Day: January 12, 2020

Critics Choice Awards Clarify Some Things

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HE’s beloved Irishman won only one trophy at the 25th annual Critics’ Choice Awards show on Sunday night, and that’s a shame. My heart is aching over the apparent fate of this awesome classic.

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood scored awards for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt (who didn’t show up), Best Original Screenplay for Quentin Tarantino, and Best Production Design (Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh).

And 1917‘s Sam Mendes split the Best Director prize with Parasite‘s Bong Joon-ho, but thank God Parasite didn’t win anything else. This underlines the likelihood that Parasite will only win the Best International Feature Oscar on 2.9.20. I regard this as a kind of victory or vindication.

The indicators suggest that either Once Upon A Time in Hollywood or 1917 will take the Best Picture Oscar. The Critics Choice awards have often reflected the final choices of the Academy.

I think it’s tragic that enough people don’t seem to be standing up for The Irishman, which is easily the year’s best film…easily. Either they’re impatient or too stupid or simply not interested in the lives of gangster geezers with neck wattles and pot bellies.

The CC Best Actor and Best Actress awards were taken by Joker‘s Joaquin Phoenix and Judy‘s Renee Zellweger. The Best Supporting Actor award went to Pitt, as noted. Marriage Story‘s Laura Dern won the Best Supporting Actress trophy — no surprise.

On the TV side of the equation it was Fleabag, Fleabag, Fleabag and Succession Succession Succession. Plus prizes for Watchmen‘s Regina King, Barry‘s Bill Hader, When They See Us‘s Jharrel Jerome and Fosse/Verdon‘s Michelle Williams (who, like Pitt, didn’t bother to show).

People applauded warmly or appreciatively when this or that white nominee took a prize, but you could feel extra whoo-whoo currents when anyone outside this fraternity won.

When John Lithgow announced that the Best Director award had been partly given to Sam Mendes, the applause indicated that people were saying “aaah, good, we approve!” When Lithgow added that the other winner was Parasite‘s Bong Joon-ho, it was like a home town basketball team had won the state championship. Ditto when Ava DuVernay‘s When They See Us (Netflix) won for Best Limited Series.

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Woody Allen’s “Bananas”

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Why do I find ’70s muscle cars painted in this color repulsive while regarding the same hue on natural-ass bananas appealing?

When we think of “Elvis Presley in Las Vegas,” we see images of a bloated, pot-bellied, drug-addled remnant of ’50s Elvis, dressed in a white, high-collared, sequined jumpsuit with tinted shades. But in ’69 he looked good — young, healthy, vibrant.

It’s a stretch to call Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange “science fiction.” It’s a dystopian social drama. Okay, the fictional Ludivico technique was a scientific element, but it didn’t propel the story forward; the conniving plans of politicians did that.

Same Old Oscar Nomination Spitballs

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When it comes to 2020 Oscar nominations, Hollywood Elsewhere is partly run-of-the-mill and partly…well, a bit peculiar. In some ways I’m a lot like Scott Feinberg, and more similar than not to Sasha Stone. But I’m everybody’s brother and son. I ain’t much different from anyone. Well, in some ways I am.

Advance warning: Bong Joon-ho‘s over-praised social dramedy will wind up Best Picture nominated (along with a locked nom for Best International Feature), but it must not and can not win in the former category…no!

Best Picture in order of likelihood: The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 1917, Parasite, Joker, Marriage Story (6). Outliers: Little Women (will a series of impassioned journalist columns and the ever-present Twitter fervor push it through?), Jojo Rabbit (too broad, too comedically tidy, lacking in boldness), Ford v Ferrari (respectable character-driven drama, excellent race-car footage), Knives Out (VERY clever, first-rate popcorn whodunit), Uncut Gems (an endurance test to sit through, the Safdies are sadists). (5)

Best Director in order of likelihood: Martin Scorsese, The Irishman; Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Sam Mendes, 1917; Bong Joon-ho, Parasite; Todd Phillips, Joker. (5)

Possible surprise omission: Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story (not much momentum over last four months, might fall by the wayside). Forget it: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit.

