courtesy AMPAS

CONGRATULATIONS TO PETER & THE WOLF and RATAOUILLE for their Oscars! All have remarked that this was a great year for animated films. The competition was strong, and even the films that did not make the requirements like Enchanted were great efforts. Enchanted couldn't compete in animated feature category because it was basically a live action movie with animation in it. It has to have 70% of the main characters animated to qualify. As the lines between animated and live performances dim, like the Spiderman or Garfield films for instance, this standard will be continually challenged.

Boy, this was one of my worst years for Oscar picks. I think I got only four right. But I am in the minority, that I thought No Country for Old Men was a good movie, but not the best. I was happy to see Marion Cotillard win for La Vie en Rose. She was incredible, she really became Edith Piaff from young girlhood to old age.

Looks like everyone had a good time at the event. My regards to all the animation folks who attended, kept in our usual ghetto on the uppermost balcony.
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QUIZ: Animation director Brad Bird has now won Oscars for The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Why did he not win one for The Iron Giant?

ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S QUESTION BELOW- What does Persepolis mean?
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History for 2/25/2008
Birthdays: Enrico Caruso, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Zeppo Marx,St. Louis (King Louis IX of France), Bobby Riggs, Carl Eller, Sir Anthony Burgess, Neil Jordan, Larry Gelbart, Tom Courtenay, Sean Astin (Sam in Lord of the Rings) is 36, Tea Leoni, John Foster Dulles*

* Dulles was Secretary of State under Eisenhower and architect of the anti-Communist containment policy. Winston Churchill once described meeting with him: -" Dull, Duller, Dulles".

799AD- Today is the Feast of Saint Walburga, who with her brother Saint Winebold preached Christianity in the remote forests of Germany. Oddly enough after Walburga’s death the Saint’s remains were removed to a new resting place on the anniversary of a pagan festival and her name stuck to the celebration- April 30th the Walpurgisnacht.

1836- FIRST COLT REVOLVER. Samuel Colt was given his first gun to play with at age 7. He was inspired by a ships steering wheel to invent a cylindrical gun chamber. They didn’t become popular until the price dropped with the 1860 Navy Colt. His six-shooter was nicknamed : The Great Equalizer","The Peacemaker" the "Confidence Machine" and sometimes the 'Thumbbuster". Gunfighters usually filed off the sight at the end of the barrel because it caught in your clothes during a quickdraw. Wild Bill Hickock for instance didn't wear holsters, he carried his two Navy Colts tucked in a red sash around his waist. Shootists also learned to carry it "5 beans in the wheel', meaning leaving your gun cocked to one empty chamber while you walk around. This so your gun doesn't accidentally go off in your holster, which could be very embarrassing, as Wyatt Earp once found out.

1860- A little known former congressman from out west named Abraham Lincoln stepped off the Cortlandt St Ferry in New York City. He walked alone carrying a moth-eaten carpet bag suitcase up to the Astor Hotel where he let the press know he was in town to declare himself a candidate for President of these here United States. He then went and traded in his old beaver skin stovepipe hat for a new silk top hat and went to Matthew Brady’s photo parlor to pose for a photo like all genteel-type folks is supposed ta do.

1863- CIVIL WAR PRANKS - Outside the siege lines of Vicksburg, Union admiral David Porter decided to play a practical joke on the rebels. On an old barge he built a dummy ironclad with wooden logs for guns and two burning tar smudge pots nailed to phony smokestacks. The total cost to the government for black paint and wood was 15 dollars.
He then had this contraption pushed into the Mississippi and let it float with the current downstream. When the rebel shore batteries spotted the black monster they let loose a furious barrage. It only increased their panic that the Yankee ship seemed so formidable that it didn't even bother to shoot back! When the Confederate river fleet spotted the black enemy warship they fled in terror. One captain ran his gunboat into a sand bar, abandoned it and blew it up rather than let it be captured. Eventually the dummy barge stuck in some shallows. Finally a rebel sheepishly rowed out to the barge and discovered the joke.

