ADDED: Meade makes an accidental appearance a little after 41:00, and I cover him up with a sheet of paper.
Showing posts with label Oscars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oscars. Show all posts
I talk with Tim Noah about the Wisconsin protests and a few other things.
ADDED: Meade makes an accidental appearance a little after 41:00, and I cover him up with a sheet of paper.
Oscars, anyone?
I haven't seen any of the movies, but I'm DVR-ing the show and will dip in from time to time. You can talk about it here and I might say something now and then.
For example, Jennifer Hudson has a smashing dress.
UPDATE: Man, this show sucks so bad.
UPDATE2: I'm IM-ing with my son Chris. I write: "is any celebrity saying anything pro-union or in support of the wisconsin protesters?" And he's all:
For example, Jennifer Hudson has a smashing dress.
UPDATE: Man, this show sucks so bad.
UPDATE2: I'm IM-ing with my son Chris. I write: "is any celebrity saying anything pro-union or in support of the wisconsin protesters?" And he's all:
haven't heard anythingLOL.
oh gwyneth paltrow mentioned you
in the middle of the song
she stopped and said you know ann althouse
needs to stop criticizing those protestors
"No people of color have been nominated for Oscars."
"... You have a very powerful industry run by liberal Democrats, very rich liberal Democrats, and they have their top ten best movies, nominated best movies, and not a single person of color nominated for anything, not even best supporting stooge...."
Said Rush Limbaugh today, prompting Bo Snerdley to go on the air and comment:
Said Rush Limbaugh today, prompting Bo Snerdley to go on the air and comment:
Rush, there is something tremendously insidious and vile underneath this resegregation, resegregation of Hollywood. Our leading Hollywood producers -- and we all know who they are -- the Spielbergs, the bigwigs are simply look at black and Latino America in the face, especially black America, and you know what they're saying to 'em? They're saying, "Look, we gave you people enough. We elected him president. We did that. We don't have to put any of you people in movies anymore."
RUSH: You people?
The Academy Awards nominations.
Here's the live-stream of the announcement, beginning right now!
UPDATE: Man, they have so many nominees for Best Picture now that they're forced to include movies that aren't even good! I say that with confidence even though I've seen none of the nominated films.
UPDATE2: The list of nominees is at the link. Just scroll down. Now, if I were going to go see a few of these movies — partly so watching the Oscars might be fun and partly to actually see a good movie — what would I see? I'll make a list:
UPDATE: Man, they have so many nominees for Best Picture now that they're forced to include movies that aren't even good! I say that with confidence even though I've seen none of the nominated films.
UPDATE2: The list of nominees is at the link. Just scroll down. Now, if I were going to go see a few of these movies — partly so watching the Oscars might be fun and partly to actually see a good movie — what would I see? I'll make a list:
- True Grit
- The Social Network
- The Fighter
- The King's Speech
- Black Swan
Saw the movie "Changeling" last night but I don't like to write movie reviews...
... so let me do what I did for the last Clint Eastwood movie I saw and challenge myself to write a list of 10 things. Here goes:
1. There were several points in this movie where, if I didn't know it was a true story, I would have turned it off. It's incredibly melodramatic. But if it's true, it's not incredible. It's credible.
2. I loathe movies about children in danger, both because I don't enjoy seeing children suffer and because I don't want to watch an actress ham it up pretending to be a mother who is agonizing over her suffering child. But I shielded myself from knowing what the story was going to be because I was told — by my son Chris — that the movie contained the greatest acting performance of the last decade and once I decide I will see a movie, I avoid reading anything about the plot.
3. I'd never seen an Angelina Jolie movie before. Looking at the list of movies she's made, I can see why. Although she seems like the biggest movie star in the world, she hasn't made many movies, and they aren't very good. She's done genres that I don't much follow (anymore). For example, she did one of the voices in "Kung Fu Panda." When I think of "Kung Fu Panda," I think of the Joshua Ferris short story "The Dinner Party":
4. Jolie emotes. That's for sure. It's what's called for and she does it. She goes all out and does it. She's the female Jack Nicholson. And this movie has a good dose of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in it. Now, take your medication. Or we'll give you an electroshock treatment. "Changeling" also made me think about another great Jack Nicholson movie, "Chinatown." Lots of L.A., lots of corruption.
5. Did Jolie out-act Kate Winslet? Winslet won the Oscar that year — for "The Reader." "The Reader" is also a melodrama, but it presents itself in less of a melodramatic style. Although "The Reader" is set in the Holocaust, the character is fictional, and her story is presented in a more dignified Oscar-worthy vehicle.
