this mean 2008 will be the year of Elisha Cuthbert? God, I hope so.

Since I figure the Golden Globes will have little to no effect on the Oscar race (regardless of the media hype, they never really do), I’ll go ahead and publish my predictions of what films and performers will find themselves with a nomination when Academy Award nods are announced on Tuesday, January 22nd.

Best Picture
Into the Wild
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

I’m being a bit stubborn here with Juno, as most of the early awards don’t necessarily support its inclusion here. But since the nominations often include some kind of indie darling (a la Little Miss Sunshine), it stays. Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and Butterfly is my most notable omission, with Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd close behind. If Into the Wild or Juno stumbles, look for one or both of those films to fill the gap. Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men seem like locks after garnering DGA nominations, and No Country is the clear front runner for now.

Best Actor
George Clooney (Michael Clayton)
Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)
Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild)
Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)

As awards season opened, George Clooney took a sizable lead, but as There Will Be Blood slowly opens around the country, Daniel Day Lewis is quietly stealing all the buzz here. Those two actors are the only certainties in this category, though. Viggo Mortensen is long overdue for some recognition, while Emile Hirsch seems poised to break through with a nod. Johnny Depp, of course, is always a threat, and he looks to be Sweeney Todd’s best bet for a nomination. Denzel Washington (American Gangster) and James McAvoy (Atonement) are both lingering on the outside with a chance for a nomination.

Best Actress
Julie Christie (Away from Her)
Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)
Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart)
Keira Knightley (Atonement)
Ellen Page (Juno)

Keira Knightley is the only weak link here, with Atonement not quite living up to its early hype. The other four, however, have had locks on nominations for quite some time. Cate Blanchett picked up unexpected nods from both the SAG and the Golden Globes for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, but with that film sinking with critics and audiences, I’m keeping Knightley in the mix. The true dark horse contender is Amy Adams whose likable turn in Enchanted could open the door for her. With several critics awards in the bag already, Julie Christie is the one to beat here.

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War)
Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild)
Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)

There’s little doubt that Javier Bardem is going home with a statue this year, friendo. Casey Affleck and Tom Wilkinson are pretty solid here, too. Paul Dano ought to be included for his great performance in There Will Be Blood, but he’s just not getting the love necessary to make this list. Tommy Lee Jones is also a contender, but Bardem is stealing all his No Country thunder. Phillip Seymour Hoffman will likely get a nod here, more so for having a strong year (The Savages, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead) than for Charlie Wilson’s War in particular, while veteran Hal Holbrook will help Into the Wild quietly rack up several high profile nominations.

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There)
Catherine Keener (Into the Wild)
Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)
Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)
Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

With a virtual clean sweep of the critics’ awards, Amy Ryan is far and away the favorite, but here status as a virtual unknown may hurt her come Oscar night. At the very least, however, her nomination is assured. So, too, are nods for Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton. Catherine Keener has garnered a lot of late buzz as Into the Wild has come from almost nowhere to become a bona fide contender in several categories. Saoirse Ronan, once a certain nominee, is currently losing ground thanks to snubs from other awards, most notably the SAGs. Like her Atonement co-star Knightley, I’m stubbornly keeping her on my short list because her position originally seemed invincible. But Ruby Dee’s late surge for American Gangster could sweep her in here pretty easily.

Thanks to Josh for alerting me to problems he encountered posting comments to the site. Looks my anti-spam plugin was working a little too zealously. I’ve switched to a different tool, so hopefully the problem is fixed. For those of you who, over the last several months, received error messages claiming your comment had been recorded but would not be displayed, it looks like those comments are lost.

There has also been a problem with inaccurate comment totals displaying on posts. That problem has been corrected.

Comment away!

While I’ve had love affairs with Top Chef, The Amazing Race and Rock Star: INXS, without question my favorite reality show of all time is The Mole, a competition hosted by Anderson Cooper that aired only two seasons in its pure form. It later reappeared in a horrible celebrity edition with Ahmad Rashad as host, but that was but a pale shadow of the original.

A quick summary of the show’s premise from Wikipedia…

Players in The Mole must work together to complete various physical and mental challenges to build up a significant cash prize for the winner. One of them, however, is “the Mole,” a double agent hired by the producers to sabotage the efforts of the group. The Mole must be careful to avoid drawing suspicion. Using journals, players must track vast amounts of minutiae about the person(s) they suspect of being the Mole, such as seating positions, clothing colors, minor discussion topics, and so on. The quiz at the end of each episode tests players’ knowledge of the Mole, and determines by lowest score (or slowest time, in the event of a tie) who is eliminated from the game.

The show has been gone a long time, but yesterday Variety reported the following…

ABC has given a 10-episode order to Stone & Co. Entertainment (”Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style”) to revive the reality competish, which hasn’t aired in four years.

Casting and pre-production have begun on the show, which will likely start shooting later this spring. ABC is looking to run “The Mole” this summer.

Rashad is not being asked to return. With Cooper now at CNN and unavailable to host, producers say they are “looking for someone in the Anderson mode, a little mysterious but full of comedy.”

[Variety] ABC bringing back ‘The Mole’ (via TV Squad)