I’m not good at Oscar predictions, nor do I find them terribly interesting. I’m more interested in discussing who deserves an Oscar, rather than who’s most likely to emerge victorious. As of yesterday, I’ve actually managed to watch most of the movies up for major awards tonight, so I feel more qualified this year to offer my opinions.

It’s difficult comparing movies with different tones, subjects, and genres to determine which is “best.” I’m not entirely sure what “best” means, anyway. The methodology varies from person to person, though I suppose in most cases the “best” movie/performance/nominee is the one that’s most impressive — that is, the one that makes the greatest impression. But there are other factors to be wary of, such as sympathy votes (“They’ve been nominated so many times!”), novelty votes (“They’re so young!”), Very Serious Film votes (“It’s about slavery!”), and, for lack of a more clever term, sex-appeal votes (“They’re so fantastic! Give them all the awards forever!!!”).

I try to have a realistic perspective toward the Oscars. These awards are not principally about art. They are about awarding prestige in a town that runs on it. That creates a dilemma for those of us who care about the art of cinema. Would giving Meryl Streep an award every time she’s nominated really be good for the industry? Probably not, though there haven’t been many awards Streep didn’t deserve to win. Likewise, what does it mean that we’re preparing to give Daniel Day-Lewis a third Oscar for Best Leading Actor (and the second in five years) while Joaquin Phoenix has yet to receive one?

Before tonight’s ceremony, here’s my Oscars wish list. I’ve only included those categories for which I have an opinion and/or feel qualified to give one. I’ve given an asterisk (*) to movies I’ve yet to see. In my analysis, I apply the statistically rigorous method of pretending those films don’t exist.

Best picture

• Amour*
• Argo
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Django Unchained
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty

While this category is full of strong contenders, two stand clearly above the rest: Silver Linings Playbook, followed closely by Zero Dark Thirty. I’m rooting for Silver Linings, though my opinion may be skewed by the fact that I watched it just yesterday in my pre-Oscar film binge. Argo is the presumptive favorite here, having cleaned up at the other award shows. It’s a fine film, not extraordinary. I prefer director Ben Affleck’s previous flick The Town.

(Note: Technically, I haven’t seen all of Les Mis. I’ve declined to give it an asterisk, as I feel I’ve seen enough of it to know that it shouldn’t win.)

Best Director

• Ang Lee, Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
• David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
• Michael Haneke, Amour*
• Behn Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

David O. Russell all the way. His virtuoso direction elevates Silver Linings Playbook from run-of-the-mill rom-com to modern classic. The other nominees are also great, though I remain horrified that Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed. The only director I really hope does not win is Spielberg for Lincoln, which, aside from its lead performance, is a mostly unremarkable flick from this seasoned director.

Best Lead Actor

• Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
• Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
• Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
• Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
• Denzel Washington, Flight*

Daniel Fucking Day-Lewis will win this Oscar — a record-breaking third in this category — and he will deserve it. Joaquin Phoenix is the only other person who deserves to win, though he won’t. All of the The Master’s acting nominees are hampered by that film’s underwhelming reception. Bradley Cooper was surprisingly great, and in another year he might have been the frontrunner. Unfortunately for him, Day-Lewis and Phoenix are so extraordinary, it’s as if they’re playing a different sport. You could almost say it’s unfair.

Best Lead Actress

• Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
• Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
• Emmanuelle Riva, Amour*
• Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Naomi Watts, The Impossible*

What a great year for women in cinema. I’ve seen three of the five performances in this category, and I was so thoroughly gobsmacked by each of them that I’d be totally fine if any of them won. Chastain, Lawrence, and Wallis are electrifying. It’s hard to imagine those films without them. I hear Emmanuelle Riva is fantastic as well. This may be the strongest category of the night.

Best Supporting Actor

• Alan Arkin, Argo
• Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
• Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
• Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Some great performances all around. However, I would not call most of these performances “acting” in the traditional sense. I’d call it “seasoned professionals charming us with their natural charisma.” The two biggest offenders are Arkin and Waltz. (In their defense, Arkin isn’t given much to work with, and Waltz faithfully portrays a character that was written specifically for him.) De Niro is great, and he deserves some Oscar gold after all these years, but I’m rooting for Philip Seymour Hoffman for his mesmerizing performance in The Master.

