Mixed Media

Usually, when National Public Radio attempts to cover indie rock, I writhe in pain and vicarious shame (Stick to the grammar games, Liane Hansen. Please!). However, tomorrow's "All Songs Considered" will happily unite two of my great loves: weekday NPR and Connor Oberst from Bright Eyes. According to Pitchfork, Oberst is hosting tomorrow's show, which means he'll be spinning tracks from Bright Eyes' upcoming album, Cassadaga, which is due out April 10, as well as some of his favorite classics.

Updatde: If you miss the radio appearance, Cassadaga is now streaming on Saddle Creek's site.

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Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt plan to adopt another child—this time a boy from Vietnam. Normally, Vietnamese adoptions take 4 months or more, but, for Brangelina, officials think they can power through the application process in less than 3 months. Jolie and Pitt already have three children. Be careful—they've expressed interest in adopting your unborn child, too.

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Okay, it's official now. The Los Angeles Times has announced that movies have lost their magic. A recent Zogby survey confirms what has been evident for a long time, that people are going to see fewer movies and plan to see even fewer movies in the future, because tickets cost too much and there are better alternatives. The LA Times says that, surprise, Hollywood no longer captures the nerve center of American Life and that movies don't elicit "firestorms" as they once did, because they've got a lot more competition. Online opportunities to date, role-play, network, gossip, blog, and post and watch video and audio make it increasingly unnecessary to spend money on a movie theater ticket, whether you get stadium seating or not.

Blogger Bill Damon suggests that movie theaters try offering better food, reserved seating, and returning 3-D films to the big screen. Blog site "the kid's alright" suggests that when a newcomer like Jennifer Hudson wins an Oscar, maybe it's a sign that people are hungry for new inspiration in film. With this, I agree.

Is it crazy to think Hollywood can simplify and make cheaper films with smaller crews and smaller casts, and stop paying top stars millions of dollars per picture? The fact that actors like Brad Pitt agree to do Babel for lower fare is one small piece of evidence that even the biggest stars can be lured into meaningful projects. There's no good reason why a film like Mission Impossible III needs to cost $150 million to produce, is there? $150 million will operate Kansas City Southern's entire international railroad company this year and the President's budget proposes that we spend $150 million on biomass research in hte coming year.

Filmmakers aren't totally asleep at the wheel, though. Unique and original stories (Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, Brokeback Mountain, Crash, The Constant Gardener, Hustle and Flow, The Squid and the Whale) that challenge audiences have the capacity to ignite some new firestorms.A nd when I say firestorms, I don't mean gore-fest storms of hellfire. I have no quantitative data to back my theory, but I swear there are more horror flicks being produced post-9/11 than before. Every time I go to the theater or rent a DVD there is always at least one preview for another screamer about saws, tourists, a dreaded video tape or my new favorite – a ventriloquist. Why are filmmakers obsessed with fear, panic, death, pain, suffering and torture? Let's move on to greener, better-scripted, more efficiently-funded motion picture pastures and get excited about the movies again.

–Gary Moskowitz

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The statute of limitations for post-Oscar bickering is about to run out, so now's the time to get in some last licks. I'm gonna avoid the just-how-tacky-was-Ellen minefield. So let's focus on another bland and unmemorable Oscar presenter—Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld seems to have ticked off at least one filmmaker during his presentation of the Oscar for best documentary. John Sinno, a nominee for the great Iraq in Fragments, just wrote an open letter (not online yet, but posted in full after the jump) to the Academy, criticizing Seinfeld for calling his film and the four other nominees "incredibly depressing":

While I appreciate the role of humor in our lives, Jerry Seinfeld's remarks were made at the expense of thousands of documentary filmmakers and the entire documentary genre. Obviously we make films not for awards or money, although we are glad if we are fortunate enough to receive them. The important thing is to tell stories, whether of people who have been damaged by war, of humankind's reckless attitude toward nature and the environment, or even of the lives and habits of penguins. With his lengthy, dismissive and digressive introduction, Jerry Seinfeld had no time left for any individual description of the five nominated films. And by labeling the documentaries "incredibly depressing," he indirectly told millions of viewers not to bother seeing them because they're nothing but downers.

OK. Maybe it was a bad call to get a guy whose comedy is about "nothing" to introduce films that are about capital-S something. But let's be honest—this year's docs were really depressing. But that's why we like documentary films; they're a needed, if downlifting, reality check. And if it makes Sinno feel better, even the documentary about Seinfeld was a downer. If you ever want to see the story of a man with a moribund career and no interior life to boot, check it out.

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