BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
- A "treatment," in Hollywood parlance, is a concise overview of a screenplay -
(I'm going to steal my own verbage from past years & remind you all that by the time CV gets his grubby paws on it in a blog post - it's a "mis-TREATMENT")
CV's "mis-treatments" for this years Oscar nominees...
- A "treatment," in Hollywood parlance, is a concise overview of a screenplay -
(I'm going to steal my own verbage from past years & remind you all that by the time CV gets his grubby paws on it in a blog post - it's a "mis-TREATMENT")
CV's "mis-treatments" for this years Oscar nominees...
THE ARTIST (click to see trailer)Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break...
I'm going to break with my own 'snarky' take on things and say that the other nominees don't stand a chance against this film... Sorry for the spoiler there, but read on anyway... Hopefully, I'll manage to come up with some funny shit to say about all the rest as I work thru it...
THE DESCENDANTS (click to see trailer)A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident...
OK get out your pencil & scorecard here because I'm not going through this a second time... This movie was on the "short list" (by some), to win best picture... But all you have to see on the screen, at the beginning of the movie, is FOX SEARCHLIGHT (& realize that this is a Presidential election year), & realize that this has no chance in hell of winning the top prize... This is my theme year after year folks... the 'politics' of Hollywood (which is to say, "market manipulation", which, of course, doesn't exist, as the S&P is dominated by E-Trade babies firing off $7 trades)... But I generally liked this movie, (Shailene Woodley has instantly achieved Amy Adams status in CV's book)...
EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSEA nine-year-old amateur inventor, Francophile, and pacifist searches New York City for the lock that matches a mysterious key left behind by his father, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001...
The EXTREMELY LOUD part of the title comes from the fact that the aforementioned 9 year old runs around town for two hours whining his ass off... (&/or the fact that I was INCREDIBLY CLOSE to walking out on this movie)...
How TF can you have Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max Von Sydow, & Viola Davis in a cast (with 9/11 as a backdrop), and have it suck as a movie?.. Well, somehow they managed just that...
THE HELP (click to see trailer)An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maid's point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis...
Well it's pretty obvious that any stories about southern AA's having to deal with 'whitey' are going to make the front page... Especially since it's a Spielberg, Katzenberg, Geffen product...
I just can't wait until they come out with the one that deals with how 'tough' the FLOTUS had it when she had to deal with the Spanish maids at the Alhambra... That one is coming in 5...4...3...2...
HUGO (click to see trailer)Set in 1930s Paris, an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton...
If one were just reading the treatment, this one was very close to EL&IC (above)... The big difference is probably that Martin Scorcese is less likely to screw things up (& thank god the kid actor was less annoying)... Obliquely, the '30's backdrop always gets people thinking about WWII (and therefore the not to be mentioned "h" word)... But Scorcese is less guilty of stuff like that... This has the chance to win some awards (namely, Scorcese himself), but I wouldn't count on it taking home the top prize... Notable (to me), was the 3-D effort... At minumum, it's an attempt to go past the perfunctory Disney animation as as a 3-D blockbuster... Titanic 3-D is coming in April... I'm not going to joke around though... This has a chance of taking home some significant hardware in the real 'filmmaking' categories (not so much in the popular 'actors' or 'actresses' categories ~ so it'll be hard for the mainstream DWTS public to understand)...
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (click to see trailer)A romantic comedy about a family traveling to the French capital for business. The party includes a young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better...
Since there didn't seem to be enough swastickas on the menu this year, guess what? We get a Woody Allen film? Also, WTF with all the 'French' representation this year? (Hugo, Midnight in Paris, The Artist, even War Horse)... Did we just 'surrender' or something? (or does that explaion my hankering for cheeze whiz lately)?... I'll put this film into that last category... What? I DIDN'T say I DIDN'T like Cheeze Whiz!... Who DOESN'T like Cheeze Whiz anyway? It's as American as French Fries... & they go good together...
MONEYBALL (click to see trailer)The story of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players...
See... You know... Someone like myself should be liking this film the best (& I'm fairly sure it's about the only movie on this list that anyone on this blog even saw)... But I'm going to try and stay away from my personal 'sports' bias (& stick closer to my 'other' bias ~ which, of course most consider to be racist or anti-semitic)...
