Movies: Frost/Nixon, Benjamin Button, and The Wrestler

It’s the time of the year when all would-be Oscar pundits have to try and catch up with the end-of-the-year glut of prestige pics, and I’m no different. I’ve even sacrificed seeing The Unborn, which is normally the kind of cheesy horror flick I’d be all over, in order to get Oscar prepped. I’m excited to finally be in on the awards loop. When I was in college, I kept up with television because I could watch it at 3 a.m. while working on papers, and I kept up with literature because that was my major, but I fell behind in movies because taking three or four hours off to go see something in the theatre just wasn’t an option. Last year when I watched the Oscars, for example, the only nominated movies I’d seen were Enchanted and Juno. Of course, it would be easier to get caught up if most of the nominated films hadn’t been released in the past month, but the NYT’s David Carr addresses that better than I ever could. At any rate, here’s my take on a few of the newly-anointed Must Sees.

Frost/Nixon
Of the two Broadway-to-film adaptations of the year, Frost/Nixon is my clear favorite. In fact, it’s one of my favorite films of 2008, hands down. Anyone who has read All the President’s Men already knows that the journalistic digging of Woodward and Bernstein was the most interesting facet of the whole Watergate case, and Frost/Nixon now provides an excellent companion piece for any aspiring journo. Frank Langella and Michael Sheen are perfect as Richard Nixon and David Frost, their rat-a-tat back and forths provide some of the most exciting on-screen scenes I’ve seen in years, and they’re surrounded by a talented supporting cast that provide a few moments of levity. This is a sharp, smart movie, and I truly hope it gets some kind of reward on Oscar night.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This movie, on the other hand, disappointed greatly. It’s shot beautifully, has many warm and wonderful moments, and is mostly well acted, but there are two glaring problems that kept it from fully gelling for me. First is the framing technique of a present day narrative with Cate Blanchett’s character on her deathbed in the midst of Hurricane Katrina, reflecting on Benjamin’s life story, which serves as the bulk of the movie proper. The present day narrative does nothing to add to the main story, and in fact served only to pull me out of the story every time I started to get sucked in. The other problem is the title character. If you take away the fact that he’s aging in reverse, Benjamin Button is really dull as hell. He’s reactive, not proactive, mostly bouncing around wherever life takes him. He has no truly shining moments where he does something spectacular or interesting, aside from aging backwards. Brad Pitt’s performance is pretty lackluster, too, a little deadpan and a lot dead-around-the-eyes. Every other character and actor/actress in the movie dazzles, there are fine performances all around, but without anything to really play off of with such a dull central character, the whole thing falls flat.

The Wrestler
Mickey Rourke gives a great performance in what is a really good movie. The best movie of the year, no, but better than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk, both of which got nods for picture of the year. Director Darren Aronofsky would have done well to tighten the first act up a bit, but by act two it really starts rolling and culminates in a surprising, moving third act. I really like that the movie doesn’t go for the typical schmaltz that comeback/underdog films usually go for – this is a movie that will stay with you for a while after the credits roll. Although I do feel compelled to say that I grew up in the town next to the town where most of this movie was set and shot, and believe me, that area of New Jersey is nowhere near as depressing as The Wrestler makes it out to be. Seriously.

2009 Oscar Nominations

The 2009 Oscar nominations are in! Not a ton of surprises across the board, but there are a few.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor”
Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn in “Milk”
Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”

+I would have preferred Leo for Revolutionary Road instead of Brad Pitt, but this will be an interesting category to watch.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Josh Brolin in “Milk”
Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt”
Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road”

+The Robert Downey Jr. Tropic Thunder nomination is proof that he would have been a clinch for The Soloist had they not bumped it to this year. I'm glad Michael Shannon was recognized for his fantastic performance. And of course it's poingnant that Heath Ledger was nominated on the anniversary of his death.

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie in “Changeling”
Melissa Leo in “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
Kate Winslet in “The Reader”

+Interesting, the Academy voters apparently overrode Winslet's positioning for Supporting for The Reader and put her in for Leading, which knocked out a Revolutionary Road nom for her. This might improve her chances for a win, though, as voters won't have to split their votes for her between two categories.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Amy Adams in “Doubt”
Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis in “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”

+I would love to see Viola Davis get this.

Best animated feature film of the year

“Bolt”
“Kung Fu Panda”
“WALL-E”

+Again, the dog and the panda don't have a prayer.

Achievement in art direction

“Changeling”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“The Duchess”
“Revolutionary Road”

Achievement in cinematography

“Changeling”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

Achievement in costume design

“Australia”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Duchess”
“Milk”
“Revolutionary Road”

Achievement in directing

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

Best documentary feature

“The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)”
“Encounters at the End of the World”
“The Garden”
“Man on Wire”
“Trouble the Water”

Best documentary short subject

“The Conscience of Nhem En”
“The Final Inch”
“Smile Pinki”
“The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306”

Achievement in film editing

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

Best foreign language film of the year

“The Baader Meinhof Complex”
“The Class”
“Departures”
“Revanche”
“Waltz with Bashir”

Achievement in makeup

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army”

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Defiance”
“Milk”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

“Down to Earth” from “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
“Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
“O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman andMaya Arulpragasam

Best motion picture of the year

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

+After the Golden Globes sweep, Slumdog's sitting pretty, making Frost/Nixon the real underdog.

