Oscars 2024

I thought 2024 was a better year for movies in general than 2023 as the industry shook off Covid and put out some big movies. There are still headwinds from streaming and sporadic theater attendance, but they are getting there. Likewise, this was a pretty decent Oscars night as well. Jimmy Kimmell returned again and handled things well, with some good opening jokes and a few funny bits (a good one with John Cena re-enacting the Oscars streaker of the 1974 to present, ironically, the award for Best Costume). One good joke was about the addition of an award for casting coming next year, so that now not only do you have to watch an acceptance speech by the actor who beat you out for the job, but also the person who didn’t think you were good enough. I was glad there were no efforts to do a spontaneous interview with some of the stars in the audience, but they did do a couple of nice bits with the seated Steven Spielberg, Michael Keaton, and Robert Downey, Jr. Some of the presenters kept things short and sweet, which is always safe. Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling were funny trading Barbenheimer barbs, but some of the presenters really bombed. Do they have rehearsals? Some of that should be filtered out. To keep things moving they kept montages, tributes, and production numbers to a minimum, though they did present all of the songs. Although another Barbie song won the Oscar, Ryan Gosling hit it out of the park with his song about Ken. There was also a neat performance of a Native American song from Killers of the Flower Moon. The other songs were forgettable.

One annoying return was having past actor winners gush about the current nominees. They have been doing this for a few years and, while it is a nice idea for past winners to sort of confer blessings on the nominees, it is just, ick. It is so self-congratulatory (both for the former Oscar winner and the current nominee) and doesn’t even work that well most of the time (though the New York Times review said some of these were highlights of the broadcast). It is great when a legend can say something positive about a new star in a candid and supportive way, but this seems forced and just makes me cringe. Plus it is only for actors, so it also sends a message that the Oscars are all about the actors. I fast forwarded all of these. A minor item was that they asked winners to keep their speeches short by not naming publicists and agents, which I only know because one of the early winners said she wasn’t supposed to name them, but then did it anyway (as did most). Most of the winners did a good job of keeping their speeches short, but some just went on and on, which is just annoying. They are staring at a big clock and obliviously go past it. As I say ever year, just cut the mic. I liked that the Best Editing winner kept her speech on topic and brief, like a good editor. Honestly, I don’t mind as much from some of the big stars from movies I actually saw, but I still appreciate it when they wrap up quickly, like Cillian Murphy did. I don’t think the winners of a lot of the minor awards should even get to make speeches, but the winner of best short documentary actually did a very good job. I also think Robert Downey, Jr. did a great speech accepting his win for Best Supporting Actor.

This year there were three foreign movies up for Best Picture despite there being a separate category for foreign films. The only one I saw was Anatomy of a Fall which at least was partly in English. I don’t think it is fair to include those films in Best Picture given that most of the people voting can’t understand the language being spoken (making it hard, in my opinion, to gauge the acting performance or the writing). I like inclusion and representation, but there are a ton of movies and I think the Academy is kidding itself if it thinks it can accurately gauge the quality of every movie produced in the entire world and then say 70% of the best of the best are in English. Instead, don’t even try, but do keep the foreign language category because there are usually some gems there that deserve some recognition.

One thing they have been doing is they show a trailer for each of the movies nominated for Best Picture when they come back from a commercial. It is harmless enough and they seemed shorter this year, but with 10 movies, it is still kind of a lot. But then when they actually go to present the award, they didn’t even list the nominees first. Instead Al Pacino just said a few words spontaneously and then opened the envelope. It is anticlimatic that here is this big award and you don’t take 20 seconds to name the nominees (though I think it would be fine to just name the movies, not all of the producers, who are actually the ones who win the award).

The End of the Disney Movie Club

After the first time I signed up for the Disney Movie Club in 2016, I kept finishing my commitments and re-enrolling in the club. I enrolled a total of six times and built up a huge library of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars movies, mostly blu-rays. It was never a good deal for 4k movies. In total I got 77 titles for $546, an average of just over $7 each. Included in that total is the help I got from 9 people who signed up using my refer a friend code, giving me 2 free movies each time for which I only had to pay shipping, if that. Last October or so they got rid of the promotion codes that gave you the best deal and I cancelled membership number 6 after not ordering anything for almost two years. I was waiting to get enough titles that I wanted for a new enrollment of six movies, but I had most everything I needed and would try to get 4k copies of newer releases at Best Buy or Target when they went on sale instead of blu-rays through DMC. Today they announced the end of the club after 23 years (a big number for Disney). Existing members will have until May to get orders in and new memberships are no longer allowed.

It was also revealed that day that Disney would turn over production, marketing, and distribution of DVD’s and blu-rays to Sony while Disney would focus on digital purchases and streaming. It will be interesting to see how that plays out, but doubtful it will be anything that positive as the popularity of physical media continues to wane.

Windshield Wiper Blade Replacements

When I was a kid they sold windshield wiper refills at gas stations and it seems like they were pretty cheap. But once I actually had my own car, you had to replace the whole wiper. If you did a little shopping you could still get them for a somewhat reasonable price of maybe $3-$5 each (honestly the cheapest ones never seemed to last very long). I had Honda Civics and then the Mazda3 which both had a U bend at the end of the cars windshield arm and it was pretty easy attaching the new off-brand ones to that, though it bothered me to throw away most of the assembly. Now I have a 2020 Ford Escape. After 3 years, the blades weren’t working well anymore so I went to Walmart to get new ones and they were out of one size I needed, so I bought one and then a month or two later they had the other one in stock and I bought it, though I was a little nervous I was buying the same size I already had. Ultimately it didn’t matter because neither would attach to my car. Instead of a U, there was a pinch connector attachment that Ford uses and nobody sells for anything reasonable. If you go to the dealer, they want like $70 for a new pair of wipers, which is insane. You can look around and maybe find some for more like $50, which is still insane. To make it more complicated, Ford has attached aerodynamic vanes to the wipers which means you can buy wipers with the vanes pointing the wrong, unaerodynamic, direction if you aren’t careful (though it seems like all wipers go up and to the left; maybe in British countries they go the other way).

