On the theory that the “academy” likes to be broad-minded and internationally-inclined, I would take as longshots Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo from Hotel Rwanda. particularly Okonedo since it is better to be broad-minded in a major but lesser category. Nobody’s seen it, but you know when genocide’s in the air, that great ACTING can’t be far behind. At 33-1 I am taking Winslet over Swank, since all the others are….er, foreign or something. Finding Neverland is 100 to 1 for Best Picture. nice odds but the academy takes a resolute and brave position against pedophilia. will the academy heal the wound between movies and TV by granting Alan Alda a best supporting actor? tantalizing, but he would have to beat both a black man in a heart-tugging role and a “breakout” actor in a little indie hit, two formidably ideological choices for the academy. The Incredibles is a lock. If I could afford to bet $10,000, I could make a nice $700 or so. plus I have a weird crush on Elasti-Girl. The Aviator will win both best picture and best director…finally “making it up” to martin scorsese for Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Gangs of New York. the topic is “safer”–no wife-beating, greasy Italians, funny- horrific violence or people saying “tuppenny fuck” and slicing up dead pigs–and it’s an epic treatment of a hollywood figure (for extra academy “self-regard” points). I expect a cut, if you take any of my recommendations. but, of course, I had expected to make a killing off Queen Latifah in Chicago when that overstuffed couch Zeta-Jones won best supporting actress! damn her and her creepy husband Lee Majors! any side bets on “Most Embarrasing Speech” or “Nearly Dead but Acclaimed Foreign Director Who Will Win Lifetime Achievement Award after Being Snubbed for Four Decades?” Will the academy have a sense of humor and give “Best Make-Up” to Passion of the Christ? it’s interesting how the Jews killed Our Lord and founded Hollywood. Discuss.
Category: (random lists)
Oscar predictions again?
Oscars are coming up, don’t forget. Shall we take another stab at looking at the trends in this year’s nominations and discussing what folks can expect at the ceremony? Arnab started us with a few ideas. He’s under the assumption that because Scorsese has never won he’s bound to win this year. Is he using projection data? That is, is there something built into this whole process that makes it more or less predictable? Or is this a guessing game? Take, for instance, the documentary short nominee “Autism is a World.” Although I have not seen the film, I am quite confident it will win because autism has been in the news a lot lately. A cause celbre. Another example: I think Thomas Haden Church will win for best supporting actor. Although I saw “Sideways” and liked his performance very much, I am instead basing my prediction on the fact that Paul Giamatti didn’t get the nomination for best actor. The Academy likes to try and clean up after itself as much as possible by offering “concession” awards, so the nod will go to Church. Does the Academy try to distinguish itself from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? If that’s what you think, you probably expect that Hilary Swank will not win Best Actress, and that Jamie Foxx will not win Best Actor. Any thoughts? Any timeless trends worth pointing out? Joan Rivers scares me.
Million $ Dead Baby — or, Disabilities on Parade
Okay. A student just wrote me an impassioned defense of Eastwood’s “Million $ Baby,” deploring how its complex character study has been turned into mere politics. He makes a reasonable case, but I wrote him back a rant about disabilities on film and… well, I am curious how others might respond.
I’m too lazy to change much about my email to him, so cut/pasted:
Continue reading Million $ Dead Baby — or, Disabilities on Parade
melancholy baby
Whenever I read Film Comment magazine, as I’m doing now, I feel particularly stupid. First it is unlikely that I will see the new retrospective of whatever at Lincoln Center, and second, I rarely know the celebrated Turkish, Georgian or Finnish directors who apparently have been turning out masterpiece after masterpiece during the last decade, while I struggle to catch up with the episodes of Futurama that I’ve missed. This experience leads to melancholy thoughts regarding “film culture” and “netflix:” what happened to seeing films “publically”–now it is only consistently possible in New York City and in some rare other locations (say San Francisco/Berkely where they have a major Film Archive or Minneapolis which has the Walker Art Center) to see a movie in a well-designed theater or even to see a movie in a theater at all. do people really wish to stay at home so goddamm much? on one hand, the bizarre corporate cineplex where I have to sit through a fucking half hour of TV commercials now (and then, like a bad freshman essay, they summarize what you’ve just seen–“we’ve taken a sneak peak at the big screen update of “Green Acres” and talked with its star Colin Farrell…) and on the other, the stupefaction of “home” where you can safely piss yourself while you slog through all 13 hours of Berlin Alexanderplatz. as peggy lee whispered to me during an amorous embrace, “baby, is that all there is?” To which I replied, “when the boundaries of public and private life are muddled, public life becomes the unsatisfactory adjunct of a private life that is nevertheless misshapen by “public” but inaccessible forces.” She slapped me and left with that cheap Sinatra-fake Jack Jones. I retaliated by copping a feel of Connie Francis, who had passed out over her most recent Gin Rickey.
