Friendo of friendo with HE edits and add-ons: “Worst-ever year for movies produces worst-ever Oscar results, although it’s not as if they didn’t have better options to vote for.

“After years of spreading their awards around, the Academy has showered a piece of multiverse Marvel mulch with seven (7) Oscars…the membership changes of recent years are also now showing a different motivation among the members. Fraser, Yeoh, Curtis and even Ke Huy Quan are all the beneficiaries of DEI sentimentality and general emotional cappuccino froth over real coffee and perceptive judgment.”

HE hat-tip for “conkirk” epitaph (with minor edits): “The more I think about it, the more I laugh. Top Gun: Maverick was really normie heaven, and represented everything that made most people feel good about movies. The oldsters loved the genteel (except for the bloody finger stubs) and traditional Banshees. The younger generation loves Elvis. (Rght?) Cineastes are obsessed with Tar, and plebs anxious about World War 3 are gripped by All Quiet on Western Front.

“So the rubes tune in and watch their favorite films lose as they listen to some director extolling the virtues of drag shows for children, and all of their suspicions about Hollywood and the Oscars were confirmed. This was the last straw for normies and mainstream audiences, I suspect. They will completely give up.

As someone said, this is not an event with any relationship to us, or even worthy of attention anymore. It exists in its own realm, for an insular, shrinking group. The ratings in future years will stay in the cellar region, as award shows get smaller and smaller.”

11:43 pm: It’s been suggested that instead of reporting the truth (i.e., internet outage) that I say I turned off the Oscars 20 minutes before they ended in a state of anger and disgust. Which I didn’t do, although it kinda sounds good. All is lost. Nothing but pain, lethargy, despair and all of that good downer stuff. Academy voters are the Bubble People — the actual reality of things, the real state of cinema and how real-world people regard it, is a whole ‘nother thing.

11:26 pm: Strange as this may seem, the cable has blanked out and I have nothing but Twitter and the trades to rely upon for news of the final Oscar outcome. But a filmmaker friend has just written me: “The death of cinema.” The EEAAO baddies have stormed the Bastille. “Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now.” Identity, narrative, sentiment. Except for All Quiet on the Western Front, true quality took a back seat.

10:55 pm: M. M. Keeravani, RRR‘s music composer (otherwise known to rubes as the bald, fat, bearded, happy guy) singing the Carpenters’ “Top of the World” as part of his acceptance speech for the Best Song Oscar…a very special moment. I mean this. I felt glad for him, for everyone.

10:46 pm: “Anyone who wants Robert Blake to be included in the ‘In Memoriam’ segment, text your assent.” Or words to that effect.

10:38 pm: The Daniels (Kwan, Scheinert) have won Best Original Screenplay for EEAAO. Bad sign, dark omen, clouds forming. And Women Talking wins for Best Adapted Screenplay — predicted and presumed by nearly everyone. Friendo: “With EEAAO winning Best Original Screenplay, I’m afraid it’s over, Jeff. FUCK FUCK FUCK…Martin McDonaugh should’ve won for Best Original.”

10:25 pm: The Cocaine Bear promotion (two appearances) is very strange considering that the film is utterly silly….a low-grade exploitation film if I ever saw one. And it gets a big friendly push from the Oscars, allegedly a celebration of movie excellence?

10:14 pm: Friendo: “All Quiet winning yet another tech Oscar is a good sign. If it wins Best Adapted Screenplay, it could win Best Picture.”

10:08 pm: All Quiet wins the Best Production Design Oscar.

9:59 pm: Lady Gaga (zero makeup, torn jeans) singing the nominated Top Gun: Maverick song was the second best moment of the telecast.

9:54 pm: The show is now two hours old, and here’s the one thing I haven’t yet posted: “The makeup / Best Actor Oscars often go together, so Brendan Fraser takes the Best Actor Oscar.”

9:41 pm: As expected, Edward Berger‘s All Quiet on the Western Front takes Best Int’l Feature Oscar. Fine, deserved…but I would’ve voted for Lukas Dhont‘s Close.

9:34 pm: Hands down, the RRR musical dance number (“Naatu Naatu”) was the single best moment of the show so far.

