In a rant about Rex Reed‘s mean-spirited remarks about Melissa McCarthy‘s weight in his review of Identity Thief, Deadline‘s Michael Fleming sounds wise and perceptive for the most part, but also in basic denial by failing to acknowledge a difference between garden-variety corpulence and morbid, health-threatening obesity, which is a national pestilence as well as a dark metaphor.
Wise and perceptive: “I don’t care who the girl is, it hurts to be insulted about your weight, or to be defined by it. If I was McCarthy’s husband, brother, father or even her agent and I saw Reed, I’d have to fight off the temptation to open a can of whup-ass on him. I’d hope that I would be smart enough to swallow that urge and instead see Reed for what he is: a tired, cranky old critic who in this case lost his basic sense of compassion. He really ought to try rising above superficial cruelty and recognize what it takes for a woman like Melissa McCarthy to overcome to become a singular talent. If the movie sucks, fine, go to town, but c’mon Rex.”
Basic denial: “I don’t know if [Reed] has kids, but I have two daughters. It sensitizes you to many things, including the temptation to obsess about being rail thin. All you want for your girls is that they feel comfortable in their own skin, and McCarthy is a shining example of that. Reed obviously doesn’t even consider that McCarthy is breaking boundaries and making it okay for girls all over to feel good about themselves even if, when they look in the mirror, they don’t see a waif-like Victoria’s Secret model staring back.”
Fleming presumably understands that no fair-minded person would ever slam McCarthy for being simply overweight or corpulent or rotund or whatever term you want to use for someone who has girth. I know I have a reputation for being a fat-person antagonist but I’ve never had the slightest issue with acceptable, no-big-deal fat in the vein of Charles Laughton or Peter Ustinov or John Candy in Only The Lonely or Lou Costello or Oliver Hardy in the 1920s and ’30s. I agree that the mindset among God knows how many tens of millions of women that you have to be skinny thin is neurotic and oppressive, but Fleming knows perfectly well that, Reed’s cruelty aside, McCarthy’s issue is not her failure to be thin as a reed but her being much more than just fat. Some people are simply bulky — it’s just the way they’re built — but McCarthy’s size is way over the top. She’s clearly indulging in a way that’s not going to be good for her in the long run.
Is Fleming saying that all the people who have voiced fears or suspicions that Gov. Chris Christie will probably face serious health issues down the road unless he loses some weight…is he saying such talk is cruel and heartless and without merit? I doubt that. It’s obvious that McCarthy is in the same boat as Christie, and her proclaiming that she’s comfortable with being dangerously overweight is nothing to applaud or be proud of. On one level she’s saying that she accepts herself and that, I suppose, is temporarily fine as far as her present-tense attitude is concerned, but on another level she’s saying to millions of morbidly obese women out there that everything’s fine, that they should embrace their neuroses and keep eating crap and make themselves as super-sized as they want because they’re beautiful people inside and that’s what matters. Which is true on one level — who a person is spiritually and emotionally and creatively is the key thing. In this sense I worship Guillermo del Toro. And I’ve always admired Orson Welles.
But obesity is a national disease that has gotten worse and worse over the last two or three decades. Corporate crap food + kids spending all their time online and playing video games and watching the tube and not exercising + the situation as conveyed in Food, Inc is not a rumor. These are facts. Except for upscale urban healthies (i.e., people with a semblance of discipline who care about their bodies and exercise now and then) we’ve become a nation of sea lions. And Fleming knows this. And he should know that applauding McCarthy as a “shining example” of positive self-acceptance is not the right way to put it.
Yes, it makes perfect sense that Identity Thief, by most accounts a landmark stinker (25% Rotten Tomatoes, 37% Metacritic), is expected to earn $35 million (or $10 million more than projected) by Sunday night, even with Nemo putting a significant dent in attendance in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and (to a lesser extent) New York City
If people want to see something, you can’t stop ’em. They don’t give a shit about anything. They just want to see it.
And the people who wanted to see this reportedly agonizing comedy (which I might see today or tomorrow if Jason Bateman or one of his pallies slips me a pass…sorry) are Bridesmaids fans (particularly Melissa McCarthy fans) who don’t read or care about reviews. Which accounts for…what, 90% of the moviegoing public? And no, there wasn’t any kind of rally-round-McCarthy sympathy factor over the Rex Reed hippo review because, as I just said, 90% of the public doesn’t read reviews or the review-aggregate sites. They’re in their own realm and off the grid.