Best animated short film

“La Maison en Petits Cubes”
“Lavatory - Lovestory”
“Oktapodi”
“Presto”
“This Way Up”

Best live action short film

“Auf der Strecke (On the Line)”
“Manon on the Asphalt”
“New Boy”
“The Pig”
“Spielzeugland (Toyland)”

Achievement in sound editing

“The Dark Knight”
“Iron Man”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”
“Wanted”

Achievement in sound mixing

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”
“Wanted”

Achievement in visual effects

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Iron Man”

Adapted screenplay

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Doubt”
“Frost/Nixon”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

Original screenplay

“Frozen River”
“Happy-Go-Lucky”
“In Bruges”
“Milk”
“WALL-E”

The awards ceremony will air on Sunday, February 22, 2009, which gives you just about a month to try and see all the movies you missed in the end-of-the-year cinema glut.

Movies: My Bloody Valentine 3D

There’s no shortage of scary movies getting released this January and February, which is why horror junkies should feel safe skipping My Bloody Valentine 3D and getting their fix elsewhere. Horror movies don’t necessarily have to include a thrillingly original plot, as long as there is some coherency and lots of nail-biting moments. This movie has neither.

The movie opens with newspaper clippings and faux-news voiceovers giving the scant background of the story (a mine explosion trapped six miners in a shaft, one - Harry Warden - went crazy and pickaxed the other five to conserve air before falling into a coma), then it goes right into Warden waking from his year-long coma and going on a cross-town massacre that takes up probably the first twenty minutes of the movie, ending when Warden is gunned down right before he tries to kill Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), the guy responsible for the mine explosion in the first place. Cut to ten years later, Hanniger is back in town for the first time in a decade, and Warden is back from the dead and killing again...or is he?

My Bloody Valentine is the kind of slasher flick they don’t make anymore – but that might not be a bad thing. I say this as someone who grew up watching the 80s slashers, owns the Sleepaway Camp DVD boxset, and can’t wait to see how badly Michael Bay messes up Friday the 13th next month. When slasher movies were exciting and new, audiences seemed more inclined to handwave the less coherent plot machinations. But now that we’re used to more refined psychological components to our scares, having a spooky psycho killer with hazy motivations just doesn’t cut it.

The characters are wooden and the acting is uneven. While Jensen Ackles and Jaime King do a fine enough job with their roles, Kerr Smith, best known as Jen’s gay BFF on Dawson’s Creek, turns in a completely unsympathetic performance, which would be fine if his character didn’t get a third of the screentime. Don’t look for imaginative deaths, either – the killer sticks with his trusty pickaxe the whole time, which doesn’t make for much variety. And when faced with several choices for who the identity of the killer would be, the producers went with the least interesting option, leading to an anticlimactic ending.

The film could have been a campy treat if it didn’t take itself so seriously. The scene where the killer hacks up first a little person (played by Selene Luna, Margaret Cho’s personal assistant) and then a naked girl who is cursing a blue streak could have been a cheesy highlight in a film that embraced its camp value. But My Bloody Valentine positions itself as serious horror, and it really, truly isn’t. The original version was not a cinematic masterpiece, either, but at least its plot was coherent.

I should say, the theatre I saw My Bloody Valentine at was not equipped to do 3D, so I missed out on what I’m sure would have been several cool moments of severed jaws flying at my head and a pickaxe swinging towards my face, things that might have marginally improved my enjoyment of the film. But those are ultimately fun little tricks that can’t replace a well-made and entertaining movie. To be worth your money, a movie must be able to stand alone as a 2D experience as well as a 3D one. Unfortunately, My Bloody Valentine does not stand alone, and is not worth your money.

Worst Movies of 2008

Okay, I wanted to have this up earlier in the week, but then a plane crashed a couple hundred feet away from where I was working and I had to do the Media Thing of helping to cover it, which oddly enough doesn’t leave much time for mocking dreadful movies. But that’s what the weekend is for! As long as a plane doesn’t actually drop on my house as I'm writing this I should be okay.

So these are my picks for the worst movies of 2008, but with a caveat: no one is paying me to go see movies and review them (yet), I am under no obligation to see any particular movie and won’t part with much cash to see an obvious piece of crap if I can avoid it. So while I’m sure The Love Guru would have made the list had I seen it, I didn’t. Because that movie looks just terrible. So these may not be the definitively worst movies the year had to offer, but they were certainly a waste of my time, and if you’re a Netflixer, then maybe I can keep them from being a waste of yours, too.