I looked around for wipers where you could just replace the rubber blade. I found one company that would sell you a new wiper and that wiper would take blade refills, but you still had to shell out a lot for their wipers the first time (and the replacements weren’t cheap). I wondered if you could get a mechanic to just replace the Ford arms with arms that had a more standard U end, but that seemed doubtful. Amazon has just the rubber blade part, but there are a lot of different sizes and cross-sectional shapes. The basic measurement is the width of the flat back end of the blade. I was able to pull the blade out of one of my wipers and measured 5 mm, which again doesn’t seem very standard, but I did find one company that sold 5 mm blade refills and the shape seemed like it might work. In the picture above, the new blade is on the left and the old one is on the right.

They arrived today and I installed them. The shape isn’t exactly the same, so they were harder to slide into the groove, but not too bad. I got two pairs for $13 (still too much for just 4 strips of rubber) and you cut them to length with scissors. If each pair lasts a year, then that will get me to 5 years, half the expected time I will have the car, and then maybe I can buy new wipers since they are definitely showing wear from the sun and use. I haven’t actually tested them in the rain yet, so we will see how that goes.

The Last Black Friday?

A few weeks ago Best Buy announced it would stop selling selling DVD’s and Blu-rays in 2024. They, as well as Walmart and Target, have been shrinking their media section for years, so it makes sense those other two may stop selling movies soon as well. I’ve been writing about Black Fridays for years and what movies I picked up, but this might be the last time that happens. Like last year, there aren’t really any ads anymore featuring all of the movies that will be on sale on Black Friday. And without those ads things are chaotic. Like in past years, Black Friday isn’t really one day so much as the whole month of November, though maybe not as spread out as during Covid when they were trying to keep crowds down.

Best Buy started things off with its first Black Friday sale on October 27-29, but only for paying members of Best Buy Plus or Total Tech. For “everyone else” the sale was to start October 30. They did have some good deals for members in that first round with a number of 4k blu-ray movies priced around $9.99. Plus I had saved up $40 worth of Best Buy rewards from points earned on my Best Buy credit card that would lower the price even further. But when the sale for everyone else came along on October 30, the deals were off. A few days later a couple of arty movies came out at only $6.99 on blu-ray (no 4k available) including The Menu, Banshees of Inisherin, and Empire of Light. I didn’t like Banshees, hadn’t seen Menu, and Light didn’t get good reviews, so I used a $5 certificate to get The Menu1 for $1.99. Those went out of stock fairly quickly, but kept coming back sporadically and Amazon would match the price while they were available.
Continue reading “The Last Black Friday?”

Aluminum Hose Fittings

A few years ago I bought a new hose that I could use with my new pressure washer. I don’t want anything expensive, but my old hose lasted a pretty long time and really the only thing wrong with it was the outlet end threads were worn down since I never screw anything onto the end (and I had replaced the gasket at the spigot end a few times, but it still leaks). I got the new hose at Walmart, something in the middle range, and not too long since those always seem to get tangled worse. I didn’t realize it, but the metal fittings on each end were not the usual brass, but aluminum with a coating to make them look like they are brass. I keep that hose hooked up to a spigot on the back patio so I can use it to clean off Buddy Baer’s feet when he get them caked in dirt digging holes (at least once a day).

As I was moving the hose to sweep underneath it the crappy aluminum gave way and tore halfway loose from where it attaches to the spigot. So now I needed either a new hose or a kit where you cut the end off and put a new one on. I found a set of 3 (so I could fix my other hose) at Amazon for $11, but I don’t get free shipping. I found something that looks very similar at eBay. These were both also aluminum. The brass ones tend to be a lot more expensive ($64 for 3 at Home Depot!). Some of the identical looking ones on eBay claimed to be brass and almost certainly were not. I went ahead and ordered a set of 3 from eBay, arriving next week.

I tried unscrewing the old hose, but it was on there pretty tight for some reason. After using pliers, a wrench, a pipe wrench, vise grip pliers, and finally applying some oil and a heat gun, I was able to get it off with a basin wrench. What had happened was the aluminum had corroded onto the brass of the spigot. These two are pretty distant on the cathode chart and actually make a decent battery. Why anyone would sell something that will definitely corrode to go on brass in a wet environment is beyond me. Maybe new houses have plastic spigots? It is like when they used to use galvanized pipes for water lines instead of copper and they would corrode on the inside until the water couldn’t run through them anymore.

I tried to cancel my order for the aluminum repair kits, but it was too late. I found some at Amazon that seem to be confirmed brass by a few users, but will wait. The other thing I thought I could do is attach a plastic quick release attachment in between the hose and spigot. This would keep the two dissimilar metals out of contact, but the plastic ones aren’t that cheap and will probably last about as long as it takes for aluminum to corrode. Once I get something else to order so I can get free shipping I will just order the brass repair kit from Amazon and in the meantime will use the aluminum ones from eBay.