Best Supporting Actress

• Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
• Sally Field, Lincoln
• Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
• Helen Hunt, The Sessions*
• Amy Adams, The Master

Give it to Anne Hathaway. Her rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” is about the only remarkable (positive) thing about Les Mis, and yes, it is truly remarkable. Amy Adams arguably deserves it more, and I’d be very happy to see her win, but like Joaquin Phoenix, The Master’s relative lack of acclaim puts her at a disadvantage.

Best Original Screeplay

• Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty
• Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
• Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom
• Michel Haneke, Amour*
• John Gatins, Flight*

My personal biases are a major factor in deciding this category. Django Unchained is not my favorite of Tarantino’s films. My appraisal of it has followed pretty much the same trajectory as that of Inglourious Basterds back in 2009 — its flaws become harder to ignore with time. Still, while my biases make it difficult for me to definitively conclude that Django is the best screenplay of the bunch, I really, really want Tarantino to win this award. His contributions to cinema, particularly screenwriting, over the last two decades are easy to downplay due to the pulpy subject matter of his films, but they are many. Give this man an Oscar.

If Tarantino does not win, give it to Anderson/Coppola for the delightful Moonrise Kingdom. Boal wrote a great script, but like Christoph Waltz, he won three years ago for a similar effort.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Tony Kushner, Lincoln
• David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
• Chris Terrio, Argo
• David Magee, Life of Pi
• Benh Zeitlin, Lucy Alibar, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Once again, David O. Russell, for his whip-smart and heartfelt screenplay for Silver Linings Playbook. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I really loved this movie. I don’t think the writing for any of the other movies in this category compares. Magee did an admirable job translating Life of Pi from novel to screen, but I wish he’d have Kubrick’d the ending, as his script suffers from the same story problems as the book.

Odds & ends

• Adele must and will win for “Skyfall,” putting her just a Tony and an Emmy away from an EGOT. I was a bit perplexed that none of the original songs from Django were nominated. John Legend’s *Who Did That To You?” was fantastic.

• Seth MacFarlane is hosting. I hope he delivers. The hosts in recent years have ranged from meh to disaster. If it were up to me, Tina and Amy would host everything for the rest of the year. They’ve earned it!

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If I ever have kids, they will be named according to domain name and Twitter handle availability — or or their equivalents at that time — and I will be sure to reserve both as soon as their names are chosen.

My preferred web domain for this site has always been andrewclark.com. Given how generically Anglo-Saxon my name is, this is a dream I expect to remain unfulfilled. If namestatistics.com is to be believed, “Clark” is the 21st most common last name in the United States; “Andrew” is 35th most common first name. As of this writing, a Google search for “Andrew Clark” returns 58 million results.

Andrew Clark is a Professor of Population Genetics at Cornell University. Andrew Clark is a wedding photojournalist. Andrew Clark is Director of Choral Activities and Senior Lecturer on Music at Harvard. Andrew Clark writes for the Guardian. Andrew Clark is an economist at the Paris School of Economics. Andrew Clark is a London-based artist with a “self-confessed objective of subtlety.” Andrew Clark is a third-year resident at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. (This one particularly stings, as I could probably walk to this guy’s house for lunch.) A Google search for “Andy Clark” returns 74.5 million results, many of which likely overlap, though that hardly makes me feel better.

One of my best friends has a brother named Andrew Clark, which the kind of anecdata that probably shouldn’t matter, though I have to say, it’s weird being in another person’s room, surrounded by trophies and art projects and belongings adorned with your name.

Worse than the non-possession of andrewclark.com is the knowledge that it isn’t being put to good use by someone else. A visit to the address is met with the promise that “andrewclark.com will be back shortly.” How fantastic. I don’t know with certainty the name of the guy who currently owns andrewclark.com (I have a hunch), but he can go straight to hell.