This was a good film, but I'll tell you why it's NOT a winner... In a scrapheap, you have a "true story" (failed with THE FIGHTER & SOCIAL NETWORK last year), Aaron Sorkin (co-writer of SOCIAL NETWORK), & the ubiquitous juxtaposition of Brad Pitt & George Clooney movies on the overall menu... IOW, this is here to give cache' to the other films (as a nominee) & make sure that EVERYONE (kinda) comes out a winner... It's Obanomics at its finest... Everybody wins, right? RIGHT?... It's just that certain people WIN MORE...
.
THE TREE OF LIFE (click to see trailer)The story centers around a family with three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence...
Look, I hate to dig up anybody's 'Tree', but this was cock-a-mamey to begin with... Nobody could, or would, ever admit that, because if you're a chick, you're genetically attracted to 'cock-a-mamey-ness' shrouded in allegory (which SAYS nothing, but at least looks like it's TRYING to say something)... If you're a dude, you don't DARE to argue with the chick that you took to the flick (or risk not getting any bunga bunga)... From a logistical perspective, they did the right thing in making Brad Pitt to be 'kind of' the bad guy, whilst rewarding Sean Penn (aka - 'Harvey Milk' who enjoys coming onto the Oscars stage to talk about how PROUD he is that Americans voted in an 'elegant man' (Obama) as POTUS... Well anyway... The FRENCH seemed to like it (it won at Cannes)... For me, I'd be just as happy if it stayed in the can(s)...
WAR HORSE(click to see trailer)Young Albert enlists to service in WWI after his beloved horse, Joey, is sold to the cavalry. Albert's hopeful journey takes him out of England and across Europe as the war rages on...
It must just be me, but it seems to me that the sole responsibility in life of Steven Spielberg is to tell the holocaust story in as many ways as possible... I know, I know... This is WWI (not WWII), but the why continue to go that direction?...
Body of Work" = "Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Munich, Letters From Iwo Jima, Band of Brothers"... That's when he's taking time off from "The Color Purple", & "Amistad"... FOR CHRISSAKES WE GET IT ALREADY!...
A horse? Really? How about a nice 'Secretariat' or 'Seabiscuit'?... I'm sure there are some nice jewish track owners there somewhere who made some profits in the 30's (but were, of course, treated horribly)... What about 'National Velvet'?... Liz Taylor & Mickey Rooney don't cut it for you? How about just directing some Budweiser 'Clydesdale' commercials? Please don't tell me that "The King of Beers" isn't kosher!... I'd be aghast! I'd probably have to start an 'anti-defamation' league to tell the world that the German "Anhauser-Busch" clan wasn't making kosher beer!...
AND THE OSCAR GOES TO...THE ARTIST
Can I simply help???... The 'Oscars' (as CV tried to express last year to you all last year in my OSCARS POST) are 'formulaic'... Indulge me while I re-iterate the CRITERA (Again - now for the 3rd year & running)...
- Royals, Actors, Period Pieces, Triumph over disability, Righting 'Social Inequity' (by Jewish standards), ANTI-Nazi... GOOD!!! (especially if you're a cross dressing or transgender homo)...
- Anything else... 'In the running' aka - "ALSO RAN" (but if you made a lot of money for Jewish producers, you score MEGA points even if your movie sucked)...
That's not as ANTI-SEMITIC as it sounds... But of course it WOULD BE if I happened to be GETTING PAID for something (or any REALITY such as that)... But if I were getting PAID, it means that I'd probably be employed by the MSM (which is mostly controlled by...)... Ba-Da bing!
Mother Fuckin' Space NAZIS from the Dark Side of the Moon bitchez!
(just so as to warn the 'Justin Beaver' & LMFAO crew of the horror & ever pressing need for vigilance in their TWITTER lives)
Alright... The SIMPLE DIRTY... (by the way ~ go back to last year & read my comments in this spot & see that they're exactly the same)...
In BEST PICTURE... Here's the checklist...
1. The Director (of the nominated film) also gets nominated... IF NOT, you stand NO CHANCE...
2. If NO SCREENPLAY NOMINATION... You're effed as well... ("The Artist", "Midnight in Paris" made it in the original screenplay, while "The Descendants", "Hugo", & "Moneyball" made it in the adapted screenplay)...