10) The Ruins – This one wasn’t offensively bad, it was just bland. The characters were interchangeable, the horror was toothless. There was potential for a pretty good movie here that was mostly squandered with unimaginative direction.

9) 27 Dresses – Again, there was nothing offensive about this movie, but I literally cannot think of one single reason to recommend anyone sitting through it.

8) Sex and the City – I went into more detail about how this film fell flat in my review, but this is definitely one TV series that should have stuck with the high note it ended on instead of dragging its desiccated carcass onto the movie screen.

7) Jumper – Proof that a cool-looking trailer does not always translate into a cool movie. I still don’t understand why they felt the need to use two sets of actors and actresses for the older and younger characters when the age difference was something like five years. Incomprehensible plot, unimpressive action. Cool trailer, though.

6) Vantage Point – This was like eight different movies in one, and none of them any good.

5) Prom Night – No tension, no horror, no reason to waste your time on this remake-in-name-only.

4) Untraceable – Convoluted for the sake of being convoluted and boring as hell.

3) Made of Honor – A romantic comedy that’s neither romantic or comedic. Michelle Monaghan deserves better material than this.

2) The Happening – A couple years ago, I was on a cross-country flight when both my iPod and laptop ran out of juice, so I decided to watch the in-flight movie, The Lady in the Water. It was so terrible that I unplugged my headphones after thirty minutes and spent the rest of the flight staring into space. I thought that would be the worst movie M. Night Shyamalan could ever make. Let the record show that 2008 was the year he proved me wrong on that account.

1) Doomsday – I was nearly apoplectic with rage after sitting through this flaming pile of dross, because there was so much potential here. I love post-apocalyptic movies, I love plague stories, it looked like it would be amazing. And it starts out pretty well, until it suddenly veers off into bizarroland. No plausible explanation is given for why the isolated population of a country nigh overrun by cattle decided to go cannibalistic, or why the other half of the population is Medieval Fun Times With Malcolm McDowell. It was like the filmmakers couldn’t decide what kind of film they wanted to make, so they decided to make them all and, like Vantage Point, made none of them well.

If no movie I see in 2009 is even half as bad as The Happening or Doomsday, then I’ll give this year a solid win over the one that just passed, I swear.

Aggregation Goes Ass Backwards

We’ve only just successfully lured the Greatest Generation onto the internet, enabling grandma to throw a sheep at you any time she wants. There are finally enough reliable aggregation sources that we need only hit a few sites to get a good overview of the news each day. Life 2.0 is nicely streamlined and in sync with technology. Which is why you have to applaud a visionary like Joshua Karp for wanting to take a great leap backwards!

Wired’s “New Media Venture Turns Bloggers Into Print Journalists” tells the tale of an entrepreneur who is launching a twice-daily print version of blogs:

“Why hasn’t anyone tried to take the best content and bring it offline?” said Karp, who thinks print media is far from dying.

Hate to break it to you, Karp, but taking something from the web and turning it into print is hardly a revolutionary idea, and rarely a lucrative one.

Unlike other End of Nighers, I don’t think print media is completely doomed, not necessarily anyway. But the march towards digitalization will continue, and reversing the successful web aggregation formula for print? Well, were I the kind of person prone to posting pictures with humorous text overlays, I’d show you one that implies they are not going about this in the right way. But I’m not that kind of person, so you’ll just have to wait until you can pick up a copy of The Printed Blog on your morning commute.

2009 Golden Globe Awards

It's time! West Coasties, beware of spoilers. Feed readers, go to the blog itself for further updates.

7:58 - Best thing about the E! red carpet show was Ryan and the other woman being constantly rebuffed by Brad and Angelina.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

AMY ADAMS – DOUBT
PENELOPE CRUZ – VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
VIOLA DAVIS –DOUBT
MARISA TOMEI – THE WRESTLER
KATE WINSLET – THE READER

Awesome. Think this means she won't get it for Revolutionary Road? Or will she snag two awards tonight?

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE

“DOWN TO EARTH” — WALL-E
Music by: Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman
Lyrics by: Peter Gabriel
“GRAN TORINO” — GRAN TORINO
Music by: Clint Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens
Lyrics by: Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens
“I THOUGHT I LOST YOU” — BOLT
Music & Lyrics by: Miley Cyrus, Jeffrey Steele
“ONCE IN A LIFETIME” — CADILLAC RECORDS
Music & Lyrics by: Beyoncé Knowles, Amanda Ghost, Scott McFarnon, Ian Dench, James Dring, Jody Street
“THE WRESTLER” — THE WRESTLER
Music & Lyrics by: Bruce Springsteen

I still say Repo! The Genetic Opera deserved a nod in this category.

8:14 - Yikes, what kind of push up bra is Eva Longoria wearing? Those puppies are racked up to her clavicle.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Denis Leary, Recount
Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Blair Underwood, In Treatment
Tom Wilkinson, John Adams

I cannot agree with any award that Neil Patrick Harris does not win.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Eileen Atkins, Cranford
Laura Dern, Recount
Melissa George, In Treatment
Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
Dianne Wiest, In Treatment

Interesting. Atkins got the Emmy in September.

