Tuesday, November 09, 2004
If it's not English, of course it must be foreign
HFPA president Lorenzo Soria said of the “Passion” decision, “Yes, we know Aramaic is not a spoken language and, yes, we know the film doesn't have a country of origin. But our bylaws state that when a film is in a language that is preponderantly non-English, it's a foreign-language film. We looked at our bylaws and we looked at the movie, and the match is there.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences did not consider “Passion” for its foreign-language race, because the Acad asks countries to submit films that feature one of the country's principal languages. In their view, “Passion,” in Latin and Aramaic, does not represent the work of any single country.
Via The Duff Wire, Globes say no Moore
Now, granted, the Oscars and the Globes are American awards so it's understandable why they may slight the foreign movie market but The Passion of the Christ isn't a foreign film! It's an American film!
Okay, it's made by the Australian Mel Gibson (who oddly enough, was born in Peekskill, New York), but he's mainstream Hollywood, and he financed the film himself and got it disitributed when no other studio would touch it—a very American thing to do. But just because the dialog is in a dead language (or two dead languages) it's a foreign film? Or not, because no foreigners speak the language(s) anymore.
What's up with that?
I doubt George Lucas would get this treatment if he did the next Star Wars film in an entirely made up language (I personally think that would be cool), which must makes this all the more silly.
How to succeed in business without really trying
I started a new job yesterday doing technical support for a small colocation facility in Boca Raton (a friend of mine owns the company). He needed someone that could jump in and do technical support and since a) I can do this from home, b) it involves email and a web-based trouble ticket system and more importantly c) no phones I figured why not? A low pressure job from home is perfect for my temperment. It's not quite like my other job taking care of some other servers, which is mostly doing a whole bunch of nothing with a few days of sheer terror thrown in, but still, it's easy enough and it brings in some money. And C (the friend and owner of the colocation facility) knows I already know most of the technical issues that can come up, given that I've worked in a web design/web hosting company, two ISPs, and a colocation facility. The only issues I have with the job was having enough access to fix problems, and access to information about the customers.
Then I got tossed a curve ball—I called C to ask about some support issues (as I'm still coming up to speed) when I was given some good news and some bad news.
The bad news?
I don't think I'll be able to work entirely from home anymore.
The good news?
Second day on the job I was promoted.
To system administrator.
I'm not sure if this is a general system administrator position, or a senior system administrator position but two days on the job and I'm already on my way up the ladder (How to succeed in business without really trying! Woot!) and I'll find out more when I go to the office tomorrow (if I'm the only sys admin there, then it's a senior system administrator position).
I'll sure miss working from home though.
