Oscar Winners for 2023

Okay. I know you’ve been dying to find out. Here are my picks for this year’s Academy Awards.

 Best Movie 

* What Will Get It: Everything Everywhere All at Once

* What Should Get It: All Quiet on The Western Front

None of the nominated “Best” movies were great. But Tár, All Quiet, and Everything Everywhere were the top contenders. All Quiet should get it because it was good at doing a much more ambitious job. But Everything Everywherewill win because it won Best Picture in most of the other contests, and the Academy Awards generally follow suit.

Best Director 

* Who Will Win: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once

* Who Should Win: Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

It’s going to be a contest between Spielberg and Kwan/Scheinert. The latter will win, I think, because the Best Director Oscar usually goes with the Best Picture. Moreover, this year Kwan/Scheinert took the top prize from the Directors Guild of America. I don’t think they deserve it, because the primary job of a director is to make everything about the film feel emotionally true. Spielberg did exactly that with Fabelman’s, whereas Kwan/Scheinert failed to do it with Everything Everywhere.

Best Cinematography 

* Who Will Win: James Friend, All Quiet on the Western Front

* Who Should Win: Frank van den Eeden, Close

Cinematography is the distinguishing feature of film making. If a movie doesn’t have great cinematography, it shouldn’t be considered for Best Picture. Most of the nominees for Best Picture had excellent cinematography, but I’m guessing All Quiet will win because of its scope. I would, however, have given the award to van den Eedenm, which you would understand had you seen the movie.

Best Actor 

* Who Will Win: Brendan Fraser, The Whale

* Who Should Win: Bill Nighy, Living

The Academy likes actors that take on transformative roles. And the most obvious actor that did that last year was Brendan Fraser in The Whale. He did a good job, especially considering he was working in a fat suit. But in terms of pure performance, I can’t see anyone deserving Best Actor more than Bill Nighy.

Best Actress 

* Who Will Win: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

* Who Should Win: Cate Blanchett, Tár or Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie

If Michelle Yeoh wins it, I will be disappointed. Her performance was adequate, but hardly challenging. The award should go to one of two actresses that beautifully executed two much more difficult roles: Cate Blanchett or Andrea Riseborough.

Best Supporting Actor 

* Who Will Win: Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once

* Who Should Win: Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin

Ke Huy Quan had Hollywood fame as a child actor in The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Coming back now in the movie that is expected to win Best Picture, he’s a sentimental shoe-in.

Best Supporting Actress 

* Who Will Win: Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once

* Who Should Win: Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin

Jamie Lee Curtis was terrific. Without her, Everything Everywhere would have been much less funny. But I’d give the nod to Condon for her finely tuned dramatic role.

Best Original Screenplay 

* What Will Win: The Banshees of Inisherin

* What Should Win: Triangle of Sadness

Best Adapted Screenplay 

* What Will Win: Women Talking

* What Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Women Talking is a script that celebrates victimhood. Plus, Hollywood likes actors that write screenplays. So, I’m guessing that Sarah Polley will take the Oscar home. But it’s a tight race.

Best Animated Film 

* What Will Win: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

* What Should Win: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

They are both very good and deserving. But I’m guessing that Guillermo del Toro is more popular with the voters.

Best Documentary Feature 

* What Will Win: Navalny

* What Should Win: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Best International Feature 

* What Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany)

* What Should Win: Argentina, 1985 (Argentina)

As a best-picture nominee, All Quiet is almost certain to win. I thought Argentina, 1985 was the better movie.

Mentoring the Second Generation

I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring many young people throughout my career. With family members, it’s been mostly about watching them grow into responsible and productive adults. With employees, it’s been about helping them grow into business leaders on their own.

I can’t think of anything that has been more rewarding than watching those young people listen to my advice and put it into action.

But lately, I’ve been mentoring a different group of people, and it has turned into a source of extra special pleasure for me. I’m talking about mentoring my partners’ and colleagues’ kids. Sometimes, even their grandkids.

I got a call from DL, who said, “I’m off to Madrid for a few months, but I’d like your help with D, my son.” It turns out that, after a successful career as a yoga instructor in LA, D moved east and was trying to decide whether to start again in the yoga business or do something else. I’d seen D a handful of times in the last 30 years, but we barely knew one another. Because of my relationship with DL, though, I wanted to do everything I could to help him. And I did.

RR called my office to set up an appointment. I remembered him as the first son of NR, our partner in a publishing company in Germany. Several years ago, his dad retired, putting him in charge. RR said that he was going to be in Florida and wanted to hang out with me and talk business. I was honored to spend a day with this young man, as a tribute to the relationship I had with his dad. I took him out to Paradise Palms,  where we spent several hours talking as we moved through the gardens. This kid is the spitting image of his father. And he has his dad’s intellectual and emotional intelligence. He even has the same smile and hand gestures. Can you imagine what a privilege and a pleasure this was for me?

AV, a partner in our Nicaraguan development, asked me to spend some time with his son who’s starting school in the US this year. AV wanted me to encourage the boy to keep his nose to the grindstone. To spread his wings, but remember that success in life is all about doing the work that others won’t. I was happy to do it.

And that’s to say nothing of the relationships that have been developed over the years between businesses I’ve started that are run by my children and businesses my colleagues and partners have started that are now run by their children. Can you imagine how much fun it is to be copied on correspondence between your children and the children of someone you’ve spent years working with?

I’ve had relationships like this in the past. But they are becoming common now, due no doubt to my age and the age of my partners and colleagues. It’s all good. All very good. I feel so lucky.