8:25 - Local news teaser: "A woman dies after a wild sexcapade in a hotel, after the Globes."

ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors

No love for Hugh. Sad. He had a really stong year, too.

ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
January Jones, Mad Men
Anna Paquin, True Blood
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Huh! That is surprising. I haven't watched True Blood yet, actually. I have all the eps on my Tivo, I just haven't had a spare 12 hours to watch them. I think Mariska Hargitay had a really, really strong season on SVU last year, but she's already gotten Emmys et al for this role, it's nice to see some fresh Blood in there.

8:33 - Oh god, why did they have a shot of Tom Cruise touching Leonardo DiCaprio? Leo isn't a Scientologist, is he? That would break my heart.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

BOLT
KUNG FU PANDA
WALL-E

Yes, yes. Also, water is wet, the sun is bright, and you're an idiot if you thought this was gonna go any other way.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

REBECCA HALL – VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
SALLY HAWKINS – HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
FRANCES MCDORMAND – BURN AFTER READING
MERYL STREEP – MAMMA MIA!
EMMA THOMPSON – LAST CHANCE HARVEY

I somehow managed to see none of these movies. Luckily this won't be an issue come Oscar time because I doubt many of these will even snag noms! Because lord knows the Academy hates to laugh or sing these days.

8:50 - Commercial for Confessions of a Shopaholic. Man, now THAT is a movie that is gonna be screwed due to external circumstances. Are people gonna line up to see a movie about frivolous shopping and credit card debt in this economy?

MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

A Raisin in the Sun
Bernard and Doris
Cranford
John Adams
Recount

The TV categories always serve to remind me that the Golden Globes are just the watered-down bastard hybrid of the Emmys and the Oscars. Yawn.

8:57 - If RDJ gets an Oscar nod, he'll get a haircut, right? Right?

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

TOM CRUISE – TROPIC THUNDER
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. –TROPIC THUNDER
RALPH FIENNES – THE DUCHESS
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN – DOUBT
HEATH LEDGER – THE DARK KNIGHT

Holy shit. Wow.

9:02 - Still can't believe Heath won. Day to day leading up to this I switched between "It's a gimme" and "He'll never get it." I think it helps that they stacked the category in his favor. I mean, Cruise and Downey were never gonna win, on account of the nature of their roles. PSH was fine in Doubt but not a firecracker like Heath. And Ralph was fine in The Duchess but nothing spectacular. Even if Heath hadn't passed away he might have gotten this one.

9:04 - "All these power players in one room! There's no scene like the Golden Globe Awards! We'll be right back!" Thanks, announcer guy, for reminding me how cheesy the Golden Globes are. I'd forgotten in your absence last year.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX (GERMANY)
EVERLASTING MOMENTS (SWEDEN/DENMARK)
GOMORRAH (ITALY)
I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG (FRANCE)
WALTZ WITH BASHIR (ISRAEL)

Cool. Ha, Colin Farrell announcing the award, and sniffling and snorting like a madman: "I still have a cold. It's not the other thing it used to be." Lord.

9:10 - I love Maggie Gyllenhaal's dress, she looks fantastic.

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Judi Dench, Cranford
Catherine Keener, An American Crime
Laura Linney, John Adams
Shirley MacLaine, Coco Chanel
Susan Sarandon, Bernard and Doris

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE

SIMON BEAUFOY – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
DAVID HARE – THE READER
PETER MORGAN – FROST/NIXON
ERIC ROTH – THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN
JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY – DOUBT

Oh hell's yeah! Absolutely deserved. Absolutely.

9:22 - Amy Poehler and Patrick Dempsey presenting together? Did they pull names out of a hat or something? That is so random.

ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Kevin Connolly, Entourage
David Duchovny, Californication
Tony Shalhoub, Monk

No big shock there. It was between him and Shalhoub. I was surprised Kevin Connolly was nominated. Good on Baldwin for thanking Tina Fey. That show would be nothing without Liz Lemon.

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Ralph Fiennes, Bernard and Doris
Paul Giamatti, John Adams
Kevin Spacey, Recount
Kiefer Sutherland, 24: Redemption
Tom Wilkinson, Recount

What, no love for the Kief?

9:35 - What the hell is Glenn Close wearing? Did she raid Prince's closet?

TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

30 Rock
Californication
Entourage
The Office
Weeds

Nice. I would have been happy with 30 Rock or Weeds or The Office. Tracy Morgan speechifying: "Tina and I agreed that if Obama won I'd do the speaking for the show from now on. I'm the face of post-racial America! Deal with it, Cate Blanchett!"

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT –THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
CLINT EASTWOOD – CHANGELING
JAMES NEWTON HOWARD – DEFIANCE
A. R. RAHMAN – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
HANS ZIMMER – FROST/NIXON

Again, well deserved. The score was a nice, tense mix of east and west.

ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

The reign of Fey continues. From her speech: "I know how lucky I am to have had the year I've had. And if you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the internet. There are a lot of people there who don't like you. I'm going to address some of them now. Babs in Lacrosse, you can suck it. DianeFan, you can suck it. And Cougar Fan, you can suck it, you've been after me all year."

10:08 - Wow. Spielberg's rambling, nattering speech almost put me to sleep.

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE

DANNY BOYLE – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
STEPHEN DALDRY – THE READER
DAVID FINCHER – THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
RON HOWARD – FROST/NIXON
SAM MENDES – REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Totally called it. Though he might still get Best Picture, too. But I still think Benjamin Button might upset the streak in that category.

ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Javier Bardem, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Colin Farrell, In Bruges
James Franco, Pineapple Express
Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges
Dustin Hoffman, Last Chance Harvey

Colin: "They must have done the counting in Florida!" Hey, timely joke, there, Col! Oh no, now he's "waxing lyrical" about love. He's drunk right now, isn't he?

10:30 - Sasha Baron Cohen joking about how the recession has affected celebs: “Even Madonna has had to get rid of one of her personal assistants. Our thoughts go out to you, Guy Ritchie.” The joke absolutely tanked. Tanked.

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

BURN AFTER READING
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
IN BRUGES
MAMMA MIA!
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

ANNE HATHAWAY – RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
ANGELINA JOLIE – CHANGELING
MERYL STREEP – DOUBT
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS – I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG (IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T’AIME)
KATE WINSLET – REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Holy awesome hell that is fricking fantastic. Kate is an amazing actress and was wonderful in the movie. If she gets screwed at the Oscars again, I will choke someone. Kate, overwhelmed: "Anne, Meryl, Kristin...oh god, who's the other one? Angelina!" Later: "'Please wrap up.' Oh, you have no idea much I am not wrapping up. Okay. (Takes a deep breath.) Gather..." Cut away to Angelina giving major bitchface. Wow. Kate thanks Leo, Leo blows her a kiss, adorable. Oh god, she's crying, and now I want to cry, too. She is so lovely. So well deserved.

10:44 - Blake Lively and Rainn Wilson presenting, okay. Another odd pairing.

TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

Dexter
House
In Treatment
Mad Men
True Blood

ACTOR, DRAMA

Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Called that, too. Everyone loves a comeback. Oh shit, he just fell walking up the stairs. Damn, he couldn't take a minute to wash his hair before the awards? Gross. Also, I'm pretty sure I have the same sparkly scarf he's wearing. At least he didn't bring his chihuahua on stage with him. Did my audio just randomly cut out or did he spew an expletive that got beeped? Oh, now he's thanking his dogs. He thanked his dogs before he thanked Bruce Springsteen.

10:57 - Local news anchor: "Coming up, a sexcapade ends in death at a Park Avenue hotel." Okay, okay, we get it, good god.

10:59 - Here it is, the biggie. Cruise presenting.

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
FROST/NIXON
THE READER
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Holy shit! What a sweep! That is awesome, awesome, awesome. It's a wonderful movie with great spirit and heart that is genuinely entertaining. It deserved every award it got. Ha, Danny Boyle just let loose some kind of bleeped expletive when he realized they were wrapping him up.

So that's it! I kind of didn't care about the TV awards, which were so anticlimactic after the Emmys in September. Sutrprisingly, I agreed with most of the movie wins.

The final tally for the movie categories:
Slumdog Millionaire: 4 (Screenplay, Score, Director, Best Picture)
The Wrestler: 2 (Song, Mickey Rourke)
The Reader: 1 (Kate Winslet)
Revolutionary Road: 1 (Kate Winslet)
Wall-E: 1 (Best Animated)
Happy-Go-Lucky: 1 (Sally Hawkins)
The Dark Knight: 1 (Heath Ledger)
Waltz With Bashir: 1 (Foreign)
In Bruges: 1 (Colin Farrell)
Vicky Christina Barcelona: 1 (Best Comedy/Musical)

Media Mashup: Eyeball Eaters, Bee Agitators, and the Real F-Word

Here are some Sunday afternoon links to kill some time before the Golden Globes:

A few years ago, a friend of mine was in an amateur production of Oedipus Rex that made such gleeful use of corn syrup blood and gelatin eyeballs that even my dangerously-desensitized-by-massive-exposure-to-horror-movies self was moments away from fleeing the auditorium in queasy horror. This? This is so much worse:

"Thomas said he pulled out his eye and subsequently ingested it," agency spokesman Jason Clark said Friday. [...] "He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one."

Oh, for the love of...did that actually need stating? I mean, really, the man who pulled his own eyeball from his head and ate it - twice - is mentally ill? Really? You don't say.

