Oscar Recap

For all the changes they put to the telecast, it was no more interesting than last year's. For some reason, it just didn't feel very Oscar-ish.


Maybe that's because we had TAYLOR LAUTNER, MILEY CYRUS, KEANU REEVES, ZAC EFRON and a shitload of other irrelevant actors (Demi Moore? What?) present awards?

Much as I love Neil Patrick Harris, that number was useless. The John Hughes tribute was outrageously long when you think about all the other geniuses who never got the time of day at the Oscars, and the fact that 3/4 of the aging audience had clearly never seen his movies, hence the unenthusiastic applause near the end. So. Awkward.

And Jason Reitman and Tarantino lost their screenplay Oscars? Fuck that. Did anyone care about the screenplays for Precious or The Hurt Locker? This is the time when I feel that, FUCK PRECURSORS, I'm feeling pretty sure that Reitman wouldn't have lost if the media didn't flip out over his supposed "douchebaggery" aka awkwardness with Sheldon Turner, and if people weren't so "oh Precious is so cute, it should go home with something!" The fact that Tarantino and Reitman went home empty-handed is just plain wrong. I hope they got some good consolation booze afterwards.

Only good part of the evening was when Kathryn Bigelow won and when the camera panned to Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem sitting together. OH and when Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr. presented. Thank god these exquisitely talented and funny people also happened to be "hip" with the MTV crowd. Though I wish Jack Nicholson would come back :(


All in all, a severe lack of class or decorum. The whole MTV aura, the 5-actors-fellating-I-mean-presenting, (though Tucci admittedly was funny as fuck) and I stand by my proposition that Adam Shankman can go to hell.

Casting Rumors Squeal #2

Daniel Day-Lewis, Benicio Del Toro, and Gael Garcia Bernal for Scorsese's Silence.

I've just finished my first GGB movie, Y Tu Mama Tambien (which was fucking incredible, btw. Dirty and explicit as I've heard, obviously, but also hysterically funny, awkward, sad, and surprisingly tender. There's something somewhat innocent about Julio and Tenoch's Superbad-like subservience to Luisa. They're initially terrified of her sexual advances. And the last scene is just *so* well acted) Anyhoo, I officially get all the fuss about him, and to see these three sensitive, scarily intelligent, lovely tornadoes of sexiness and talent act together in a movie would just be....weird. And epic.

Not sure about the chemistry between the three (I'm still always a bit wary of all-star-casts, because big names occasionally translates to me-me! acting. But I'm optimistic, especially with the inclusion of DDL. Something DDL doesn't get enough credit for is his ability to spark with other actors. When he's onscreen, all anyone wants to watch is him and his dynamic energy, of course, but he's equally brilliant at building an undeniable chemistry with his screen partners, whether it be Madeleine Stowe, Paul Dano, or Leonardo Dicaprio. Even if said screen partner is miserably less effective than DDL (cough last two names) at establishing their own significance with the audience.

So basically, DDL could dance with a hatrack and make it look good. Benicio Del Toro would probably be his usually freaked out, strangely entrancing self, and Gael Garcia Bernal might bring some sexy normalcy to the trio (can't comment on him as much as the other two, since I need to see more work of his.) So all in all, crossing fingers and hoping Scorsese goes for this much more interesting storyline than yet another goddamn Hollywood biopic.

Marion Cotillard as...Kay Corleone?

I simply cannot express how much I loved Marion Cotillard in Nine this year. This is what truly great actresses do, elevate underwritten characters that would have been insipid in the hands of a less capable actress.

Luisa Contini literally does *nothing* but complain throughout the entire goddamn movie, yet Cotillard transforms Luisa's whining into nothing short of angelic martyrdom. Her desperate devotion to a husband whom she alternately hates and worships; her exquisite anguish at being torn between supporting the Guido Show and finding her own self-assertion is continually expressed by little more than a glance or a embrace.

Well, what kind of a role does that sound like, really? Kay Corleone! A tool used by her doting/patronizing husband, an underwritten role which critics called a little more than useless. A role that, as gallantly as Diane Keaton tries to play her, is so annoying we couldn't care less what happened to her. What if Marion Cotillard, with her unmatched empathy and grace, had been there forty years earlier? *Sigh*. Of course, there's the problem of Marion being French, since I always thought the point of Kay being an all-American WASP was to show Michael's conflict between his inescapable Mafia roots and his (failed) attempts to assimilate into the "legitimate" American life.


