I’m sorry, but I am going to have to hike up my crotchity old man pants and whip my suspenders; it’s time to do a little ranting about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Recently, outgoing President Sid Ganis announced that next years Oscar ceremony will feature 10 Best Picture nominations instead of 5. This unprecedented (at least in 60 years) announcement was followed by a few lesser publicized changes. The rules for Best Original Song are now such that there may not even be an award every year and supplemental awards, such as the Thalberg or the Honorary Oscar, will be distributed at a separate event. It is great to see AMPAS blow the dust off of the arcane rule book they have been following for nearly a century, but other changes are needed. Like what, you may ask? Good thing you came to the candler blog.

Axe the Best Animated Feature Category, and Fast

Part of the thinking behind expanding the Best Pic pool is to give films that rarely make it into the running a fighting chance. Comedies, summer blockbusters and animated features are rarely nominated, but only one of those genres has been pushed out of the running completely. Instituted in 2001, with the first award going to Shrek, the Best Animated Feature award was meant to get gold into the hands of animated filmmakers whose work accounts for an incredible amount of box office grosses yet is rarely honored at the annual ceremony. Instead, it has pigeonholed all animated films into one giant lump that is out of the running of the Academy’s top honor.

Over the last decade, Hollywood and audiences have taken note of animation auteurs. So many people are required to make an animated film, the makers often get lost in the shuffle. However, Brad Bird has now become a marketable name, as have Andrew Stanton and John Lasseter. (These are all Pixar guys, I know, but hey, they’re the major studio) As films become more closely linked to specific names, they start to feel more like works of art rather than DVDs to keep the kids happy in the back seat. With a bigger Best Pic pool, there is no longer a need to push animators into a corner with this useless, offensive award. Read on…

While I gear up to give you up to the minute coverage from Oklahoma City, I figured I would let you in on a little known feature of the candler blog. When you are out and about, you may find yourself in need of a little pop culture deconstruction with nary a laptop in sight. No fear, just pull out the ol’ cell phone and point to http://m.candlerblog.com and our full canon will come up. There is also a “secret” link at the bottom left hand corner of the site.

The demo still here is from an iPhone, but this should work on pretty much anything with a browser. Let us know in the comments if there are any problems. What’s that? You’d rather just check us in a feed reader? We’ve got you covered yet again. We’ve got RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds at your disposal. If that’s not enough, just ask and we’ll find a way to get you what you need.

Last week, Google announced an upcoming product called Wave which the tech giant refers to as “what e-mail would look like if it were invented today”. By that they mean a communications system with all of the acquired knowledge of the 21^st century without the hangups of the 20^th. For detailed info you should really check out the official Google Wave site, but I’ll try to keep the pre-required knowledge to a minimum here.

This isn’t a tech site, it’s a film site. So what on earth does this have to do with cinema? Google is inventing this to revolutionize communication and productivity which has essentially been stagnant for decades if not longer. E-mail, as one example, is sent back and forth between one or more people just as the letter or the memorandum was before before it. Wave basically breaks that wide open, offering contextual live editing of a single communiqué. Now, while this can certainly help in producing a film just like it could help any general office task, the overall Wave concepts could be applied on a grander scale for filmmakers. Read on…

The folks at Pixar are an eclectic group. Over the years they have moved on from their roles as technological pioneers to animation revolutionaries of sorts, trying to boldly bring the form back into maturity after it has long been relegated to the stuff of Saturday morning television. It is no surprise then that Up does everything in its power to subvert our preconceived notions of the animated film. The main character is neither young nor cuddly, the themes are complex and layered, and death is a very real possibility in the world of the film. Still, this is a Disney film so it hits most of the marketable requirements.

Up is the story of Carl Fredrickson, and elderly widower who decides to float his house to South America, fulfilling a wish he and his late wife have shared since childhood. After takeoff, a young boy scout named Russell is discovered as a stowaway and becomes Carl’s unwanted sidekick. The team makes it to their destination, running into some new friends: Kevin, a giant bird with a knack for trickery, and Doug, a cheerful dog equipped with a collar that allows him to speak. These new visitors set up a mad-cap adventure for the two city-dwellers, and we are invited along for the ride. Read on…

So some joker created a hashtag today that jumped to the top of twitter trends and caught my attention: #filmfoodeating. The game seems to just be to incorporate food into movie titles. Well, of course I latched on and haven’t let go. Here is a compendium of my contributions. And please, do a search over at twitter to get in on the fun.

