My 10 Outstanding Island Away from Philippines

What is it about islands that makes them so intriguing? Whether it's a tropical speck in the midst of a vast ocean, or a tree-shrouded hummock in the river of a great city, it's still somehow set apart, unique, proud, lonely, even mysterious. The waters around it ineffably define it, in a way that no plot of mainland can be defined. And because effort is required to get there — whether it's simply driving across a bridge or chartering a private plane — once you've reached its shores, you know you're somewhere different.

Our new book 500 Extraordinary Islands began to take shape as a sort of life list — how many islands have you been to, and which have you always dreamed of seeing? As our final list evolved — 500 is a lot of islands, but there were thousands of others we might have included — we found ourselves broadening the definition, expanding our concept of what makes an island alluring. But our main criterion was simple: We wanted to offer the 500 islands you'd most want to visit — or perhaps stay on forever. Here are 10 of the most interesting.

Usedom: The Singing Island

Germany

Though anchored to the German coast with bridges at both north and south ends (and a railway over the northern bridge), Usedom lies so far east that the eastern tip is actually part of Poland — you can walk down the beach from Ahlberg to the large commercial port of Swinoujscie. But it's the German side that's the tourist magnet, a beloved getaway since the early 19th century; Usedom has been nicknamed the "Bathtub of Berlin." Usedom's other nickname, "the singing island," came about because the white sand of its 25-mile strand is so fine that it squeaks when you walk on it. A handful of nearby "wellness hotels" and thermal baths preserve old-world spa traditions. Landscaped garden promenades, open-air concert pavilions, and tree-lined side streets hark back to genteel seaside holiday traditions; each resort town also has a long pleasure pier extending into the Baltic, where you can still envision a parade of ladies with parasols and bustled dresses and gents in well-cut linen suits.

Bora Bora: Romantic Heaven on Earth

French Polynesia

Nothing says "ultimate honeymoon" quite like Bora Bora. The word is out — and has been for some time — about this French Polynesian island's extraordinary natural beauty, and Bora Bora's remoteness and high prices have kept the island's luxurious mystique intact. Enchanting Bora Bora belongs to the exclusive, "so-preposterously-gorgeous-it-doesn't-seem-natural" club of travel destinations. Even the most jaded globe-trotter duly drops his jaw when confronted with the spectacle of the lagoon and the iconic silhouette of Mount Otemanu in the background. Many visitors, in fact, never get farther than that perfect tableau of paradise, but excursions to the main island and its lofty interior are how you'll get to the real heart of Bora Bora.

Prince Edward Island: Beyond Green Gables

Canada

Sometimes all the Anne of Green Gables hoopla around Prince Edward Island gets to be a bit much. How can a century-old series of children's books define an entire Canadian province? Drive around PEI's low rolling hills blanketed in trees and crops, and that bucolic past celebrated in Lucy Maud Montgomery's books makes sense after all. Beyond the jagged coast with its inlets and historic fishing villages, you'll discover that small farms make up the island's backbone. You can get in touch with the island's Acadian heritage at the five Rusticos: the coastal villages of North Rustico, South Rustico, Rusticoville, Rustico Harbour, and Anglo Rustico. This inevitably brings you to Cavendish, the vortex of Anne of Green Gables country. You can see the farmstead that started it all, Green Gables, a solid white mid-19th-century farmhouse with green shutters (and, naturally, green gable points) that belonged to cousins of author Montgomery.

Gorgona: Welcome to the Jungle

Colombia

It hasn't taken long for nature to regain complete control of Gorgona Island. From the 1950s to the 1980s, this landmass in the Pacific was a maximum security prison — Colombia's Alcatraz — but the facility was closed and declared a natural national park in 1985; the jail buildings are now overgrown with dense vegetation, complete with monkeys swinging from vine to vine. Gorgona is one of those places where the natural environment is almost comically inhospitable to humans. Visitors who come ashore at Gorgona today are strictly supervised, limited to groups of 80 at a time, and forbidden from wandering too far away from the coastline, for fear of encountering deadly critters. Gorgona shelters a wealth of endemic plant and animal species in its rainforests, including the small (and endangered) blue lizard of Gorgona. Gorgona also has some of the finest sandy beaches in Colombia, backed by palm trees and a thick curtain of green, letting you know that the creepy-crawly jungle is never far away on this island.

