Mount McKinley National Park …

now Denali National Park & Preserve was established on this date in 1917.

It’s more than a mountain. Denali National Park & Preserve features North America’s highest mountain, 20,320-foot tall Mount McKinley. The Alaska Range also includes countless other spectacular mountains and many large glaciers. Denali’s more than 6 million acres also encompass a complete sub-arctic eco-system with large mammals such as grizzly bears, wolves, Dall sheep, and moose.

Weak competition

NewMexiKen doesn’t want to to be just about the Oscars and movies but I did find these factoids in the Los Angeles Times interesting:

While all five candidates for the top Oscar have managed respectable ticket sales, they collectively have been seen by fewer moviegoers than any batch of best-picture nominees in 20 years.
…

At $436 million, “Shrek 2″ far out-grossed the entire best-picture lineup combined. Add in “The Incredibles” ($259 million) and “Shark Tale” ($160 million), and the three animated nominees did more than 2 1/2 times the business of the five best-picture contestants.

The article has lots of details including a great graphic.

Is anything about merit anymore?

You might want to consider this article from the Los Angeles Times when you make your own Oscar picks:

Barely any A-list stars showed up at the Four Seasons Hotel for the “Maria Full of Grace” reception, just one of countless Oscar get-out-the-vote efforts that surface during awards season each year. A handful of people made cocktail party chatter with director Joshua Marston and star Catalina Sandino Moreno, sampled a few drab appetizers, then quickly went on their way, most with a modest parting gift: a copy of the film’s DVD.

The “Sideways” blowout a few weeks later stood at the opposite end of the spectrum. Hundreds of top show business talent and Oscar voters jammed the restaurant Vibrato, where they drank expensive Hitching Post Pinot Noir by the gallon. On stage, the film’s composer, Rolfe Kent, jammed with a jazz band.

Maybe only the naive consider the Academy Awards to be an evenhanded referendum on the best films, but rarely has it devolved into such a marked battle between the haves and the have-nots as it has with this year’s motley crop of large and small contenders.

Desperate to adorn their films with the valuable Oscar seal of approval, well-heeled studios now spend as much as $15 million promoting the award chances for such movies as “The Aviator” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Other films, such as “Finding Neverland” and “Hotel Rwanda,” try to stay in the race with a fraction of that.

Best picture

The Daily Howler’s Bob Somerby has his list:

Finding Neverland. Could anyone makes a duller film bio?

The Aviator. Omigod! Somebody did!

Sideways. As Quinn observes, a classic male fantasy. Creates modern film’s most soulful character. Instantly drops her like a rock.

Million Dollar Baby. A well-wrought tone poem. But what’s up with Clint’s now-repetitive gloomy tone? Explanation: It’s all about Clint! At the end, he rides off silently into the west, the way the big stars always do. Mopping up for the final time, Morgan Freeman gives the closing narration.

Ray. We thought this film was loaded with merit, but a bit short of a Best Picture.

Two we thought were better:

Maria Full of Grace. The most fascinating study of manners and morals we have seen in quite a long time. And then, of course:

Hotel Rwanda. No, [it] isn’t great film art, something we especially noticed on second viewing. But the importance of Hotel Rwanda’s meditation dwarfs that of the five nominees combined. With most films, we find ourselves wondering why anyone bothered to make it. In the case of the dissed Hotel, no one is likely to ask.

It’s not just me

Sally Quinn didn’t like Sideways either.

Imagine, if you can, a movie about two unattractive, gross women slobs going on a week-long spree and ending up with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. Imagine that becoming a hit, nominated for five Academy Awards, acclaimed by critics.

Wait, don’t even try. It ain’t gonna happen.

“Sideways,” the low-budget Oscar contender, is a guys’ movie that celebrates a certain cultural fantasy: Set off on a drinking-carousing-debauching adventure for a week with your buddy, seduce two great-looking girls and then dump them and go home. What fun!

The reviews were fabulous, and then Charles Krauthammer wrote a whole column about it on the op-ed page, calling it “sublime . . . intelligent . . . clever, funny, moving.” He concluded, “Trust me on this one. See it.”

I did. I hated it. And it wasn’t just me. Most of the women I know feel the same way.

Read the rest of Ms. Quinn’s critique.

You have the right to remain sober
Should you give up that right …

From Santa Fe New Mexican:

A 40-year-old Santa Fe woman who made headlines a month ago after provoking a three-hour police standoff showed up to court Friday morning loaded with drunken invective and was carted back to jail.

“She was screaming crazy nonsense,” said Tom Clark, an attorney who was in the crowded courtroom at the time.

Tracy Kope — whose breath-alcohol content Friday was nearly four times the legal limit for driving [0.29] — was scheduled to be arraigned on charges of aggravated assault and tampering with evidence stemming from a Jan. 20 standoff with police on Santa Fe’s southwest side.

It’s the birthday

… of Betty Hutton. The actress is 84.

… of Antoine “Fats” Domino. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is 77.

… of Mitch Ryder. He’s 60. No report on the ages of the Detroit Wheels.

… of Michael Bolton. The singer is 52. The computer programmer’s age isn’t known.

… of Jennifer Grant. Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon’s daughter is 39.

It’s just a game

From The New York Times:

Temple suspended its men’s basketball coach, John Chaney, for the remainder of the regular season on Friday, three days after he ordered a player to commit hard fouls that resulted in a potentially career-ending broken arm for a senior forward at city rival St. Joseph’s.
…

This was the second time that Chaney has been suspended. In 1994, he was barred for one game after threatening to kill Massachusetts Coach John Calipari during an argument after a game.