Making Sense of the State of the Union Address 

Did you listen to Biden’s State of the Union address? Did you hear what he said about his economic priorities?

He said he was going to make America great again by opening oil and gas exploration, reducing the budget deficit, and mandating “Made in America” for manufactured goods.

Huh? Aren’t those Donald Trump’s talking points!

It was such a startling departure from the Democratic party’s prior positions that I found myself momentarily worried for Biden. Worried that he would be harshly called out the next day by both the right- and the left-leaning media.

But no. His pivot to an America-first economic agenda was barely mentioned by the mainstream press. And when it was, the attitude was supportive.

None of my liberal friends mentioned it. Perhaps because they didn’t watch the speech. Not many people did. (It drew an estimated 27.3 million viewers, less than 10% of the population, and the lowest for a SOTU in at least 30 years.)

What happened? Here’s my take:

That Was Then 

Prior to the 2020 election, polls showed that the number-one concern of US voters was COVID-19. This was, as you would expect, truer for Democrats than for Republicans. But it was enough of a concern for all Americans that it turned out to be the tipping point that gave the presidency to Joe Biden.

If you remember, Trump’s campaign was all about urban violence, which had spiked nationwide, but especially in the large, Democratic-run cities. Biden’s was all about the threat posed by the “unmasked” and the “unvaccinated.”

The Biden strategy, as it turned out, was the stronger one. The Trump haters and the Trump lovers were never going to be swayed. But tens of millions of voters were in the middle. And as the summer ended and fall began, fear of the pandemic stayed strong, while fear of urban crime ebbed enough to put Biden in office.

This Is Now 

Since then, things have changed. Significantly.

Hardly anyone is afraid of COVID any more. The facts are being gradually released. COVID was and is a serious threat to a small portion of the population: those that were/are over 65, overweight, and suffering from “comorbidities” like diabetes. For the rest, the danger of COVID was about the same as the regular flu.

Meanwhile, prices of almost everything began to edge up slightly in 2020. They rose 4.5% in 2021, then climbed as high as 8.5% in August of 2022. Instead of acknowledging this, Biden’s advisors were doing everything they could to deny it – calling it a hoax, then temporary, then blaming it on Putin, then on the gas stations, etc.

That strategy didn’t work. Ordinary earners could feel the reality of inflation every time they went shopping or filled their gas tanks. The trillion-plus dollars in COVID relief that the government had spread around a year or so earlier was being spent down. Savings were disappearing. Money was getting tight.

So, regardless of what voters’ political opinions might have been, they began to worry about the economy. That has become increasingly clear from polling.

A Gallup Poll released last week reported that half of those asked said they were worse off economically than they were this time last year. Only 35 percent said they were better off. (Since Gallup first asked this question in 1976, it has been rare for half or more of Americans to say they are worse off. The only other times it happened were during the Great Recession era of 2008 and 2009.)

And economic concerns dominated the top 10 spots of a just-released poll by Pew Research that ranked Americans’ greatest fears. (Also noteworthy: COVID wasn’t even in the top 20. It was outranked not only by economic concerns but by social fears that are traditionally promoted by right-leaning politicians and media, such as crime, terrorism – foreign, not domestic – and immigration.)

Given these drastically changing sentiments among voters, had I written Biden’s State of the Union speech, I’d have crammed it full of Trump talking points and promises to win back the undecided voters. And that, by gosh, is exactly what his speechwriter did!

For more on this from Gallup, go here.

And for more from Pew Research, go here.

Watching the Super Bowl This Weekend?

The Super Bowl is supposed to be the biggest sporting event of the year in the USA. Virtually all my friends and family members watch it. Not moi. I prefer more intellectual sports, like MMA, where contestants get brain-damaged without the protection of pads and helmets.

When I tell people that I don’t watch the game, they’re suspicious. “But what about the commercials?” they ask. “You are missing all those great commercials!”

The Super Bowl is known for its commercials. I’ve heard that many of them are brilliant, so this year, I decided to check them out. And I didn’t have to wait to watch them during the game. Most advertisers release them ahead of time.

Below you will find a link to one website where you can see them now. And as a service to those that don’t have the time, here are my top five in terms of entertainment:

1. “Why Not EV?” with Jim Ferrell
2. “Busch Light” with Sarah McLachlan
3. “Bud Light” with Miles Teller and Keleigh Sperry Teller
4. “Great Acting or Great Taste” with Ben Stiller
5. “Popcorners” with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul

Of course, making entertaining commercials has nothing to do with selling product. I found only two commercials that were any good at all in terms of sales. One was “Popcorners” (see above). But my favorite was “Hellmann’s” with Jon Hamm and Brie Larson.

Check out all the ads here.

Is The China Spy Balloon a Hoax? 

Can we believe anything we read or hear from our elected officials or the mainstream media?

Take, for example, this Chinese “spy” balloon. The idea is preposterous. We are talking about a big, slow-moving balloon that was passing over our country for days before it was declared a danger of some sort and shot down.

How are we supposed to believe that any country would use something so easily detected as a vehicle for spying? Especially since a balloon can’t see anything that cannot be seen from a satellite. And every country that has satellite technology can see everything larger than a car.

How are we to believe that there is anything that could be seen from a balloon or a satellite that would be secret information? If the government wanted to hide the location of anything “top secret,” it would have to be done with camouflage. And if the government does have something on the ground that it wants to hide from China or any other country, it’s already been camouflaged.

The only reporter I found that even asked the question received the most ridiculous response. Click here.