Same principle apples in the case of a really well-reviewed movie that doesn’t look right for whatever reason. They look at the ads and decide if it has what they want and if they sense that it doesn’t, game over. They won’t go with a gun pointed at their heads. They’re incredibly thick and stubborn. The girly-girls refused to see Silver Linings Playbook (which is now at $84 milllon) for weeks and weeks until finally award-season hoopla turned them around, but before that happened they were adamant. Not for us!
I realize, yes, that millions wanted something to go to last night, and Identity Thief was the only new wide-release comedy out there, and most people want to kick back and enjoy themselves on a Friday night. I get it. I get it. But they’re still slow and thick and obstinate.
Steven Soderbergh‘s Side Effects — a much, much better film than Identity Thief — pretty much tanked. Yesterday it made $2,800,000 on 2600 screens, or about $1075 per screen. Maybe $8.5 or $9 million by Sunday night. Over and out and on to Netflix.
Melissa McCarthy is a sharp, provocative, never-boring comedian. She plays obnoxious, compulsive, anti-social low-lifes who are oblivious to how appalling their behavior is. The fact that she’s obese fits right in with this. What undercuts this, of course, is that she’s in the same unhealthy boat as Gov. Chris Christie, who gets called out all the time for his girth. Watch McCarthy in one of her films and you can’t help but say to yourself “she’s funny and brilliant but on some level she’s also self-destructive.”
Chubby is one thing but whopper-size means you’re possibly flirting with a shorter life span (i.e., John Candy). Maybe. You can’t keep that thought out of your head.
I missed last Tuesday’s all-media screening of Identity Thief and I probably won’t see it anytime soon, but if I’d posted something I never would’ve gone after McCarthy’s weight like Rex Reed did in his New York Observerreview. “Hippo,” “tractor-sized,” “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success,” etc. I respect that she’s brainy and nervy and accept the fact that she’s plus-sized, and that’s more or less it.
Except for the obesity metaphor, that is. Fatter comedians are thought to be funnier than slim ones, and maybe that’s true on some level. But McCarthy would still be funny if she were 30 or 40 pounds lighter. I don’t think it’s being mean or insensitive to say she should work on that.
I saw Judd Apatow‘s This Is 40 about six weeks ago, or on Thursday, 10.25. It was a mid-afternoon screening on the Universal lot on a hot day. I wrote the following to Apatow and the Universal publicist who invited me a few hours later. Well, that’s not true. I wrote a version of this letter, but I finessed it today…sorry. [Warning: Mild spoilers herein.]
“Judd — I don’t know if you personally signed off on my seeing This Is 40 this afternoon, but thanks if you did. I appreciated the opportunity & value the respect shown by your or the powers-that-be in allowing me to have an early looksee.
“Basically I think This Is 40 is a fairly ballsy act of self-portraiture as far as it goes. By that I mean it’s self-portraiture plus Apatow schtick for the first 75 minutes, which isn’t exactly in the realm of an Ingmar Bergman or John Cassevettes film in terms of frankly revealing the inner life of a filmmaker, but it’s certainly attempting that kind of thing while simultaneously going for the big audience. A less brave director wouldn’t have even flirted with a film like this. I mean that.
“All right, that’s the kiss-ass part of this letter and here comes the truth.
“I have to say that I think This Is 40 works best during the last hour, give or take, or roughly beginning at the 75 minute mark. But I think Leslie Mann is excellent all through it. She’s the spiritual anchor of the film, I think. I also loved the performances of Albert Brooks, John Lithgow and Melissa McCarthy. (This is still sounding kiss-assy.) But I honestly didn’t care for Charlyne Yi. Chris O’Dowd explodes in The Sapphires but his material wasn’t as good as it needed to be here. It’s an in joke having the manatee-like Jason Segel play a fitness trainer, right?
“And you’ve got your older daughter Maude playing…I have to say this carefully. She’s playing…I don’t want to make a mistake. She’s portraying a rather…don’t hate me for thinking these things about Maude’s character but it’s well-known that teenage girls are a pain to their parents. Your younger daughter is totally cool though.
“I loved the line about Megan Fox having painted an image of a vagina on her dark underwear. And the line about the last of Graham Parker‘s fans being taken away in an ambulance — that was excellent.
“I saw the love and the struggle and the humanity in Leslie’s “character”, of course, and the strain and the pressure in Paul Rudd‘s (i.e., yours) but mainly I felt the effort to sell their lives by way of fast schticky-angsty humor. I kept wanting the schtick to be dropped and the plain, awkward ordinaryness of life to come through in a Bergmanesque way. And I kept thinking to myself ‘boy, this movie is not a very attractive advertisement for West LA/Brentwood Liberal Values & Lifestyles’ and ‘I’m kind of glad this movie isn’t coming out before the election because it might persuade some people to hate liberals.
