TOO BIG AND TOO LITTLE: Wanted to talk a little bit about two Best Picture nominees and how their problems are mirror images of each other.  The first is Life of Pi, which I saw tonight (had wanted to see Zero Dark Thirty, but the showtime I wanted was sold out even though I got there an hour early).  Without spoiling anything, it's safe to say that well over half of the movie takes place on a lifeboat with one human character, and is ultimately a pretty small story.  That's not inherently a bad thing--indeed, Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks did pretty well with a similarly constrained storytelling tool for Cast Away.  However, what Lee (partially in a desire to be faithful to the source material) tries to do is make this story have gigantic cosmological implications, with massive CGI fantasy sequences.  He's not exactly helped along by Suraj Sharma, the unknown playing Pi, who isn't really a commanding screen presence.  A lot of the imagery in the film is gorgeous (and having seen it in 3D, I can see why several critics said to see it that way), but it left me feeling like it tried too hard.

On the other hand, there's Les Mis.  Les Mis is a pretty damn epic story, spanning almost 20 years of major French historical events, massive casualties, sweeping love stories, and the like.  However, for the vast majority of the film, the decision's been made to present things in a series of close-ups rather than a broader, more epic standpoint.  I'll be the first to admit that there are times this approach pays dividends--Anne Hathaway is going to win an Oscar off a rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream" that was only possible through the decision to focus in on Fantine's personal pain in that moment rather than the more epic scope that song has traditionally been given.  However, moments that should have more sweep--"One Day More" and "Red and Black" in particular--wind up becoming so intimate that we don't get the broader importance.  Admittedly, the choice to hold back on something sweeping until the finale does help give the finale a little more punch, but I wonder if the film would have been stronger with more evenness in scope and emotion.

FWIW, my current best picture rankings are probably Argo>Lincoln>Silver Linings Playbook>Les Mis>Life of Pi, with 4 left to see (Zero Dark Thirty will definitely be seen, Django and Beasts of the Southern Wild probably will be, but I'm not sure I can manage Amour)--though I'd go Day-Lewis/Lawrence/Arkin/Hathaway on the acting ballot as of now.

THE ADMINISTRATION DOES NOT SUPPORT BLOWING UP PLANETS:  The White House has responded to the citizen petition asking the administration to begin the construction of a Death Star by 2016. In part: "Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"

related: was the destruction of the first Death Star an inside job?; what's up with the trash compactor?; Ewok Holocaust.

BOLD AND BALLSY AND FEARLESS: From Chicago to NYC, from stage to little screen to big screen to little screen, Vulture documents the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler friendship in text, image, and video. Golden Globes are Sunday, and even though the awards themselves are meaningless, I expect I'll be watching just for the hosts.

I'M KNOWN FOR BEING BAD AT CHALLENGES, NOT GOOD AT CAMP LIFE, AND, YOU KNOW, A TRAITOR, AND POSSIBLY EVEN ANNOYING, SO I BRING NOTHING TO THE TABLE:  CBS has released a four-minute video unveiling the cast of Survivor 26: Fans vs. Favorites II, and it includes some beloved nerds and crazy-folk of seasons past, but especially from The Season With Ozzy & Coach and The One Boston Rob Won. Full list is here; February 13 debut.

ALL HE EVER DOES IS NOT GET INDUCTED:  The fifteen finalists for induction for the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year, up to five of whom will be selected, are RB Jerome Bettis; WRs Tim Brown, Cris Carter and Andre Reed; OLs Larry Allen (1st-time eligible), Jonathan Ogden (ditto), and Will Shields; DEs Charles Haley and Michael Strahan (first-timer); DT Warren Sapp (ditto); LB Kevin Greene; CB Aeneas Williams; and Bill Parcells, Ed DeBartolo, Jr., and Art Modell. Semifinalists missing the cut include Morten Andersen, Terrell Davis, Steve Tasker, and Paul Tagliabue.

[My ballot, I guess: Brown, Carter, Allen, Williams, Parcells. But there's a lot of good choices.]

TERROR-DUCKTYL:  Scientists, the NYT's Nick Kristof, and the White House debate whether it would be better to fight a hundred duck-sized horses or a single horse-sized duck.

Related, same author: the ethics of centaur medical care.

WHAT IS #%%@*%#*!: As part of IBM's continuing quest to ensure that Watson is our new electronic overlord, they uploaded the Urban Dictionary to Watson's database.  Unfortunately, there were side effects.