“Denzel Washington’s performance in Fences is big, bold and showy; Casey Affleck’s in Manchester by the Sea is quiet, understated and internal. Affleck had won almost all the awards until SAG chimed in. Washington’s is the kind of acting that the Academy loves to reward — when was the last time an oversized performance lost to a subtler one, or a performance as brilliantly understated as Affleck’s won? I don’t know the answer to that question, because it just doesn’t happen. Subtlety, sad to say, rarely wins acting Oscars.” — from Steve Pond‘s last and final Oscar assessment piece, posted today at 2:12 pm.

Note: I’m not going to personally fork over $20 bills to all comers if Affleck loses — you have to have a Pay Pal account.

I finally took final possession of the forest-green Mini Cooper last night around 7:30 pm. I wanted to drive it off the lot by late afternoon but the dealer needed extra time to work out registration, tags and whatnot, and the process was delayed. Which is why I wound up missing last night’s all-media screening of Get Out, which opens tomorrow night. Jordan Peele‘s horror-comedy is currently polling 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, but something tells me I might have a problem with it. Maybe. I’ll almost certainly have to catch it this weekend, and we’ll see what’s up.

Posted on 1.25.17: “The Sundance Film Festival response to Charlie McDowell‘s The Discovery (Netflix, 3.31) has been fairly dismal. Speaking as a fan of McDowell’s The One I Love, which played here three years ago, I was sorry to find that The Discovery, a dialogue-driven drama about social reactions to a scientific discovery of an afterlife, is a morose, meandering thing that never lifts off the ground. The general atmosphere of dismissal had to be a heartbreaker for McDowell, but there’s also the fact that Discovery costar Rooney Mara, whom McDowell had been in a relationship with since 2010, dumped him late last year.”

If your movie opens a film festival, it’s probably soft or inconsequential on some level – be honest. And it’s probably an even worse omen if your movie closes a film festival. You could actually double that equation if it’s closing South by Southwest, whose attendees are known for bending over backwards to celebrate geek-friendly genre movies as long as they’re seriously geeky where the rubber meets the road. I’m not saying Daniel Espinosa‘s Life is a problem, but you can tell where it’s coming from and feel the oppressive pangs of familiarity.

In a 2.22 interview with N.Y. Times reporter Dave Itzkoff, Real Time‘s Bill Maher reviews the crash-bang-boom that followed last weekend’s interview with Milo Yiannopoulos, a series of blows and exposures that led to Yiannopoulos losing his book deal and resigning from Breitbart News and more or less being banned from Planet Earth.

“What I think people saw [during the Real Time interview] was an emotionally needy Ann Coulter wannabe, trying to make a buck off of the left’s propensity for outrage. But to see him as this monster is a little crazy. You know what he is? He’s the little impish, bratty kid brother. And the liberals are his older teenager sisters who are having a sleepover and he puts a spider in their sleeping bag so he can watch them scream.”

With four days to go before the big night, we’re looking at exactly two Oscar quandaries — (1) will Denzel Washington steal the Best Actor Oscar from Casey Affleck? and (2) which awards won’t be won by Team La La? Excitement levels couldn’t be higher. On top of which Hollywood Elsewhere has been besieged by invites to hot Oscar-week parties. Well, five or six. I won’t be attending tonight’s La La Land dinner thrown by Vanity Fair and Barney’s New York; ditto the VF and Lancome party celebrating VF’s Hollywood Issue. But I’m good for JJ Abrams‘ annual Oscar Wilde bash at Bad Robot on Thursday evening and…uhhm, maybe Friday’s Hidden Figures soiree at Spago. Not to mention the big-tent Spirit Awards on Saturday, an Amazon/Manchester By The Sea viewing and after-party on Oscar night followed by a Lionsgate La La after-party at Soho House. That’s enough, I think.

“I really want you to see Moonlight in the Ozarks. Because it’s a bit of a miracle.

“The sad truth is, films like this don’t get made anymore. It is a film about a rural white boy from southern Missouri navigating his burgeoning homosexuality while simultaneously trying to overcome the perils of being raised by his conservative-minded, oxycontin-addicted single mother. It has no movie stars. It is unabashedly honest and unapologetically runs against the tide of what is commonly considered to be commercial cinema.

“It is impossible to get a movie like this made in today’s indie film ecosystem. And yet the film exists. Somehow, it got made. And thank God.

“Because this is my favorite film of the last 10 years.” — Alternative Mark Duplass letter to the Academy, contemplated and expressed in a realm that probably wouldn’t have manifested if Moonlight in the Ozarks had been made.

For the magic-hour dance scene in La La Land, choreographer Mandy Moore lifted some steps from a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers routine from Top Hat (’35). Ryan Gosling‘s dancing is spry, lithe and graceful, but I have to say (and I’m not trying to sound like an asshole) that Astaire was better at it. I love the way he briefly stops on a dime and balances on one foot, just for a second. Emma Stone and Rogers are more evenly matched.