“You know how Bill Maher goes on about the Republican bubble that rightwingers live inside of, the thick gelatinous membrane that keeps out all the facts and the general reality of things? That’s what I felt during the first hour or so of This Is 40. Like I was stuck inside a Westside Liberal Membrane for people who live north of San Vicente and west of Bundy. ‘I’m not sure if I like these people very much,’ I was telling myself. ‘These people need to quit whining and complaining and basically take their fingers out of their asses and smell the wind coming off the sea, and the daughters need to read the Baghavad Gita or go work on a horse ranch or go to Africa to help impoverished people.
“It’s hard to put into words, but I read portions of the script when Universal put it online last week (or was it the week before?) and I’m re-reading certain portions as we speak, and a lot of it reads better than it plays. During the first hour, I mean.
“But like I said, it takes off and finds the groove and kicks into gear around the 75-minute mark. Starting with the scene in which Rudd is weeping in his BMW, which directly follows the scene in which he realizes that Graham Parker is not going to save his company financially. Of course, this is something that everybody in the audience knows from the get-go, but which takes Rudd over an hour to figure out.
“But after this point the anger and the fighting and the resentments really let loose, and that’s when the movie starts to really work.
“So much of the hassle and the tension of things comes from the Graham Parker situation, and that just didn’t fly for me. It’s hard to root for anyone who’s so blind to the realities of the music market that he’s pinning his hopes for survival on the ascendancy of Graham Parker and the Rumor. Rudd’s character has done pretty well for himself in the music business (a syou have in the film business), obviously, but suddenly he’s an idiot who thinks that he can sell Graham Parker in a big enough way so that his financial pressures will be alleviated? And the solution at the end is representing Ryan Adams, another getting-old guy?
“I have to say that being 40 is a pretty easy thing, Judd, if you don’t mind my saying. It’s officially the start of middle age but the ‘uh-oh’ feeling doesn’t really kick in until your mid to late 40s. I’ll tell you this: I look at photos of myself when I was 40 and I think to myself, ‘Wow…almost a spring chicken! Okay, a little bit of wear and tear has started to show by that point but very little, really.’ 40 is when your face begins to acquire a little character, and when moms enter the MILF stage. It’s pretty hot when you get right down to it. So I don’t get the angst.
“What guy is dumb enough to tell his wife or girlfriend that he took Viagra or Cialis before making love to her? It’s not only printed on the warning label. I think 15 year-olds know that when they get older they’re not supposed to tell their girlfriends that they’re taking it. It’s almost on the level of ‘go when the light is green and stop when it’s red.’
“Brooks kills it in every scene he’s in. McCarthy is really great because she never goes for the laughs. Lithgow is too pursed and pinched at first, or so I thought, but then he saves it at the very end, and that scene between he and Leslie.
“Marriage is hard, marriage is a grind, it’s not easy to keep the fires going, etc. Your film honestly deals with all that stuff, warts and all. And it honestly states that teenage girls (even the ones sired by the director-writer) can be whiny, abrasive and self-absorbed and dismissive of their parents. I just didn’t buy the quirky oddball humor in the first hour (particularly any and all material related to anal probes) and I didn’t buy the Graham Parker/music business material. But the final 50 minutes is pretty good stuff.
“So there’s my positive streak, my admiration, what I liked. ‘Get through the first 75 minutes so you can savor the really good final 50 minutes.’ Do I need to work on that line?”
Given the highly clubby, conservative and aesthetically myopic leanings of your typical Academy member, my suspicions are as follows. Kills listed first followed by HE’s Best Picture finalists (for now):
KILL LIST #1 FROM BREVET: 1. Ben Affleck‘s Argo, a “based on a true story” saga about the late ’70s Iran hostage crisis. Reason: If Affleck is the new Sydney Pollack (i.e., commercially-inclined but thorough and thoughtful, delivering good performances), he’ll need to grow older and refine his chops before he graduates into his Out of Africa phase. 2. Benh Zeitli‘s Beasts of the Southern Wild. Reason: Strictly Sundance, strictly Spirit Awards. Luscious, vibrant & imaginative as hell, but too much in the way of waist-deep mud, ooze, booze, flies, house fires, dead steers and slimy alligators. 3. Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman‘s Brave. Reason: Animation needs to stay on its own side of the Rio Grande….forget it. 4. The Wachowski Bros. and Tom Tykwer‘s Cloud Atlas. Reason: Probably fated to be too convoluted, too complex and too much of a “what-the-fuck?” for your typical 62 year-old, neck-waddly, liver-spotted Academy fart.