Nevertheless! If I were any good at graphics I would try to Photoshop Marion Cotillard into a Godfather frame, but as it is, you'll just have to settle for this:



"Oh, Michael. Michael, you are blind. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was an abortion. An abortion, Michael. Just like our marriage is an abortion. Something that's unholy and evil. I didn't want your son, Michael! I wouldn't bring another one of your sons into this world! It was a son, Michael! A son! And I had it killed because this, must all end!"

Can't you TOTALLY see Marion doing that? I can. The look of pain in her large, miraculously expressive eyes, as Marion's hissy French accent trembles with barely contained anger and scorn, something similar, I imagine, to her electrifying interrogation scene in Public Enemies. My, I think that sounds perfect.

Why Do I Feel This Will Be More Entertaining Than the Tim Burton One?

The first Alice in Wonderland ever made, in 1903, a hundred and seven years ago. According to EW, the Cheshire cat was the family pet and the White Rabbit is just fucking scary. And the shrinking and re-shrinking, oddly enough, impressive considering the time period. Very innovative, really. And strangely entrancing...



Also, clocking in at twelve minutes, it was longer than any other feature film of the time.

Montage Time!

Kind of wish the guy used more interesting scenes - this is kind of like that top-25 pop song medley where the movies feel alarmingly similar, but still deeply gratifying.

Film Orgasm #1

News: Marion Cotillard taking the lead in Woody Allen's next movie.

[love][love][love][love][love][love][love][love][love][love][love][love]

Adam Shankman Rant

Dear Adam Shankman,

Taylor Lautner? (as much as it pains me to even mention his name on this blog, yes) Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron?

Their fans will already be in bed by the time the Oscars start, you DUMB TURTLEFUCK. Or they will youtube them the next day. 1 minute online versus swimming through three hours of boring adult talk and movies they've never even heard of. I would far prefer an organized Kanye-like stunt at the Oscars than have these glossy hacks besmirch a night that supposedly celebrates *good* movies. Even if you argue that the Oscars celebrate populist mediocrity, there is nothing that Efron, Lautner, or Cyrus have done that even reaches mediocrity. They're the reps of Crapland. I'm down with K-Stew because she's been in some pretty solid stuff - Into the Wild, Adventureland, and I loved Panic Room and The Runaways look interesting, at least. She's an industry veteran, despite her debatable acting skills. Whereas all the others have come straight from the showbiz cookie-cutter factory. I mean, was it too hard to get Shia LaBeouf, man? Preteens love him and he's going to be in Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2 (and dating Carey Mulligan!). He actually has more than a 10% chance of retaining a long acting career, unlike the three I mentioned. For god's sake, even Megan Freaking Fox! At least she has a goddamn personality. And unlike Efron and Cyrus, does not resemble a hermaphrodite.

And don't even get me on the John Hughes tribute. Much as I love him, how about a dead guy whose movies can be fondly referenced by at least 40% of an audience? What a fucking shame it will be when we see Scorsese, Bridges, and Streep clap in polite befuddlement ignorance after what will surely be a MTV-birthed montage. Way to make them feel like dinosaurs and remind them that, you know, they're not an important demographic.

Fuck you very much,

Stella

Campused #1

Irregular sleeping habits again. Penne a la Vodka, extra-salty sweet potato fries, and my little creme brulee debacle. I wanted to make creme brulee, but god knows I don't have one of those flame-torch thingamabobs to make the melted sugar top, so I decided to combine a creme brulee recipe with a baked flan's ( flans have easy sugar crusts on the bottom that do not require flame torchblowers). 

Alas, I poured the cream mixture into the still-liquid burnt sugar. Stupid. I hastily baked the whole thing anyway, but when it came out the sugar and the cream were still unhappily melded together in a dreadful watery hybrid. So I mixed the two together, rationalizing that two tasty things could make one tasty thing. I was right! The creme brulee mixture, infused with the rich caramelized sugar, birthed this ginormously palatable pudding-like concoction. I went to the dining hall later to get two bananas, and sliced them into the pudding. So I made crustless banana pie, in essence. I was proud of my cooking noggin for once, and my general inattention to things. So. good. My first invented recipe, yay!