6. Quite oddly, there is a scene in "Changeling" in which the main character is listening to the Oscars presentation on the radio and rooting for her favorite movie to win. The movie is "It Happened One Night," and Jolie's character expresses her fondness for Claudette Colbert, who won an Oscar for her role. "It Happened One Night" swept the top 5 categories at the Oscars, and it wasn't until "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that another movie swept the Oscars. I wondered what Clint Eastwood thought he was saying to the Academy by putting that Oscars scene in "Changeling." I don't think he was kissing their ass trying to get Oscars. Maybe it was a way to say Oscars are amusement for the people and they don't really matter to me anymore. But it would be pretty funny for Jolie to win an Oscar for a role where we'd have a clip of her in character getting excited about an Oscar win. It would be cute. Maybe she got some votes from Academy members who liked that.
7. Like "The Reader," "Changeling" has a scene that depicts
Mouse over Highlight to reveal spoiler.)(I think that's the first time I've used HTML that way.)
8. If you like red lipstick, this is the ultimate red lipstick movie. You've got, first of all, Angelina Jolie's famous, immense lips, and then you've got red red lipstick — of the historically accurate matte texture. And it looks like it was put on amateurishly by the character.
9. You like cloche hats? You will see cloche hats. Angelina Jolie's character seems to require a cloche hat — and gloves. (I couldn't figure out how she avoided getting red lipstick all over her gloves.) This is the ultimate cloche hat movie. What does the cloche hat mean? It speaks of the character's vulnerability and need for armor, which makes it
10. What's with Angelina Jolie's hands?
11. Jolie calls Clint Eastwood "very much the ideal man":
Oh! I went to 11. I thought it would be hard to get to 10. Ha. I guess I enjoyed that movie. Maybe I'll watch it again with somebody who hasn't seen it before. Back in the 80s, we used to love showing "The Terminator" to people who hadn't seen it yet. All the surprises would be new again. Last week, I was flipping channels and came to rest on "From Dusk to Dawn," which had just started. I'd seen it before, but Meade hadn't. Great vicarious fun for me.
1. There were several points in this movie where, if I didn't know it was a true story, I would have turned it off. It's incredibly melodramatic. But if it's true, it's not incredible. It's credible.
2. I loathe movies about children in danger, both because I don't enjoy seeing children suffer and because I don't want to watch an actress ham it up pretending to be a mother who is agonizing over her suffering child. But I shielded myself from knowing what the story was going to be because I was told — by my son Chris — that the movie contained the greatest acting performance of the last decade and once I decide I will see a movie, I avoid reading anything about the plot.
3. I'd never seen an Angelina Jolie movie before. Looking at the list of movies she's made, I can see why. Although she seems like the biggest movie star in the world, she hasn't made many movies, and they aren't very good. She's done genres that I don't much follow (anymore). For example, she did one of the voices in "Kung Fu Panda." When I think of "Kung Fu Panda," I think of the Joshua Ferris short story "The Dinner Party":
“They just got their dates wrong, is all,” he said, “and tomorrow, when they call, they’ll tell you how sorry they are. They had to turn their phones off during the late showing of ‘Kung Fu Panda’ or something.”One wouldn't see "Kung Fu Panda."
“So they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda’ tonight,” she said.
“Or something like it.”
“And they turned their phones off so they wouldn’t ring during ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”
“Or,” he said. “Or.” He put his finger up. They were standing near the bedroom doorway. There was dim light coming from the dark room and he was suddenly irrationally afraid, as he had been as a child, that if anyone stepped inside, if she stepped inside, she would plummet to the center of the earth. He lowered his finger. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”
4. Jolie emotes. That's for sure. It's what's called for and she does it. She goes all out and does it. She's the female Jack Nicholson. And this movie has a good dose of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in it. Now, take your medication. Or we'll give you an electroshock treatment. "Changeling" also made me think about another great Jack Nicholson movie, "Chinatown." Lots of L.A., lots of corruption.
5. Did Jolie out-act Kate Winslet? Winslet won the Oscar that year — for "The Reader." "The Reader" is also a melodrama, but it presents itself in less of a melodramatic style. Although "The Reader" is set in the Holocaust, the character is fictional, and her story is presented in a more dignified Oscar-worthy vehicle.
6. Quite oddly, there is a scene in "Changeling" in which the main character is listening to the Oscars presentation on the radio and rooting for her favorite movie to win. The movie is "It Happened One Night," and Jolie's character expresses her fondness for Claudette Colbert, who won an Oscar for her role. "It Happened One Night" swept the top 5 categories at the Oscars, and it wasn't until "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that another movie swept the Oscars. I wondered what Clint Eastwood thought he was saying to the Academy by putting that Oscars scene in "Changeling." I don't think he was kissing their ass trying to get Oscars. Maybe it was a way to say Oscars are amusement for the people and they don't really matter to me anymore. But it would be pretty funny for Jolie to win an Oscar for a role where we'd have a clip of her in character getting excited about an Oscar win. It would be cute. Maybe she got some votes from Academy members who liked that.
