It may be too late and it may be a futile notion, but it’s time for all good people to rise up and band together in order to stop Eddie Murphy from winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. If anyone wants to launch a website to help amplify this feeling and (who knows?) maybe trigger a turnaround of opinion, I’ll contribute $100 bucks…seriously. He’s the one bad guy in the bunch who, I feel, really doesn’t deserve to win. Surely others feel this way?
I’ve seen that bored-indifferent, man-am-I-rich, leave-me-alone look on Murphy’s face too many times, and I’d be tickled if the Oscar camera could catch him scowling when Mark Wahlberg or Alan Arkin win instead. He may have the Oscar in the bag, but I keep hearing he’s not very well liked in the industry and that he’s regarded as a bit of an asshole. Plus he was too cool to show up for any one of those three swanky Dreamgirls press events that Terry Press threw last year. It’ll just take a little blogosphere surge to make it happen…maybe. Or maybe not.
I respect Murphy, and I certainly don’t hate him . I used to love him in the early to mid ’80s. I relished his spirited voice-acting in the two Shrek films, he was inspired in Bowfinger, and pretty funny in both Nutty Professor fims (especially the second one), but there’s that air of arrogance and impudence that rubs me the wrong way. Plus I can’t get over that run of truly awful big-studio films he made from the mid ’80s to the late ’90s.
Murphy needs to be leaned over a barrel for making Doctor Dolittle, Metro, Vampire in Brooklyn, Beverly Hills Cop III, The Distinguished Gentleman, Boomerang, Another 48 Hrs., Harlem Nights (hated it!), Coming to America (really hated it!), Beverly Hills Cop II (nowhere near as good as the original) and The Golden Child. 11 depressing films! I went through hell watching them.
I’m willing to let this go. If Murphy wins, whatever. He’s pretty good as James “Thunder” Early, especially during his on-stage performing scenes. But he really isn’t great or phenomenal in the part, and there isn’t much of a character arc. In the third act Jamie Foxx dismisses a song idea, then he does a line of something, and the next scene he’s dead…offscreen. Nor is there a whole lot of depth to the guy, and there’s very little connective tissue in his story. It’s an extended cameo, really.
The over-praising of The Fabelmans among mainstream media types…what is there to say except “what else is new”? We’re all familiar with the industry-wide instinct to kowtow to the lore of Steven Spielberg-directed films…a syndrome that’s been locked into the psychological Hollywood bloodstream for several decades, as natural and inevitable as a mountain stream or even the weather.
It’s not that The Fabelmans is a bad film — of course not! It’s a fairly good one in several respects, but you also have to qualify this with a sensible “yes, okay but calm down.” I’ve said this two or three times, but a truly fair-minded, non-obsequious opinion would have to acknowledge that the saga of Spielberg’s teenage years (mostly Phoenix, some Saratoga) is neither boring nor hugely interesting. It’s diverting in an on-the-nose, broadly performed way, but it mainly boils down to “decent with three pop-throughs — the Judd Hirsch rant, filming the Nazi war flick in the Arizona desert, and John Ford lecturing 17-year-old Steven about horizon lines.”
Face it — that’s what The Fabelmans is. It’s not a put-down to call it “good enough” or “reasonably decent.” And Matt Patches is correct — the major roles (including Ford at the end) could have been eccentrically performed by Eddie Murphy in white-person makeup.
Chris Evangelista is also spot-on about The Fabelmans 2. I would truly love to see Spielberg’s struggling years at Universal dramatized — Amblin, directing that Night Gallery episode with Joan Crawford, SS bonding with his “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” colleagues, filming Duel and then The Sugarland Express.
This would have to be followed, of course, by The Fabelmans 3, which would cover the glory years of ’74 through ’82 — the making of Jaws, Close Encounters, 1941, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T..
Steven Spielberg discusses his new film, The Fabelmans, with fellow director Paul Thomas Anderson in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles.https://t.co/cVXYZxSizi
Eddie Murphy is going to perform some comic standup specials for Netflix. Reports have stated he’ll be paid between $40 and $70 million for these shows.
$40 to $70 million for telling jokes? Doesn’t that kind of drain the humor out of things? How funny can you be when you’re pocketing that much coin?