The Best Post Ever.

As an antidote for my awards-deprivation, I watched some old Oscar montages. Here are some of my all-time favorites (btw, the Oscar people taking down all the unofficial oscar videos on Youtube drive me NUTS. More videos = more publicity and fans, and don't take them down unless you're willing to replace them! Assholes)


Woody Allen's Tribute to New York:

Post 9/11 montage tribute made by Nora Ephron, also marking Allen's first-ever appearance at the Oscars. This was also the *first* Academy Awards ceremony I ever watched as a kid, and I had no idea who the shit Woody Allen was at the time. I wish the montage centered more on New York itself than the Important movies ("The Apartment" and "On the Waterfront" clips, for instance, are not entirely relevant to the city's uniqueness. More lights, less interiors) But the best part is Allen himself, busting the audience's gutss)



John Williams - Movie Score Medley
One of the best things you'll ever see. Seamless medley of classic scores. Dazzling.



1990 Movie Montage
Someone called this the "greatest film montage ever" and I have yet to see a worthy contender. There are clips from nearly a hundred movies, many of which I don't recognize, with Old Hollwood stars I don't recognize, and the best thing I can say about it is that its maker really loved movies.

wow.




2003 - Supporting Actress Montage

I only watch the first half of this clip. 75 supporting actresses, in fleeting glimpses. The music is just swoony and perfectly matched to the minute-or-so showcase of the playfulness, sadness, and sexiness displayed by these invaluable players. My favorite is the shot of Eva Marie Saint from "On the Waterfront" lowering herself in her childlike exquisiteness.




And screw montages, but my *FAVORITE* awards-show moment of all time:

Witty Daniel Day-Lewis + a losing Robin Williams + a very stoned Jack Nicholson = More Epic Than Avatar
If only the Oscars had these kind of moments. They would never have to worry about ratings again. Absolutely the funniest moment ever.

Deprivation

I'm craving for more award shows. If Jeremy Renner's Sgt. James is an adrenaline junkie, then I'm an awards show junkie, a complete snoz for the embarrassing/funny/cringe-inducing star moments, the glitz, the awkward stars, the tense openings of the envelopes, the run-on tributes, and best of the all, the glorious (I actually spelled glourious at first. Damn Tarantino) film montages.

Funny how I always turn to my blog when it's homework time again. Somehow writing on my blog "justifies" not doing the hw. Very bad.

Anyways, the the SAG awards were two weeks ago, the BAFTAS aren't until for another two weeks. That's an entire month between the two. Grrr. I wholeheartedly wish someone could have taped the DGA awards and put it up on youtube for Oscarmaniacs as myself.


Spent the whole weekend cooking and watching movies instead. Curried potato-leek soup with apple slices, peach-mango guacamole (sounds fancy, but not really. I just brought a jar of peach-mango salsa from Whole Foods and emptied it into the guacamole), crepes with whipped cream and blueberry compote. Wanted to make sweet potato fries as well, but decided to save them until next week. Whole Foods opportunities don't come along very often.

Also read some more David Sedaris [/love].

Movies: Sid and Nancy, half of Far From Heaven before the DVD went berserk on me, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and Angels in America.

Sid and Nancy - Nancy is so intensely unlikeable, without any redeeming qualities whatsoever (I would have taken bitter wit, style, refreshing no-bullshit attidude, fearlessness, beauty, teasing allure - just about anything - but all I got was a clingy, dumb, chubby chick. Just didn't work.

Angels in America - better than most of the movies I've seen. Award for Best Example (of utilizing a television series' length to its full extent, instead of as an excuse to drag out a plotline.) Mike Nichols, Pacino, Streep, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright, Mary-Louise Parker, plus a bunch of little-known actors that knocked me out cold.

Typical prestige piece, you say? NEVER. Angels in America has a sexy, fast-thudding pulse, a movie that pants with emotion and wit. Four hours of TV felt like a quarter of the length, so absorbed I was into the seamless chapters, each story and couple as strong and compelling as the next. (No Julie and Julia here, folks) Un-freaking-believably eloquent script by Tony Kushner. As every great piece of cinema has, a few WTF moments here, pure visual bliss there. Couldn't stop watching. An absolute privilege to watch.

