What's wrong with the Oscars?

Sorry, rhetorical question. I know the Academy Awards were like three weeks ago (or longer) and all the buzz is gone. But I'm just catching up with all the nominated movies I hadn't seen.
I saw "Into The Wild" yesterday, and I know it wasn't nominated for anything, and I'm not saying it should have, although I really enjoyed the movie. What shocked me though, was to remember the songs nominated for Best Original Song. There were three super corny horrible songs from "Enchanted", one song from "August Rush" which I honestly don't remember, and the song from "Once", that is not half bad, at least it was written by two very humble for-the-love-of-the-art musicians, who made a movie with two handycams, acted in it, wrote the song, sang it, and ultimately took the Oscar home.
But then I see "Into the Wild" and I realize what an amazing soundtrack Eddie Vedder co wrote and interpreted for the movie. And just to make things clear here, it's not just because this is Eddie Vedder we are talking about. Sometimes, people like soundtracks or scores by default just because they're written by a good musician. Sometimes they are good, other time they are not. And I'm not even that big a Pearl Jam fan. I mean, I like the old usual stuff, I saw them live once, which by the way was awesome, but that's it. I haven't really paid much attention to their last two albums. Anyway, I think grunge is dead, but that's the subject of a future entry.
Back to my point, regardless of who Eddie Vedder is and what he has done with his band, the outcome of the songs composed for "Into the Wild" is excellent. But when a bunch of kiss ass Academy members get together to vote music, (who said they know about music anyway, what do this guys know everything? It passes completely unnoticed.
While I listened to the songs during the movie, I realized that they were far better than anything else from the past year. This is yet another reason not to trust the Oscars. I take them as a reference and let's be honest here, I can't stop watching them, otherwise, what would I bitch about afterwards?

Is Microsoft finally fighting back?

I just found out that Microsoft hired Crispin, Porter + Bogusky to be their new agency. Apparently the objective is to portray Microsoft as a cool brand, opposed to the way Apple has characterized ¨PC¨in their "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" campaign.

Desperate measure from Microsoft that despite of being a much bigger company than Apple, they have never achieved the loyalty and coolness the latter brand inspires.

Anyway, it'll be really interesting to see what can Crispin come up with, and we might expect a good advertising war here, from two excellent agencies, TBWA/Chiat/Day LA (via Media Arts Lab), and obviously Crispin.

Can they bring a brand with no soul to life? We'll see.

Click here to see the article on Ad Age.