Malta: Crossroads of the Mediterranean

Walking the streets of most any Maltese town, you get the vague sense that you're in some kind of greatest hits of European architecture — a little London here, echoes of Paris there, maybe a touch of Rome in that baroque church facade. And it's no wonder: the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the knights of St. John, the French, and the British all swept in from their respective compass points and left indelible reminders of their conquests. Malta today is a modern and well-run island nation, with its illustrious laurels of history on full view. The walled city of Mdina, on Malta proper, is superbly evocative of the island's medieval era. Descendants of the noble families — Norman, Sicilian, and Spanish — that ruled Malta centuries ago still inhabit the patrician palaces that line the shady streets here. In summer, the coastal resort towns of Sliema and St. Julian's, just outside Valletta, come alive with holidaymakers and yacht-setters, and the cafe-filled promenades fronting the teal sea are the epitome of the Mediterranean good life.

Lamu: Exotic Enclave

Kenya

Just 2 degrees south of the Equator, off the east coast of Kenya, Lamu is a place that seems stuck in time. For centuries, it was a bustling Indian Ocean port of call and an important link in the spice trade; that atmosphere is totally palpable here today. Lamu is like an exotic stage set that also happens to have amazing beaches. The streets of Lamu are quiet, cool, and car-free, lined with thick-walled white stone buildings, their arches and decorative cutouts evoking the centuries of Muslim influence here; Lamu was founded by Arab traders in the 1400s. The entire island has one proper town — the busy Lamu Town, which, as the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Monuments here include the turreted Lamu Fort and Riyadha Mosque (both from the 19th Century), but the most interesting sights are the much more ancient, nameless traditional houses, some of which date back to Lamu Town's 14th-century

Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego: El Fin del Mundo

Argentina and Chile

Several centuries ago, the only inhabitants of the southern extremity of South America were the native Yahgan Indians. To survive in the inhospitable climate of this land, the Yahgans made ample use of fire. The campfires continuously burning here were so numerous and so bright that when the first Europeans to explore the region saw them from the sea, they called the whole place Tierra del Fuego ("Land of Fire"). Today, the name Tierra del Fuego applies to the group of islands that make up the southern tips of both Argentina and Chile. Isla Grande — as its name suggests — is the largest landmass in the archipelago, with territories belonging to both those countries. Not far from Isla Grande, though it's actually a separate small island in the Tierra del Fuego group, is the real southernmost tip of South America and one of the most fabled sites in the story of seafaring: Cape Horn. Before the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, rounding "the Horn" was the only way for ships to get between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, and its hostile waters were — and still are — notorious for the challenges they posed to sailors. Strong winds and currents, enormous waves, and even icebergs sent many a seaman to his watery grave.

Isle of Wight: Victoriana by the Sea

Channel Islands, U.K.

In 1845, young Queen Victoria made this Channel Island all the rage when she began coming here for seaside holidays with her beloved consort Prince Albert; you can still tour their Italianate mansion, Osbourne House. Following the queen's example, 19th-century celebrities from Tennyson to Charles Dickens flocked here to enjoy Wight's mild climate, sandy beaches, and panoramic walks over dramatic chalk downs. Amid the prim Victoriana, imagine the impact of 600,000 rock fans arriving in 1970 for the third annual Isle of Wight Rock Festival, where, among other acts, Jimi Hendrix blew fans' minds. Revived in 2002, that festival books many of the U.K.'s top acts for a long weekend in June; the festival includes a huge campground where many concert-goers hang out for three days, rain or shine. Even Queen Victoria might have been amused.