That story is almost as horrifying as this one: Tumor Found In Newborn's Brain Contained A Foot:

A pediatric neurosurgeon says a tumor he removed from the brain of a Colorado Springs infant contained a tiny foot and other partially formed body parts. [...] "It looked like the breech delivery of a baby, coming out of the brain," Grabb said.

Oh god. Oh god. OH DEAR GOD. Why, why, why do the interviewees with the least-writerly-jobs always feel the need to get extra imaginative in their quotes? Can't they find another way to unleash their creative side, like taking a pottery class or trolling on Digg or something? I'd normally have the urge to scrub my brain with bleach to eradicate that horrifying image, but now I also have the urge to mix in a little Gold Bond. Just, you know, in case.

Moving away from Things That Are Horrible into the land of Things That Are Awesome, you might remember David Thorne as the guy who tried to pay a bill with a drawing of a spider. He specializes - to use the word lightly - in engaging in protracted and hilarious e-mail exchanges with unlucky, unwitting souls, then posting the results to his too-cool-for-a-functional-splash-page website. Well, he's at it again, e-harassing a motorcycle salesman with typical motorcyclist concerns, like getting attacked by swarms of bees:

According to one [web]page though, bees are technically unable to fly due to their wings being too small for their body weight but I have seen them do it so this can't be true. Somebody should check the internet and make sure everything on there is correct.

Over at The Hathor Legacy, Jennifer Kesler wants to know whether intent matters when judging the sexism within a piece of media:

Not only are we not claiming to know the writer’s (or director’s, producer’s or network’s) intent when we criticize their product, but I would go one step further and argue that intent doesn’t matter.

And finally, Amy Siskind did a very interesting article for The Daily Beast that's well worth a read, How Feminism Became the F-Word:

Who is looking out for the women of this country? Well, I will tell you who is not: Ms. magazine.

If my friend's apartment has wireless internet that I can tap into, I'll try liveblogging the Golden Globes the way I did the Emmys, so check back in later tonight. And if that fails, well, coming up this week I'll be talking about Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, my best and worst movie picks for '08, and the new season of Scrubs.

Tropic Thunder Redux

I finally got around to watching my Tropic Thunder DVD this weekend. Sadly, upon second viewing the movie isn’t as hilarious as I remember. Some parts are still laugh-out-loud hilarious, of course, mostly the jokes that are character-based, but the overall impact is a little dulled. That’s always the risk with movies that rely a lot on outrageous gags for laughs, they don’t have a high repeat laugh quotient.

DreamWorks stuck an, um, interesting little surprise on the first disc. If you go to the main menu, click Special Features, click More, and click under the Previews on the thing that says DreamWorks Public Service Announcement, you’ll get to watch a minute and a half long PSA about people with intellectual disabilities, that says “People with intellectual disabilities deserve only one R word. Respect.” Alas, there is no PSA about not donning blackface, so they haven’t really covered all their bases as far as making reparations to the people they offended.

Also, the most popular Google search leading people to this blog is “Who played Rick Peck’s son in Tropic Thunder?” Like, at least a few people a day, every day, which – huh. Surprised that there are so many people out there caring, it’s such a throwaway bit in the movie. At any rate, I still don’t know the answer to that, just that he’s not really Ben Stiller’s nephew Carl but rather some unnamed actor. The cast commentary is not really enlightening on that front. Over the brief shot of the kid and McConaughey in the first act, Jack Black says, “Dude, that kid in the picture was the same one we used in the, uh, in the MTV short.” And Ben Stiller says, “Yes, we ended up using that kid in the MTV short because the kid was so good.” Then they go back to the commentary, which is amusing in some places, but mostly unsettling because Robert Downey Jr. chose to do the majority of it using his Lazarus voice and patois. Until the end, when he switches to the Australian accent. The man is a mad genius – and from day to day I vacillate between which half of that phrase to emphasize.

I still say the movie is worth seeing, and the extras are pretty good as far as these things go. And damn if Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson aren’t still the funniest freaking people to hit the screen in a long, long while.

Movies: Doubt

My favorite playwriting professor was fond of saying that in the theatre, the playwright is god. When compared to their Hollywood counterparts, the underpaid (compared to the director/talent) and underappreciated (compared to the key grip) screenwriters, this is certainly true. The playwright, after all, retains rights to their script forever and ever amen. This is the lone advantage of not having a union like the WGA backing you. So if you write a play (for example, Marsha Norman’s incomparable ‘night Mother), then some nutball amateur director wants to do something really out there with the setting (for example, changing the house to an ice floe), then you have the right to say no. Which, from what I hear, is precisely what Ms. Norman did. The playwright has the final say on everything. It’s an amazing kind of power to have – a power that, alas, seems to have gone to John Patrick Shanley’s head in creating the film adaptation of his Broadway play, Doubt.

