Month: January 2024

Yesterday morning smarty-pants emcee and gabbermouth Bill McCuddy (NPR’s “Talking Pictures” plus “Sitting Around Talking Movies”) predicted that Tuesday morning’s Academy nominations “are going to lean into Maestro more than you think.”

Everyone knew Carey Mulligan would be nominated for Best Actress, of course, but above and beyond that…who knew?

This morning Bradley Cooper’s impressionistic Leonard Bernstein biopic tallied seven Academy Award nominations — Best Picture, Best Actor (Cooper), Best Actress, Best Screenplay (Cooper and Josh Singer), Best Makeup (Kazu Hiro), Best Sound and Best Cinematography. Seven!

Congrats to Cooper and colleagues, and congrats to McCuddy.

Monday night, 1.22, 11:30 pm. Bradley Cooper‘s cell phone rings…

Cooper: Hullo?
Mysterious baritone voice: Bradley? This is Charles Melton.
Cooper: What?
Mysterious baritone voice: You know who this is, right?
Cooper: No.
Mysterious baritone voice: You don’t recognize my voice?
Cooper: No.
Mysterious baritone voice: I’m that upper-echelon Academy guy…you remember…and I’m calling to offer you a choice. We can fix or change the nominations any way we want until the very last minute, and a few of us really loved Maestro so we’re offering you a special deal.
Cooper: Yeah?
Mysterious baritone voice: The deal is you get to pick your category. Do you want to be nominated for Best Actor for playing croaky-voiced, chain-smoking Leonard Bernstein, or do you want a Best Director nomination for Maestro?
Cooper: You can fix this?
Mysterious baritone voice: Yes, we can.
Cooper: Obviously Best Director….Jesus.
Mysterious baritone voice: Okay, but now I have to put on my asshole hat. We decided before calling you that whatever category you chose, we’re putting you into the other category.
Cooper: What?
Mysterious baritone voice: We decided this in advance. No offense.
Cooper: You fucking prick. Fix it back. I want Best Director.
Mysterious baritone voice: That’s a no-go, Brad. Besides we’ve already blown off Alexander Payne and Greta Gerwig. And you know why? Because Justine Triet and Jonathan Glazer were voted in. Sorry, man, but there’s no room. Plus we decided. Be happy with Best Actor.
Cooper: I am happy with Best Actor but I told you I would’ve preferred Best Director, and then you pulled the rug out.
Mysterious baritone voice: Sorry, man. That was mean but not my call. I just work here.

A Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine Joy Randolph…naturally. And one for Barbie‘s America Ferrera…got it. (All about that rant.) And nominating Nyad‘s Jodie Foster is a good call. But I’m completely perplexed by Emily Blunt‘s nomination for her supporting performance in Oppenheimer. She played Oppie’s seething, pissed-off alchoholic wife…big deal. Congrats to The Color Purple‘s Danielle Brooks, who of course hasn’t a prayer.

…partly in order to nominate Anatomy of a Fall ‘s Justine Triet? This really doesn’t feel right, man. C’mon! And when you boil down Jonathan Glazer’s direction of The Zone of Interest, it’s basically a one-trick thing — chillingly imply rather than show. A bit surprising that Barbie’s Greta Gerwig got the shaft but them’s the breaks.

Deserved nominations but not universally foreseen.

…for standing by American Fiction through thick and thin. The enthusiasm for the respectable but not great Anatomy of a Fall has eluded me for months. I had resigned myself to a Past Lives nomination…fine. And Maestro got nominated along with Bradley Cooper!

Another surprise nomination…no real enthusiasm for his Rustin performance…pretty much ignored by handicappers…doesn’t add up but fine. Congrats to all.

Whom no one expected to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. A very pronounced, amusing, take-it-or-leave-it performance. Charles Melton dismissed. Sorry about Dominic Sessa but I never expected that to happen.

Certain performances leap out and grab you, and you just know they’re keepers. Your follow-up thought, of course, is that everyone will recognize same and agree wholeheartedly.

This didn’t happen with Penelope Cruz’s hellcat performance as Laura Ferrari in Michael Mann’s Ferrari. It should have (the Movie Godz know this with absolute certainty…Cruz revives the spirit of Anna Magnani in The Rose Tattoo) but Ferrari was rejected by industry-centric Joe and Janes and that was that.

Cruz’s name won’t be announced this morning, and God, talk about pain in the heart.

What do these characters have to smile about? I look at these bizarre expressions and I’m asking myself “why?…what for?…what the hell?”

DeNiro: “I’m here to even things out, so to speak…the Osage need to spread some of that oil money around, if you get my meaning, and I’m the one to make it happen.”

Leo: “I’m a dumb-as-a-fencepost greedy murderer, and ready to do whatever my scumbag uncle wants done…yeah!”

Gladstone: “Boy, he sure is one handsome devil…look at him! Except he’s kinda major-league stupid. Worse, I’m not smart enough to understand that he’s just as much of a ne’er-do-well as his conniving uncle.”

Director Norman Jewison lived a long, rich and productive life…97 years worth. But I have to be honest and say that that only three of his films really hit the spot for me — The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (’66), In the Heat of the Night (’67) and Moonstruck (’87).

It’s not easy to make even a mediocre film, and it’s quite the achievement to hit one out of the park. Jewison did this three times — stiff salute, full respect, good fellow.

Otherwise I could never even watch Fiddler on the Roof (’71). I was bored by The Cincinnati Kid (’65). I liked the split-screen gimmick and the sexually suggestive chess game in The Thomas Crown Affair (’68) but otherwise meh.

Jesus Christ Superstar (’73) was okay for a single viewing. I’ve never re-watched Rollerball (’75), F.I.S.T. (’78), …And Justice for All (’79), Best Friends (’82), A Soldier’s Story (’84), and Agnes of God (’85).

Jewison’s ’90s films (Other People’s Money, Only You, The Hurricane, The Statement) never did anything to me or for me. I’m sorry but they didn’t.