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Oscars, Democrats and Tesla!

Oscars have come early this year. The Academy had moved the event from last week of Feb to 2nd Sunday of Feb to potentially reverse the decline in viewership in changing world of entertainment. This year's Oscars would be interesting for few reasons:

  • Netflix has arrived on Hollywood: Netflix has highest number of nominations (more than Disney). Last year it came very close to winning best picture with Roma. This year it has couple of strong contenders (Marriage Story, The Irishmen) but most likely actual wins would be very limited if at all
  • First time a foreign language film (Parasite) is nominated for main category of best picture
  • The slate for best picture is varied from two world war movies (1917, Jojo Rabbit) to period dramas (Little Women, Once Upon a time, Ford vs Ferrari) to Comic adaptation (Joker)
Here are my predictions for 6 main categories.

  • Best Picture: 1917 (even though Parasite deserves to win. Since Parasite will win Best Foreign Film category, Academy voters will vote for 1917 for best picture)
  • Director: Bong Joon Ho (Parasite). He deserves to win since even as foreign language film, he had done such a great job directing that language is not barrier at all. It's rare that best picture and director awards get split but last year Academy had done it with directing award going to Roma. I hope it happens this year also
  • Actor: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)
  • Actress: Renee Zellwegar (Judy)
  • Actor in supporting role: Brad Pitt (Once upon a time in Hollywood). Al Pacino (The Irishmen) could also surprise in the category
  • Actress in supporting role: Laura Dern (Marriage Story). Florence Pugh (The Little Women) could surprise. She had acted well.
Parasite should also win Editing and Original Screenplay Oscars.

Moving onto rest of the big news:

Democrats had a bad week starting with Speaker Pelosi tearing up State of the Union speech in front of TV audience. While she may not agree with President Trump's policies or claims, that was disrespectful and childish since the speech did had stories of many many Americans. I am sure Trump would weaponize that snippet during elections but Pelosi should not have given him that chance. Finally the Impeachment drama is over - it was necessary drama. Senator Mitt Romney established himself as independent voice much on the lines of McCain. If only Mitt was running for nomination on democratic ticket. That brings us to mess in Iowa Caucus. Democrats could not even run a successful caucus of a small state. Come on, how difficult it can be? Maybe Indian election commission should give some training to them since they are used to conducting many complex elections every six months. The week wrapped up with debate among candidates just before NH primary. I am not inspired by any of the candidates on stage. Another 4 weeks before Super Tuesday when I need to decide whom to vote for democratic nomination. The only viable choice right now seems to be Bloomberg.

Tesla stock had a wild week. I had wrote about Tesla multiple times in last few years. Here are relevant bogs from 2013 and 2017

Tesla = Apple of Cars? (2013: Stock price: $50)
Should Apple buy Tesla? (2014: Stock price: $150)
Today's stock price: $750

Markets are trying to still figure out how to value Tesla. In fact in 2014 blog, I predicted Tesla stock would be worth $1000 (M-cap: $200 Billion) in 5 years time-frame. It almost reached that target last week. Now that stock is at $750, what should one do? Is it bubble like Bitcoin of 2017 (or so many bubbles of past) or would be like Netflix or Amazon where these companies changed the landscape of complete industries and grown into the valuations. Tesla is disrupting one of the biggest industry with the foundation of technology. So if it does not stumble in scaling up its production, distribution and keep it's technological edge, you are potentially looking at similar trajectory as Netflix/Amazon. So decide fo yourself since this stock is not for the faint of heart!

Enjoy the Oscars Evening!
/Shyam



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