And what’s he gonna riff on? Murphy used to be about nervy material and envelope pushing. Obviously that’s out these days. You can’t do convention-defying comedy these days unless you’re some kind of despised outlaw renegade like LouisC.K. The wokesters have pretty much killed any semblance of a comic atmosphere…no?
A recent People article, quoting Murphy in a discussion with Today‘s Al Roker, said that “he’ll be working with different material now that he’s older and a father of 10.
“Last time I did stand-up I was 27 years old,’ Murphy said. “I look at some of my old stuff and cringe. Sometimes I’m like, I can’t believe I said that! I’m 58 now so I don’t think I’m gonna approach it the same way.”
In other words, no more jokes in the tradition of “Mr. T in a gay bar.”
Murphy told Roker he’s going to prepare for the Netflix thing by doing a tour of comedy clubs.
“You gotta go to the clubs [although] I haven’t started doing that yet,” he said. “I never wrote stuff out on paper. I would be having a conversation and I’d say something funny. And I’d be like, ‘Oh, that’s funny,’ and I would go try it on stage. That’s never stopped, I’ve just stopped taking it to the stage.”
If you ask me Murphy permanently surrendered his funnyman card when he left the Oscar telecast after he didn’t win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his Dreamgirls performance.
A fully reasoned, highly persuasive New York Post piece by Michael Kane, arguing against the notion of Eddie Murphy as a deserving Best Supporting Actor nominee, appeared this morning. It’s very surprising, I’m thinking, that the most devastating quote against the guy is delivered in the article by Oscarwatch.com‘s Sasha Stone, who’s said I’ve got my head screwed on backwards for trying to articulate the anti-Murphy current.
Murphy “has a 90 percent chance of winning right now,” she says. “And I’m getting the sense that he doesn’t even care. He’s been prickly through this whole thing. He doesn’t want to let his guard down. He doesn’t want to look desperate or appear desperate. You can tell he’s up there trying to say the right things, going through the motions, but maybe deep down he thinks it wasn’t really Oscar-worthy.”
“Norbit,'” Stone says, “is really not the best Eddie Murphy to be showing right now. What if you’re an Oscar voter, and you drive by that giant billboard on Ventura Boulevard? Maybe you start thinking, this movie is probably going to make $100 million. Let’s give the award to poor Jackie Earle Haley, who has nothing. Eddie Murphy doesn’t need an Oscar.”
“Let’s face it, he’s really very good in [Dreamgirls], on stage,” another observer says in the piece. “It’s not just that he can sing. He’s got the moves. He knows how to do it.It’s like an extended James Brown impression. Is that great acting? That’s okay acting. He did the job. But there’s no basis for him to be saluted and put up on the mountaintop.
“Eddie Murphy may well have something to show that proves that he’s a good actor, but Dreamgirls‘ and the role of James Thunder’ Early is not that role. It’s basically prancing around on stage.”
The odd thing is, Kane writes, is that “this kind of criticism may not even get an argument from Murphy himself.
“Even he dismisses his supposed ‘Oscar clip’ in Dreamgirls, a scene that comes late in the film, when his character is down on his luck and reaches for heroin to ease the pain. When a friend asks him to stop, ‘Thunder’ Early shoots him a look that without words fully captures the moment of surrender of a proud man.
“But even Murphy, true to form, laughs off the artistry of the acting.
“‘After that scene was shot,’ recalled Murphy after winning the Golden Globe, ‘our producer, Laurence Mark, said, ‘Oh, that look you just gave him was incredible.’ And I was like, ‘What’s he talking about?’ I didn’t know what he meant.
“And then [co-star] Jamie [Foxx] came over a week later and said, I saw that look that you did.’ And then I watched the movie, and I was like, what the f— are they talking about? Everyone was like, Oh, that moment,’ and I was like, I didn’t do nothing.'”
Traction on the Stop Eddie Murphy movement is starting to happen….maybe. I’ve made it clear from a personal perspective that I’d like to see him denied the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his Dreamgirls work, but there might be more happening than just that. People aren’t exactly lighting torches and preparing to march on Versailles, but…
Two days ago (i.e., the day after Monday’s Murphy-dissing piece in this column), I was interviewed by a N.Y. Post guy who’s writing a story for Sunday’s edition about Murphy’s supposed political weaknesses, the perception that he’s more than a bit of an egoistic asshole, how he’s never made anything other than mainstream big-buck comedies, how he’s never tried to stretch or risk anything in a smaller-budgeted film, plus the ongoing Norbit effect (i.e., that one-sheet image reiterating who Murphy is and challenging the notion that he’s somehow turned a corner with his Dreamgirls performance) upon Academy voters.
