Time: 1:08

Who’s hosting the Academy Awards this year? A Yeti?

No…it’s Billy Crystal live February 26 on ABC. Who are you rooting for to win an Oscar?

A feature film shot on a smartphone? Ah, maybe not you say. But wait, there’s more. How about a feature film shot on a smartphone that’s an Oscar contender starring Gena Rowlands? What? And it was made for the micro-budget of $430,000 with a crew of 12? Impossible, you say? Ah, definitely not. OLIVE is the name.

Holy wow! Co-directors and co-writers Hooman Khalili and Pat Gilles did it. Watch the movie trailer below.

Ben Lear, son of Norman Lear, wrote a haunting song “Imaginary Friends” for the film. It’s on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s short list for an Oscar nom this year for Best Original Song. Here’s the song with vid footage from the film.

Read more about the making of the movie here:

Olive: The Oscar Contender Made with a Smartphone
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/director-movie-made-smartphones-puts-all-his-chips-oscar-34080?page=0,0

Have you ever thought about being a writer?Specifically a screenwriter. You know those wealthy Hollywood writers who put a couple pages on Final Draft a day, lunch with their agents, have cocktails with the stars and dine with their writer friends at the new scene restaurant? Those guys. Well, warning: read FALSE CONFESSIONS OF A TRUE HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITER first.

Hollywood is irresistible, especially to dreamers like me. I went there, as all screenwriters do, with hopes of selling a million-dollar script and then returning home to my happy life on a Florida beach. But Hell-A almost kicked my butt. To get an agent, sell scripts and join the Writers Guild of America (profession film and TV writer), I sacrificed eight years of my life and a great chunk of my soul. If you asked me if I would have done anything differently…well, I would say…yes. I would have had $50,000 in a war chest rather than 5 credit cards with $10,000 limits.

False Confessions of a True Hollywood Screenwriter is part fact, part fiction. Faction, in fact. You may read the first chapter on my author website: www.SharonYCobb.com. You can also buy an autographed book there. Big deal, huh?

Or you can check out the book on Amazon.
False Confessions of a True Hollywood Screenwriter

Hope the Hell-A Rules are helpful.
Your fan,
Sharon

Time: 4:15

Here’s a mashup of some of Jimmy Fallon’s funniest skits on Saturday Night Live including ones with: Alec Baldwin, Mick Jagger, Jerry Seinfeld, Janet Jackson, Ben Affleck, Paris Hilton, Robert de Niro and lots of other SNL alums and current cast members.

Time: 3:44

When Tricia and Johanna review a restaurant, look out. Yelp. Yelp. Yelp!
Stick your neck out like a turtle?

Time: 2:31

Warning: Never utter aloud evil words from the ancient disc!

According to comedy news network The Onion, Ashton Kutcher was caught canoodling with this ancient disc made of pure evil. That explains everything!!

Time: 1:11

New Year’s Resolution 2012: LAUGH MORE!

Happy New Year, everyone.

This vid is dedicated to my friend Elizabeth and my other cat-lady friends.

Time: 3:45

LA quartet OK Go teams up with the Muppets to do an awesomely awesome music vid.

Time: 1:51

Think you’re paying for flight add-ons now? Wait until the airlines enforce service charges for everything in this 2007 Mad TV video.

Read about my own experience with trying to pay for lunch on a Delta flight in the post below.

Food is important. It’s fuel for the body and the brain. The need to eat is a primal urge and when you have a B767-300 leaving LA at 1:10 p.m. with over 220 passengers aboard and 12 sandwiches available for purchase, what do you think will happen? Not the worst thing…like a sit-in along the aisles or a food riot…but I’m sure that is what would have happened if there had been an announcement that there were only a dozen sandwiches for sale on the plane.

Of course, some wise travelers brought their own. Some survived on peanuts and junk snacks they brought with them. But my husband and I had departed from Wellington, New Zealand, at 5pm on Wednesday, October 12, flew an hour to Auckand, had a brief layover and then flew 12 hours from Kiwiland to LA. We had a very short time to connect to our flight from LAX bound for Atlanta and then on to our hometown of Jacksonville, FL.

We sprinted off the Air New Zealand flight, got through customs quickly, found the Delta kiosk and printed boarding passes. Since we had only carryon luggage, we dashed off to security and found ourselves in DisneyWorld snake lines and were doubtful we would make our connecting flight to Atlanta. If we had any clue that Delta would be so uncaring about the welfare of its passengers, we would have grabbed a refrigerated sandwich from a vendor near the gate as we sprinted by.

But we trusted Delta. We don’t like paying for something that used to be included in the cost of our flight, but at least we were counting on a decent sandwich from Delta’s caterers or kitchen. We believed we wouldn’t go hungry. We ate a tiny breakfast of one scrambled egg, one small sausage link and a couple of other tidbits on Air New Zealand 2 hours before we arrived in LA. That was about 5 hours before Delta Flight 1654 began food and beverage service. Now we were faced with a 5 hour flight to Atlanta to arrive at 8:30 p.m. East Coast time.

My husband and I were in seats 37F and 37G. The flight attendants started serving at the front of the cabin, so by the time they got to us, the large lady in the seat in front of us was gobbling down the last roast beef slider. There were no more sandwiches, no fresh fruit platters with cheese…only junk like Pringles and M&Ms. The flight attendant apologized and said this happens a lot. That’s when we found out there had been only 12 sandwiches prepared for over 220 people. Well, I guess it would be really less than 220 since some of the passengers were installed in First Class and would have gotten a real lunch or dinner. The flight attendant said we could buy something called Travel Treats for $5.50 each. Almost anything would be better than six over-salted peanuts.

Our Travel Treat box looked pretty on the outside and featured a lovely green lettuce leaf, real chicken salad and one piece of parsley. But when the box was opened I realized it should have been called Travel Surprise. There was one 2.9 oz. can of Bumble Bee Chicken Salad, 2 crackers, Lance cheese crackers, a tiny bag of trail mix, 2 little cookies and a mini-candy bar. Wow! A party in a box. Yeah, right. But where’s the lettuce and my sprig of parsley?!

The Bumble Bee Chicken Salad was loaded with sugar and fructose, something that was a surprise. Maybe it was intended to taste like a chicken berry salad which can have bursts of sweetness from fresh grapes and nuts or cranberries. Since we hadn’t eaten in hours, anything that promised nourishment was welcome. We used the plastic fork/spoon which featured a hinged handle, either for safety or to fit in the box to spread the oddly sweet chicken salad on the crackers. We didn’t die.

The Lance crackers took me back to my childhood when I earned enough allowance to buy any junk food I wanted. Lance cheddar crackers were my vice of choice. I stuffed the rest of the contents of Delta’s Travel Treat package into my backpack to enjoy during the next hurricane.

Here’s the bottom line. Yes, we know everyone except rich folks are struggling worldwide in this terrible economy. Yes, we know most travelers compare rates online when buying tickets. But, can’t there be full disclosure and travel warnings? Like those traveling cross-country should bring their own provisions? It’s bad enough that the airlines charge us to check bags. Like who’s going on vacation or a business trip without clothes? Charging doesn’t save petrol because the weight of the luggage is just transferred from the cargo hold to the overhead bins. It also causes high anxiety among flyers. Will we find a bin for our bags?

And now we must add to our travel nightmares list: Will we be on a cross-country flight with no food? Next time, we’ll bring a picnic. Oh, but wait, I’ll bet we’ll have to pay extra baggage fees to carry that on board. Maybe we’ll just stay home.