3. So at this point, you're down to "The Artist", "Midnight in Paris", "The Tree of Life", "The Descendants", "Moneyball", & "Hugo"...
4. Once you've narrowed the field down to this, you have to get to SOCIOECONOMICS... Oddly, there's nothing glaring about any of them that says THIS IS IT "theme-wise"... So it's easier to work backwards... In that way, you probably eliminate "Moneyball", & "The Descendants"...
5. So if you haven't figured it out by now, we're down to "The Artist", "Midnight in Paris", "The Tree of Life", & "Hugo"...
THE TREE OF LIFE was just too weird (by Hollywood standards of overall compensation vs. 'Cannes' which awarded it the 'Palm d'Or')... & then you have to juxtapose a Woody Allen film against a Martin Scorcese film ("Midnight in Paris" vs. "Hugo")... The "cancel out" chloromidians are strong with the Hollywood group, so that leaves "THE ARTIST"...
It's not totally by default... It was a fantastic movie... Furthermore (as I have said many times), when there isn't a holocaust movie to whine about, Hollywood loves to honor films about actors & acting... ("Shakespeare in Love", "Chicago", etc.)... I have to be careful when I say that because "Hugo", also deals with historic filmmaking...
Georges-Jean Méliès ~ is about the first director/producer/artist that ANY film student learns about... Umm, I can humbly say that from my 3 semesters at USC... "The Artist", does actually hit a socio-economic nerve (but really, so does the "Hugo" story with respect to Méliès)... It deals with the uncertainty of someone who was formerly successful, that is struggling to adapt to a new culture (of filmmaking, in this case)... & whether that will succeed or not... In the end, it's uplifting... Now is as good a time as any for that to be on the stage...
And before you go about dismissing my predictions... Consider this... Here were my OSCAR PREDICTIONS from last year...
2011
2010
.143 X .2 X .2 X .2 X .2 X .2 = .0000457 (roughly equivalent to the chance of getting the US Dollar printing presses to stop (except to refill the ink)...
You'll CORRECTLY note that I hit 6 out of 6 correctly (11 out of 12 in the past two years & 33 out of 36 in the past 6 years)... And in the one category (supporting actress, two years ago), I DID manage to narrow the field down to TWO nominees (the eventual winner - MONIQUE) made the final cut for CV... But I went with my "heart" in the final decision... So let that be a lesson to all you TRADERS out there... Don't trust your heart!... Trust your research!
Now... THAT SAID... I'm going to tell you that this is the MOST DIFFICULT field of nominees that CV has had to sift through in over a decade... "The Artist" & "Hugo" would be my final two (but I think "The Artist" has more chance to snag some ACTING categories, whilst "Hugo" may win a director award for Scorcese & win a boatload of hardware in special categories like costume design, cinematography, set direction, & animation...
BEST ACTRESS NOMINEES
GLENN CLOSE - ALBERT NOBBSWell stop the presses!... a 'crossdresser' role gets nominated by the Academy?... I'm shocked!... You know, I've re-iterated many times that the "Body of Work" of an actor or actress often gets them a gold statue... GC has paid her dues (from "Garp" & "The Natural" to "Fatal Attraction" ~ all nominated, no wins)... Of course those were all in NORMAL roles, so now that she's a crossdresser, she has a better shot... It's too bad that this was 19th century... WWII hadn't been fought yet, & if she could have just been active in saving his/her money to donate to ACORN... She might actually win here...
VIOLA DAVIS - THE HELPWhile the movie has underlying tones of being PC, it is neither false, nor exploitative... Furthermore, her role is in playing a part of a person that is a natural element in that scenario (not only is she from the south, but her mother was a maid)...
I'm going to drop a casual hint here and say that she played a supporting role in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" (which was a fine performance in an otherwise crappy movie)... The fact that she's getting the larger nomination here means something)...
ROONEY MARA - THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOOShe got here because she worked on Fincher's "The Social Network", & otherwise, well, um, she has a charity that helps out slums in Kenya... Somebody had to do it because Michelle Obama was too busy helping out the slums in the Alhambra, Spain... I'll be shocked if she wins here... She's comes from the Mara & Rooney families (owners of the NY Giants & Pittsburgh Steelers)... That's just too much success in a short span of time... Maybe next year she can get a role which includes a "catfight" with Tom Brady's wife Gisele Bundchen...