Mauritius: Sophisticated Paradise

Isolated in the Indian Ocean, 1,243 miles east of mainland Africa, Mauritius may be tiny, but there's never a shortage of things to do. With a coastline ringed by coral reefs, and calm, clear, shallow lagoon waters, the island is ideal for all sorts of water sports; the unspoiled interior offers sights of spectacular natural beauty as well. Tourism on Mauritius is a relatively new phenomenon, however, and so far it's definitely geared toward the higher-end traveler. Mauritius today is an amalgam of Creole, Indian, Chinese, and French peoples (there was never an indigenous population), with Creole and French the dominant flavors. Its most famous resident, however, may have been the flightless dodo bird, a rare species discovered here by the first Dutch visitors and soon driven to extinction by the settlers' wild pigs and macaques.

Ile Sainte-Hélène & Ile Notre-Dame: Beaucoup Recreation

Montreal, Canada

Montreal's richest repositories of recreational opportunities are its two playground islands in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, Ile Sainte-Hélène and Ile Notre-Dame. Developed for Montreal's Expo 67, they remain prime destinations for the 21st century. Ile Sainte-Hélène has long been a fixture in Montreal's history. Following the War of 1812, defenses such as a fort, a powder house, and a blockhouse were built here to protect the city. The island was converted into parkland in 1874, but Ile Sainte-Hélène returned to military duty in World War II. Conversely, Ile Notre-Dame was built entirely from scratch, using 15 million tons of rocks excavated for tunnels for the Montreal Metro in 1965. The La Ronde Amusement park was built on Sainte-Hélène for the exposition; operated today by Six Flags, it offers world-class roller coasters and thrill rides. Most of the Expo 67 pavilions were dismantled in the years following the fair; the pavilions of France and Quebec became Ile Notre-Dame's Montreal Casino and the American pavilion became Ile St. Helene's Biosphere attraction, which has exhibits on environmental issues.


David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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‘Pirate Latitudes" - fun and forgettable

 The complete manuscript for ‘Pirate Latitudes’ was found after the ‘Jurassic Park’ author died-is it a literary treasure or fool’s gold?

WHEN MICHAEL CRICHTON, progenitor of the techno-thriller and best-selling author of 19 books ranging from “The Andromeda Strain” to “Jurassic Park,” passed away in 2008, an undated, complete manuscript no one knew about was discovered on his hard drive.

That novel is “Pirate Latitudes” (HarperCollins, New York, 2009, 312 pages), a most unusual book even for Crichton’s considerable bibliography. Most of Crichton’s recent work, such as the nanotech-centric “Prey” and his latest, “Next,” which tackled the dark face of genetic tinkering, obsessed about the immediate future rather than the colorful past.

In the 17th-century British colony of Jamaica, the privateer Captain Charles Hunter has been recruited by the colony’s governor to attack the Spanish outpost of Matanceros to seize the treasure aboard a galleon on the island’s bay. Hunter takes his swift vessel, the Cassandra, and crews it with a band of talented rogues: the incomparable helmsman Mr. Enders; the lethal French killer Sanson; the mute brute Bassa; the enigmatic lookout Lazue; and the explosives genius known as the Jew.

What follows is a by-the-numbers pirate adventure, complete with ship-versus-ship combat, swordfights, bad weather, treachery and even a sea monster. Lining them up one after another like obstacles marked on a treasure map, Crichton leaves no high-seas trope unused.

Almost knowingly typical, “Pirate” sails hard and surprisingly straight, making reading an ocean breeze. There are moments when Crichton pauses to elaborate on a seemingly random detail of 17th-century ship life, another Crichton trademark.