7. Like "The Reader," "Changeling" has a scene that depicts
a hanging and uses a closeup of the hanged person's dangling feet — or is it just the shoes on the floor in "The Reader"? I forget.
(8. If you like red lipstick, this is the ultimate red lipstick movie. You've got, first of all, Angelina Jolie's famous, immense lips, and then you've got red red lipstick — of the historically accurate matte texture. And it looks like it was put on amateurishly by the character.
9. You like cloche hats? You will see cloche hats. Angelina Jolie's character seems to require a cloche hat — and gloves. (I couldn't figure out how she avoided getting red lipstick all over her gloves.) This is the ultimate cloche hat movie. What does the cloche hat mean? It speaks of the character's vulnerability and need for armor, which makes it
especially painful for us to see her without its protection when she's thrown into the psycho hospital.
10. What's with Angelina Jolie's hands?
11. Jolie calls Clint Eastwood "very much the ideal man":
Maybe it's generational, but I think we could use more of it. People look up to him. He is absolutely who he is. He doesn't apologize to anybody. He has very, very strong, decisive opinions and is very gracious as a man, as a friend and somebody on set as a director, too.She tags on the wifely niceness — "Brad knows that he's my ideal man" — but, reading that, I hear the emphasis on "my." Brad may be her ideal man, but Eastwood is the ideal man.
Oh! I went to 11. I thought it would be hard to get to 10. Ha. I guess I enjoyed that movie. Maybe I'll watch it again with somebody who hasn't seen it before. Back in the 80s, we used to love showing "The Terminator" to people who hadn't seen it yet. All the surprises would be new again. Last week, I was flipping channels and came to rest on "From Dusk to Dawn," which had just started. I'd seen it before, but Meade hadn't. Great vicarious fun for me.
"They're saying it looked like she pulled a Kanye."
"She did! She pulled a Kanye. And it's a shame, because this is such positive, happy film."
Hmm. I missed that because I fast-forwarded. I think the average viewer does not care about the awards for shorts. What a terrible place to Kanye, when no one cares anyway.
Hmm. I missed that because I fast-forwarded. I think the average viewer does not care about the awards for shorts. What a terrible place to Kanye, when no one cares anyway.
The morning after the Oscars.
Wow. I did not enjoy that. I already updated my live-blog post from last night to say I did not enjoy that, but I need to get it out of my system. I did not enjoy that. Why do I do that to myself every year? Because there was a time when I truly loved it — and the movies — I guess. Watching the Oscars when you no longer care about the movies is like... watching "American Idol" when you no longer bother with the new music recordings that are released from day to day. Wallowing in the bad seems somewhat fun even as you've lost the hope that there might be something good. Life is funny. And, no, wallowing in the bad as I've lost hope in something good is not how I feel about life itself.
Anyway, the only interesting thing anyone said — that registered with me, anyway — was Mo'Nique: "It can be about the performance and not the politics." I highlighted that line last night, but then this morning, I realized I wasn't sure what she was talking about. Here's the whole text of what she said:
Here's a NYT Magazine article from last fall that, I think, explains it:
Perhaps he was feeling some vindication in his own choice to play some pretty negative characters (rather than the idealized friend/helpmeet/savior/Morgan Freeman type that must not be all that rewarding to play).
Anyway, the only interesting thing anyone said — that registered with me, anyway — was Mo'Nique: "It can be about the performance and not the politics." I highlighted that line last night, but then this morning, I realized I wasn't sure what she was talking about. Here's the whole text of what she said:
First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics. I want to thank Mrs. Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, because you touched it, the whole world saw it. Ricky Anderson our attorney of Anderson and Smith thank you for your hard work. My entire BET family. My Precious family thank you so much. To my amazing husband Sidney, Thank you for showing me that sometimes you have to forego doing what’s popular to do what’s right. And baby, you were so right!Now, what was she talking about? What did her husband encourage her to do that was "right" but not "popular"? I'm guessing that she worried about playing a character that would be viewed by many as a racist stereotype, and her husband convinced her that it was a great script and a great dramatic role and she's an artist who should decide based on what is right for an artist: artistic principles. And Oprah touched it, and that worked some magic, taking much of the power out of the accusations of racism that had to have been anticipated.