MERYL STREEP - THE IRON LADYA few years ago "The Queen" came out (remember what I said above about how Hollywood simply MUST have British royalty involved in some way)... Helen Mirren won best actress for that role, but besides being overdue (for an Oscar), the part that she played showed a different side of QEII... This is mainly Margaret Thatcher (Streep) wandering around finding milk for her tea & the rest is more or less documentary... Despite what she was at the time, Margaret Thatcher is past history now (politically & otherwise)... We're not going back there... Streep, in this role, I'm afraid, is another cache' selection...
MICHELLE WILLIAMS - MY WEEK WITH MARILYNLook, I told you all last year that Michelle Williams deserved her nomination in "Blue Valentine"... I don't want to discredit her here, but this is about as "formula" of a nominee as you can get (you have the "new face" [Williams], who is probably being "groomed" for a statue somewhere down the line, you have the British theme, you have acting, [Monroe/Olivier])...
What the hell else do you want? (nominee wise)... I just hope my "prediction" formula, after 3 years, is finally starting to make sense...
AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... VIOLA DAVIS - THE HELP
When it comes to the "acting" categories, it's not as FORMULAIC as BEST PICTURE is concerned... Well, I should actually say "IT DAMN WELL IS" (but in a different way)... Instead, the "criteria" are:
(this is reprint from last year - I don't change my mind easily)
1. Performance (but "performance" often has little to do with delivering lines on camera - it REALLY has to do with PREPARATION, which, I suppose, go hand in hand)...
2. Sacrifice - which is an offshoot of #1 above... Make a personal note of all the actors and actress nominees who have "shed pounds", "developed a stammer", or otherwise gone "OUT OF THE BOX" to perform a role... Examples of such are DE NIRO/Raging Bull, HOFFMAN/Rain Man, HANKS/Forrest Gump, SWANK/Boy's Don't Cry, THERON/Monster, HUNTER/The Piano, WOODWARD/The 3 Faces of Eve, RUSH/Shine, CAGE/Leaving Las Vegas, LEWIS/My Left Foot, and many others...
3. "Body of Work" puts you in the running as a tiebreaker (as it did for Jeff Bridges the other year in the ACTOR category)...
So how did CV go about "whittling away" nominees this year??? STREEP & CLOSE get in based on "Body of Work" (#3 criteria)... Ironically, they both had to endure the long sittings in the make-up chair... While that's different than what Natalie Portman had to do last year, it's still really the same in the acting world (#2 category)... BOTH, also had the association with the Brits in the film (though Close was technically Irish)... You could put Michelle Williams in most of the same (only difference is the shorter Body of Work & that she still really didn't have to break character)... Anyway, that settles it for the CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT category... Rooney Mara just isn't going to win... She's just there because, like Amy Adams & Michele Williams last year, they have to put some young faces in there...
In the end, I'm going to have to whittle this down to Glenn Close & Viola Davis... To help me differentiate, I'm going to call on some logic that I applied last year... I'll paste what I wrote here...
"So we're down to NATALIE PORTMAN & ANNETTE BENING... Let me just say... THIS ONE IS VERY DIFFICULT FOR CV... Really - Annette Bening should get the honor (based on my cheat sheet)... She has the pedigree... She SHOULD have won in 1999 for "American Beauty" but got nosed out by Hilary Swank (BOY'S DON'T CRY)... So think about it... Remember what I said above, "SACRIFICE" being an ingredient... Swank won the SACRIFICE that year because she played a TRANSGENDER role (and in Hollywood, if you're basically a "gay, jewish, liberal political activist, who has been WRONGED by white males"... you're GOLDEN)... But in yesteryear, Bening's role was a wife who was actually kind of neurotic (vs. Kevin Spacey - who the PUBLIC kinda thought was "cool" in the end - and of course ended up getting a bullet in his head for basically just wanting to say "fuck you" to his job, buying a 1969 Pontiac Firebird, getting stoned, and fantasizing a little about screwing his teenage daughters best friend)..."