The film, which is set in a Catholic school in the 1960s, concerns a priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a pair of nuns (Meryl Streep and Amy Adams), and the suspicion that the priest played a round of Knock the Pope’s Hat Off with an altar boy. No concrete evidence is given, of course, leaving plenty of room for Doubt. (Did that pun make you roll your eyes and groan? Then skip this movie. Trust me.) Hoffman and Streep give fine performances – when don’t they? Streep is especially effective as exactly the kind of scary nun my father remembers from his Catholic school days in Newark in the 1950s. He likes to say their school colors were black and blue. (It’s okay to groan at that one, too.) Amy Adams, usually so lovely, is a weak link. Her wide eyed, shivering innocence reads like they’ve stuffed Giselle, her Enchanted Disney-princess-in-real-life character, into a habit and shoved her onto the soundstage. Viola Davis as the mother of the maybe-maybe-not-molested boy is a real standout. If any character in the movie could have used more screentime, it’s hers, but alas, she retains the one allotted scene the character got in the stage version. In fact, hers is the sole character to not get the supersizing treatment on celluloid.

Shanley chose to both direct and write the screenplay in an act that is nothing short of this film’s undoing. What on stage was a tight, focused narrative about the power of conviction and the peril of doubt has morphed into a meandering, bloated, self-important narrative that says the same things said by the stage version, but in a much less elegant manner. Was there a minor character mentioned in passing in the play? Let’s give them a whole arc in the movie! Was one character’s long winded bloviating not enough to establish their character? By all means, give them several scenes worth of set-up – and retain the bloviating speeches to boot! Shanley ladles out the worst of both worlds in his screenplay. Not only is nearly every word of the play lovingly preserved – not always in the same order as on the stage, mind, with whole scenes chopped up and redistributed, making sure every word is crammed in there whether the transition feels natural or not – but Shanley gave himself carte blanche to follow his every whim in padding out the story. And his sole previous directing credit is that 1990 masterpiece, Joe Versus the Volcano, which he also penned. So while I suppose he can be forgiven for his inelegant framing of shots and unfortunate tendency to focus the camera on the wrong character at the wrong moment, what can’t be forgiven is the fact that he didn’t hand the movie over to someone who did know what they were doing. Similarly, he should have entrusted the script with someone who had enough emotional distance from the source material to excise the excess and bring the best parts to the fore, not bury the whole thing in a thick, rancid layer of offal.

But he didn't, and so we're left with this movie which further proves that Hollywood is no place for a god.

Movies: Revolutionary Road

I really, really wanted to love Revolutionary Road. Oh man, did I want to love this movie. Enough to brave the massive crowd at Union Square at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night to see it. Which, by the way, never in my life have I shown up thirty minutes early for a movie and still had to sit in the third row because nowhere else in a cavernous, ~250 capacity theatre-with-balcony had two adjacent seats left. Jeebus. But really, I love Kate Winslet, I love Leonardo DiCaprio, I love (or thought I loved) Sam Mendes...it looked like a no-brainer to rank as one of my Top 10 movies of the year. What went wrong?

Well, not the acting, that’s for sure. Kate gives a gutsy, stripped down performance. She is the rare beautiful actress who isn’t afraid to be ugly and broken down, and looks all the more breathtaking for it. And Leo acts the hell out of a character with no real redeeming qualities. Michael Shannon, best known to New York theatre audiences for his roles in the Tracy Letts plays Bug and Killer Joe, is a scene stealer as a crackling wire of a man who was recently released from an asylum, and whose multiple electroshock treatments have given him both clarity of vision and lack of filter in reporting on what he sees. His brief appearances are easily the highlight of the film.

I also couldn’t find fault with any individual scene within the movie. Each one is shot and framed beautifully and the characters interact in interesting and meaningful ways. No scene felt extraneous or indulgent. And yet. All of those beautiful scenes played out by skilled actors do not add up to a coherent, satisfying story. This problem is revealed within the first fifteen minutes of the movie, when the opening scene where April (Winslet) and Frank (DiCaprio) first meet goes into a scene of the couple, already chafing at their suburban married life, having a snarling fight on the side of a road. The movie only flashes back a few times to fill in the time between scene one and scene two. I understand that this is a movie about the disintegration of a relationship, so too much time can’t be expended on the happy, early days of the courtship, but it’s hard to be moved by the death of a relationship to which we’ve yet to grow attached. The stakes just aren’t there.

I was surprised because I thought that Mendes had said something wonderful and profound about the American family in American Beauty. But after we got out of Revolutionary Road, my friend and I decided to take advantage of one of the last nights of decent weather we’ll see for a while by walking the forty blocks uptown rather than taking the subway, so I had some time to think. And I realized that, in retrospect, American Beauty is nowhere near as deep and profound as I found it to be when I first saw it at age sixteen. Which probably comes only as breaking news to me and me alone. American Beauty, in fact, is much like Revolutionary Road - a series of beautiful and interesting scenes that, strung end to end, do not make that satisfying a narrative.