KILL LIST #2 FROM BREVET: 1. Ang Lee‘s Life of Pi. Reason: 3D family adventure genre belongs in its own box. Too commercial-looking, too many voice-cast members with funny-sounding Indian names, Tobey Maguire and Gerard Depardieu excepted. 2. Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises. Reason: Might be nominated as a payback gesture for the Dark Knight Best Picture snub, but I doubt it. Will be seen as too much of a genre exercise-slash-corporate cash-grab. Too Gothamesque, too Nolanesque, too Bane-y. 3. Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained. Reason: As stated on 2.28, Django Unchained will “just be another bullshit grindhouse B-movie wink-wanker — a neo-Italian spaghetti western (being shot in Lone Pine by way of Almeira, Spain) with everyone duded up in Sergio Leone ponchos and smoking smelly stogies and scratching matches on their six-shooters and wearing rotting-teeth dental implants and chicken-grease makeup,” etc. 4. Ruben Fleischer‘s The Gangster Squad. Reason: The director of Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less hasn’t the depth or the chops to even begin to deliver an Oscar-calibre film…pure genre, pure gunblast, purely commercial…might be entertaining but forget the Academy.
KILL LIST #3 FROM BREVET: 1. Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbitt: An Unexpected Journey. Reason: As stated on 2.28, “Jackson has already snagged a Best Picture Oscar for his Lord of the Rings finale and that, trust me, is the very last Oscar Jackson is going to get for any film having anything to do with Tolkien or Middle Earth or dwarves with huge ugly feet. Okay, The Hobbit may land a nomination, but it cannot, must not and will not win.” 2. Rian Johnson‘s Looper. Reason: Get outta here. 3. Woody Allen‘s Nero Fiddled. Reason: I haven’t read the script, of course, but this is some kind of socially satiric anthology film, as I understand it. And these things never seem to work all that well. Radio Days in Rome? 4. David Chase‘s Not Fade Away. Reason: I’ve heard it doesn’t really work. One reaction hardly closes the book but it does suggest that the response might not be universally or 90% ectstatic. 5. Oliver Stone‘s Savages. Reason: This might be a really gripping drug-dealing and Mexican gangster kidnapping flick, but this kind of thing almost never results in Best of the Year hosannahs. 6. Robert Lorenz‘s Trouble With The Curve. Reason: Clint Eastwood is starring but not directing. 7. Taylor Hackford‘s Parker. Reason: Hackford doing a Donald Westlake piece with Jason Statham? Might be cool on its own terms but forget any Best Picture action.
Keira Knightley in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina.
HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE 2012 BEST PICTURE FINALISTS (for now):
1. Lincoln (mid to late December), d: Steven Spielberg, cast: Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones. Why: The usual Spielberg-kowtow instinct (i.e., to show obeisance before power) plus the impact of Daniel Day Lewis’s lead performance plus the instinct to show respect and allegiance for the legend of Abraham Lincoln. Classic historical chops. Will Spielberg try to hold back on his usual instincts? He may, I think, because of the Lewis influence.
2. The Master, d: Paul Thomas Anderson; cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Laura Dern. Why: This project has felt chilly from the get-go, but if it’s halfway focused and well-shaped it’ll offer a chance for Hollywood to deliver a big “eff you” to Scientology, which, we’ve all been told, The Master is absolutely not about. Plus it’s hard to imagine Hoffman’s L. Ron…sorry, charismatic leader performance not emerging as a Best Actor standout.
3. The Great Gatsby (12.25), d: Baz Luhrman, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher. Why: The usual instinct to honor an adaptation of a classic novel. As long as Luhrman doesn’t screw it up, that is, by going all crazy and wackjobby like he did on Australia.
4. This is Forty (12.21), d: Judd Apatow. Why: Apatow has been getting better and better. One of these years he;s going to hit a long triple or a homer. Cast: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Megan Fox, Melissa McCarthy, Albert Brooks, Ryan Lee, John Lithgow and Charlyne Yi.
5. The Silver Linings Playbook (11.21), d: David O. Russell, cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles. Why: No clue, but Russell always delivers so I’m guessing/presuming here.
Jusitn Timerblake in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis.
6. Gravity (11.21), d: Alfonso Cuaron; cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. Why: The technical audacity of this film alone, described by Clooney as sort of 2001-ish, will surely attract respect and huzzahs.
7. Les Miserables (12.7), d: Tom Hooper, cast: Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway. Why: Classic musical in grand sweeping historical tradition plus direction by Hooper (The King’s Speech) plus Crowe, Jackman, etc. And Hathaway finally sings.