I shouldn’t need to explain the desire to own the domain for your name. Beyond the aesthetic and minimalist appeal, there is a practical component to controlling your personal brand. I’ve been thinking about this more since I read in the news that bobmenedez.com and robertmenedez.com belong to political opponents of Senator Robert Menendez, and are used to spread negative information about him. Why this so deeply concerns me I can only poorly explain: As a young person, I have yet to rid myself of the delusion that I will one day be truly important, important enough to have enemies determined to slander me. Perhaps I am also burdened by my complete irrelevance to anything and everything. It is possible that nothing in my life will ever be significant enough to rival “andrewclark.com will be back shortly.” I say this not to be modest or because I have especially low self-esteem, but because in all likelihood it’s true — and it’s probably true for you, too, dear reader, so deal with that. As long as I’m over-sharing, I’ll confess that I have a deep personal fear that a young Canadian named Andrew Clark will become an overnight pop star. I’ve always liked my name (hi Mom and Dad), but if this happens I will not hesitate to change it.

Until a few days ago, the domain for this website was contentioninvain.com, a tongue-in-cheek reference to a quotation few people are familiar with¹ and too long to be a good URL. It was meant to be temporary until I could think of something better. I never could.

Resigned to the fact that I will never possess andrewclark.com or any of its variants (yes, I’ve checked andrewclark.net), I’ve done the next best thing and changed the primary domain of this site to andrewphilipclark.com. It’s actually longer than the previous domain by a letter, which is one of the reasons I didn’t make this change sooner. Anyway, it seems like a sensible thing to do.

Links to contentioninvain.com will automatically redirect to the appropriate page.

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(Update: After I writing this post, I learned that FitVids.js utilizes essentially the exact same method that I describe below. The crucial difference is that FitVids.js is a client-side solution, whereas I prefer to do the calculations on the server at compile time. There are legitimate philosophical reasons to prefer either option.)

The principle behind responsive web design is that web designs should adapt to different environments, most often screen size. Yesterday, I investigated some ways to achieve responsive video embeds from sites like YouTube and Vimeo. Turns out it’s a bit of a pain, because those sites wrap their embeds in an iframe element. Straightforward techniques we would use for responsive image or HTML5 video elements — giving the element width: 100% so that it fills its parent element — won’t work. You could always resort to a JavaScript solution, and plenty of those do exist. But using JavaScript to control how something looks (versus its behavior) is rather icky, and I don’t like to touch it unless it’s absolutely necessary.¹

For a pure CSS solution, Brett Terpstra pointed me in the right direction to a trick first described (to my knowledge) by the swell folks at A List Apart. Their idea is to use “intrinsic ratios” to scale video embeds fluidly:

The idea is to create a box with the proper ratio (4:3, 16:9, etc.), then make the video inside that box stretch to fit the dimensions of the box. It’s that simple.

The stretching part is done with absolute positioning, which is straightforward enough. The “intrinsic ratio” part is where it gets interesting. Here’s the CSS they prescribe:

.wrapper-with-intrinsic-ratio {
	position: relative;
	padding-bottom: 20%;
	height: 0;
}

.element-to-stretch {
	position: absolute;
	top: 0;
	left: 0;
	width: 100%;
	height: 100%;
	background: teal;	
}

Obviously, the .wrapper-with-intrinsic-ratio is the parent element of .element-to-stretch. The important properties are the wrapper’s padding-bottom and height: 0 attributes. I didn’t care enough to look into why this works, but how it works is this: the padding-bottom value is equal to the box’s height divided by its width — its “intrinsic ratio.” Then the video is positioned to fill the entire box. So in this example, the video would be given an aspect ratio of 5:1.

Most videos are closer to 16:9, so the magic number you see most people (including Terpstra) use is 56.25%, which is just 9 divided by 16. That’s well and good, but what I really want is for this solution to be ratio-agnostic. And I don’t want to resort to JavaScript.

Let’s make it ratio-agnostic

To do this, rather than setting the wrapper’s padding-bottom in my CSS file, I calculate the intrinsic ratio for each embed on the server side and include it as an inline style attribute in the element’s markup, like so:²

<div class="oembed video youtube" style="padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
  <iframe width="480" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EY0vMZl8vUY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>

I use a Jekyll plugin similar to the one Terpstra uses. It took about 30 seconds to adapt the plugin for this purpose, and it works great. Try resizing this page and watch how the video adapts.

So to sum up, using this method we have a ratio-agnostic, pure CSS method for resizing iframe embeds in a responsive design. Even if you don’t use Jekyll, this same trick can be adapted to work with virtually any set up. I hope someone else out there will find this useful. Leave a comment if you have any questions or issues.

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