Murphy encapsulates everything that is smug, arrogant, closed-off and reac- tionary about today’s Hollywood elite. Denying him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar would be, no exaggeration, an affirmation of positive, open-hearted values. It would amount to the Academy saying en masse, “We will not reward insecure downmarket egotists, no matter how successful their films have been….we’re not necessarily refusing to celebrate movie stars who ride around in big fat SUVs and wear jet-black shades and live behind electrified iron gates, but we chose not to this time.”
As the recent Murphy profile in Entertainment Weekly says, “[Murphy] carries some baggage: a reputation for being prickly and egotistical, rumors of odd idiosyncrasies, a couple of high-profile tabloid scandals.
“Even with the tremendous acclaim for his work in Dreamgirls, some believe he won’t fully stabilize his bumpy career until he overcomes a long-standing image problem. His defenders dispute that idea, saying that with cumulative career box office grosses in the neighborhood of $3 billion, Murphy has a vast reservoir of goodwill in Hollywood and among moviegoers.”
Bruce Beresford‘s Mr. Church, a low-key Eddie Murphy relationship drama, had its big premiere during last April’s Tribeca Film Festival. It kind of went away during the summer, but then it turned up at Pete Hammond’s KCET screening series on 9.13 before opening on 9.16. On 10.21, or three weeks from this Friday, Mr. Church be on Digital HD and On Demand and then on Bluray/DVD on 10.25. Which seems like a reasonable way to go. I’m only mentioning this because I somehow never saw it. Partly because I didn’t care that much (that 16% Rotten Tomatoes score) and partly because I never received a screening invite. Could that have been because of my nearly decade-old “stop Eddie Murphy” campaign regarding his performance in Dreamgirls? Just asking. I don’t have a problem with Murphy. That was then, this is now.
What an intermittently strange Golden Globes award show! Congrats to Joaquin, Renee, Brad, Laura and other winners. But big-spending Netflix suddenly appears to be looking at an uphill situation. Marriage Story is probably a lost cause (Laura Dern‘s likely Best Supporting Actress Oscar aside) but they need to somehow re-energize the Irishman campaign.
HE asked a seasoned director about what happened with the two big 1917 wins (Best Picture, Best Director). Answer: “Ambivalence towards Netflix. Hollywood and its denizens will not let Netflix win until they properly release their contenders. Plus 1917 arrived relatively late in the game. Recent impressions are stronger. Boldness of vision and concept.”
8:07 pm: The Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Drama goes to 1917? Congrats and well done, but who was predicting this? Text Message from Jett: “The Irishman is in trouble.” Netflix, in fact, was all but shut out. A lot of what was expected to happen didn’t happen.
8:03 pm: Renee Zellweger, as predicted, wins Best Actress, Motion Picture, Drama for Judy. What was Ricky Gervais‘s Harvey Weinstein joke? It was bleeped.
7:54 pm: Joaquin Phoenix wins the Golden Globe for Best Actor, Drama. Joaquin just got bleeped! JP: “I don’t want to rock the boat but…” JP got bleeped again! “We have to take responsibility upon ourselves,” etc. And then he gets played off. JP: “I know people say this but I really do feel honored to be mentioned with you,” etc. Maybe we’ll find out later on what he actually said.
7:45 pm: The Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical goes to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Expected! Julia Butters and Margot Robbie take the stage with Quentin Tarantino and others, but Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCapriodon’t take the stage. Odd.
7:37 pm: Awkwafina wins for Best Actress, Comedy or Musical. An actual predicted win aside from Pitt! Richly deserved except for those moments when she first arrives in China and can’t seem to stop herself from radiating gloom, which is not the idea as the family is trying to keep grandma from suspecting the Big Secret.