8. Anna Karenina (November/early December), d: Joe Wright., w: Tom Stoppard. Cast: Keira Knightley.
9. Zero Dark Thirty (12.14), d: Kathryn Bigelow. Why: This may just be a good, solid action film without any Oscar play, but respect will initially be paid to the director of the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. To some pic may provide or represent a form of 9/11 closure.
10. Hyde Park on Hudson, d: Roger Michell, cast: Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams. Why: Michell is a classy, proficient director of midsize dramas and light comedies, and the plot — centered around the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited upstate New York, and focusing in particular on love affair between FDR and his distant cousin Margaret Stuckley — suggests a King Speech-y vibe. But how will Murray fare with FDR?
Wild Card: Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis. Will this Greenwich Village-in-the-early-’60s drama, which just began shooting, even be done in time for release by year’s end? If it makes the deadline it’s almost a sentimental lock with the 62 year olds because it recalls the glory days of the folk music movement, which is near and dear to boomers who got A’s in high school and college. Cast: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Justin Timberlake.
Bill Murray as FDR in Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson.
If only five Best Picture nominees were allowed, which of this morning’s nine nominees would be included? Not The Help — be honest. Not Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close — due respect. Probably not War Horse or The Tree of Life. It’s delightful, of course, that The Tree of Life has been nominated but I’m stunned that 5% of the membership gave #1 votes to the other three. These moves are worthy and commendable in their own way, but they’re #3 or #4 picks.
This morning’s biggest “holy moley” is the Academy’s blowoff of the great Albert Brooks for Best Supporting Actor in Drive and the somewhat surprising inclusion of Max Von Sydow for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in the same category. I’ve detected respectful appreciation among Oscar seers for Von Sydow’s performance but little in the way of serious passion.
Cheers to A Better Life‘s Demian Bichir for landing a Best Actor nomination. He did it all by himself. It was almost entirely the performance, I mean, and not the promotion, which was minimal.
Tom Sherak pronounced Michel Hazanavicius as “Michel Azzanavasheetos.” Theory: He’s been taking prounciation lessons from Deadline‘s Pete Hammond.
Cheers to the Moneyball team for landing nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Steve Zallian, Aaron Sorkin). But it’s bordering on criminal that the Academy failed to nominate Mychael Danna‘s delicate, tingly and profoundly spiritual Moneyball score while nominating John Williams‘ overbearing, “this is how you’re supposed to feel” War Horse music.
Why didn’t they give a Best Sound Editing or Best Sound Mixing to The Artist? Seriously…why not? It has nice music on the soundtrack and the film is so likable and the dog is so cute.
What is the biggest lie in terms of reactions of the nominees? “I was sleeping…my agent/manager woke me up with the good news.”
I have to catch an 8:30 am screening of The Surrogate so I’m outta here. Sasha Stone and I will do an Oscar Poker podcast later this morning.
I didn’t have time to re-code everything so here are the nominations taken directly from Awards Daily:
Best Picture
“The Artist” Thomas Langmann, Producer
“The Descendants” Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” Scott Rudin, Producer
“The Help” Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
“Hugo” Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
“Midnight in Paris” Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
“Moneyball” Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
“The Tree of Life” Nominees to be determined
“War Horse” Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers
Best Directing
“The Artist” Michel Hazanavicius
“The Descendants” Alexander Payne
“Hugo” Martin Scorsese
“Midnight in Paris” Woody Allen
“The Tree of Life” Terrence Malick
Best Actor
Demian Bichir in “A Better Life”
George Clooney in “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”
Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Brad Pitt in “Moneyball”
Best Actress
Glenn Close in “Albert Nobbs”
Viola Davis in “The Help”
Rooney Mara in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams in “My Week with Marilyn”
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh in “My Week with Marilyn”
Jonah Hill in “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte in “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer in “Beginners”
Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
Best Supporting Actress
Berenice Bejo in “The Artist”
Jessica Chastain in “The Help”
Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids”
Janet McTeer in “Albert Nobbs”
Octavia Spencer in “The Help”
Best Animated Feature
“A Cat in Paris” Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
“Chico & Rita” Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
“Kung Fu Panda 2? Jennifer Yuh Nelson
“Puss in Boots” Chris Miller
“Rango” Gore Verbinski
Best Art Direction
“The Artist”
Production Design: Laurence Bennett; Set Decoration: Robert Gould
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”
Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
“Hugo”
Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
7:54: All hail The Descendants for winning the Golden Globe for Best Drama-yamma-mamma! The cheer inside the Fox Searchlight party was deafening. Good thing for FS, for HE and for all Hawaiians, honorary and otherwise. A counter-surge against The Artist or just a good night in and of itself? Hugged Judy Greer, who was of course delighted.