Here's a NYT Magazine article from last fall that, I think, explains it:
[The director Lee Daniels told Mo’Nique] he had a part for her that was “going to mess up your career. You are going to lose your world, your audience, your standing in the BET community.” Mo'nique was not fazed. “I did not hesitate!” she exclaimed on a warm day in September in New York City. “I said to Lee, if you want me to play this demon, I am there.”....And, by the way, there was no mention of Barack Obama in Mo'Nique's speech. From that NYT article:
Although Mo’Nique’s performance as Precious’s mother has generated talk of an Oscar, Daniels has heard complaints from the black community about the image her character projects. “They see the film as negative to black women,” Daniels said. “Black women are the pillar of the family. Black men have left, and how dare I stab at the one thing that’s helped. So I told Mo’Nique, ‘They’re going to hate you for this movie.’ She said, ‘Let them hate me.’ ”
[T]he movie is not neutral on the subject of race and the prejudices that swirl around it, even in the supposedly postracial age of Obama. “ ‘Precious’ is so not Obama,” Daniels said. “ ‘Precious’ is so not P.C. What I learned from doing the film is that even though I am black, I’m prejudiced....”And who knows what Samuel L. Jackson was thinking? Watch his reaction to the speech:
... “As African-Americans, we are in an interesting place,” Daniels said. “Obama’s the president, and we want to aspire to that. But part of aspiring is disassociating from the face of Precious. To be honest, I was embarrassed to show this movie at Cannes. I didn’t want to exploit black people. And I wasn’t sure I wanted white French people to see our world.... But because of Obama, it’s now O.K. to be black. I can share that voice. I don’t have to lie. I’m proud of where I come from. And I wear it like a shield. ‘Precious’ is part of that.”
Perhaps he was feeling some vindication in his own choice to play some pretty negative characters (rather than the idealized friend/helpmeet/savior/Morgan Freeman type that must not be all that rewarding to play).
Shall we watch the Oscars together?
I don't know if I can do my usual live-blogging, but I will try to watch, and I'll put numbered comments up if I think of anything amusing. The main point of this post is to give you a place to comment if you're so inclined.
1. Loved Penelope Cruz's red dress.
2. Have you noticed how many of the men are chewing gum? Morgan Freeman, etc.
3. Sarah Jessica Parker is chewing gum. She's 44 and she looks 60, but she's sweet and enthused about the Chanel column of gold satin. Meanwhile, no one wants to talk to Matthew Broderick, who's gone gray and portly.
4. "I like seeing all my friends cleaned up and looking good" — Meryl Streep on what she likes best about the Oscars.
5. Yikes. This production number is more painful than the crap they make "American Idol" contestants do on elimination night. (Elimination... crap... hmmm....) Men in suits singing, surrounded by scantily clad showgirls waving feather fans... what is this, 1962? So retro. So pre-women's movement. Oh, phew, it's over. Now, the talking. Yeeze. Steve Martin looks like Spencer Tracy in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" ... i.e., just before he died.
6. Christopher Plummer looks way better indoors. Somehow the lighting bestows an artificial tan. Outdoors, he looked diseased.
7. Ah! Penelope Cruz again, in that dress. Lovely! She was last year's Best Supporting Actress, so she's giving the Best Supporting Actor award. Dialogue chez Meadhouse: "Is that Robert Duvall?" "No, Woody Harrelson."... "Everyone knows Christoph Waltz is going to win." And he does. "Oscar and Penelope. That's an uber-bingo."
8. So the first predictable thing has happened. Will all the other predictable things happen to?
9. Sandra Bullock is "a member of the NRA" and "always packing"... according to the clip show of "The Blind Side."
10. Meadhouse dialogue: "IPad ad. Oh, man! Ohhhhhh!" "Still want one?" "Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh."
8a. "Up" wins animated pic. Predicatably.
8b. "The Hurt Locker" wins screenplay, not "Inglourious Basterds." That's not what was predicted, right? I wanted "A Serious Man." The acceptance speech is anti-Iraq-war, btw.
11. Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick introduce a tribute to John Hughes (who died in the past year). "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Beautifully done. Genuinely touching. That made the argument that pop culture is, in fact, deep.
8c. "Precious" for adapted screenplay.
8d. Best Supporting Actress, Mo'Nique. Predicted. But she says something interesting and unexpected: "It can be about the performance, and not the politics."
8e. Art Direction, "Avatar."
12. The tribute to horror movies ends with a cut to Quentin Tarantino loving it all. Nice. As for the clip show, I think it was argued that the 2 greatest horror flicks of all time are "Psycho" and "The Shining"... with music from "Psycho."
13. Sound editing... does anyone care? Did I mention costumes earlier? No. Then, mindcrushingly, sound mixing, a separate award. "Hurt Locker" with its amorphous, ponderous music, wins both. [NEXT MORNING CLARIFICATION: I know this award isn't about the music. I'm just complaining about the theme music the band played for this movie.]
8f. "Avatar" wins Visual Effects. Whoever this guy is who accepts the award says the movie is a film about "learning to see the world in new ways" and that sets me off cursing incoherently.