7:34 pm: Taron Egerton wins Best Actor, Comedy or Musical? What happened to Eddie Murphy, bruhs? 2019 has not been an Egerton year — it’s been a Murphy year. What just happened? Mendes, Egerton…what’s going on?
7:27 pm: Brad Pitt, as expected, wins Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. Pitt thanks Quentin, of course, as well as “LDC” and Tom Rothman “for his big balls.”
7:23 pm: Joker composter Hildur Gionadottir wins! I thought it would either be 1917‘s Thomas Newman or Marriage Story‘s Randy Newman.
7:12 pm: Richly deserved! Michelle Williams win the Best Actress, limited TV series, for Fosse/Verdon. MW: “Women, please vote in your own self-interest. We are the largest voting body in this country. Let’s make [America] look more like us.” Bravo!! And congrats to Team Chernobyl for winning Best Limited Series of TV Movie award.
7:01 pm: The Golden Globe Best Director award goes to…1917‘s Sam Mendes? A very good film by a highly gifted director, but what just happened? Bong Joon-ho, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese supporters are slapping their foreheads as we speak. Where did this come from? Who had predicted it? Definitely a left-field win.
6:50 pm: Tom Hanks melts down over love for his family during his acceptance speech. Probably the most widely loved, most amiable fellow in the business. “Show up on time, know your lines and bring a head full of ideas. Check the gate! If the gate is good, then you move on. It’s the cold that’s making this happen. I’m not nearly this emotional at home. Thank you.”
6:40 pm: Unbelievable‘s Toni Collette should have won the Best Supporting Actress. That said, cheers to winner Patricia Arquette (The Act) for referencing the impending likely war with Iran and the Australian bush fires, and the absolute necessity of removing Trump later this year. Hooray also for The Crown‘s (and HE’s own) Olivia Colman for her win.
6:28 pm: For so many years songwriter Bernie Taupin looked like a handsome, good-looking music industry guy in a certain wispy and delicate way, and now he looks like Ernest Stavro Blofeld…like a bald Swiss banker or arms dealer. Congrats to Bernie and Elton for winning the Best Song award.
6:17 pm: Best Supporting Actress award goes to Laura Dern for Marriage Story. (And to a lesser extent for her performance in Little Women.) The saga of of Marriage Story is not about “a family finding their way for their child.” It’s about what the mother wants for her career and how much stress and expense the selfish father will endure to win as much time with his son as possible. Oh, and cheers to Fleabag for winning Best TV series award.
6:10 pm: HE doesn’t “do” animated, no offense, but congrats all the same to Missing Link for winning the Golden Globe Best Animated Feature award, or whatever it’s called.
6:05 pm: Ewan McGregor is wearing blacksides! White shoes with black soles. Quentin Tarantino, winner of the Best Screenplay award, mispronounces John Milius‘s last name. So this means OUATIH wins Best Feature, Comedy/Musical?
6:02 pm: Best Actor, TV Series, Drama: Succession‘s Brian Cox. Excellent actor each and every time. The show is fine. Not to my taste but fine.
5:44 pm: Kate McKinnon handing out the 2020 Carol Burnett award to the great Ellen DeGeneres. Good! A courageous champion and a genuinely witty comedian. That said, EDG’s haircut is too strict and under-cutty. The hair should be longer. And her eyes …well, we’re all getting older but the norm is to “do” something about that, no? It’s normal, expected, par for the course. Brilliant, super-confident riff on “I’m gonna keep it quick.” Plus: “I couldn’t have done it without my husband Mark.” Perfect, just right…cheers.
5:36 pm: And here comes the Parasite award!! Bong Joon-ho had this one in the bag for a long time. Take note, Oscar voters; You can nominate Parasite for Best Picture, fine, but that’ll suffice. Due respect and admiration for a very good film. In the international realm.
5:33 pm: And the GG award for Best Actress in a TV series, Musical or Comedy does to Phoebe Waller Bridge, Fleabag. I’ve watched…uhm, two episodes.
5:28 pm: Gervais quips, “As you know the meal tonight was all vegetables. As are the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press.” Not funny.
5:26 pm: Stellan Skarsgard, whom I spoke to last night at the Lionsgate party, wins the supporting actor award for his Chernobyl performance. Funny guy. Good Milos Forman imitation. Congrats to the Succession guys for winning Best TV Series (Drama). I’m not allowed to say that I stopped watching early in the game because I couldn’t care less about the snakes, vipers and lizards. Throw them all into a volcano pit.