So in this case, the more WRONGED one (in "movie-dom"), was probably Viola Davis (having to unjustly be a maid in "whitey"'s house... Sorry ~ we all can't be Valerie Jarrett deciding on the important things in life due to our extensive qualification & backgrounds)... We all know now that nobody should be a maid or servant... EVER... (even if they're paid for it & people in the future win Oscars because they acted out those parts... Remember, "Hollywood" has little to do with real life, it has more to do with "re-writing" reality)... Oh wait, Glenn Close played a 'transgender servant' (which, I'm sure, were ubiquitous in 19th century Ireland)... Now I'm confused... Eh well... I actually like Viola Davis & am wishy washy on Glenn Close (as most men are) & tend to cover my gonads anytime I think of her with a knife in her hand (the one TRUE thing that Hollywood got right once upon a time)... It's a "Cruella" world (& somebody has to win)... Close, but no cigar... Only "Bubba" (Clinton) gets the cigar, gets to cheat on his wife, & lives to tell about it (& go on to speaking endorsements at Bohemian Grove)... & THAT'S why Hollywood loved him so...
BEST ACTOR NOMINEES
DEMI'AN BICHIR - A BETTER LIFEThis is the YGFBKM - well not really because it's Hollywood Department (part 'dos')... Alright, let me explain that... What you need to do is to link back up the comments I made LAST year with regards to Javier Bardem & the year before that with Penelope Cruz... What?... I know Anthony Quinn is too old but is Edward James Olmos dead or something & I didn't know about it?...
Oh? So you're THAT lazy and spoiled? (well here's the link)...
http://traders-anonymous.blogspot.com/2010_02_28_archive.html
I'll try and be less harsh this time around, but this is yet another 'political' choice (not just the nationality of the actors, but because illegal immigration is a political issue and this happens to be an election year)...
Never fear, people, about having to think for yourselves, because Hollywood will tell you how to think each February (that is, AFTER, they roll up in limos & strut across the red carpet)... If they would STOP doing that, it might be easier to watch movies like this (which wasn't REALLY bad), without having the 'cynic' amplifier going at full blast...
Best Actor nomination nowadays means 4 actors + 1 dude who plays the hispanic version of Harvey Milk (or thereabouts), as long as it's not a ZOMBIE movie... But on that note, you can rest assured when they run out of the traditional run of the mill zombie movie, the light bulb will go on in somebody's head to start having gay, jewish, & otherwise racially oppressed zombies who travel to Alaska, & organize communities to cut holes through the ice to save whales... & remember... the ONLY reason the ice was there in the first place was, because, despite GLOBAL WARMING, the nazis (who have been keeping an underground base on the dark side of the moon), invented a FREEZE RAY GUN to endanger the "gay jewish" whales & get Drew Barrymore to rescue them...
GEORGE CLOONEY - THE DESCENDANTSI gotta say that it's impossible to watch this movie & not think of Obama vacationing in Hawaii... In that case, one has to wonder... OK, could you tell the same story & NOT have it Hawaii? For me, the answer is YES (which basically leaves me jaded that there aren't ulterior motives here)... Nevertheless, the story runs fine (& there is especially a good performance by newcomer Shailene Woodley, who I really think keeps Clooney from being downright boring)... This is a typical Clooney film otherwise (frankly I thought he was better in both "In the Air", & "Mark Clayton", though I guess I liked this movie... But again, it WASN'T Clooney who did it for me... It was the "girls" & the magnificent footage in Hawaii...
JEAN DUJARDIN - THE ARTISTOK, forget what I said above about the "perfunctory" foreign actor/actress in a film... Mainly because this one, as a choice, was not "perfunctory" at all... It was fantastic... I don't know what to say... I fully expected to be bored & only went to see this movie because I'd read some good reviews by critics... It turned out to be my favorite movie of the year (pretty much BY FAR)... I'm still curious as to whether a B&W SILENT MOVIE (where the lead actor has only one "speaking" line in the whole movie), can win an Oscar for that actor... If anyone can, this one can...