Never Read Oscar Reader Comments Ever Again

I am seriously despairing that I live in a world where most people have never re-read a book, but somehow, eagerly prefer to watch regurgitated Lifetime feces like "The Blind Side" even though they know exactly what they're getting. And love it unabashedly. And call movies like "Avatar", "Up in the Air", and "Inglourious Basterds" (and I quote), "depressing obscure artsy fare".


DO WE HAVE BRAINS THE SIZE OF CATS AND DOGS TO THE POINT WHERE WE FIND EATING SHIT APPEALING?

Sorry. Just in a slightly emotional state right now.

Where is Gene Hackman's AFI Lifetime Achievement Award?

Is there anyone else who's the perfect fusion of character acting and star quality like Gene Hackman? He is the only actor in a Wes Anderson movie that managed to get away without sounding inert or cartoonish in some way. As much as I love Paltrow in RT or Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore, you must admit there's a kind of monotonous, 2D quality to their characters that, while appropriate for the Andersonverse, would be totally unsuited to ours. Gene Hackman walks a fine line between these two worlds, endowing Royal with all the trademarks of a Wes Anderson movie (social incompetency and eccentricity), yet making him an all-too-familiar person to the audience. And that's Gene Hackman's genius. He wears the shoes of his characters' impeccably, so that he belongs to the movie. He plays each of them like he's been playing them all his life, so that he belongs to us.

And Hackman in "Scarecrow", my god. For all the tenderness, anger, and shifty discomfort he brings to the role, he manages to make Depp's Scissorhands and Ledger's Ennis Del Mark look like wild overacting. And yet you never fail to recognize this man's soul right away. My god, what a fine actor.

Just gasping from bits on the AV Club from people far more articulate and aware than I'll ever be....

Ones I agreed with/loved:


"Now well into adulthood, I recently re-read Catcher and found to my surprise that Salinger is actually pretty merciless about Holden's jackassery. I think Sailnger mocks Holden's inability to adapt while also making him pitiable because of the massive trauma caused by the death of a sibling."
- (True dat. Over the years, my impression of Holden has grown with me. During our first encounter, I found him insufferable, without a single redeeming quality at first. I just think of him now as a disaffected, frightened, nostalgic boy. I never found him heroic, and I always found it somewhat disturbing that others would.)

- "i still want to know where the ducks go when the lake in central park freezes over.
- "In my sandwich, motherfucker."

Published about eight times to random comments under the username of Holden Caulfield:
"^what a phony"


Beautiful, beautiful link:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/new_terminator_movie_brings_j_d

"I like the part where Holden jumps out of the skyscraper as it explodes and grabs hold of the bottom of the helicopter. Then he turns around and pithily says "bunch of phonies"." - in response to a pitch to a Michael Bay adaptation of Catcher in the Rye

"all the great novels and short stories he's been writing in secret...they are being edited as we speak by Harper Lee."


"Catcher in the Rye is a great novel if only for how ell it prefigured the hipster douche bag archetype. But then, Hamlet was sorta one of them, too, and he was 30."


"I mentioned it above, but I was a whiny teenage boy when I read it and all I could do was whine about how fucking whiny Holden Caulfield was."


"I'll always wonder why the infinitely superior Glass stories weren't the ones studied in English class. " (Personally, I found it depressing that Catcher in the Rye resonated with so many more people than the grating, hopeful "Franny and Zooey".)

"I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady."

Today, the author of my favorite book "Franny and Zooey", passed away. I once fantasized of striking up a letter correspondence with him. It's very hard to let go of a 90+ year old man when he is and forever will be, immortalized as the _______ youth (it's very hard to describe Holden with justice - youth always seemed to be Salinger's most treasured attribute - I always thought that he was kind of the Scott Fitzgerald/JM Barrie of his time) who resonated with so many generations of petulant, idealistic iconoclasts. (If you think of it, wasn't Holden the predecessor to everything, from Travis Bickle to Igby? Maybe that's a little too egotistic). I know this is rambling, but this is.....well, this is JD Salinger. 

Most upsettingly, none of my friends seem to give a fuck, other than an "aww...that's horrible." S has found my depression a tad bit confusing.