5:10 pm: Russell Crowe wins Best Actor in TV format for The Loudest Voice. He’s not at the ceremony because of the devastating Australian bush fires. Jennifer Aniston reads a statement from Crowe stating that global warming is a prime cause for what’s happening down under. He’s right.
5:03 pm: Ricky Gervais doesn’t care. “Many people of color were snubbed [in the Globes Nominations]. But the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press are very racist…and nothing can be done about that.” Or words to that effect. Plus the Epstein joke. A lot of pop-outs — is NBC bleeping him?
Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman has scored 14 nominations for the forthcoming Critics’ Choice Awards, and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has been handed 12 noms.
Not to make any rash predictions, but do you know what this means? I’ll tell you what this means, given that the Critics Choice Awards have generally tended to mirror Oscar noms and winners. It means that the odds strongly favor The Irishman winning the Best Picture Oscar, and that Quentin’s film…who knows? Some kind of split vote outcome. Possibly a Best Director of Best Screenplay makeup…something like that.
The CC gang has given The Irishman noms for best picture, director, best actor (Robert De Niro), best supporting actor (Al Pacino and Joe Pesci) and best acting ensemble, among others.
The other heavyweight CC contenders are Little Women (nine nominations), Marriage Story (eight) plus Jojo Rabbit and Parasite (seven noms each).
In alphabetical order: James Gray‘s Ad Astra, Harmony Korine‘s Beach Bum, Mia Hansen Love‘s Bergman Island, Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, Taika Waititi‘s Jojo Rabbit, Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out, Dee Rees‘ The Last Thing He Wanted, Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse, Greta Gerwig‘s Little Women, Noah Hawley‘s Lucy in the Sky, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Bong Joon-ho‘s Parasite, Melina Matsoukas‘ Queen & Slim, Josephine Decker‘s Shirley, Kore-eda Hirokazu‘s The Truth, Benny & Josh Safdie‘s Uncut Gems, Jordan Peele‘s Us, Benh Zeitlin‘s Wendy and Janicza Bravo‘s Zola.
Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.
Here’s the latest HE rundown of 2019 films of a certain preferred quality. 88 as we speak. Possible critical faves, perhaps even award-season contenders. The two main categories are (a) general appeal flicks with bigger names and budgets (29), and (b) smarthouse, upmarket films for particular congregations (59). Further refinements to come. What have I missed?
GENERAL APPEAL, BIGGER NAMES, BIGGER BUDGETS. etc. (30)
1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman — A mob hitman recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa. (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Jesse Plemons).
2. Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood — A faded TV actor and his stunt double embark on an odyssey to make a name for themselves in the film industry during the Helter Skelter reign of terror in 1969 Los Angeles. (Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie).
3. Ang Lee‘s Gemini Man — An over-the-hill hitman faces off against a younger clone of himself. (Will Smith, Clive Owen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Benedict Wong).
4. Jon Favreau‘s The Lion King — CGI and live-action re-imagining of the 1994 Disney classic. (Voice-acting by Donald Glover, Alfre Woodard, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Seth Rogen).
5. Todd Phillips’ Joker — Joker origin story, you know the drill. (Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Shea Whigham, Zazie Beetz)
6. Marielle Heller‘s You Are My Friend — The story of Fred Rogers, the honored host and creator of the popular children’s television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. (Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Tammy Blanchard)
7. J.C. Chandor‘s Triple Frontier — Five friends team to take down a South American drug lord. (Charlie Hunnam, Ben Affleck, Pedro Pascal, Oscar Isaac.) Netflix.
8. J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars: Episode IX — The conclusion of the new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. (Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, et.al.)
9. Joe Wright‘s The Woman in the Window — An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors only to witness a disturbing act of violence. (AmyAdams, WyattRussell, GaryOldman, JulianneMoore)
10. All You Need Is Love (aka “Untitled DannyBoyle/RichardCurtis Film”) — Set to the music of the Beatles, it’s about a musician who thinks he’s the only one who can hear the Beatles’ music. (Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Ana de Armas, Kate McKinnon, Lamorne Morris) Sheeran plays himself discovering a rising young musician. Mckinnon plays a talent agent. Hamesh Patel costars.