Like a real galleon, “Pirate” goes as fast as its captain takes it. Crichton’s protagonist Hunter seems like a prototypical swashbuckling hero, a Harvard-educated yet cold-blooded gentleman handy in a fight with either blade or pistol.

What makes Hunter different is his innovative streak: Crichton arms Hunter with a willingness to constantly try new and untested ideas to get out of the various jams he gets his crew into. He is, in other words, a Crichton version of a pirate king.

The crew members, despite being cut from the same basic pirate-novel template, are quite entertaining. The various villains, particularly the Spanish bogeyman Cazalla, are much more derivative.

This is not going to be the final Crichton book: Someone else will be finishing an incomplete techno-thriller for a 2012 christening.

“Pirate” is Crichton’s last complete book, though the manuscript’s age remains vague; the closest thing Crichton had written would be the 1976 Viking-oriented novel “Eaters of the Dead.”

But for the most part, “Pirate” feels like Crichton lite, almost as if he stashed the manuscript in the hopes of returning to it for polishing later. A fun read, “Pirate” reveals itself to be serviceable but otherwise forgettable, certainly not a fitting way to remember the amazing legacy of the cerebral and original storyteller Michael Crichton.

In the most unusual case of the novel “Pirate Latitudes,” the compelling story-behind-the-story of its discovery turns out to be the literary equivalent of fool’s gold.

Available in paperback from National Book Store.



David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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Our Oscars Choice!