7:47 pm: The Descendants‘ George Clooney wins for Best Dramatic Actor. Good one! Gracious speech, kudos to Pitt, Fassbender, etc. Classy guy, as always.
7:37 pm: The Artist wins, naturally, for Best Comedy or Musical, but Meryl Streep‘s Best Actress win is a bit of a shocker, as most of the know-it-alls had Viola Davis pegged. I know that Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone was stunned by this.
7:26 pm : Jean Dujardin wins for Best Actor, Comedy or Musical. Charming fellow, good jawline, nice speech…piffle.
7:18 pm : I drove down to the Beverly Hilton on the scooter, got through security, and am now drinking champagne. No, champagne cocktails! With the jovial Fox Searchlight gang.
7:13 pm: Shocker! Good shocker! Hugo‘s Martin Scorsese wins the Golden Globe for Best Director! What if anything does this signify?
6:47 pm: The Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe goes to Octavia Spencer for her performance in The Help. Which means that Viola Davis is definitely, absolutely winning for Best Actress. Right? They’re both on a roll. Blah speech by Spencer though. She just read names, names, names…nothing from the heart.
6:41 pm: All right, I’m heading down to the Bev Hilton…leaving now. A part of me would rather stay here and just watch & tweet. Eff it.
6:32 pm: The Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film goes to — yes! — Asghar Farhadi‘s A Separation. The film’s male lead, Peyman Moadi, accompanies Farhadi to the stage for acceptance, but nobody points him out. Farhadi thanks Sony Classics co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, calls Iranian people “truly loving”…and lets it go at that.
6:21 pm: Woody Allen‘s Midnight in Paris beats Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zallian‘s Moneyball screenplay? Really? Okay, whatever. I’m not going to put down Allen’s clever screenplay, but it really doesn’t have the spirit or freshness or emotional current of the Moneyball screenplay. Yes, I’m talking about what was written down.
6:18 pm: N.Y. Times reporter Brian Stelter is tweeting that Jon Huntsman is bailing out and “poised to endorse Romney.” The second part is predictable but not very admirable, I must say.
6:14 pm: I agree — the Best Animated Feature Golden Globe going to Tintin is the HFPA saying “sorry, man, but this is the best we can do” to Steven Spielberg in lieu of their inability to raise high the War Horse roof beam,
Tim Robbins‘ silvery gray hair looks really nice with his lean, tanned face against the midnight tux.
6:01 pm: Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy has gone to Michelle Williams for “that hysterical comedy” My Week With Marilyn. (Seth Rogen provided the description.) A mother first, eh?
5:51 pm: Ricky Garvais‘ decision to wear a maroon-and-black tuxedo is, to my eyes, a huge miscalculation. A sartorial nightmare. Maroon jackets, sweaters, socks, scarves, capes…all bad.
5:48 pm: The Artist composer Ludovic Bource has won a Golden Globe for Best Score. And there’s your tipoff about general HFPA Artist sentiments.
5:37 pm: I realize it’s not nice to go where I’m about to go, but…actually, I can’t. I’ve wimped out. The thought concerned Melissa McCarthy. The thought is fairly evident. Sorry but c’mon.
5:22 pm: Nobody in my sphere cares very much about Golden Globe TV awards…sorry. Tens of thousands are paying attention, and that’s fine. No disrespect intended. Wait…Kate Winslet won for Todd Haynes‘ Mildred Pierce? I care about that. Excellent work.
5:09 pm: To no one’s surprise and everyone’s approval (except for the hardcore Drive geeks), Christopher Plummer has won the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in Beginners. And incidentally, the NBC cameras have so far delivered two shots of the Sony Classics table, and I didn’t see Corey Stoll.
Here’s a refreshed, add-on revision of a previously posted fall-holiday lineup piece that I ran on 12.25. The 2012 total is now 39 or 40, depending upon whether the Coen Bros.’ Inside Llewyn Davis opens this year or not. 2012 Sundance entries are sure to produce another four or five. Thanks to HE readers for input. HE conveys special interest.
Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams in Terrence Malick’s The Burial, expected to be finished and released sometime between now and fall 2014.