Best Actor in order of likelihood: Joaquin Phoenix, Joker; Adam Driver, Marriage Story; Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes; Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory; Taron Egerton, Rocketman.

Not happening: Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (nobody has said boo about Leo’s performance — all the heat has been about Brad).

Best Actress in order of likelihood: Renée Zellweger, Judy; Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story; Charlize Theron, Bombshell; Saoirse Ronan, Little Women; Awkwafina, The Farewell.

Shameful omission of the best female lead performance of the year: Mary Kay Place, Diane.

Forget it: Lupita Nyong’o, Us. Not a chance: Cynthia Erivo, Harriet.

Best Supporting Actor in order of likelihood: Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; Al Pacino, The Irishman; Joe Pesci, The Irishman (will cancel each other out), Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; Jamie Foxx, Just Mercy.

Not likable enough: Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes. Too broad: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit.

Best Supporting Actress in order of likelihood: Laura Dern, Marriage Story; Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers; Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell. (3) Possible: Shuzhen Zhao, The Farewell.

Should be nominated but won’t be: Julia Butters, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Unworthy contenders: Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit (because her character was hung?); Margot Robbie, Bombshell (because Roger Ailes humiliates her in that one agonizing scene?); Nicole Kidman, Bombshell (because she delivers a prim-and-proper performance that she could have performed in her sleep?).

Death Of A Culture

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In a 1.11 Facebook entry, director Eugene Jarcecki (The King, Reagan, Why We Fight) posts some photos of various West Village retail shops that have shuttered and laments “the lie of a ‘booming’ economy…in Gentrification 2.0, where even the crappy soulless establishments that once replaced the original mom-and-pop places, even these onetime intruders can no longer survive.”

One of the photos was of the recently shuttered Vesuvio’s Bakery (or more precisely the Birdbath bakery inside the Vesuvio’s storefront) at 160 Prince Street. Devastating. I haven’t been to Manhattan since last spring, and had somehow missed the closing last August. Early 20th Century storefronts like Vesuvio’s are the heart and soul of what remains of the old West Village. This kind of thing has been happening in Manhattan for the last 20, 25 years. Earthy single-owner establishments have been dropping like flies, and with them the flavor and character of Sidney Lumet‘s Manhattan.

In ’78 and ’79 I lived a hop, skip and a jump away at 143 Sullivan Street. I was mostly miserable back then, and yet I felt so glad that my apartment was part of a living, breathing neighborhood composed of mom-and-pop businesses, and run by people with pugnacious New York personalities.

Eugene Jarecki anecdote: During the annual Sony Pictures Classics party in the middle of the 2005 Toronto Film Festival, I was talking to Jarecki about Why We Fight, which the festival was screening. We were engaged in the usual party chit-chat. And then I somehow shifted into a testy-bordering-on-hostile discussion with MCN’s David Poland, who was standing right next to me. “Whoa, wait,” Jarecki quipped. “This sounds like a real conversation…you guys actually have something to say to each other!”

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Lurie Was Right — Freeman Was Wrong

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Morgan Freeman had a point, but Rod Lurie had a better one. Read Lurie’s Facebook tale below [posted on 1.9], and then consider Elia Kazan‘s story about shooting On The Waterfront in December of ’53 and early ’54. In the video it starts at 42 seconds, ends at 1:24.

On The Waterfront director Elia Kazan: “We were shooting [On The Waterfront] in the winter, and it was a cold winter. And as we went along [we got] more and more into the winter, more and more cold and rain…and we never stopped shooting. And Brando…sometimes I had to go into the hotel…I think it was called the Majestic hotel, some phony name…I had to go in and drag him out because it was too cold out there, and he’s not very hearty in some ways. And also the cold helped the actors’ faces. They looked a certain way…they were sunk in here. They didn’t have this lovely flesh of success that leading men in Hollywood have…dimpled, pink, beautiful complexions. They were miserable looking human beings, and that included Brando.”