The script is a little too earnest, barely salvaged by the skilled actors bringing it to life. Several lines that I’m sure were meant to evoke some kind of genuine emotion in the audience instead led to gut-splitting laughter in my section of the theatre. Granted, we were all kind of woozy from lack of blood to the head, since we were craning our necks to watch the giant screen that was only a few feet away from us, but I can’t imagine those lines garnering a different reaction farther back in the theatre. Especially the very obvious Titanic car sex shoutout - I could hear the laughter over that little doozy ringing down from the balcony. The first half of the movie also drags on far too slowly. During one scene, I checked my watch, certain the movie must be drawing to an end. I was surprised to see we were only at the halfway point. It does pick up in the second half, where the narrative also starts to come together from the disparate parts, but by then it’s almost too late to salvage the film.

Still, it is a movie worth seeing, if only for the performances of Kate, Leo, and Michael Shannon. It’s wonderful to see Kate’s April and Leo’s Frank fall out of love, back in love, and definitively out of love once and for all, as they try to balance their own hopes and ambitions with society’s expectations and, in Frank’s case, their self-sabotaging tendencies. And even if he can’t tell a cohesive narrative, Sam Mendes does still know how to frame a scene beautifully. There’s one mostly silent shot towards the end of the film, where April is staring out the window of her suburban prison cell, that I guarantee will stay with you long after you leave the theatre.

Pete Wentz Apologizes For Swoosh Haircut

Breast milk-taster/Fall Out Boy frontman Pete Wentz has come out with a list of gripes and loves for 2009, and on the list of gripes is the swoosh haircut popularized by, well, Pete Wentz:

6. the “swoosh” hair cut
i apologize for my participation. god, these pictures are gonna be like ones of my dad from the 70’s when he had long hair and a beard, just bad. i have no excuse.

I'm sorry, but Pete Wentz apologizing for his "participation" in the swoosh haircut phenomenon is like an arsonist apologizing for his "participation" in the burning down of your house. The house, in this metaphor, being my eyeballs. Alas, Pete, the damage is done, which you would have known if you had walked past a high school or mall any time in the past two years. Damage. Done.

Time Warner to Stewart/Colbert Fans: Sucks to Be You!

Time Warner Cable decided to give its customers a special New Years treat: cutting off their access to all Viacom channels. Without Dora the Explorer, what will stoned fratboys watch at night? Oh, no worries, Viacom doesn't own Cartoon Network. Aqua Teen Hunger Force to the rescue! Anyway, Nikki Finke has all the details here if you are inclined to read the whole back and forth.

This time last year, this might have upset me. But these days I'm calmer, wiser...and I switched to Comcast in June, so whatever, not my problem. I'm inclined to side with Viacom on this one, though, even with their shitty business practices, because Time Warner is kind of a pain in the ass. When one of my crazy roommates wanted to get cable in her room, instead of letting her get her own account they made me put it under my account (that I had opened a year prior) because of how our building was zoned or whatever - there couldn't be two accounts or something like that. I don't know, they didn't explain it well and after two hours on the phone I finally said screw it and authorized the charge because I had stuff to do and my roommate was whining. And though she was never late with her half because I scared the bejesus out of her - you thought I didn't see you crossing yourself every time I walked past like I was Rosemary's damnassed baby strolling down the hall, and yes, I was also surprised to learn that "Whore of Babylon" doesn't have a direct translation in your language, either that or you wanted me to hear you say it. I'm sorry that American girls wear pants and tops that are not full-on turtlenecks and makeup and jeez! Chill! - it was still annoying.

Also, they would update the software on the cable box, like, every week, and the TV would be unavailable for a few hours in the middle of the night, which was the only time I had to watch TV at that time so that sucked. And the resetting would mess up my Tivo because the cable box would be off post-resetting and I wouldn't notice for a while because the whole point of Tivo is to not have to watch live TV, and that glitch made me miss the final sign off of the WB network that my Tivo was supposed to record, and yes, it was a bunch of programs I'd already seen a million times before but it was the signing off of the network I'd spent most of my formative teen years watching, and I would have been home to watch it but my magazine meeting ran late because my EIC assigned the cover story to a literal crackhead who smokes crack and, big surprise, it came out like it was written by a crackhead and since I was the editor I had to spend the whole night at the office trying to figure out which interview quotes were with real people and which ones were with the voices in my crackhead writer's head! And then rewrite the whole thing so that it no longer looked like it was written by a crackhead! That was awesome!

So yeah, I don't really care who's right and who's wrong in this Time Warner/Viacom imbroglio. All I know is that Time Warner sucks. If you're geographically able to, I highly recommend you switch to Comcast. Their customer service is awesome. (That's the non-sarcastic "awesome" this time - you can tell by the lack of italics.) Last week, I called to drop down to the basic package on account of being unemployed and brokeass, and the guy instead found me a promotion that lets me keep my HBO/Showtime/Starz and pay the basic rate. And if I had a psycho roommate now, I bet Comcast wouldn't make me share an account with her crazy, hatin' ass.