11. Greta Gerwig‘s Little Women — Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War. (Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan)
12. James Mangold‘s Ford v. Ferrari — The true story of the battle between Ford and Ferrari to win Le Mans in 1966. (Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Jon Bernthal).
13. Jordan Peele‘s Us — A “social thriller” set between two couples — one white, one black. Starring Winston Duke (Black Panther) and Lupita Nyongo’o — L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss champing at the very bit. (Anna Diop, Elisabeth Moss, Kara Hayward)
14. Aaron Schneider‘s Greyhound — During World War II, an international convoy of 37 Allied ships, led by Commander Ernest Krause (TomHanks), cross the treacherous North Atlantic while being hotly pursued by wolf packs of German U-boats. (Elisabeth Shue, Karl Glusman, Stephen Graham)
15. Gavin Hood‘s Official Secrets — The true story of a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (Matthew Goode, Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes)
Of these I’ve listed 6 likely Best Picture contenders, a trio of high-end galactic thrillers, 23 pick-of-the-litter films from brand-name directors, 26 films of alternate interest plus 22 others of somewhat lesser distinction for a total of 79.
At least five of these have the traditional earmarks of Best Picture contenders — Kathryn Bigelow‘s Untitled Detroit Riots Drama, Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk, Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Charles James ’50s period drama, Alexander Payne‘s Downsizing and Joe Wright‘s Darkest Hour, a Winston Churchill vs. Nazi war machine drama.
I would add Cuaron’s film, a Spanish-language Mexican family drama set in the ’70s, for a total of six, but the Academy will most likely consign it to the Best Foreign Language category.
Alfonso Cuaron during the Mexico City-shooting of Roma.
9:00 pm: Spotlight wins the Best Picture Oscar! OMG! OMG! OMG! Amazing. The preferential ballot thing kicked in! Buy some Girl Scout cookies! Black lives matter!
8:53 pm: Julianne Moore presenting the long-assured Best Actor Oscar to Leonardo DiCaprio. Who gets a standing ovation. Leo thanks Hardy, Alejandro, Chivo, Arnon, Scorsese, Rick Yorn, my friends. And this: “Climate change is real, it’s happening right now, and we need to work together right now and stop procrastinating and support leaders who don’t [kowtow] to the big polluters and for our children’s children…let us not take this planet for granted…I do not take tonight for granted.”
8:51 pm: Chris Rock has done a really great job — he hit the right notes, said some wise things, handled it well and smoothly. A real pro.
8:44 pm: Eddie Redmayne presenting the Best Actress reel, and then the Oscar to Room‘s Brie Larson. “Oh, wow.” She thanks Telluride, Toronto, Lenny Abrahamson, her family, friends and the audience for seeing Room. Simple, elegant. And she looks terrific.
8:36 pm: J.J. Abrams announces winner of the Best Directing Oscar, which will presumably be The Revenant‘s Alejandro G. Inarritu. Yes, Mr. Revenant has won twice in a row, historically measuring up to Joseph L. Mankiewicz and John Ford. Heartfelt thanks to Leo, Chivo, Tom Hardy, Arnon Milchan. Inarritu stands up to the orchestra, refuses to be played off, and says something fine and true about the symbolism of the moment, future opportunity and past discrimination.
8:29 pm: Sascha Baron Cohen amusingly satirizes the whole “what about fairness for us?” diversity thing. Got me.
8:25 pm: Common and John Legend presenting the Best Song Oscar. I feel as if it should go to “Until It Happens To you.” But Sam Smith‘s Spectre song wins.
8:20 pm: Quincy Jones and blonde Pharrell presenting Best Original Score Oscar. It should be going to Ryuichi Sakamoto for his Revenant score. The Oscar goes to Ennio Morricone for his Revenant score, which was okay but honestly wasn’t my idea of great. This is basically another gold-watch Oscar for a legendary composer, and that’s fine. Morricone conveys thanks in his native tongue…cool.