• @repressd Whoops! Good job! Too many to read, great minds think alike.. Chew on this: Bedtime for Garbonzo #filmfoodeating NOW I’M DONE!
• My final #filmfoodeating Spider-Flan, Grouperman, Cat on a Pot Pie Roof, Beauty and the Feast, Cracker, Gumbo, Free Chili, Meat Streets
• Oklahomefries! #filmfoodeating that one’s for you @deadcenter
• Canard Boiled #filmfoodeating addendum to John Woo Edition
• Lard Target, A Feta Tomorrow, Face Froth #filmfoodeating John Woo Edition
• Purple Chrain #filmfoodeating @kashrutnews @Jewishtweets I know you’ll get this.
• Spinal Frappé, Henry Portrait of a Cereal Killer, Boureka (baraka), Black Nar-tzimis, Gentlemen’s A-quiche-ment #filmfoodeating
• Passion of the Slice, Greatest Story Jello Mold #filmfoodeating Jesus Edition
• Fiddler on the Stew, The Cholent (the chosen), Lentil #filmfoodeating Jewish Edition
• Husbands and Chives, Shadows and Nog, Brine and Misdemeanors, Bananas #filmfoodeating Woody Allen Edition
• Wages of Pear, Á Bout de Soufflé, Elevator to the Shallots, The Seventh Veal #filmfoodeating @CRITERION Edition
• Last Bite at McCool’s, Lawrence of Arrabiata, Cakes on a Plane, The Graviator, Meringues of New York, I Am Ham #filmfoodeating
• While You Were Eating, Juarassic Tarte #filmfoodeating contributed by my twitterless girlfriend
• Leaving Lox Vegas #filmfoodeating this one is sort of a repeat, but I couldn’t resist.
• Guacstoppers, Blue Chips , Leaving Manchego, Vicky Tortilla Barcelona #filmfoodeating
• You’ve Got Kale #filmfoodeating
• Detroit Guac City #filmfoodeating that ones for you @NachosNY
• Bakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo #filmfoodeating
• Gourd of the Rings #filmfoodeating
• I don’t know why this is trending, but I love it #filmfoodeating Schindler’s Grits

Comparrison of Real vs. Fake IMAX Screens

Funnyman Aziz Ansari, currently gaining some traction through his role as Tom Haverford on NBC’s Parks and Recreation, went on a little bit of a rampage yesterday about IMAX technology after seeing Star Trek on a sub-par screen that was billed as The IMAX Experience. His language is a bit colorful on the matter, but you should definitely check it out over at his site, Aziz is Bored.

The short of it is that we are in the very early years of IMAX as a feature length distribution method, and there are bound to be some hiccups along the way. Once the centerpiece of many a science museum, the massive screens and 65mm projectors have since been adapted for longer spools of film and thus year-round mainstream use. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some faltering along the way. Worse, I know for a fact that most viewers won’t care either way.

I plan to do some research on the subject shortly, but in the meantime you can check out Aziz’s update on his blog in which he challenges the CEO of IMAX, Richard Gelfond, to a debate. I do hope that happens, as we at the candler blog believe that distribution methods should be discussed openly. For a list of IMAX theaters and specific details near you, check out this list over at Large Format Examiner.

Today, the candler blog is proud to introduce a new column, Candle Whacks. The purpose of these essays will be to entertain as well as gain a little perspective on current views of media. We hope you enjoy this first installment and would love to hear any ideas you may have future Candle Whacks. Guest contributors are always welcome, just pitch an idea.

Beastie Boys. Beatles. Beck. Ben Folds. Björk. Blur. Bob Dylan. Bob Marley.

Artists whose name begins with the letter “B” represent nearly a quarter of the music loaded on my iPod, which holds a mere sixteen gigabytes of music as it is stuffed inside of my telephone. If Robert Leland’s Cryptographical Mathematics is to be trusted, B is merely the 19^th most popular letter in the English language. While the king of them all, appearing in over 12% of all words, “E”, takes up less than 3% of my trusted music player. Second place “T” is even less, just 19 songs. Even the popular “R” is only about a tenth of my mobile collection.

There is no science to this whatsoever. Letter frequency is measured across words, not just the first letter of names. Still, are my tastes actually geared specifically to the letter B? Am I attracted to its curves; the way it takes two sensuous strokes to form the left-most vertical line and its intersecting bulbs? Perhaps, but I neither speak nor write in a particularly “B” heavy manner. “ Bravo, bitches. Best bargain bins in Binghamton.” I might say. “ Ban burger barns and bawdy balers in the bible belt.” I might protest.

Not so.

The answer is much less interesting then any leftist lexical leaning or lustful letter love interest. I’m just lazy. As the owner of a sensible 45 gigabytes of digital music (B represents 16% of my total library) I have been forced to pare down my collection in order to fit them onto my iPhone. Read on…