9:27 pm: Best Costume Oscar goes to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? Really? Why?

9:18 pm: Brendan Fraser‘s fat suit wins the Best Makeup Oscar. First-rate work, deeply unpleasant to contemplate.

9:05 pm: All Quiet on the Western Front wins Best Cinematography Oscar. Good call. No issues. Well deserved.

8:35 pm: EEAAO‘s Jamie Lee Curtis wins for Best Supporting Actress? Congrats, I guess, but this, for me, is the worst possible outcome in this category. JLC was overbearing and over-everything in EEAAO, and for me no fun at all. Loud, broad, bold caps. I get it, I get it…this is a career tribute award, but she hasn’t been in a decent film in decades…not since True Lies. This award has nothing to do with quality of performance. Nothing to do wit “standards,” as most people understand and respect them.

8:30 pm: EEAAO‘s Ke Huy Quan wins Best Supporting Actor…huge non-surprise. Congrats but calm down, dude…stop crying…you knew this was locked for several weeks. Everyone did.

8:10 pm: Excellent Nicole Kidman held hostage by AMC joke, Jimmy. James Cameron, “the Avatar guy who hasn’t been mominated for a Best Director Oscar” or words to that effect….what do they think he is, a woman?” Great Will Smith vs. crisis team joke!

8:48 pm: Another Brad Pitt DeLonghi commercial…nice paycheck, I’m sure:

5:15 Pacific: Said it earlier; repeating for emphasis — Hollywood Elsewhere wants (a) the Everything Everywhere All At Once wins kept to a minimum and (b) at least one HE fave (Kerry Condon, say) to win in their category.

Otherwise this is going to be a bit of a misery slog for me, and for people burdened with classic taste in movies. (We are legion!) The show hasn’t even begun and I’m already drowning in weltschmerz. For me the happiest Oscar show was 20 years ago when Roman Polanski‘s The Pianist starting whipping Chicago‘s ass. Tonight is going to be mostly awful for me…just awful. What do you want me to do, lie?

Posted on 8.6.22:

Rather than attempting to predict, HE prefers to lament, applaud, dispute, protest, cheer, weep and take potshots as the show moves along.

I can only hope that later today somebody on the Oscar champagne carpet will say something like this.

I for one feel nothing but love and respect for those relatively few columnists and award-season bloggers who seem to enjoy friendliness for its own sake, and who behave in a relatively humane manner for the most part and who tend to hold back on the backstabbing accusations — Sasha Stone of Awards Daily (annual winner of HE’s Human Being Award), World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, THR‘s Scott Feinberg, Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, Above The Line‘s Jeff Sneider, Manhattan get-around humorist and gadfly Bill McCuddy, BlackFilm&TV’s Wilson Morales, director and ex-critic Rod Lurie, former Entertainment Weekly and L.A. Calendar colleague Pat Broeske.

There are actually several dozen human beings in this racket if you count certain working critics plus the various producers, directors, screenwriters, managers and agents whom you might call or run into from time to time. Several dozen among thousands.

If I was running the show I would say to all the gown designers and fashion consultants who’ve complained that traditional arterial crimson red doesn’t blend well with certain colors…I would say to them “gee, that’s too bad, I’m sorry to hear this but my answer is “tough shit and you can all kiss my ass because the red carpet is staying.”

From Sara Bahr’s 3.10.23 N.Y. Times story:

From a David Remnick interview with Russian historian Stephen Kotkin in the current New Yorker:

Since Thursday I’ve been dog-sitting in West Orange while Jett, Cait and Sutton are in Massachusetts for a weekend funeral. Joey, a pit bull with a bum hind leg, and Luna, a sausage beagle, are both older but they love me and I them.

But they insist on fairly close proximity and almost constant affection at all times, and after three days and nights I’m exhausted from lack of sleep due to sharing the guest room bed with these guys as they take up most of the mattress space. Three nights of bad sleep, mainly due to Joey.

Right now I’m trying to get a little extra shut-eye (I was up half the night from the sprawling bodies and dog farts, plus we just lost an hour to daylight savings) by locking Joey downstairs behind the plastic staircase gate.