            THE 82ND Academy Awards, for which 5,800 members cast their votes in 25 categories for our annual amusement, should be a break even for those who are past caring. It satisfies a psychic thirst that nothing else can quench.
This year, the Best Motion Picture category has been expanded, doubling the number of nominees to 10 – the biggest since 1944 – in what many consider an act of penance for snubbing “The Dark Knight” last year.
So now, contending for Best Picture are: “Avatar,” by James Cameron; “The Hurt Locker,” Kathryn Bigelow; “Inglourious Basterds,” Quentin Tarantino; “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” Lee Daniels; “Up in the Air,” Jason Reitman; “District 9,” Neill Blomkamp; “The Blind Side,” John Lee Hancock; “An Education,” Lone Scherfig; “A Serious Man,” Joel and Ethan Coen; “Up,” Pete Docter.
In previous years, only the first five would have made it to the list. The rest seem to have been added as an afterthought, as often happens with the Oscars. They probably thought this was corrective. In fact, it raised more questions, foremost of which is: Why didn’t they just replace such featherweights as “Up,” “The Blind Side” and “An Education” with heavies like Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus,” Oren Moverman’s “The Messenger” and Rob Marshall’s “Nine”?
(If any category needed expanding, it is Best Foreign-Language Film, of which there is a surfeit of worthies in any given year, dozens, actually.)
Frontrunners
There are three front-runners in the Best Picture race: “Inglorious Basterds,” “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker.”
“Inglourious Basterds” is another of Tarantino’s wet dreams. It’s not just sublimated, it’s a wish fulfillment. He’s not out for a subtle historical revisionism, but for a brazen rewriting of history.
Inspired by John Milius’ “Red Dawn,” a Cold War revenge fantasy he saw in his youth, Tarantino said he had long wanted to make a film that would turn on its head the victimization syndrome often displayed by survivors of the Holocaust (think “Schindler’s List” and “Life Is Beautiful”) and, for that matter, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (think “Grave of the Fireflies” and “Hiroshima Mon Amour”).
Tarantino, an apostle of postmodern cinema, is a genre-bender of the first order – from Hong Kong tough-guy movie (“Reservoir Dogs”) to noir (“Pulp Fiction”) to “blaxploitation” (“Jackie Brown”) to western and kung fu (“Kill Bill”) to slasher and biker movie (“Death-Proof”).
Taking his title from a far-fetched ’70s war movie (spelling correct), he serves up a heady brew of the war film and the Hitchcockian thriller (espionage, sabotage, detective, psycho, and distinctive camera movement).
His intention was to do away with the martyr complex and turn the table on the oppressors. So here he takes up the cudgels not just for the Jews but for all downtrodden peoples, including American Indians (he is 25-percent Cherokee) and Negroes (in the parlor game scene, King Kong represents the trade slave).
Opening caveat
The man is an inveterate name-dropper, like a movie reviewer who can’t help citing his range of film history to plead his case. This is all very well with cinéastes, as it adds to their amusement, but the ordinary moviegoer would feel disconnected.
Tossed around like ping-pong balls throughout the movie are such names as Pola Negri, Pabst, Max Linder, Riefenstahl (pointing to fascist cinema?), Clouzot (probably referencing the controversial “Le Corbeau,” German-financed and thought to be anti-French propaganda). Even Emil Jannings appears in a cameo. So does Churchill, improbably discussing German studio films.
The carving of the swastika on Nazi foreheads is something that even Jewish liberals find excessive. It serves as a final punctuation in the movie but comes as a punch in the audience’s stomach. We’re treated to graphic scalping and braining throughout (violence is, of course, a Tarantino signature) but they’re not as wince-inducing as the mark of Cain.
The climax is positively Jacobean, a lushly filmed incineration where the four Nazi top guns and their wives are roasted to a crisp. Centuries hence, schoolboys might really think Hitler died at a movie premiere.
There’s nothing new with Tarantino’s historical rewriting – this was exactly what Shakespeare had done with historical figures like Hamlet and Macbeth for dramatic exigency. Centuries thence, only scholars know what really happened to Hamlet and Macbeth.
The opening sequence bears the intro, “Once upon a time … in Nazi-occupied France,” which should be seen as a caveat to viewers: This is going to play like a fairytale. The film satisfies in us something deeper than historians and librarians can.
Sure winners
“Avatar” is another of Cameron’s bloated films – and one more exemplar of derivative cinema. Ranging in sources from “One Million Years B.C.” to Hayao Miyazaki animé, it is ultimately just an old-fashioned western set in a future alternate universe.
And just as the Kate-Leo scenario of his “Titanic” was an expansion of a subplot in the 1976 “Voyage of the Damned,” the love story of Jake and Neytiri in this one appears to be taken from the 1966 prehistoric saga that made Raquel Welch a star.
“Avatar’s” eye-popping visuals and heart-stopping action are, of course, unsurpassable, but this eco-epic is too formulaic for our taste. As with most inspirationals (think “The Blind Side” and “Invictus”), it doesn’t have the complexity, ambiguity and random quality of life. The conclusion is too neat; we’re manipulated to cheer and soar toward the end.
“The Hurt Locker” is merciless in its depiction of American soldiers in Iraq. Filmed in vérité style, it doesn’t stint on the telling details from the minutest to the most apocalyptic: The fly on the soldier’s eyelashes; the mushrooming smoke and crackling conflagration of the bombing of humans and buildings.
The seeming artlessness, remarkable restraint in performance and staging, plus the human pathos that imbues each scene should make this a winner.
Cameron and Bigelow, married for two years in the early ’90s, are in a lock for Best Picture and Best Director – and their contest has been dubbed “Battle of the Exes.”
But while he is a sentimentalist, her films are largely unsentimental, very masculine. Both could win either of the two categories and it wouldn’t disturb the order of the universe.
Top choice
Of the three, “Avatar” is the most enjoyable, “The Hurt Locker” seems most like felt life, and “Inglourious Basterds” is the most intellectually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing.
Our top choice is not one of them, though. That would be “A Serious Man,” about a Jewish family on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This film possesses all the foregoing superlative traits of those three.
We can settle for Tarantino’s work as Best Picture. If “Avatar” wins, he would be fine as Best Director. If Bigelow gets that (making her a historical figure, first female to have won it), then maybe he can have Best Original Screenplay. But for this he has to contend with the Coen Brothers – a really tough competition.
Tarantino won his only Oscar for the screenplay of “Pulp Fiction” 15 years ago. That’s probably because he made only a few films, rather like Kubrick and Malick. Now seems to be the right time to give him his second Academy trophy. They could deny him this, of course, to their eternal regret.
The acting categories are not as contentious as last year’s. We can’t help noticing that the dead-end life has become a recurrent theme in many Oscar entries – not to say that some have parallel story lines and relationship dynamics, such as “Up in the Air” and “The Messenger,” “The Blind Side” and “Precious,” or “Crazy Heart” and last year’s “The Wrestler.”
Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart” is a shoo-in for Best Actor. His portrayal of an alcoholic singer-songwriter whose life is spiraling down and who is seeking redemption in love, family and career recalls Nicolas Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas” – but less bleak.
Here, Bridges revisits the milieu of his youth, the small southwestern American town of “The Last Picture Show” 40 years ago. It is interesting to compare his performance from the cockiness of his youth to the world-weariness of his late maturity. That’s why the song “The Weary Kind” is organic to this film.
Main event
Another shoo-in is Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor, as the Jew Hunter in “Inglourious Basterds.” Still another is Mo’Nique for Best Supporting Actress, as the abusive mother in “Precious.” If these two weren’t in the picture, we’d be rooting for Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger” and Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air.”
So the main event is Best Actress. And here viewers have a real dilemma. Sandra Bullock is an appealing gal, but she’s up against the First Lady of American Movies, the indomitable Meryl Streep. As a white matron who adopts a black teen and turns him into a football star in “The Blind Side,” Bullock is likely to get the trophy, but for the wrong reason.
An Oscar fixture, Streep has had the most number of nominations (16) of all actors living or dead. So we were surprised to learn that her last win had come nearly 30 years ago, for “Sophie’s Choice.” Her performances have always been addictive, in comedy or drama. She is the butter to our bread, and we can’t have enough butter.
Once again, as the American chef in Paris, Julia Child, in “Julie & Julia,” she proves she can play anything, with matching accents. Thus, one film critic suggests that she be signed for the sequel of the alien parable “District 9,” and cast as a prawn.
For Best Animated Feature, “Up” is another shoo-in. Which makes this year’s Oscars as The Year of the Shoo-ins. Less exciting than the last maybe, but still anticipated.


















