Breathing Bad Air, Awards and the Hollywood Stock Exchange
First of all, it’s Tuesday evening, I’ve returned from working out, and am inhaling toxic fumes in my house. Workers were here earlier today, ripped out my kitchen window, cleaned out the rotting wood and whatever else they found, reinstalled it with new window goop stuff, and the fumes are stomach turning. Thank God it’s “warm” out, all my windows are open and the overhead fan in the kitchen is rocking. But my stomach hurts.
It’s the beginning of the movie awards season. The New York Film Critics Circle named Far From Heaven Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis Best Actor for Gangs of New York, and Diane Lane Best Actress for Unfaithful (now that’s a surprise!). Far From Heaven won 5 awards. The winners of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards included About Schmidt for Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of NY) and Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt) for Best Actor (a tie), and Julianne Moore Best Actress for her work in Far From Heaven and The Hours. The Boston Society of Film Critics Awards are never predictable. Best Picture went to The Pianist, a Holocaust film and a comeback of sorts for Roman Polanski (note: official site is in French), Best Actor to Adrien Brody for The Pianist, and Best Actress to Maggie Gyllenhaal for Secretary. The information above comes from the brilliant page of Alex Fung, the Film Awards Archivist Supremo!
But wait, there’s more! From Anne comes this: The Hollywood Stock Exchange! YES! But what is it? “Buy shares of your favorite actors and their new movies and watch their values rise or fall based on their success. Stocks soar with a blockbuster opening at the box office and plummet with a bomb no one went to see.” You begin with $2,000,000 “Hollywood Dollars”. It sounds like a blast, I’m joining today!
December 17th, 2002 at 21:29
Man, I used to play the HSX back in the day. 1997. I bought stock in Harry Potter 1 and 2, and SW 1 2 and 3. I’ve probably made millions.
I guess I should go check…
December 18th, 2002 at 11:16
HSX is really addicting. I bought stock in the first two Harry Potter films as well, we’re both rich now, I’m sure. 🙂
December 18th, 2002 at 11:20
I don’t know why it’s so addictive, but the people behind HSX are definitely on to something!
They’ve even branched out into music. The music site still needs some work, though. Not too many securities on the exchange.
December 18th, 2002 at 22:11
Not quite so high-tech, but there’s also the Fantasy Film League (fantasyfilmleague.com), where you get to pick a director and a number of actors, which you buy from starting cash, and then get money back based on how well their films do. I signed up for a year-long session starting in January, so it’s a bit more delayed-gratification…but more appropriate for someone like me with little free time.