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. 

 

"You're being such a non-pillow right now!"

An Actorphile's Lament

*our last hope?*

There is such a dearth of good, young American actors with potential right now. And don't give me any of that "Jesse Eisenberg-Emile Hirsch" crap. Both of them are good and try hard, but I'm talking about star-of-our-generation potential. An Edward Norton Jr with unparalleled instinct, and who craps effortless magnificance, only with the actual balls to stay in the game.

Which is why I decided to forgo my previous, inexplicable dislike of Joseph Gordon Levitt (ok, ok, it did piss me off tremendously when everyone was saying that he was the new Heath Ledger and HL had only been gone for about three months). He's extremely talented, instinctive, intelligent, and has the physique and looks to become "big" (sorry, Jesse Eisenberg. But you'll look twelve forever. Until one day you become overweight and forty overnight, kind of like Anthony Michael Hall). By the way, is JGL really Caucasian? I could have sworn my left ear that he was half-Asian at the very most. I guess these things just happen.

And according to this article, Gosling hasn't the gumption to stay in film. To me, this is reminiscent of Hayden Christansen's claim a few years ago that Hollywood "no longer interested him and he was looking into architecture" or some other pussyfooting nonsense. And I'm not too worried about JGL's love for filmmaking - sooner or later, all great actors stray behind the camera anyway. Just hope he can retain his passion for both.

And this article mentioned this Michael Pitt. I've never heard of him, but I do hope this new "Boardwalk Empire" show with Steve Buscemi will do his career good. (By the way, the upcoming series looks *awesome*. There's also Michael Shannon as part of the cast. Hope it's kickass. Can't wait. )

And other good, young American actors? I heard Ben Foster kicks ass. He's 29...and good looking to boot. Cast him in bigger pictures, people! Take a risk! Movie producers are such assholes. Big marquee names don't mean SHIT anymore. Actually, they never really did. "Nine", anybody? "The Graduate?"

A Defense of Vera Farmiga in "UITA"

I feel like there's been a lot of internet backlash lately against Vera Farmiga's performance against Up in the Air. (Mostly by Laurent fanboys) Apparently the main argument of the opposition is that it isn't a "difficult role", and that she's "riding off the popularity of the film/basking in the glow of Clooney's charisma". 

So here's my defense for the lovely Vera.

1. Difficult role? Psh. Yes, it's not a typical Oscar-baity role with a crying jag scene, or even any exceptionally emotional scenes. On page, she's just a sexy woman who has a fling with Clooney's Ryan Bingham. Which makes it harder for her to make the role stand out. And she did.****

2. Basking in his glow? Psh. They have tantalizing chemistry, but Clooney never dominated any of their scenes. Were your eyes, in any of Farmiga's scenes, distracted from her face to stare at the much more famous movie star next to her? Clooney met his match in this one. Farmiga out-charmed him, out-sexied him. She was so confident and daring, that you felt like she was setting up the trap for him, the Lady outsmarting the Ladies' man. And if Clooney deserves accolades for being himself, Farmiga deserves it for being more than his equal as a female counterpart.

3. Her performance ultimately made the movie work. If the movie's message is that "life is better with company", then it hardly would have been effective if it weren't for Farmiga's interaction with Clooney. I'm thinking about the wedding scene, where her playful intimacy made the couple so endearing, so magical-yet-grounded, that everyone thought, "hell, why wouldn't you get married if your partner's Vera Farmiga/Alex?" It was clear to the audience in that moment that she was more or less Ryan Bingham's soulmate, which gives the character twist all the more devastating an impact. Put any lesser, replaceable-pretty actress in the part, and you just have a schmaltzy movie that ends up with you thinking, "can't Clooney just hook up with someone else?" instead of embarking a quest to find your own Alex (minus the married cheat part). 

Bottom line: She's pitch-perfect in every scene, she brings the character to full, sexy life without relying on either scene-chewing or "stare lifelessly and be mistaken as enigmatically beautiful and thoughtful" trick that is often mistaken for good acting. She's low-key, commanding, effortless and just totally, 100% Oscar-worthy.  ***2

She's looking at him, but are you? Probably not. 

