born 21 January 1970

Carrie Nellesen, state of California, student film actress

Darin Ferriola, Fairlawn, New Jersey, writer/director

Eric Porvaznik, Erie, Pennsylvania, documentarian/cousin of Stan Musial

Greg Pitts, Sarasota, Florida, actor

Harvey Lowery, Los Angeles, California, makeup man

Ken Leung, New York, New York, actor

Luke Geissbuhler, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, cinematographer

Marian Van de Wal, Vianen, The Netherlands, singer

Marina Foïs, Boulogne-Billacourt, France, actress

Michael Gay (died 24 December 2007), birthplace unspecified, American film editor

Michela Rossi, Bologna, Italy, production manager

Sarah Lambert, birthplace unspecified, American actress/documentarian

Tom Katt, Atlanta, Georgia, porn star

Shit happens when you party naked. Just as Howard Stern has his rule that anybody who was in any way associated with the making of The Godfather has an open invitation to appear on his show, I feel compelled to praise and acknowledge anyone who had a hand in Bad Santa. Observing that assistant editor Michael Gay (who also worked with Terry Zwigoff on the neither-underrated-nor-all-that-awful Art School Confidential) met his end on a Christmas Eve, leaving hardly any trace on the internet (or at least the upper echelons of a cursory Google search), one can’t help but extend the speculation that the production may have been cursed. John Ritter, gone. Bernie Mac, gone. Little people have big health problems, so look out Tony Cox. Billy Bob Thornton’s music career, and his wildly vain assertions about it, I feel certain will ultimately be explained by some sort of “House, M.D.”-style good-sense-impinging brain tumor; I just hope that it’s discovered while he’s still living, so he can recant on-air to that blameless Canadian radio fellow.

All of the above is a total digression, however, when it comes to Today’s Winner. Luke Geissbuhler has manned the camera on two of the more satisfying documentaries of the past five years, Helvetica (concerning typeface design) and Objectified (concerning design in general). The director, Gary Hustwit, opens up fairly dry academic subjects in ingenious yet straightforward ways. The effect is like an excellent New Yorker article extended and blown up to three dimensions in full color.

Since Hustwit has no date of birth listed on the IMDb, I’ll honor him here along with his cinematographer. As a tribute, here are ten subjects randomly plucked from my thoughts that I’d love to see the Hustwit, Geissbuhler and company tackle in the years to come:

great movie opening-credit assemblers

behind the scenes at Beijing airport

archaic audio/video format preservation

traffic signs of the world

history of the Vespa

fountain pen enthusiasts

sleds and toboggans through the ages

the Brooklyn master umbrella repair guy

Zaha Hadid

the Moleskine notebook story