GARY OLDMAN - TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPYIt kind of intrigues me that a movie of this nature should come along at this moment (both with the ME uprisings last year & what 'may', cough, couygh, be happening with Iran this year)... It's almost as if Hollywood is in bed with Langley on the propaganda front... As if to say... "Pay no attention to whether or not Hussein & Khadaffi were trying to sell oil for gold (or Euros), circumvent petro-dollar hedgemony and become slaves to central bankers, & neither is Iran... They're all just tyrannical regimes bent on destroying the world... & LOOK, this stuff happens all the time, like it did years ago... The "good guys" always win (the "good guys" being the ones that have central bankers pulling the strings)...
Whatever... Oldman is a great actor, but this sort of falls in the same Meryl Streep playing Maggie Thatcher theme... A couple of years ago it was Helen Mirren winning for playing "The Queen" (& Colin Firth winning for plating "The King")... PM's & MI-6 agents aren't going to cut it...
BRAD PITT - MONEYBALLHere's a tough one because who doesn't like Brad Pitt? & here's a TRUE STORY, about sports (which I love) & someone's clever devotion to taking a unique approach to it (which truly revolutionized the sport)... In a way, it's like REAL LIFE Fantasy Baseball...
I can see Brad Pitt walking home with the statue here... I really can... But NOT so much because of his performance (which was typical Brad Pitt), but because he has such an extensive body of work (& yet has been shut out from winning any Oscars)... From my own personal use of a 'formulaic' approach to picking Oscar winners (much as Pitt's character here uses the same approach to select Major League baseball talent), a big red flag I have going is the fact that he's juxtaposed against George Clooney...
AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... JEAN DUJARDIN - THE ARTIST
Last year I wrote something that I will repeat here...
"A "movie" is how you see it in the WRITER - then- DIRECTOR - then - ACTOR interpretation (in that order)... & of course, there are the "politically correct" aspects that dot the landscape...
My problem with Clooney & Pitt (here), is that they both were fortunate to play in good stories (WRITERS &/or TRUE STORIES), brought to the screen in good ways (DIRECTORS)... I mentioned earlier that I wasn't particularly impressed by Clooney (though he won the Golden Globe for this ~ so I suppose you can't count him out)... I thought Clooney's 'support' cast really carried HIM... Pitt was playing a compelling character (who was also fresh because most people never knew about the story)... But Brad Pitt was just basically being Brad Pitt... Also, (& this might make a difference or not), he's coming out with a blockbuster on Dec 21st this year called WORLD WAR Z (which is kind of a zombie apocalypse movie ~ but not a "B" movie)... He'll probably have several more chances in his career to come up on stage... Bichir probably has no chance & Oldman will likely have other shots... So I'm going to take a chance and go with JEAN DUJARDIN... (Hopefully we won't have to suffer another Begnini moment)... I think that "actors" will want to reward "acting"... One line spoken, but this was pure old time acting (where gestures, timing, & facial expressions were all you had to work with)... Everyone loves a happy Hollywood ending too...
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR NOMINEES
KENNETH BRANAGH - MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
JONAH HILL - MONEYBALL
NICK NOLTE - WARRIOR
MAX VON SYDOW - EXTREMELY LOUD & WHATEVER
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER - BEGINNERSAND THE OSCAR GOES TO... CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER - BEGINNERS
Are you fucking kidding me? OK... So Hollywood has to choose between:
- Sir Lawrence Olivier (but nobody is ever going to win an award for "playing" SLO)...
- A geeky fat dude who is a baseball stat nerd (& is, as yet, best known for questioning his friend that MCLOVIN wasn't the best idea for a fake ID)...
- An alcoholic white guy (there are so many of those bastards around we're sick of them)...
- A guy who can't talk, that was probably a former Nazi, that used to be a priest who got puked on...
- A guy who FINALLY COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET (& the world is all skittles & unicorns)...
Hmmm... Let me put on my thinking cap for that one... (this is HOMO "make-up sex" for the fact that last year Annette Benning DIDN'T win for "The Kids are All Right", or that Colin Firth lost for "A Single Man", but won for "The King's Speech" ~ How DARE Hollywood honor stutterers over homos ~ as if...)... The CLEAR message here is... COME OUT OF THE CLOSET BITCHEZ!... We're ALL gay now!
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINEES
JESSICA CHASTAIN - THE HELP
MELISSA MCCARTHY - BRIDESMAIDS
JANET MCTEER - ALBERT NOBBS
BERENICE BEJO - THE ARTIST
OCTAVIA SPENCER - THE HELPAND THE OSCAR GOES TO... OTAVIA SPENCER - THE HELP
I'm going to re-iterate the highlights...