1864- Battle of Buzzards Roost. Sherman’s army attacked Joe Johnston’s defense works in Georgia but were repulsed. Johnston's ancestor Joe Johnston IV directed Honey I Shrunk the Kids for Disney.

1932- TOONTOWN SCANDALS. Former Australian prizefighter Pat Sullivan was the producer of the Felix the Cat cartoons, the first true animation star. Although animator Otto Mesmer actually created him Sullivan's name is the only one on the titles. Felix was one of the top film stars of the 1920s. Lindbergh supposedly had a Felix doll with him in the Spirit of St. Louis and his body shape was the prototype of Mickey Mouse and dozens of other characters.While Mesmer quietly drew pictures Sullivan lived the fast life of a roaring twenties celebrity. Mrs. Marjorie Sullivan had been having an affair with her chauffeur. After a nasty scene when husband confronted wife and the chauffeur fled, Mrs. Sullivan mysteriously fell out of her window to her death. The scandal was front page news and Sullivan never got over it. He soon drank himself to death which during Prohibition was difficult to do. Sullivan's death and his failure to get Felix into sound cartoons doomed his studio. Otto Mesmer went on to animate the first Broadway light signs but did not receive any recognition for his contributions to animation until he was re-introduced to the public at a Bob Clampett night at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975. Kid animators Eric Goldberg and Tom Sito were in the audience.

1932- A minor bit of bookkeeping. Austrian born Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had to officially become a German citizen before he could run for President.

1943- Master animator Bill Tytla resigned from Disney.

1956- THE SECRET SPEECH-In Moscow at a closed session of the 20th Party Congress Premier Nikita Khruschev denounced the crimes of the mass-murderer Josef Stalin. The audience was stunned at such honesty. When someone shouted:" If he was so terrible, why did you say nothing?" Khruschev roared back: " WHO SAID THAT?................(silence)..........................that's why."

1956- Poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes met at a party in Cambridge England.

1957- Bugs Moran, the gangster who challenged Al Capone for mastery of the Chicago rackets, died in prison of lung cancer. The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre ruined Moran’s organization and he had slipped down to petty thievery when he was nabbed.

1957- Buddy Holly and the Crickets record "That'll Be the Day."

1964- Young Cassius Clay, later renamed Muhammed Ali, defeated Sonny Liston in 2:14 minutes into the 6th round for the heavyweight boxing crown. The odds were on Liston 8-1 but Clay said he would "Float like a Butterfly and Sting Like a Bee!"When asked to comment about his defeat, Sonny Liston concluded: "Life, a funny thing."

1971- Oh Calcutta, the first play with lots of actors shedding their clothes, premiered on Broadway at the Belasco.

1983- Famous playwright Tennessee Williams was found dead in a New York hotel room. He died when he choked on a nose spray bottle cap that fell into his mouth while he was using the spray. Others say it was a Pepsi bottle cap.

1986- President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines in the face of the People-Power revolution. Former movie star turned first lady Imelda Marcos left behind her amazing shoe collection. She felt that if the poor people saw her living in luxury it would make them feel better- (?)

1996- Dr Haing Ngor, the doctor who survived the Cambodian Killing Fields holocaust and won an Academy Award in a movie of the same name, was killed in a robbery attempt outside his Los Angeles home.

2004- Movie star uber-Catholic Mel Gibson’s movie the "The Passion of the Christ" opened in North America. The film was criticized for it’s perceived anti-Semitism, it was the first movie in which Jesus spoke his real language –Aramaic. An Arab friend who speaks Aramaic told me when he saw it, the most Anti-Semitic passages were not translated. The film was advertised more in churches than in the press. Pastors bought blocks of tickets for their congregations. The film earned nearly a billion dollars, most of the profit earned by Mel Gibson, who was the films sole investor.
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Question: What does the title of the film Persepolis mean?

Answer: Persepolis was the name of the capitol of the Ancient Persian Empire, seat of the Shah-en-Shah, The King of Kings. Persepolis was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 331BC, and in 1924 Persia changed it’s name to Iran.