oscar predictions?
we’ve barely watched any of the nominees in the major categories, but if “ray” is nominated for best picture it must mean it is a bad year. i’m currently going with “million dollar baby” as best picture and scorcese finally getting his best director. i think foxx will get best actor, thereby really pissing off both tom cruise and will smith. for best actress i think there will be an upset and the woman from the new mike leigh will win (and thereby assure herself a lifetime of roles in very un-mike leigh’ish quaint english movies made for the american arthouse circuit). the category that confuses me is best documentary feature as it appears, going entirely off of titles of nominees, that no holocaust or civil rights themed docs have been nominated (though i suppose “the story of the weeping camel” may yet turn out to be one or the other)–are we witnessing a paradigm shift in the academy’s approach to documentary award-giving?
but these are my current picks–as oscar night approaches i will doubtless fine-tune them before once again crushing all opponents in various online and offline pools.
watched but as yet unblogged
in reverse order of viewing:
1. “the business of fancydancing”–promoted this one after mike’s endorsement. we liked it a lot (maybe sunhee will post her thoughts as well). some of the acting was a little amateurish (a lot of first-time actors apparently) but the lead was great, as was the writing generally. structurally very interesting as well–it felt like what it was: a film based on poems rather than stories or a novel. i also liked how it avoided resolutions, not only of seymour and aristotle’s relationship, but also of the question of seymour’s relationship to the rez (in his life and his art).
Early-morning thread
Okay, instead of prepping class, as I should, a hello–this board has been a bit arid, of late.
But I haven’t seen much. “Ray” is in my queue, but dropped precipitously after Arnab and John chewed it up and spat it out. I watched “The Girl Next Door,” which was not as funny as I’d expected (wearing my “good-reason-for-watching” hat) nor as titillating (wearing my “reason-for-watching-that-will-get-me-in-Dutch” hat). Actually, I watched it to see Timothy Olyphant, because I am so fond of “Deadwood” that I’ll watch almost anything any of that grand cast ends up doing between seasons. And Olyphant was pretty good, even in a dull film.
I’m hanging on to “Stevie” and “Maria Full of Grace” for when I have time and inclination to see these darker things. Meanwhile, Kris and I watch “Freaks and Geeks” together. I like it, but…. three episodes in, I’m not stunned into worshipful muttering. Is that heresy? Amy?
Here’s a challenge–what’s strange in your netflix queue? Those things that will be cool but will take forever to move up, what with all the films about things blowing up that could precede. Me: Dr. Akagi, Mule Skinner Blues, Goin’ South, Tunes of Glory, 9 Souls, Touchez Pas Au Grisbi, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, The Yakuza Papers, Madigan.
They cut me, man, they cut me
So I had this operation yesterday. Operation’s a fancy word for it–in and out of the clinic in thirty minutes. But I had to lie around the house all day with ice on my scrotum, so I watched a movies.
Recommended, all:
“Songs from the Second Floor”–not really sure how to describe this, and the critics’ quotes on the box are terribly confused (“Short Cuts meets Night of the Living Dead” is one inept [and lousy] attempt). It’s an absurdist existential comedy of despair, by a Swede. The film is gloriously composed–each shot a fixed-cam tableau, the lighting and sky usually artificial. (In contrast to Sky Captain . . . actually I’ll put this in a comment there.) I laughed, I was intrigued, and my scrotum wasn’t hurting while I watched.
fucking netflix
nikki noted in a comment on “shaun of the dead” that the fact that they got it off netflix while it remains on “very long wait” status for me must mean they’re better than me. possibly, but what it definitely means is that you don’t rent very many dvd’s from netflix in a month. if you rent too many movies from netflix you will run into service issues. i’ve noticed of late that more movies i want remain longer on “very long wait” or “long wait” status. and very often movies get shipped the day after they receive the previous movie from me, even though my top choices are “available now”. i wrote to netflix customer service about this and this is their response (the more annoying bits are in bold):
Recently
“Troy”. This snuck into my house, disguised as a film by Wolfgang Peterson with Brian Cox and Peter O’Toole in it. I lasted a few minutes longer than I did when I tried to watch “Braveheart.”
If “snuck” is the past tense of “sneak,” do I actually “feak” in the present tense?
TV shows: “Firefly” finally made me understand why people are impressed with Joss Whedon. And tonight I’ve been rewatching episodes of “The Upright Citizens Brigade,” which made me want to shove pennies up my ass. Again.
“In Good Company” was a fine exemplum of the contradictory embodiment of ideology in popular film. Even as they satirize “synergy,” the characters drink absurdly large cans of Diet Pepsi; the critique of globalization and the conglomeration of industry stems from a nostalgia for the good old days when old white guys shook hands in back rooms. And Topher Grace is a hottie. He reminds me of John Bruns, if John were taller and more anorexic.