**** One way I like to evaluate performances is by thinking, "what if someone else had played the role? Would it still be more or less the same? I picked Julia Roberts, who surely had the second-best chemistry with Clooney in the Ocean franchise. And UGH. I just winced a little at the idea. I don't see any of the same coy, slyly-stealing-scene mysteriousness coming across. So there you go.

***2: Thinking again about how most actresses either need some overly dramatic, hysterical scene, or soulful (but for me, yawn-inducing) staring that allows the viewer to think "damn, she's so beautiful" a la Melanie Laurent long enough to forget that she isn't doing anything special, in order to gain attention. Jennifer Connelly is often a victim of this method. So many actresses need something out-of-the-world. That just makes me so mad, and makes me love Vera's ordinary-extraordinary performance all the more.  

Discovering Poetry...Or Not

We're into Romanticism in my British Lit class, and it's right up my alley. I used to be a staunch anti-poetry kind of girl - like Jess from Gilmore Girls would complain, "just say it already!" I've always found poetry too fussy and convoluted for my taste. Of course, there were occasional snippets of poetry I found pleasing - Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay", for example - unforgettable in its simplistic power. Proof? I can still recite it from heart, even though I haven't read it in about five years.

*************************

Nature's first green is gold

Its hardest hue to hold

Its early leaf a flower

But only so an hour

So leaf subsides to leaf

So Eden sank to grief

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

************************

Again, powerful stuff, eh? (Alright, it's only eight lines, but considering that I don't remember what we did in one of my AP classes last week, it's pretty freaking remarkable. Also, not sure if the poem was in that format, but I like space between couplets. It just creates more dramatic tension in between). I did love Whitman in sophomore year though - exuberant and spontaneous, like he was half-choking in his eagerness to get all his feelings out. That's what I'm talking about. 

Then I saw Bright Star, and of course, it had me muttering the titular poem for a full week, and ever since seeing the movie and pondering/pontificating endlessly over it, I've gained a newfound interest and appreciation for poetry. Not any poetry, however, just Romanticism. So far. I sure ain't pickin' up any TS Elliot anytime soon. 

My new theory is that unlike books or plays, reading poetry cannot teach anything new to the reader. Reading a story can expose you to new perspectives and theories, disturbing ideals and rich trivia - but poetry can only internalize what you already know. You either get it or you don't. That's the basis of expressing the inexpressible - it boils down to the same moments as when you struggle to explain something to a friend, and can only end with "you - you know what I mean?" and the friend will know exactly what you mean, or shake their heads slowly. So why does Romanticism appeal to me? Oh, the whole nature-emotions shebang - pretty appropriate for a girl who spent half of her childhood reading books, and the other half staring at plants, dirt, and skies for hours on end. Literally. 

And really, to put it crudely, what is Romantic poetry but a bunch of guys dreaming and feeling as they stare at pretty scenery? So yeah. I'm pretty tight with these guys.

On Wordsworth right now, and I just adored "The World Is Too Much With Us" and "As I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". The first one is extremely applicable to the modern world - it's Wordsworth's lament about how everyone is too caught up in the dirty business of living, and not pausing enough to take time and reflect, meditate, and smell the roses. I can only nod empathetically. This may be a betrayal of my generation, but sometimes I just want to rip the cell phones away from my peers - for fuck's sake, is "having dinner. u?" really conversation worthy? Reticence can be truly enjoyable, people. Really. I text rarely, but I've read the text-conversation of other people, and it's truly mind-boggling how useless and just fucking, fucking mundane they are. It's like, WHY BOTHER?

Anyhoo, "As I Wandered" is just so....delightful. It's just so sweet and wholly redeeming. If it doesn't make you smile, you should probably go help out a homeless shelter or jump off a cliff.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed---and gazed---but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

Dancing daffodils in the breeze! It's just precious beyond words. And I mean that without a drop of cynicism.

Can't wait for Keats. I'm anticipating sharing Bright Star's audio-orchestral version at the end credits of Whishaw's recitation of "Ode to a Nightingale" with my teacher. The orchestral music alone is just devastating, but combined with Whishaw's voice (not sure how to describe it - it's velvety and haunting and tender all at once), it just sets up to be an epic win. 

