The Oscar nominations are out and, of course, Sean Penn got a Best Actor nod for Milk. I haven’t seen the movie–maybe it’s great–but I did get a funny email over the weekend from Galley Brother B.J., who exited the theater wondering whether or not Harvey Milk was mentally handicapped. I assured him that the real Milk was not.

His reply:

So why does Penn have his Magic Retard Face^TM on the whole movie? Was he just trying to stack the deck for the Academy, worried that playing gay and martyred wasn’t enough?

Maybe. Sean Penn seems to get a lot more credit than he deserves as an actor. How many good performances has he given over the last decade? But sadly, his brother Michael Penn seems to get almost no credit at all for being one of the better singer/songwriters of his generation.

I’ll grant that Penn’s stuff (Michael, I mean) isn’t designed to be hugely commercial. But, to my ears it’s incredibly catchy and smart; pop music for people who read. And I’d argue that what he does–finding new and clever and beautiful ways of saying things which have been said millions of times–is harder than putting on a Magic Retard Face^TM by an order of magnitude.

But to restore your faith in the Academy, how great is it that Melissa Leo got a nomination? She’s a total stud.

I noted elsewhere Venus Williams’s refreshingly non-worshipful shrug at the Australian Open when asked by reporters about the magnificence of President Obama. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth following the link and reading the exchange just for the sheer novelty of seeing a celebrity say that they don’t really know anything about politics and aren’t too excited by it. Sample awesome:

Q. Politics aside, does it inspire you with the inauguration and with president?elect Barack Obama?

VENUS WILLIAMS: Can you be more specific, please?

Twenty-four hours later, Venus was bounced in three by the unseeded Carla Suarez Navarro. Punishment for her deviationist views?

Even the Australian Open broadcast won’t stop talking about the Obama inauguration, in the most reflexively slobbering tones imaginable.

It’s all kind of confusing: 46 percent of the country voted against Obama. You would think that people in business might want to avoid potentially antagonizing such a big chunk of consumers.

Apparently not.

A few thoughts:

* Objectively speaking, these Cardinals are surely the worst Super Bowl team in the modern era, no? Who are the other contenders? The Stan Humphries-led Chargers? The ’86 Pats? The Grossman Bears? At least those teams had impressive regular season records padded from being in a weak conference. This Arizona team doesn’t even have that.

And for the record, if the Eagles had won, I think they would have been the worst Super Bowl team ever.

* Did you like that pass interference no-call on the final drive? Kind of beyond comprehension. I choose to blame George W. Bush. It seems incontrovertible that President Bush is the one who picked up the red phone and told The Commish that the Eagles’ 4th quarter drive better not end in anything crazy.

Look, you can say what you want about Bush, but on his watch, he did what he had to do to keep America safe. And you and I both know that the consequences of a World Series/Super Bowl double for Philly would have been terrifying.

* Where does this rank in the Pantheon of Philly losses? I’d say it’s up there. Way up there. The only loss I can think of that comes close is the NFC championship choke against Tampa Bay.

That Tampa Bay loss was hideous. First, it was against Tampa Bay, an expansion franchise which had been hapless for it’s entire existence. Second, Philly was home, and favored. And finally, Tampa had some ridiculous streak–something like 0-54–in games where the temperature was below freezing. That streak ended in Philly.

On the other hand, Tampa actually won the Super Bowl. Arizona is going to get crushed.

* On the bright side, only 111 seasons of Philly sports left until our next championship. Rock on.

Updated Final Thought: How many QB’s have taken two different teams to a Super Bowl? How many have won with two different teams? I’m not a football stat-head, but those must be very short lists. So you would think that between this accomplishment and his insane career numbers that Kurt Warner would be regarded as one of the great quarterbacks of all-time–at least in the top 20.

Yet he was buried on the depth chart under Matt Leinart after being kicked to the curb for Marc Bolger. Neither of whom, I’m guessing, will make the Hall of Fame.

Which just goes to show that true meritocracy doesn’t really exist anywhere, even in the NFL, which is about as much of a pure capitalist, results-oriented marketplace there is. Situations matter. Personalities matter. Non-talent, non-results-based decisions get made all the time because the people charged with making the decisions have other agendas.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN8CIDiKnos&hl=en&fs=1]

KSK:

I was at a game at an interleague game at Camden Yards in the spring of 2004 (this being still when the Or-ee-oos were the closest available MLB team to me) during the brief period when the Ravens were trying to orchestrate a trade for Terrell Owens which he nixed in favor of going to Philly (even T.O. isn’t dumb enough to want to play for the Ravens). The game was between the Giants and the Orioles, yet an entire section of Eagles fans had gotten tickets for the express purpose of chanting “WE GOT T.O.! WE GOT T.O.!”

Yes, at a game between the San Francisco Giants and the Baltimore Orioles, a group of Eagles fans had bought up an entire section at a baseball game and driven in just to taunt people from Baltimore about a football transaction that had taken place in the off-season. And this wasn’t a quick little chant. It went on FOR FOUR FULL FUCKING INNINGS! And nobody tried to stop them, save shooting them the occasional ugly look.

It’s funny on so very many levels.

“Extensive reshoots for WOLVERINE… Is Fox financing it with some new glowy blue money?”

I confess to being somewhat worried that BSG has placed so much store on the reveal of the final Cylon. To my mind, the most crucial questions of the series–by which I mean, the questions that, if answered in a satisfying way, would make the series a final success–were:

(1) Where do the humans go?

(2) What was the original Cylon plan?

(3) Is there a reconciling between human and Cylon cultures?

(4) Whose theistic views are correct? The pagan humans or the monotheistic Cylons?

I’ve always thought that if Ron Moore et al could answer those questions is a satisfying way, then the series would have an enormously successful conclusion. Instead, we seem to have reached a place where series turns on a twist reveal, like an M. Knight Shyamalamalaman movie. Narratively speaking, I think that’s dangerous ground on which to make your final stand.

All of that said, I’m not as down in the mouth as Gregg Easterbrook, who says that nothing about the Cylons makes any sense.

Instead, I’d posit that everything about the Cylons makes sense, if and only if the Cylons are right about there being one god. If the Cylons are right, then we can view the series as grounded in a sort of Old Testament ethos–a universe where there are prophets and visions and the hand of god actively moves among the earthly. If that’s what’s going on, then we can explain and believe the Starbuck’s visions, Leoben’s prophecies, etc.

Also, if I were a betting man, my guess would be that Adama is the final Cylon. He’s the only character who makes sense narratively, logically, and theistically.