And of course, Joey is whining and moaning and banging against the gate as we speak.

Update: Joey has somehow crashed or squeezed through the gate. He’s up here now with us, and of course he’s back on the bed. I love these guys but I’m getting sick of this — I’d like a little peace.

New update: Lying on the couch and of course they have to sleep either right next to me or on top of my legs.

Jett scolding: “U trained them, dad. U give Joey too much love and attention and let him walk all over u. My [disciplined] way may seem cruel but it’s the only way to have any sanity.”

I’ve spoken from time to time about my love for British kitchen-sink films. Actually only once or twice, the first time being 15 years ago. Raw, sometimes rowdy, grimly realistic black-and-white films…late ’50s to early ’60s…youngish working-class fellows plus Leslie Caron and Rita Tushingham…grappling with despair, too much alcohol, bum paychecks, sullen attitudes and a sense of entrapment or even panic.

There were only eight or nine of merit — Look Back in Anger (’59), Room at the Top (’59), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (’60), A Taste of Honey (’61), A Kind of Loving (’62), The L-Shaped Room (’62), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (’62), This Sporting Life (’63) and Billy Liar (’63).

The leading-light directors were Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Bryan Forbes, John Schlesinger, Jack Clayton. The principal actors were Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Tom Courtenay, Tushingham, Rachel Roberts, Richard Harris, Caron, Colin Blakely, Norman Rossington, etc.

I’m mentioning this because I have a confession: until last night I’d never actually watched Saturday Night and Sunday Morning…costarring the blazing, incandescent Finney and Roberts, directed by Reisz, produced by Richardson and written by Alan Sillitoe, based on his own 1958 novel.

The usual kitchen sink dynamic, of course…the 23 year-old Finney as Arthur, a cynical, blunt-spoken machinist (technically a teddy boy but not a rocker) doing a lot of drinking and partying while simultaneously having it off with a 30ish married woman (Roberts) and romancing a pretty 22 year old (Shirley Anne Field).

Finney is so fierce and nervy, which of course is an act that hides his despair and depression over eventually becoming just another factory-working bloke with kids and a wife and too many bills to pay…stuck for the rest of his life.

It just feels so lean and vaguely miserable and pared to the bone…there isn’t a line or a scene that doesn’t feel like a perfectly designed belt or bearing in a well-oiled engine, or a supporting character who doesn’t fit right in like a natural piece of a puzzle, although there isn’t a single aspect of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning that feels the least bit puzzling or vague or off the mark. No fat or fatuousness; no digressions. Most of it (but not all) is “lemme outta here,” and that’s the point.

To-die-for cinematography by the great Freddie Francis (Sons and Lovers, The Innocents, The Elephant Man, The French Lieutenant’s Woman).

I made this point a few years ago, but if someone were to remake Saturday Night and Sunday Morning as a 2023 tale of aimlessness and gathering desperation…a Zoomer or young Millennial character (man or woman) working at sone kind of underwhelming job, vaguely enraged, living with a boring roommate or an older brother or parents in suburban New Jersey, Maryland, New Mexico or northern Florida…I would watch it in a second.

Just leave out the superficial crap and just tell it plain and straight.

That’s all I’ll be asking for tomorrow night. I’ve accepted that as far as EEAAO is concerned, Sunday night’s grief will be a fallen leaf and I will weep as much (or as little) as necessary. But don’t give the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Wakanda Forever’s Angela Bassett…please. Condon’s Banshees of Inisherin performance was so rich and real and open-hearted (so far above Bassett’s high–strung histrionics that it’s not even worth comparing the two)…just pan things out in Condon’s favor and I’ll find a way to live with the rest.

The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody has really, seriously, earnestly chosen David O. Russell‘s Amsterdam as one of the ten films he’d like to see nominated for the Best Picture Oscar of 2023. Russell’s film sent me into a pit of depression and confusion…it struck me as so damn infuriating and unsatisfying that I nearly wept.

But I also admire Brody’s choosing James Gray‘s Armageddon Time for the same honor. I admire his sand.