- Two actresses (one white, one AA) in same category usually doesn't fit the formula... (but this time it may)...
- Octavia Spencer won both the Golden Globe & SAG awards for this... Also noteworthy is the fact that this is a political election year... No matter what anybody says, Obama is "Hollywood's" candidate... I'm sure that as many AA's that they can put up on the podium they'll be happy with... I doubt Hollywood would ever pass up the opportunity for people to make a sub-conscious correlation with FLOTUS (Because, after all, she's one of the most elegant & best dressed women on the planet ~ the media told me so)... Well... Don't just take my word for it... See for yourself (contrasted with "Carla Bruni of France & Princess Letizia of Spain)... Hardly a doubt there now is there?
"Oh MY GOD Becky!"
- Janet McTeer probably has little chance (being in the same movie & 'especially' being white')...
- Melissa McCarthy only has a chance if you think one can go from "Gilmore Girl" to Oscar winner... Plus, I think if you're fat, you have to be an AA to win an Oscar (ask Mo'Nique or Jennifer Hudson)... Roseanne Barr has NO CHANCE until we actually find out that she was crossdressing as Sgt. Schultz (from "Hogan's Heroes"), & was actually running an underground railroad out of Stalag 13 (only releasing the jewish prisoners), whilst carrying on a romantic involvement with Col. Klink & saving whales in his/her spare time...
- Shailene Woodley ought to be nominated here, but isn't... (she is now in my "Amy Adams" category)...
- Berenice Bejo ought to win (but will probably lose out to Octavia Spencer ~ the same way Maggie Gyllenhaal lost out to Monique) in the ONLY, ever, prediction that CV got wrong on these pages in history (& for the exact same reason)...
BEST DIRECTOR NOMINEES
WOODY ALLEN - MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
MICHAEL HAZANAVICIUS - THE ARTIST
TERRENCE MALICK - THE TREE OF LIFE
ALEXANDER PAYNE - THE DESCENDANTSWTF?... Read my comments in the George Clooney category above...
I admit... I "liked" this film overall, but it's being nominated in all the WRONG categories... Shailene Woodley carried this film... Clooney was average & how can a director go wrong with cinematography in Hawaii?...
About half the 'scenes' in this film I'd have left on the cutting room floor...
MARTIN SCORCESE - HUGOThey WOULD have missed something if they missed HUGO...
It's hard for me to define, but Scorcese really folded past, present, & future into this one... I'm sure it's going to win a lot of special category awards, but if it misses in DIRECTOR, I'll be surprised...
AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... MARTIN SCORCESE - HUGO
I'va already intimated my selection in this category, but let me say a few things...
I've said (in years past), that BEST DIRECTOR is my favorite of the 6 categories that I pick each year... It's partly because I studied directing during 2 years of film school, but I also just think that it's the "pulse" of filmmaking... Anyway, I'll break down some of the protocol here (just to offer a more technical POV on my selection)...
- Eliminate Malick (too obtuse & weird)... He'll still have his chances in the future because Clint Eastwood & Woody Allen are sort of offering him "tips" nowadays" as to how NOT to be so weird...
- Eliminate Woody Allen because of what I just said above & that at this point... unless he comes up with something UNMITIGATED... He's just there for cache' (ironic though, to find him & Scorcese, together, in the same category, BOTH doing films that had "filmmaking" as a backdrop)...
- Payne... NO CHANCE
- Hazanavicius?... Not enough "Hollywood" cred (but if he won ~ I'd NOT be surprised)
Scorcese ought to win it... Hewre's the thing... At first glance, I thought Scorces was just there to give the category cache'... But then when you see the movie you realize that it's utterly brilliant...
- It has the 3D effect (which is unmistakeably where Hollywood wants to go)
- It has a 'period' aspect to it
- It's sets, costumes, & cinematography ought to blow away most categories
Mostly... Underneath it all it deals with FILMMAKING... & in a year that's dearth of HOLOCAUST movies, Hollywood loves to celebrate the profession of filmmaking...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cshPn6uF-tU&feature=fvst