14. In Memoriam, with James Taylor singing "In My Life." They gave Karl Malden the final spot, and that was not predicted. People thought it would be either Patrick Swayze (who was put first) or Natasha Richardson (who was tucked in the middle). Only one choked me up, Brittany Murphy. She was so young. Malden was 97. Nothing to be sad about. It's not, then, what's saddest. It's a tribute to life. "In My Life," not in my death.
15. I'm recording this with my DVR and pausing, then fast-forwarding. Otherwise it would be intolerable. Right now there's a dance routine (that's supposed to showcase the scores). It's ghastly. I watched a second, sped ahead, watched a second, cursed, paused, and am now waiting for enough time to pass for more fast-forwarding. Why must they waste our time with this musical crap?
16. I love film documentaries, but I don't care about any of these nominees. What the hell happened to this category?
17. "The White Ribbon" doesn't win best foreign film. I was all ready to do an "8g" entry. Wow. Thrilling. Hell. Get me out of here.
18. Wait. A good joke! "I want to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language."
8g. Come on, give Jeff Bridges the Best Actor award and get me out of here. Oh! The blather, praising each of the nominees. There's an insipid reference to "courage." I scream. Ah, finally, Kate Winslet comes out, in a dress made of steel — or fabric that looks like it — and she gives the award, of course, to Jeff Bridges. He whoops. He looks heavenward and addresses his parents. He says "groovy." He's going on too long. I groan. Meade says "He's The Dude."
8h. Another predictable one: Sandra Bullock gets Best Actress. She's wearing bright red lipstick and a pretty dress, beaded and sparkling. She rattles off a prepared speech. She chokes up and cries appropriately when she gets to the part about not thanking her mother.
19. "Oh, no!" "Why? Why?!" — another Meadhouse dialogue... as Barbra Streisand takes the stage. She's giving the Best Director award (for some reason). I guess this one isn't predictable, other than that it's one of 2, James Cameron or Kathryn Bigelow. "Well, the time has come," Barbra says, meaning that for the first time, a woman has won Best Director. It's Kathryn Bigelow.
20. The band plays her off the stage with "I Am Woman." Gag.
21. Tom Hanks does his part to nail the time. With 2 minutes left to go to the top of the hour, he blurts out "The Hurt Locker."
22. For all this honoring of "The Hurt Locker," did anyone say anything valuable and worthy about the war in Iraq? Bigelow praised the troops and wished for their safe return, but that's not what I mean. There's a lot of talk about the bravery of the filmmakers making the film. There was never anything said in support of the fighting in Iraq, but, to be fair, there was never any opposition to it expressed. In fact, I don't think there were any political statements tonight at all, unless you count Mo'nique's anti-political statement: "It can be about the performance, and not the politics." So: modesty. It's film art. Art, not politics.
MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: Wow. I did not enjoy that show at all. Surely, nothing made me want to go see a movie — or even look for it to come up on my cable Video on Demand. The actresses with their hard, frozen faces and their sinewy bodies encased in lavishly ruffled dresses showed that movies are no longer a source of fresh inspiration about beauty, femininity and womanhood. And frankly, I'm not sure what Mo'nique meant by "It can be about the performance, and not the politics." Maybe she just meant that she totally deserved the award on merit, and there were no "political" considerations in the sense of how career and business interests weigh into people's decisions. At the time, I thought that she meant that voters were able to appreciate the artistic value of the movie "Precious" instead of rejecting it because it isn't politically correct to depict black people as lowlifes. That was the only memorable thing that anyone said last night, and it's just a Rorschach test.
1. Loved Penelope Cruz's red dress.
2. Have you noticed how many of the men are chewing gum? Morgan Freeman, etc.
3. Sarah Jessica Parker is chewing gum. She's 44 and she looks 60, but she's sweet and enthused about the Chanel column of gold satin. Meanwhile, no one wants to talk to Matthew Broderick, who's gone gray and portly.
4. "I like seeing all my friends cleaned up and looking good" — Meryl Streep on what she likes best about the Oscars.
5. Yikes. This production number is more painful than the crap they make "American Idol" contestants do on elimination night. (Elimination... crap... hmmm....) Men in suits singing, surrounded by scantily clad showgirls waving feather fans... what is this, 1962? So retro. So pre-women's movement. Oh, phew, it's over. Now, the talking. Yeeze. Steve Martin looks like Spencer Tracy in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" ... i.e., just before he died.
6. Christopher Plummer looks way better indoors. Somehow the lighting bestows an artificial tan. Outdoors, he looked diseased.
7. Ah! Penelope Cruz again, in that dress. Lovely! She was last year's Best Supporting Actress, so she's giving the Best Supporting Actor award. Dialogue chez Meadhouse: "Is that Robert Duvall?" "No, Woody Harrelson."... "Everyone knows Christoph Waltz is going to win." And he does. "Oscar and Penelope. That's an uber-bingo."
