I saw another Oscar contender yesterday, "The Kids Are All Right". Annette Bening with a Best Actress nom, Mark Ruffalo for Best Supporting Actor, along with the movie itself for Best Picture.

Better than I thought, as Annette Bening and Julianne Moore (doing a Diane Keaton impersonation) play a lesbian couple. Each of them having a baby from sperm donor Mark Ruffalo's donation. The kids are now an 18-year old daughter (with Bening) and a 15-year old son (with Moore) who want to find out who their biological father is. The movie never explains why they went back with the Ruffalo model for their second child, but I assume they liked the way the daughter turned out.

Ruffalo plays a college dropout who now owns a restaurant and uses the products from an organic farm, down the road a piece, which he also owns. He starts to creep into the kids lives and finds himself having a lot in common with Moore. Bening senses she is falling out of favor with her all of her family, hence, her angst.

Ruffalo eventually hires Moore to do landscaping at his house. Because she's there all the time, they eventually have lots of sex, although I thought she was a lesbian. It is very mindful of the "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine tries to get a gay guy to switch teams, but he decides to stay on his own team, because he's a starting shortstop. Julianne Moore is like that in this movie.

Bening finds out that Moore and Ruffalo are having sex and the shit hits the fan. Everyone ends up disliking Ruffalo and Bening and Moore decide to stay together, with approval from the kids.

Overall, the movie is OK. The casting of the kids is spot on, and Bening and Ruffalo do a nice job, as well. How it got to Best Picture status, I do not know. Maybe someone needs to start Oscar Bracketology.

Meal of Links

Dave Duerson committed suicide late last week. He though he might have chronic traumatic encephalopathy and requested his brain be studied. He may be the first to realize he had the disease before his death.

Are we starting to see a second dotcom bubble. Signs point to yes.

Roger Deakins will probably end his jinx and pick up the Cinematography Oscar this year for "True Grit". He explains his shot of the year.

Exercise Yard

The unlikeliest driver, Trevor Bayne, wins the Daytona 500. And he gets the historic Wood Brothers team back in Victory Lane for the first time in 10 years. They had not been there since Elliott Sadler stole the spring Bristol race in 2001.

Earlier in the day, NASCAR blinked. With Lord Football moving closer, it seems, to an 18-game schedule, NASCAR moves the Daytona 500 one week later for 2012.

Visitor

None, on a sunny, snowy, rainy, sleety Sunday.