Winter Kickoff: Haywire (HE), d: Steven Soderbergh, w: Lem Dobbs, cast: Gina Carano, Channing Tatum, Ewan Mcgregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas. (1)
Spring-Summer Distinction/Refinement: The Dark Knight Rises (HE), d: Christopher Nolan, cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman; Prometheus (HE), d: Ridley Scott, cast: Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Wilson, Idris Elba; Moonrise Kingdom(HE), d: Wes Anderson, cast: Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Jason Schwartzman, Harvey Keitel; Take This Waltz, d: Sarah Polley, cast: Michelle Williams Seth Rogen, Luke Kirby. (4)
2011 Holdovers, Winter-Spring Escapees: Wettest County, d: John Hillcoat, cast: Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf; 360 (d: Fernando Meirelles), cast: Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Foster, Jude Law; Deep Blue Sea, d: Terence Davies, cast: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale; The Eye of the Storm, d: Fred Schepisi, cast: Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis; Salmon Fishing in Yemen; d: Lasse Hallstrom, cast: Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas; On The Road, d: Walter Salles, cast: Sam Riley, Garret Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Sturridge, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams. (6)
Free-Floating Quality-Level Genre Stabs: Cogan’s Trade (HE), d/w: Andrew Dominik, cast: Brad Pitt, Scott McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn; Seven Psychopaths (HE), d/w: Martin McDonagh, cast: Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Abbie Cornish; The Place Beyond The Pines (HE), d: Derek Cianfrance, cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta, Eva Mendes; Only God Forgives (HE), d: Nicolas Winding Refn, cast: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Yayaying. (4)
Stand-alone: Skyfall, d: Sam Mendes, cast: Daniel Craig, Helen McCrory, Javier Bardem. (1)
Anticipated Quality, Presumed Fall-Holiday Release, No Dates: The Master (HE), d: Paul Thomas Anderson; cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Laura Dern; Cloud Atlas (HE), d: Wachowski Bros., Tom Tykwer; cast: Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Ben Whishaw; The Burial (a.k.a. Untitled Terrence Malick), d/w: Terrence Malick, cast: Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Jessica Chastain, Rachel Weisz, Michael Sheen, Javier Bardem; Hyde Park on Hudson, d: Roger Michell, cast: Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams. (4)
Harvey Keitel during shooting of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom.
Probably a 2013 Release: Inside Llewyn Davis, d: Joel and Ethan Coen. (1)
September 2012: Argo (9.14, HE), d: Ben Affleck, cast: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Kerry Bishe, Kyle Chandler; Looper (9.28, HE), d: Rian Johnson, cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo; Savages (9.28, HE), d: Oliver Stone, cast: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch, Demian Bichir. (3)
October 2012: The Gangster Squad (10.19, HE); d: Ruben Fleischer, cast: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone; Untitled David Chase ’60s “Music-Driven” Film (1.19, HE), d: David Chase, cast: James Gandolfini, Brad Garrett, Bella Heathcote, Christopher McDonald; Nero Fiddled, d: Woody Allen, cast: Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Allen, Penelope Cruz, Alison Pill, Alec Baldwin, Greta Gerwig; The Impossible, d: Juan Antonio Bayona, cast: Naomi Watts, Ewan Mcgregor. (4)
November 2012: The Silver Linings Playbook (11.21, HE), d: David O. Russell, cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles; Gravity (11.21, HE), d: Alfonso Cuaron; cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. (2)
December 2012: Les Miserables (12.7, HE), d: Tom Hooper, cast: Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway; Great Hope Springs (12.14), d: David Frankel , cast: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12.14); Untitled Kathryn Bigelow Osama bin Laden Film (12.14, HE); This Is Forty (12.21, HE), d: Judd Apatow, cast: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Melissa McCarthy; World War Z (12.21), d: Marc Forster, cast: Brad Pitt; Lincoln (mid to late December, HE), d: Steven Spielberg, cast: Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones; Django Unchained (12.25, HE), d: Quentin Tarantino, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Sacha Baron Cohen; The Great Gatsby (12.25, HE), d: Baz Luhrman, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher; Life of Pi, d: Ang Lee, cast: Tobey Maguire, Irrfan Khan, Tabu. (10)
Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry and I-forget-his-name during shooting of Cloud Atlas.
You can never foresee a fall-holiday lineup a year or ten months ahead of time. Winners are always concealed. Surprises always happen. That said, 2012’s award season seems undernourished. September through November, I mean. December looks decent. This is only a first-glance, cut-and-paste spitball list. A mere 16 films. HE conveys special interest.