8. So the first predictable thing has happened. Will all the other predictable things happen to?
9. Sandra Bullock is "a member of the NRA" and "always packing"... according to the clip show of "The Blind Side."
10. Meadhouse dialogue: "IPad ad. Oh, man! Ohhhhhh!" "Still want one?" "Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh."
8a. "Up" wins animated pic. Predicatably.
8b. "The Hurt Locker" wins screenplay, not "Inglourious Basterds." That's not what was predicted, right? I wanted "A Serious Man." The acceptance speech is anti-Iraq-war, btw.
11. Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick introduce a tribute to John Hughes (who died in the past year). "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Beautifully done. Genuinely touching. That made the argument that pop culture is, in fact, deep.
8c. "Precious" for adapted screenplay.
8d. Best Supporting Actress, Mo'Nique. Predicted. But she says something interesting and unexpected: "It can be about the performance, and not the politics."
8e. Art Direction, "Avatar."
12. The tribute to horror movies ends with a cut to Quentin Tarantino loving it all. Nice. As for the clip show, I think it was argued that the 2 greatest horror flicks of all time are "Psycho" and "The Shining"... with music from "Psycho."
13. Sound editing... does anyone care? Did I mention costumes earlier? No. Then, mindcrushingly, sound mixing, a separate award. "Hurt Locker" with its amorphous, ponderous music, wins both. [NEXT MORNING CLARIFICATION: I know this award isn't about the music. I'm just complaining about the theme music the band played for this movie.]
8f. "Avatar" wins Visual Effects. Whoever this guy is who accepts the award says the movie is a film about "learning to see the world in new ways" and that sets me off cursing incoherently.
14. In Memoriam, with James Taylor singing "In My Life." They gave Karl Malden the final spot, and that was not predicted. People thought it would be either Patrick Swayze (who was put first) or Natasha Richardson (who was tucked in the middle). Only one choked me up, Brittany Murphy. She was so young. Malden was 97. Nothing to be sad about. It's not, then, what's saddest. It's a tribute to life. "In My Life," not in my death.
15. I'm recording this with my DVR and pausing, then fast-forwarding. Otherwise it would be intolerable. Right now there's a dance routine (that's supposed to showcase the scores). It's ghastly. I watched a second, sped ahead, watched a second, cursed, paused, and am now waiting for enough time to pass for more fast-forwarding. Why must they waste our time with this musical crap?
16. I love film documentaries, but I don't care about any of these nominees. What the hell happened to this category?
17. "The White Ribbon" doesn't win best foreign film. I was all ready to do an "8g" entry. Wow. Thrilling. Hell. Get me out of here.
18. Wait. A good joke! "I want to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language."
8g. Come on, give Jeff Bridges the Best Actor award and get me out of here. Oh! The blather, praising each of the nominees. There's an insipid reference to "courage." I scream. Ah, finally, Kate Winslet comes out, in a dress made of steel — or fabric that looks like it — and she gives the award, of course, to Jeff Bridges. He whoops. He looks heavenward and addresses his parents. He says "groovy." He's going on too long. I groan. Meade says "He's The Dude."
8h. Another predictable one: Sandra Bullock gets Best Actress. She's wearing bright red lipstick and a pretty dress, beaded and sparkling. She rattles off a prepared speech. She chokes up and cries appropriately when she gets to the part about not thanking her mother.
19. "Oh, no!" "Why? Why?!" — another Meadhouse dialogue... as Barbra Streisand takes the stage. She's giving the Best Director award (for some reason). I guess this one isn't predictable, other than that it's one of 2, James Cameron or Kathryn Bigelow. "Well, the time has come," Barbra says, meaning that for the first time, a woman has won Best Director. It's Kathryn Bigelow.
20. The band plays her off the stage with "I Am Woman." Gag.
21. Tom Hanks does his part to nail the time. With 2 minutes left to go to the top of the hour, he blurts out "The Hurt Locker."
22. For all this honoring of "The Hurt Locker," did anyone say anything valuable and worthy about the war in Iraq? Bigelow praised the troops and wished for their safe return, but that's not what I mean. There's a lot of talk about the bravery of the filmmakers making the film. There was never anything said in support of the fighting in Iraq, but, to be fair, there was never any opposition to it expressed. In fact, I don't think there were any political statements tonight at all, unless you count Mo'nique's anti-political statement: "It can be about the performance, and not the politics." So: modesty. It's film art. Art, not politics.
MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: Wow. I did not enjoy that show at all. Surely, nothing made me want to go see a movie — or even look for it to come up on my cable Video on Demand. The actresses with their hard, frozen faces and their sinewy bodies encased in lavishly ruffled dresses showed that movies are no longer a source of fresh inspiration about beauty, femininity and womanhood. And frankly, I'm not sure what Mo'nique meant by "It can be about the performance, and not the politics." Maybe she just meant that she totally deserved the award on merit, and there were no "political" considerations in the sense of how career and business interests weigh into people's decisions. At the time, I thought that she meant that voters were able to appreciate the artistic value of the movie "Precious" instead of rejecting it because it isn't politically correct to depict black people as lowlifes. That was the only memorable thing that anyone said last night, and it's just a Rorschach test.
"This moment. Is so much bigger. Than me."
Are you hoping for a big moment tonight? Or have you had it with Oscar grandiosity — especially in a year when nothing seemed very grand at all... except in that horrible in-your-face grand way that you have to put on special glasses for?
Did they really pull Sacha Baron Cohen skit from the Oscars just because it might irk James Cameron?
"... Baron Cohen planned to appear onstage as a blue-skinned, female Na’vi, with [Ben] Stiller translating 'her' interplanetary speech. As the skit went on, though, it would become clear that Stiller wasn’t translating properly, because Cohen would grow ever more upset. At its climax, an infuriated Baron Cohen would pull open 'her' evening gown to reveal that s/he was pregnant, knocked up with Cameron’s love child, and would go on to confront her baby daddy as if s/he were on Jerry Springer."
Maybe the problem was just that it's bad — or not good enough to justify lowering the taste level. We (might) laugh at the Jerry Springer show, but the Oscars are immensely glamorous, and crudeness is out of place. Out of place can generate humor, but who should be permitted to appropriate the glamour for comic effect and what are the costs? Isn't it mostly women who enjoy the Oscars? Quite aside from how James Cameron will feel, how will the show's natural audience feel?
But let me go one step further. Here's my theory: The Hollywood elite want the Democrats health care bill to make it through, and one stumbling block is abortion. The producers have therefore deemed this not to be a good time to highlight and laugh about undesired pregnancy. The unwanted unborn child is an overwhelmingly serious matter for people who care about the right to life. Don't antagonize them with edgy, blatant material. Not now.
Maybe the problem was just that it's bad — or not good enough to justify lowering the taste level. We (might) laugh at the Jerry Springer show, but the Oscars are immensely glamorous, and crudeness is out of place. Out of place can generate humor, but who should be permitted to appropriate the glamour for comic effect and what are the costs? Isn't it mostly women who enjoy the Oscars? Quite aside from how James Cameron will feel, how will the show's natural audience feel?
But let me go one step further. Here's my theory: The Hollywood elite want the Democrats health care bill to make it through, and one stumbling block is abortion. The producers have therefore deemed this not to be a good time to highlight and laugh about undesired pregnancy. The unwanted unborn child is an overwhelmingly serious matter for people who care about the right to life. Don't antagonize them with edgy, blatant material. Not now.
The producer of "The Hurt Locker" is banned from the Oscars for emailing members to disparage "Avatar."
Nicolas Chartier broke the rules. He might win an Oscar — it's the producer of the Best Picture who gets the statuette — but he won't be able to take the stage to proclaim himself the King of the World or whatever the hell he might like to do.
They're about to announce the Oscar nominations!
Let's watch together.
ADDED: Very interesting having 10 Best Picture nominees. I cheered when they said "A Serious Man." I loved that one. "The Blind Side" is considered a surprise nomination for picture. (The Best Actress nomination for Sandra Bullock was expected.) Here's the trailer. And here's the "Serious Man" trailer.
Since there are only 5 nominees in the director category, it makes it kind of obvious what the 5 Best Picture nominees would be if there were only 5. The upstarts are conspicuous. By the way, there are 2 "up" movies in the Picture category: "Up" and "Up in the Air." "Up" is the upstart. It's also nominated in the separate best animated movie category. "Up" needs to get down and stop being such a category hog.
ADDED: Very interesting having 10 Best Picture nominees. I cheered when they said "A Serious Man." I loved that one. "The Blind Side" is considered a surprise nomination for picture. (The Best Actress nomination for Sandra Bullock was expected.) Here's the trailer. And here's the "Serious Man" trailer.
Since there are only 5 nominees in the director category, it makes it kind of obvious what the 5 Best Picture nominees would be if there were only 5. The upstarts are conspicuous. By the way, there are 2 "up" movies in the Picture category: "Up" and "Up in the Air." "Up" is the upstart. It's also nominated in the separate best animated movie category. "Up" needs to get down and stop being such a category hog.
Now, there will be 10 nominees for the Best Picture Oscar.
It's pretty obviously a bid for TV ratings:
IN THE EMAIL: Christopher Althouse Cohen writes:
In a question-and-answer session that followed the announcement [Sidney Ganis, the academy’s president] said, "I would not be telling you the truth if I said the words ‘Dark Knight’ did not come up.
