Growing up in L.A., sometimes you share a more personal connection with notable actors that you almost forget and then, at odd times, you remember them. For example, I just remembered that Henry Gibson used the same West L.A. veteranarian as my family did growing up. Also, the “dead” child from his great “Fund for the Dead” bit from Kentucky Fried Movie was an acquaintance of mine at Venice High.

Anyhow, I really am sorry that he passed on relatively young at age 73 — and in a week with so many passings he might not get his full due. Nevertheless, I’ve got a more detailed remembrance of the great Mr. Gibson up over at Premium Hollywood, including the few online clips I could find.

Andrew Breitbart, whose site, Big Hollywood, I refuse to link to here on the grounds of something surpassing the highest levels of stupid known to man, fesses up in the page of the ultra-right Moonie The Washington Times, which is nevertheless generally the font of all wisdom when compared to the usual material the Breitbart gang produces. Anyhow, the title says it all, though it can be accused of massive understatement, but do read all the way to the end. You won’t be sorry.

And also, I’d like to take a moment to commend you all to the new Big Hollywood watchdog site: Andrew Breitbart: Mall Cop, it’s a unpleasant job of irritainment they’ve set out for themselves, as you’ll see below.

I kinda think Slumdog Millionaire will win stuff.

I’m also kind of rooting for Dustin Lance Black to win best original screenplay for Milk. He did an excellent job — but then so also did Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, et al, and Courtney Hunt of Frozen River, my review of which is right below this post. But I’ve never interviewed those people. (I’m ashamed to say I missed both In Bruges and Happy Go-Lucky, though Mike Leigh doesn’t really write screenplays in the usual sense, enlisting his actors as very active scripting collaborators.)

For those of you wanting some actual bloggy prognostication, Edward Copeland and his cohorts have some thoughts, while the ever-energetic Dennis Cozzalio has taken some time from his cupcake making duties to oblige us on his Oscar pool picks. And Keith of The House Next Door fame encourages you to register your reactions on both the Oscars and the brand of hot dog. (Worst….dog…ever, IMO.)

And Greencine will be be live blogging, so there’s that.

Me? I’ll be watching for sure, and, sensitive soul that I am, hoping nothing like this happens….

Two great Christmas songs from two great Jews. Yes, we’re not supposed to celebrate Christmas. We’re also not supposed to eat shrimp with lobster sauce. And, yet….

Whatever you’re doing, being merry isn’t a bad way to be.

Too quiet.

I’ll return shortly.

But, boy, I wish I could make a living writing pithy one or two lines (or sometimes one or two word) posts like Atrios does. Nice work if you can get it (and do it).

I’ve been too absorbed with the election lately to pay as much attention as I should to the extraordinary community of film bloggers that I only slowly grew to learn about months after I first started this blog in February of 2006, but I do want to draw your attention to a piece by Matt Zoeller Seitz at The House Next Door, the crucial site he created before retiring from print journalism to pursue filmmaking full time earlier this year.

It’s a piece about critic and frequent House contributor Andrew Johnston, who I knew only as the site’s perceptive “Mad Men” blogger but who was actually an important figure in the New York film scene.  (I hadn’t even been reading the “Mad Men” pieces for Season II because I, coincidentally, only got around to watching Season II over the last two or three days).

Anyhow, Johnston died last week at the age of forty after years of living with cancer. It’s also a first for me learning about an enormous tragedy in in Matt’s life back in 2006, just a couple of months after I started posting. I can’t call myself a regular part of the “House” community, but the overall menschiness that permeates that place — and the overall pleasantness of the few dealings I have had, via e-mail and comments, with both Matt and his successor, Keith Uhlich, makes me feel compelled to say something. 

I guess the Supreme Court is just fine with the execution of an innocent man, and the State of Georgia can’t wait to knock him off either, a sacrifice on the alter of hatred and blind legalism.

So, how are we NOT a banana republic? I know innocent people die every day, but the fact that our lust for blood vengeance against criminals has resulted in a system where a man can be executed even when the entire case against him has crumbled into dust is beyond sickening. Literally no one is safe, especially if you’re poor or are the member of the wrong ethnic group in the wrong place.

This should be a front page story on every newspaper and the talk of the cable shows. Instead, it’s a back page story. That’s pretty sickening as well.

Here’s what Amnesty International says you can do…(I couldn’t find this on their website, so I’m copying part of the text of their letter here.)

• Write a letter to the editor calling on Georgia to stop the execution of Troy Davis!
• Call on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its previous decision and grant clemency to Troy Davis.
• Urge your friends and family to go to amnestyusa.org/troydavis or text TROY to 90999 to add their voices to the over 200,000 that have already taken action on this case

You can read more about the case here.

Okay, so saying “Happy Rosh Hashanah” isn’t all that apt for this traditionally introspective holiday. But, you see, there’s Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and my personal wing of Judaism, Sammy Davis, Jr.

Consider celebrating.

I don’t often do this, but I’m linking to an Amnesty International site regarding the case of Troy Davis, a man who is scheduled to be executed on September 23 and who was just denied clemency in Georgia. According to the New York Times, the case against Mr. Davis, who was convicted of killing an off-duty police officer who responded to a fight, is based almost entirely on the testimony of witnesses (never the best form of evidence) without any physical evidence.  Seven of the witnesses have since recanted their testimony, saying they were intimidated into lying by corrupt police.

This is well beyond “reasonable doubt.” This is executing a man with no case against him because of legal technicalities. If they can execute this man, who can’t they execute? I am personally opposed to the death penalty for a number of reasons, but I am deeply horrified by the prospect of our nation executing a man it knows is likely innocent. I cannot tell you how angry this makes me, and I hope it makes you angry as well. If so, please go to Amnesty’s site and do something.