David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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Avatar vs Hurt Locker on Oscar 2010

This year’s race for Sunday’s top prize at the Academy Awards is anything but predictable.

In recent years, the drama has generally been sapped by a glut of earlier award shows that spell out what films will win at the Oscars before the show starts.

Not this time — at least for Sunday’s top prize, and maybe the weekend’s threatening weather.

With the best-picture lineup expanded to 10 films instead of the usual five, the science-fiction spectacle and box-office behemoth Avatar is going head-to-head with the low-budgeted, low-grossing Iraq war story The Hurt Locker. Each has nine nominations.

Adding to the suspense is how this year’s use of preferential voting for best picture — where voters rank the 10 nominees in order of preference — may affect the category’s outcome.

The acting prizes look as predictable as ever, with Oscars expected to go to Sandra Bullock as best actress for The Blind Side, Jeff Bridges as best actor for Crazy Heart, Mo'Nique as supporting actress for Precious and Austrian Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for Inglourious Basterds. Avatar won best drama at the Golden Globes, traditionally a good gauge for how the Oscars might play out. But the Globes were nearly two months ago, the first major ceremony in the long buildup to the Oscars. A lot has happened since.

The Hurt Locker dominated honors from Hollywood trade groups, including guilds representing directors, writers and producers. It also won best-picture and five other prizes at the British Academy Film Awards.

The films bring some behind-the-scenes drama. Avatar director James Cameron and The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow were married from 1989-91, making this the first time ex-spouses have competed for the directing Oscar.