My Dissertation On Love, Sex, and Marriage

My conclusion on love and sexuality. # of Woody Allen movies seen = 2

As Woody Allen would probably say, I think whatever works is best. This is what I came after seeing "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" - afterwards I read a few reviews that criticized what they saw as WA's apparent anti-monogamy stance. But the character of Scarlet Johannsen's Vicky just completely smashes that criticism to bits. She's presented as the free minded liberal that's completely open about sex and standards, but she's not riding off into the sunset, either. As Javier Bardem's character tells Maria Elena, "when she finds the right one - not you or me - she will settle." People are just so different. I'm not sure we were all meant to be bound to one set of standards. You can't say that just because a traditional marriage worked for you, means it's going to work for me. Or an arranged marriage is inherently doomed (heck, statistics show that arranged marriages are actually more likely to succeed than most). You find out what works for you - polygamy, open marriage, traditional, unmarried, friendly - and deal with it.

Same with sexuality. Again, taking a cue from Vicky's character - "I see no need to label everyone else." I think people can choose for themselves. My theory is that individual sexuality is like thin steel. It can bend, stay, whatever - but it's overall flexible. Some people may be firmly attracted to one gender for the entirety of their lives, down to a specified set of traits - creamy skin, gray eyes, thin lips, whatever. After hearing all these stories about people who knew they were gay from the time they could walk (David Sedaris) or people who discovered a changing preference in their teens (my friend) - sexuality is be anything, man. It doesn't have to be set in stone. Would it be too crude to compare it to a preference for sandwiches? Some people can eat a ham-and-cheese sandwich, every day, for eighty years. Some people need variety. Some people prefer the bologna instead, and some people discover, to their amazement, that they want to switch after twenty years on the ham, or switch to bologna after the ham runs out (that was a prison reference). It's all good. 

In the end, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. What matters is that you find at least someone, or some people, to love and take care of. And that's as simple as it gets. 

Fight Club Afterbirth and QT on Strangulation

Advantage of having the whole world on your side, a la Conan O'Brien? A kickass roster of interviewees who are actually interesting in addition to being famous. The past week alone saw Jeff Bridges, Ricky Gervais, Martin Scorsese, Colin Firth, Joel McHale of "The Soup" fame, and Adam Sandler (why is it that comedians are so much funnier than the movies they star in? It's like they forget the beauty of improvisation the moment they step on set). And the interviews were rich fodder for useless-trivia geeks like me. Apparently, Jeff Bridges talks to dolphins and Martin Scorsese is a near agoraphobic. You know what they say about geniuses..

One of the best interviews was Tarantino, who at one point reduced Conan into a minute of stunned, nervous chuckles, and I was in the same state. One of the most violent mainstream directors of all time, talking about his great skill with little kids? Tarantino-colored glasses can be quite frightening to peep into. 

(Kenneth the Page sees the world in muppets and Jack Donaghy sees the world in dollar signs. Wonder how QT sees the world? I'd rather not stray into that territory)

But thankfully, Conan actually seemed to be interested in the man's skill, not just his perverse social perspective, and so we got a nice little insight into QT's work. BTW, Tarantino just *has* to be on Inside the Actor's Studio someday. Think about it - James Lipton's meticulously researched, analytical probing + QT's enthusiastic, personal insights = cinematic bliss. 

I cringed when they veered into the topic of strangulation, but QT's take on it turned out to be oddly fascinating. I love how immersed he is into every psychological detail of a physical act. In this video review of "There Will Be Blood", he talks about the opening scene where Plainview breaks his legs, and about the implications of the unseen aftermath on the character. Here on Conan, he talked about how strangulation is unique to humans alone (opposable thumbs), and how the face-to-face intimacy is precisely what makes it such an inhumane and shockingly violent act. 

 =  ??? Cracked.com article on "6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Movies Better". I don't mind analysis and parallels; some of these are actually pretty good, especially the Ferris Bueller-Fight Club allegory. Overanalysis can be fun, as long as it stays within the realm of casual conversation, and not insistence on the fan's part that his theory was the director's "original intent all along".