A+E

They may seem like it, but the Oscars are not actually 72 hours long. If, however, you'd like to expand your Academy-approved viewing experience to such an epic length, you can check out Turner Classic Movies' 72-hour marathon of 28 past Best Picture winners, starting Thursday, February 22, and running through the day of the ceremony itself, February 25. Programming spans the ages, from 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front to 1999's American Beauty, and includes such classic Best Pictures as Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind and Casablanca, which plays concurrently with the Oscar ceremony. Flip over during the commercials, or one of the endless montages.

David Mamet has become one of Hol­lywood's most visible (and intelligent) chroniclers from the inside. He has written and directed films, produced his own plays and appeared in cameo roles. He also has periodically re­treated to his desk to write some 10 books of essays on filmmaking over the past two decades.

Unfortunately, the well has run dry in his latest, uneven collection of essays, Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Busi­ness (Pantheon, $22) a grab-bag full of observations, tips on the trade and tales from the crypt. Here is Mamet riffing on producers, di­rectors, actors, stars, screenwriting, the bureaucrats of the studios, Holly­wood's caste system and the way it grinds art into gruel. "The middlemen in Hollywood are bureaucrats, and they have a natural foe, and this foe is the script."

Many of Mamet's observations have this kind of warmed-over quality, which is a shame, because sometimes he proves he can do so much better. He has a columnist's knack for one-sen­tence grabbers ("Here's how they got so bad"), an LA veteran's sour real­ism ("Religious films have as much of a chance of increasing humane be­havior as Porgy and Bess had of ending segregation") and a filmmak­er's aggrieved sense of being wronged ("Must all conglomerations become corrupt?").

But it's hard not to wonder why Mamet, whose plays Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna demonstrated such a meticulous love of language, can be so careless with it here. He backs into his points, often using the passive voice, and sloppily reaches sideways into allusions to Lenny Bruce or one of his own works.

Mamet keeps reiterating that Holly­wood is a business. Fine. But essay writing is an art—not practiced well here.

Dannon Light & Fit Yogurt (white chocolate-raspberry.) It is well-known that if some food item is good for you, it usually tastes like crap. Especially the stuff designed as "diet food." Not so with the latest flavored yogurts from Dannon. They are fat- and sugar-free, and the 6-ounce cups contain only 60 calories and 10 carbs. While all of the Light & Fit yogurts are pretty tasty, the uncontested winner is the white chocolate-raspberry. With its sharp raspberry tang layered on top of an extraordinarily silky white-chocolate base, it is by far one of the best yogurt flavors ever. Great for mixing into a fruit salad, to use as a dip for fresh fruit or as a snack right out of the carton, it almost makes keeping those New Year's diet resolutions much easier. Almost. Eighty-five cents at local Albertsons (the only chain we've found that carries this flavor).