With a weekend visit from my dad and my total inability, it would seem, to get anything typed, there has been a big lag on the blog lately. We took a trip out to Purgatory Chasm while he was here, which is where the pictures are from. So, here is a bit of a family update to keep everything going while I try to finish my piece on the next book (Midnight’s Children), the next film year (1983) and the next For Love of Books (Disney). It would appear that we haven’t done a family update since Christmas so this is long overdue.
March 2011
31 March, 2011
Yet Another Family Update
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Erik, Family, Thomas, Veronica | Tags: Family, Thomas |Leave a Comment
24 March, 2011
The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1982
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Academy Awards, Erik, film, lists | Tags: 1982, academy awards, film, lists, sidney lumet, spielberg |[8] Comments
The 55th annual Academy Awards, for the film year 1982. The nominations were announced on February 17, 1983 and the awards were held on April 11, 1983.
Best Picture: Gandhi
- The Verdict
- Tootsie
- Missing
- E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial
Most Surprising Omission: Das Boot
Best Eligible Film Not Nominated: Sophie’s Choice
Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years: #22 (more…)
22 March, 2011
The Year in Film: 1982
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Academy Awards, Erik, film, lists | Tags: 1982, academy awards, film, lists, spielberg, star trek, year in film |[9] Comments

the mysterious Sophie and the men who love her - Peter MacNichol, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline in Sophie's Choice (1982)
My Top 20:
- Sophie’s Choice
- The Verdict
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- Das Boot
- Tootsie
- Missing
- E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial
- The Long Good Friday
- Diner
- Fitzcarraldo
- Blade Runner
- Poltergeist
- Pink Floyd: The Wall
- My Favorite Year
- Fast Times at Ridgemont High
- Shoot the Moon
- Three Brothers
- Mephisto
- Gandhi
- Coup de Torchon (more…)
18 March, 2011
Top 100 Novels #48: The Things They Carried
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Erik, lists, literature | Tags: lists, literature, top 100 |Leave a Comment

the cover from the first paperback edition of Tim O'Brien's haunting meditation on Vietnam: The Things They Carried (1990)
- Author: Tim O’Brien (b. 1946)
- Rank: #48
- Published: 1990
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
- Pages: 273
- First Line: “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.”
- Last Line: “I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.”
- ML Edition: none
- Film Version: 1998 TV film (A Soldier’s Sweetheart)
- Awards: Pulitzer Prize Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Finalist
- First Read: March, 1994 (more…)
14 March, 2011
The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1981
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Academy Awards, Erik, film, lists | Tags: 1981, academy awards, film, lists, spielberg, year in film |[7] Comments

the courtyard race in Chariots of Fire (1981); yes, there are scenes in the film other than the opening run along the beach
The 54th Academy Awards, for the film year 1981. The nominations were announced on 11 February, 1982 and the awards were held on 29 March, 1982.
Best Picture: Chariots of Fire
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Reds
- Atlantic City
- On Golden Pond
Most Surprising Omission: Ragtime
Best Eligible Film Not Nominated: Gallipoli
Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years: #28
13 March, 2011
The Year in Film: 1981
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Academy Awards, Erik, film, lists | Tags: 1981, academy awards, film, golden globes, spielberg, year in film |[11] Comments
My Top 20:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Gallipoli
- Reds
- Atlantic City
- Excalibur
- The French Lieutenant’s Woman
- Ragtime
- Body Heat
- Superman II
- Pixote
- The Boat is Full
- Man of Iron
- Absence of Malice
- Buddy Buddy
- The Fox and the Hound
- Chariots of Fire
- My Dinner with Andre
- Four Seasons
- Zoot Suit
- Pennies from Heaven (more…)
9 March, 2011
For Love of Books: Michael Chabon
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Erik, lists, literature | Tags: for love of books, lists, literature, michael chabon |1 Comment

me, several co-workers, a very tired Thomas and Michael Chabon at the signing for The Yiddish Policeman's Union
“No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.” (The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, p. 297)
He isn’t just the writer of two of my favorite books. He is the author of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that I rank as the second best novel so far this century. He is an accomplished author of literary fiction who has nonetheless veered off into genre after being established. He is the only Pulitzer winner for Fiction to win either the Hugo or the Nebula for Best Novel and he won both for the same book. He has allowed comic books and pulp fiction to influence and inform his work and remembered that many of the best short stories of last century were genre stories. He has branched out and proven he can also write essays, comic books and even films. He is Michael Chabon. (more…)
7 March, 2011
Top 100 Novels #49: Wonder Boys
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Erik, film, lists, literature | Tags: film, lists, literature, michael chabon, top 100 |[2] Comments
- Author: Michael Chabon (b. 1963)
- Rank: #49
- Published: 1995
- Publisher: Villard Books
- Pages: 368
- First Line: “The first real writer I ever knew was a man who did all of his work under the name of August Van Zorn.”
- Last Line: “The young men listen dutifully, for the most part, and from time to time some of them even take the trouble to go over to the college library, and dig up one or another of his novels, and crouch there, among the stacks, flipping impatiently through the pages, looking for the parts that sound true.”
- ML Edition: none
- Film Version: 2000 (**** – dir. Curtis Hanson)
- First Read: January, 2000 (more…)
5 March, 2011
The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1980
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Academy Awards, Erik, film, lists | Tags: 1980, academy awards, film, lists, polanski, scorsese, year in film |[8] Comments

Ordinary People: The film and Timothy Hutton won Oscars in 1980 over Raging Bull and Joe Pesci when they shouldn't have. Mary Tyler Moore should have but lost to Sissy Spacek.
The 53rd Academy Awards for the film year 1980. The nominations were announced on February 17, 1981 and the awards were held on March 31, 1981.
Best Picture: Ordinary People
- Raging Bull
- The Elephant Man
- Tess
- Coal Miner’s Daughter
Most Surprising Omission: The Stunt Man
Best Eligible Film Not Nominated: Breaker Morant
Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years: #10 (more…)
4 March, 2011
The Year in Film: 1980
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Academy Awards, Erik, film, lists | Tags: 1980, academy awards, film, golden globes, kurosawa, lists, scorsese, star wars, truffaut, woody allen, year in film |[3] Comments
My Top 20:
- Raging Bull
- Breaker Morant
- The Elephant Man
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
- Ordinary People
- The Shining
- Kagemusha
- Tess
- Stardust Memories
- Airplane!
- The Stunt Man
- My Brilliant Career
- Melvin and Howard
- The Last Metro
- No Regrets for Our Youth
- Return of the Secaucus Seven
- Mon Oncle D’Amerique
- Vengeance is Mine
- The Master and Margaret
- Christ Stopped at Eboli (more…)