IN THE EMAIL: Christopher Althouse Cohen writes:
The most obvious pros and cons for either decision is that 5 slots are probably not enough to nominate every great movie in a given year, but on the other hand 10 slots is almost certain to lead to some pretty crappy movies getting nominated. Also, having 10 best picture nominees sort of lowers the value of a given nomination. A movie getting nominated at all right now seems like a really big deal for that movie, but it might not if there were 10. But you will be a lot more likely to see your favorite movies nominated with 10 slots.
Here were the nominees in 1943, the last time they had more than 5 nominees:
Casablanca
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Heaven Can Wait
In Which We Serve
Madame Curie
The Human Comedy
The More the Merrier
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Song of Bernadette
Watch on the Rhine
I don't know enough of those movies to know if they deserved it (I think I've only seen two), but the fact that they were nominated doesn't make me want to run out and see all of them. Kind of looks like one really major classic, and then a long list of pretty good movies.
Now, here are last year's five nominees, which apparently will be the last time, at least for a while, that there are only five (along with their box office grosses before getting nominated):
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ($104 million)
Frost/Nixon ($8.8 million)
Milk ($20 million)
The Reader ($8 million)
Slumdog Millionaire ($44 million)
Only one had a significant gross pre-nominations, and that one wasn't even a box office success given its $150 million budget. And here is an overview of the ratings for the Oscars since 1990 from Wikipedia. The ratings peaked with 57 million viewers the year Titanic came out, and has had somewhere in the 30's each of the last four years, so it's in a low streak.
And, coincidentally, the two best-reviewed movies of the year in 2008, based on Top Ten lists, were also the 1st and 5th highest grossing movies of the year: WALL-E and The Dark Knight. Both had some Oscar hype but failed to get nominated, and both would likely have been nominated if there were 10 slots. They were also big budget, ambitious movies that had fans who were really excited about those movies.
It seems pretty clear that this is a response to the decline in ratings and the possibility that its ratings decline has something to do with the fact that the small prestige movies have been getting all the nominations.
I do think the bigger movies are also more likely to win the award with 10. People push for their favorite little movie and put it in the #1 slot on their list when they vote for the nominations, because they want to help it and the big movies already have plenty of attention. Maybe a lot of those people who voted for The Reader and Frost/Nixon for nominations would have voted for The Dark Knight for the actual award if there were more nominees. So, I could see a movie in 6th-10th place for the nominations actually winning for this reason.
You'd also probably have some really unworthy prestige movies sneaking in without living up to their hype: movies like Rachel Getting Married, Doubt, or Che. But then you might have some little movies that deserved it but normally wouldn't have a chance, like Frozen River or Vicky Cristina Barcelona. That would be nice. It could go either way.
Movie Awards Season
It's time for the stars of the big screen to step up and get their awards - if they win of course.
On 10 February the BAFTA Awards will be given out in London.
The 80th Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles, on 24 February.
& the night before the Oscars, the Razzie Awards will be given out to acknowledge the worst in cinema this year. Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy could be big 'winners' or losers there. I really hope 'Good Luck Chuck' gets a Razzie - as it is the most pathetic film I have ever seen!
Full List Of BAFTA Nomiees>>>
Full List Of Oscar Nominees>>>
On 10 February the BAFTA Awards will be given out in London.
The 80th Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles, on 24 February.
& the night before the Oscars, the Razzie Awards will be given out to acknowledge the worst in cinema this year. Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy could be big 'winners' or losers there. I really hope 'Good Luck Chuck' gets a Razzie - as it is the most pathetic film I have ever seen!
Full List Of BAFTA Nomiees>>>
Full List Of Oscar Nominees>>>
Golden Globes Ceremony Scrapped
The Golden Globes ceremony has been cancelled and replaced with a news conference because of the strike by writers over royalties, reports BBC.The winners of the US TV and film awards, regarded as second in prestige only to the Oscars, will instead be revealed in a low-key, hour-long news conference next Sunday.
Actors, including George Clooney and Keira Knightley had vowed to boycott the event in support of writers, according to reports. Without top names, networks had threatened not to screen the event.
Jorge Camara of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association said, "We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favourite stars."
Meanwhile, Oscars organisers say they are confident they will be able to "do the kind of show the public expects of us" on 24 February.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike since November over "residuals" - royalties for work distributed online or on DVD.
The dispute has brought to a standstill the production of nearly all TV comedy and drama shows including Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy.
Partial Source: BBC Image Source
Oscar Pictures
Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker & OprahJenna Jameson & Tito Ortiz, Kirsten Dunst
Tom & Katie, Nicole & Keith,Jennifer & Marc, Madonna & Gwyneth
Before/After The Oscars
Rose McGowan, Eve, Helen Mirren, Victoria Beckham
Lil Kim, Anika Noni Rose
Mary J Blige, Gwen Stefani, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