Bigelow would be the first woman ever to win best director, a prize Cameron earned with 1997’s "Titanic," whose box office records have been shattered by Avatar. And one of Bigelow’s fellow producers on The Hurt Locker, Nicolas Chartier, has been barred from attending the Oscars after he ran afoul of the awards rules by sending e-mails to academy voters urging them to support his film over Avatar. Overseers at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took some heat after doubling the field to 10 films last summer. Many actors, filmmakers and others in Hollywood wondered if the Oscars had lowered their standards by letting so many films into the best-picture race.

But the move has brought a different energy to the show, both for producers with films in the running and TV viewers who have gradually lost interest in the Oscars. The ceremony’s TV ratings sank to an all-time low two years ago, then bounced back a bit last year.

The top awards were utterly predictable both years, No Country for Old Men dominating two years ago and Slumdog Millionaire winning last time.

Oscar organizers say they sense greater interest in the awards all-around, from the A-list lineup that will strut the red carpet outside Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre to the stargazers watching on TV at home.

"People seem to be talking about the movies. The idea that we've gone to 10 is something that’s been a little controversial to some people, even though we've done it before," said Tom Sherak, academy president. The Oscars often had 10 or more best-picture nominees until 1943.

"It’s created a conversation about the movies, and I don't think there’s a clear-cut winner. We want it to be fun to watch, for people to have an interest in seeing what’s going to happen with these 10 movies," Sherak said.

Also in the running for best picture: the football drama "The Blind Side," the science-fiction thriller "District 9," the British teen tale "An Education," the World War II saga Inglourious Basterds, the Harlem story Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, the Jewish domestic chronicle A Serious Man, the animated adventure Up and the recession-era yarn Up in the Air. Along with The Hurt Locker, which took in just $12.6 million domestically, competitors such as An Education and A Serious Man have found relatively small audiences.

The lineup is balanced with huge hits, led by Avatar, the biggest modern blockbuster with $700 million domestically and $2.6 billion worldwide. Up and The Blind Side both topped $200 million domestically, while Inglourious Basterds and District 9 were $100 million hits.

Oscar TV ratings tend to rise in years when big hits are among the front-runners. The show had its biggest audience ever when Cameron’s colossal hit Titanic won best-picture 12 years ago.

Academy organizers also aim to liven up the show, continuing a trend they began last year by hiring song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman as host, rather than a traditional comedian.

Sunday’s show features past host Steve Martin paired with Alec Baldwin, the first time since 1987 that the Oscars have had more than one emcee.

Lifetime-achievement Oscars have been moved to a separate event to speed up the pace of the show.

Oscar producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic also are mixing up the cast of awards presenters with young talent such as Miley Cyrus and Twilight co-stars Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner and veterans such as Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand and Samuel L. Jackson.

"New Hollywood and classic Hollywood. Love it," Shankman said.

"You'll see that quite a bit," Mechanic said. "Not paired together, but you'll see a respect for the traditions of Hollywood and a welcoming of new Hollywood." And a scramble by Oscar bosses come Monday to see how the ratings went.
















David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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Baghdad Bombed

 Bombers launched a spate of attacks across Baghdad and in Baquba on Sunday as polls opened in a general election that Al-Qaeda threatened to sabotage, officials and AFP reporters said.
Four mortars struck Baghdad's "Green Zone" and six more rocked areas across the capital as polling stations opened, while at the same time in Baquba to the north, five blasts struck near voting stations, officials said.
The fortified "Green Zone" houses the Iraqi parliament, several ministries and the US and British embassies.
Two bomb attacks also hit areas of Baghdad, an interior ministry official said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq in a statement Friday threatened to kill voters, days after a series of suicide attacks and bombings killed dozens.
The Islamic State of Iraq, the Qaeda front in the country, said it was imposing a "curfew" on Sunday and anyone who dared defy it would "expose himself to the anger of Allah and ... all kinds of weapons of the mujahedeen."
 












David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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