Month: March 2010

I’m not going to remember those who’ve been left out, so if anyone can post them. They always blow people off. Jean Simmons, David Carradine. “Zapata, in the name of all we fought for, don’t go!”…Joseph Wiseman! Michael Jackson gets two and a half seconds.

Everyone in my room is hating on the haughty Sandy Powell, the Oscar-winning costume designer for The Young Victoria. She’s cool, I get her, think I understand — but she erred, I’m afraid. “I already have two of these…”

And The Hurt Locker sound mixer and editors, particuarly Paul J. Ottosson, have won! Ray Beckett! Another sure omen that the Best Picture Oscar is theirs.

“Jim Cameron…this Oscar sees you.,..clearly, your vision is so deep”…cancer recovery…”we really felt that…that you so much.” Waterfalls of emotion. Okay.

I was moved by her closing her eyes and holding still for a second or two before getting up to take the stage, and her bows. “I’d like to thank the Academy for showing it can be about the performance, and not the politics.” D’ja hear that, Tom O’Neil?

…for Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner for Up In The Air. Instead…wait, Geoffrey Fletcher unexpectedly wins the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar? First major surprise of the night. Stop sniffling! Sniffling is inexcusable! Steve Martin: “I wrote that speech for [Fletcher].” My ballot is so fucked at this point. Four wrong! Forget it.

I would give the Best Makeup Oscar to Il Divo, but that’s me. Stiller steals the show. Good fishing rod joke. Star Trek wins, natch. Picked it. A staff of 40? Honorable mention of JJ Abrams.

The short film awards are a disaster for me, choosing-wise, ballot-wise. People are going “what…what? Who’s that red-haired woman?” Give all the short-film people the hook? Send ’em down the chute?

92Y Tribeca Oscar party tablemates (l. to r.): Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale, Icarus Films marketing/publicity chief Sylvia Savadjian, Coming Soon‘s Ed Douglas, filmmaker Jamie Stuart.,

…for Best Original Screenplay means The Hurt Locker is definitely going to win Best Picture. Right? A current, foreshadowing, whatever.

Of course. Fine. Tarantino ass-sucking. Way to go. Whatever. Wait…Up wins for Best Animated Feature? Big shocker. Baldwin and Martin are brilliant. And Crazy Heart‘s “The Bloated 57 Year-Old Jowly Kind” wins for Best Song? Got that right.

Schmaltzy Neil Patrick Harris in a glitter tux…? Totally gay, totally Vegas. But Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin‘s entrance is perfect. “And this is Alec Baldwin!” Good material. Hey, there’s Ethan Coen! “Pr ecious is the one film that really lived up to its video game.” Cloooney’s hair looks good. “And [Cameron] reciprocated by sending her…a Toyota!” Good stuff. “You are so naive.” These guys are great!

I went to a 2-D screening of Tim Burton‘s Alice in Wonderland last night at 11:15 pm at the Lincoln Square. For 17 minutes they ran a series of excruciating trailers for some awful-looking family-friendly films (the absolute worst being Roger Kumble‘s Furry Vengeance) before starting the main feature. I was ready to leave because of the trailers alone. The family market is a sludge depository — a genre that attracts mediocre talent like a magnet.

And then Alice finally began. Because the tint of Burton’s talent is ten times more appealing than Kumble’s, I felt initially relieved. And then I began to gradually pull back. And then I became distracted. And then bored. But I made it through to the end, which in my realm is saying something.

I didn’t despise Alice, but I didn’t care for it much either. I should be more explicit and say that I didn’t hate it altogether. A lot of it looks…well, quite expensive. It diverts with some lovely CG renderings. It’s clearly been made by a first-rate artist-professional with an obviously developed visual signature. Some aspects were visually appealing enough (the rasberry-popsicle helmet hair worn by Helena Bonham Carter‘s Red Queen, Johnny Depp‘s luminous green eyes and pumpkin-colored coif) to make me nod in appreciation.

But it was awfully hard to hear the dialogue. Partly because it was so whispery (I twice begged the staff to turn the sound up), and partly because of the primly Victorian British accents that for some reason just weren’t easily decipherable. I understood some of what was being said, but only about 50% to 60%, I’d say. I’d hear a word or phrase and then piece it together. But I didn’t give a damn about the story in the least. My task was to sit through it without giving up in disgust, and I did that. There’s enough high-end fantasy art to keep the eyes sated or filled like tanks of gas..

But the energy levels in the one-third filled house (which looked to me like mostly Hispanic Eloi) were completely flat There’s no way Alice won’t drop by at least 60% or 65% next weekend. It just wasn’t playing all that well.

Eight years ago I walked out of Roger Kumble‘s The Sweetest Thing at the six-minute mark. I could see in a flash it was a reprehensible confection. Last night I saw the trailer for Kumble’s Furry Vengeance (Summit, 4.30). It may not be the most infuriatingly awful film of the year thus far — trailers can deceive — but I feel I know Kumble’s brushstrokes, and that I’m right to believe that he’s a menace.