September 2012: Argo (9.14, HE), d: Ben Affleck, cast: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Kerry Bishe, Kyle Chandler; Looper (9.28, HE), d: Rian Johnson, cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo; Savages (9.28, HE), d: Oliver Stone, cast: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch, Demian Bichir. (3)
October 2012: The Gangster Squad (10.19, HE); d: Ruben Fleischer, cast: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone; Untitled David Chase ’60s “Music-Driven” Film (1.19, HE), d: David Chase, cast: James Gandolfini, Brad Garrett, Bella Heathcote, Christopher McDonald. (2)
November 2012: The Silver Linings Playbook (11.21, HE), d: David O. Russell, cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles; Gravity (11.21, HE), d: Alfonso Cuaron; cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. (2)
December 2012: Les Miserables (12.7, HE), d: Tom Hooper, cast: Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway; Great Hope Springs (12.14), d: David Frankel , cast: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12.14); Untitled Kathryn Bigelow Osama bin Laden Film (12.14, HE); This Is Forty (12.21, HE), d: Judd Apatow, cast: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Melissa McCarthy; World War Z (12.21), d: Marc Forster, cast: Brad Pitt; Lincoln (mid to late December, HE), d: Steven Spielberg, cast: Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones; Django Unchained (12.25, HE), d: Quentin Tarantino, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Sacha Baron Cohen; The Great Gatsby (12.25, HE), d: Baz Luhrman, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher. (9)
Following in the footsteps of the NYFCC, the Boston Film Critics Society has handed its Best Picture award to The Artist. Shame! Once again a reputable critics group has gone for a soft compromise-consensus choice — a light silvery bauble that contains nothing thematically, narratively or stylistically of its own, and a film that is entirely about backwards reflection and reconstitution and sparkly “entertainment.”
The winners:
Best Picture: The Artist.
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Hugo.
Best Screenplay: Steven Zallian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin, Moneyball.
Best Actress: Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn.
Best Actor: Brad Pitt for Moneyball. (Runners-up: George Clooney, The Descendants and Michael Fassbender, Shame.)
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids (Runner-up: Jeannie Berlin, Margaret)
Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks, Drive. Wells comment: Pretty much guaranteed a Best Supporting Oscar nom at this stage, I’d say.
Best Foreign Language Film: TBA
Best Documentary: Project Nim.
Best Animated Film: Rango.
Best New Filmmaker: Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene. (Runner-up: J.C. Chandor, Margin Call)
Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezski, The Tree of Life (Runner-up: Hugo)
Best Editing: The Clock (Runner-up: Hugo). Wells comment: The what? A lotta Hugo pallies in this bunch.
Best Use of Music: (tie) The Artist and Drive (Runner-up: The Descendants)
I disagree with Stu Van Airsdale‘s latest Movieline/Oscar Index assessment of the Best Supporting Actress race. The back-and-forth political weathervane stuff is bullshit. All that matters is whether or not a supporting actress’s performance has sunk in…period. Not if she’s been charming or funny or histrionic or anguished, but whether you felt her soul or not. Nothing else.
In this regard the only contenders are Vanessa Redgrave (Coriolanus), Shailene Woodley and Judy Greer (The Descendants), Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs), Jessica Chastain (Take Shelter) and Keira Knightley (A Dangerous Method) for a total of six.
Octavia Spencer has her uppity “shit pie” moment in The Help and I understand that she’ll probably be nominated, but I was more amused than moved, due respect. Berenice Bejo‘s Poppy Flopsy Mopsy Cottontail performance in The Artist is perky and spirited, but she doesn’t really reach in. Melissa McCarthy was great in Bridesmaids, but her performance was more of a personality bust-out than anything else. Mia Wasikowska was too subdued in Albert Nobbs. Marion Cotillard didn’t really stand out in Midnight in Paris. No Sandra Bullock action from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close until after 12.2.
Certain female critics and bloggers (including Stephanie Zacharek) have either dissed or gone “meh” on Bridesmaids, to which I can only respond “what?” (Here’s my 5.3 review.) But thank God for balance and general perception’s sake that N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis has come down positive. Because this movie strikes new ground with wit, courage and flair. And okay, with a sprinkling of grossitude.
“It would be easy to oversell Bridesmaids,” she writes, “though probably easier if also foolish to do the reverse. It isn’t a radical movie (even if Melissa McCarthy‘s character comes close); it’s formally unadventurous; and there isn’t much to look at beyond all these female faces. Yet these are great faces, and the movie is smart about a lot of things, including the vital importance of female friendships. And it’s nice to see so many actresses taking up space while making fun of something besides other women.
“Perhaps the biggest, most pleasurable surprise is that Bridesmaids doesn’t treat the status of [Kristin Wiig‘s] Annie as a dire character flaw worthy of triage: she’s simply going through a rough patch and has to figure things out, as in real life.”
EW‘s Owen Gleibermancalls Wiig’s Annie “an Everywoman you can believe in, showcased in the kind of deft comedy of feminine passion — where deep despair meets Wilson Phillips — that a great many people have been waiting for. Now that Wiig and company have built it, will they come?”