8:09 pm: Standing ovation for Joe Biden! Biden (in response to applause): “I’m the least qualified man here tonight…thank you!” More: “We must and we can change the culture, so that no women or man will ever have to ask themselves ‘what did I do?’ They did nothing wrong.” Lady Gaga singing “‘Til It Happens To you.” A couple of dozen victims standing in formation, all wearing temporary tattoos that say “I’m a survivor: and “It happened to me.” Moving. Best moment of the show so far. Second best: Rock interviews Compton moviegoers. Third best: Rylance beats Stallone.
8:07 pm: Sofia Vergara and some guy presenting Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar. Vergara: “And the Oscar goes to Son of Saawuhhl…Hungary.” Hooray for the Saul guys!
8:05 pm: Jacob Tremblay and Abraham Attah presenting action for Best Live Action Short Film. What just won? Attah said “Stuttaahh!” Oh, right: Stutterer.
8:03 pm: The Oscar telecast has been rockin’ and rollin’ for two and a half hours now.
7:56 pm: Death Reel — who will be snubbed? Former Time critic Richard Corliss makes the cut! Holly Woodlawn! Frank Gilroy, David Bowie, Leonard Nimoy…blackbirds, fly. Tweet by Forrest Wickman: “Paul McCartney wrote “Blackbird” about the Civil Rights struggle. Now the Oscars use it to memorialize (mostly) white people.” With an oblique nod to the evening’s diversity theme.
7:55 pm: Cheryl Boone Isaacs quoting Martin Luther King: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stand in moments of challenge and controversy.
7:52 pm: Whoopi Goldberg could spend a little more time on the treadmill. Sorry but she could.
7:50 pm: $65K for Girl Scout cookies?
7:38 pm: Louis C.K. handing out Best Documentary Short Subject Oscar. They’ll never get rich, they’ll be going home in a Honda Civic, they’ll keep the Oscar in their crappy apartment. Winner is getting played off. Dev Patel and Daisy “who’s Cary Grant?” Ridley handing out Best Documentary Feature Oscar, which is supposed to go to Asif Kapadia‘s Amy. Yes! Amy! Congrats to Asif! We made this film to show who Amy really was, etc. A magnificent singer who killed herself, you mean?
7:32 pm: Bridge of Spies costar Mark Rylance wins Best Supporting Oscar. More to the point, Sly Stallone loses! The first shocker of the evening! The blogaroonies (myself included) were wrong. Imagine all those people down in Compton going, “Who the fuck is Mark Rylance? Who the fuck saw Bridge of Lies?” This is what’s called an upset. HE advice to Stallone: Don’t pull an Eddie Murphy and leave the Kodak. Stay to the end, be gracious, give Rylance a hug, go to all the parties.
7:27 pm: Chris Rock interviewing several low-information Compton residents about which “white person” Best Picture nominees they’ve seen. None, zip, doughnut. But they saw Straight Outta Compton. Why would they ever want to see Spotlight? Just some white-ass movie about white people up to some white-people shit…right? The same mentality, I’d guess, that led South Carolinians of color to not vote for Bernie Sanders…right, Chris? Talk to Spike Lee and Cornell West about that.
7:22 pm: Kate Winslet, Reese Witherspoon announcing Best Picture clips…zzzzz.
7:14 pm: Kevin Hart shares his diversity thoughts. A musical number. That I already hate. Nice haircut, Weekend! Return of the mullet in 2016.
7:10 pm: Woody and Buzz Lightyear’s patter is slightly better. The winner of the Best Animated Feature oscar will be, of course, Inside Out — fucking Pixar guys own this category. Good words: “Make stuff..make films, draw, write…it’ll make a world of difference.”
7:08 pm: The Repulsive Minions are boring my ass off. Who wrote their material? Just being on stage isn’t enough, guys. You’ve gotta open your heart, pour out your soul. Oh, right…above your pay grade.
7:05 pm: Steven Spielberg and a whole lot of others have their cash out, ready to buy those Girl Scout cookies.
7:00 pm: BB8, R2D2 and C3P) are boring my ass off. Who wrote their material? Just being on stage isn’t enough, guys. You gotta open your heart, pour out your soul. Oh, right…above your pay grade.
6:54 pm: Andy Serkis presenting Best Visual Effects Oscars. An anti-Donald Trump joke. One, two, three….give it to Ex Machina or The Revenant>/em>! They wouldn’t dare give it to Max again, would they? No — Ex Machina! Congrats!
