Prediction: Inglorious Basterds is Gonna Clean Up Come Oscar Time

Last night Ronnie, Norman, Mito and I saw Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds at The Guild.

No doubt the best and most entertaining movie I’ve seen in a long while. I liked The Reader slightly more, but this it’s a toss up.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that this puppy cleans house come Oscar time.

Christoph Waltz will get nominated for Best Supporting Actor — even though, if you were judging by screen time, he’s probably more in the “actor” than “supporting actor” category. That seems to be the consensus among early reviewers.

Brad Pitt will get nominated for Best Actor — even though he was arguably the supporting actor here. This prediction is mine — I haven’t seen anyone else call it. The Academy is aching to give Mr. Brangelina some hardware, and this just might be its chance.

Quentin Tarantino for Best Director — a given.

In fact, I’m going to go out even further on a limb — Inglorious Basterds and District 9 both get Best Picture nods.

You read it here first. (Okay, maybe you didn’t, but watch for it.)

How Many People Does the UW Need to Screw in a Lightbulb?

I can no longer blame Keith Gilbertson, Rick Neuheisel or Ty Willingham for what has happened to once-proud Husky football. The latest news suggests that the program must be so tied up in bureaucratic red tape that winning football games is secondary. The news I refer to is that University President Mark Emmert just announced a 13-person “advisory committee” to, according to The Seattle Times, “help define the desired qualities and characteristics for the next coach.”

According to The Everett Herald’s John Boyle, “this committee won’t be involved in recommending candidates, or commenting on candidates (UW Athletic Director Scott) Woodward and university president Mark Emmert come up with.” Instead — and I am not making this up — the 13-person committee will “make suggestions on a more general level about what they’re looking for in a coach” — in Woodward’s words, “it’s an advisory committee to give us the qualities and the criteria they want for a head football coach . . . They’re not selecting candidates, they’re not vetting candidate, they’re not suggesting candidates. They are just vetting the quality of candidate they want and the quality of coach that they want and the values that the coach has as related to the University of Washington.” According to Examiner.com, the committee includes: Ana Mari Cauce, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Ed Taylor, dean for undergraduate academic affairs; Professor Robert Stacey, representing the Advisory Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics; Professor David Lovell, chair of the Faculty Senate; Randy Hodgins, interim vice president for external affairs; Joanne Bowers, head women’s gymnastics coach; Anttimo Bennett, president of the Associated Students of the University of Washington; Jake Locker, student athlete; Andre Riley, representing the Big “W” Club; community members Don Barnard and Bob Flowers from the Tyee Board, and Eddie Pasatiempo, representing the UW Alumni Association.

UW quarterback Jake Locker, a college sophomore, is the only member of the recently-announced 13-member football coach advisory committee with an actual football background.

I won’t wax on here about the needless waste of taxpayer dollars on a “committee” such as this. I can only imagine how many members will be on the actual search committee. Suffice it to say, however, that there won’t be too many Grade A candidates eager to rebuild an utterly decimated program. There should be even fewer candidates who would want to work for a university whose leadership needs thirteen people, including, inter alia, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the chair of the Faculty Senate, to tell it what it wants in a football coach. What such bureaucrats know about winning college football programs is beyond me. What isn’t beyond me is that working for a university whose leadership needs thirteen people to tell it what it wants in a football coach has the makings of career suicide.

The end result will inevitably be a Grade B or Grade C football coach, no better than the one we have now. We may win a game here or there, but a return to prominence? No time soon.