Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Election (1999)

Tracy Flick: It's like my mom says,

"The weak are always trying to sabotage the strong."

I have to keep reminding myself this Oscar season that I like Alexander Payne. I just keep repeating "Citizen Ruth, Election, Citizen Ruth, Election" like a prayer. Damn you, Descendants!

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Election (1999)

Tracy Flick: It's like my mom says,

"The weak are always trying to sabotage the strong."

I have to keep reminding myself this Oscar season that I like Alexander Payne. I just keep repeating "Citizen Ruth, Election, Citizen Ruth, Election" like a prayer. Damn you, Descendants!

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5 Off My Head - Oscar Noms Nom Nom Nom

I figured my earlier post dedicated to the penises of Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon (and the bum of Jean Dujardin) would be enough to get the Oscar chatter out of my system but I actually feel like talking about the nominations this morning, surprisingly. So here are some thoughts on the categories. I'll highlight where my vote if I had one would go in red.

ACTRESS in a LEADING Role

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"

No Tilda, no Charlize. (No Juliette Binoche for that matter, not that she was ever in the running.) Bah, y'all. My vote would go to Rooney Mara, who I thought was incredible in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Viola made champagne from shit with The Help but that movie was too sloppy to give anybody a manageable character arc. I thought Williams was good in My Week With Marilyn but again, she was let down by what the movie asked of her. Close was just bizarre, not in a good way. Haven't seen The Iron Lady.

ACTRESS in a SUPPORTING Role

Bérénice Bejo in "The Artist"

Jessica Chastain in "The Help"

Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids"

Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs"

Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

Bejo was not that great in The Artist. She was what kept me from falling in love with the movie whole-heartedly. Chastain was a hoot in The Help, and I love her now, but she was amazing in Take Shelter, her nom should be for that. I suppose she could win for just being good in twenty different things this year. They say it's Octavia's to win and I like Octavia, she's very funny, but I don't get the praise for that performance. It never dug beneath the surface. I'm almost willing to root for Janet McTeer just if she promises to flash her enormous hooters on stage. But obviously my vote goes to Melissa McCarthy. Go fans united front!

ACTOR in a LEADING Role

Demián 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"

If I were handing out the trophy it would go to Jean Dujardin. I've made it clear that I didn't like Clooney's performance in The Descendants or Brad Pitt's in Moneyball. I liked Oldman in Tinker Tailor and would be perfectly happy if he won, but out of these five I prefer Dujardin's livelier performance. I haven't seen A Better Life so I can't speak on Bichir. Of course, Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon aren't here so this list is meaningless anyway.

ACTOR in a SUPPORTING Role

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"

Nick Nolte was fucking terrible in Warrior. His big dramatic scene, the one I have no doubt they'll use for his Oscar clip, was embarrassingly bad. Tom Hardy or Joel Edgerton were both great, give them some love Academy! Gah. Jonah Hill was just "Jonah Hill wearing glasses" in Moneyball, I can't fathom the praise he's gotten. Inexplicable. Plummer was terrific in Beginners, and he'll win, so I suppose this is fine. No Albert Brooks though equals the turd in the punchbowl. Branagh was fine, whatever. I haven't seen and have no plans to ever see Extremely Loud - I almost feel like we people who were here in NYC that day ought to be able to sue the people who made the movie for the continued assault of trailers for it that make me so goddamned angry every goddamned time. (And I am one of ten people who still like The Reader, but no Stephen Daldry, no)

WRITING (ADAPTED Screenplay)

"The Descendants" Alexander Payne Nat Faxon Jim Rash

"Hugo" John Logan

"The Ides of March"George Clooney Grant Heslov Beau Willimon

"Moneyball" Steven Zaillian Aaron Sorkin Stan Chervin

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Bridget O'Connor Peter Straughan

I already half expected them to snub Michael Fassbender and Charlize and Tilda and Michael Shannon so I'm not that surprised this morning on those ones, so I think the nomination off my head that's making me the angriest is this here writing nomination for The Ides of March. That is a TERRIBLE script, I just bitched about it in my review the other day. An awful movie in general, but the script was the worst offender. Just trite nonsense, lazy and boring and awful, ugh. Ugh! Not that the scripts for The Descendants or Moneyball were much better but at least they had their moments. Just keep jerking George Clooney off, y'all. He needs it.

5 Off My Head - Oscar Noms Nom Nom Nom

I figured my earlier post dedicated to the penises of Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon (and the bum of Jean Dujardin) would be enough to get the Oscar chatter out of my system but I actually feel like talking about the nominations this morning, surprisingly. So here are some thoughts on the categories. I'll highlight where my vote if I had one would go in red.

ACTRESS in a LEADING Role

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"

No Tilda, no Charlize. (No Juliette Binoche for that matter, not that she was ever in the running.) Bah, y'all. My vote would go to Rooney Mara, who I thought was incredible in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Viola made champagne from shit with The Help but that movie was too sloppy to give anybody a manageable character arc. I thought Williams was good in My Week With Marilyn but again, she was let down by what the movie asked of her. Close was just bizarre, not in a good way. Haven't seen The Iron Lady.

ACTRESS in a SUPPORTING Role

Bérénice Bejo in "The Artist"

Jessica Chastain in "The Help"

Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids"

Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs"

Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

Bejo was not that great in The Artist. She was what kept me from falling in love with the movie whole-heartedly. Chastain was a hoot in The Help, and I love her now, but she was amazing in Take Shelter, her nom should be for that. I suppose she could win for just being good in twenty different things this year. They say it's Octavia's to win and I like Octavia, she's very funny, but I don't get the praise for that performance. It never dug beneath the surface. I'm almost willing to root for Janet McTeer just if she promises to flash her enormous hooters on stage. But obviously my vote goes to Melissa McCarthy. Go fans united front!

ACTOR in a LEADING Role

Demián 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"

If I were handing out the trophy it would go to Jean Dujardin. I've made it clear that I didn't like Clooney's performance in The Descendants or Brad Pitt's in Moneyball. I liked Oldman in Tinker Tailor and would be perfectly happy if he won, but out of these five I prefer Dujardin's livelier performance. I haven't seen A Better Life so I can't speak on Bichir. Of course, Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon aren't here so this list is meaningless anyway.

ACTOR in a SUPPORTING Role

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"

Nick Nolte was fucking terrible in Warrior. His big dramatic scene, the one I have no doubt they'll use for his Oscar clip, was embarrassingly bad. Tom Hardy or Joel Edgerton were both great, give them some love Academy! Gah. Jonah Hill was just "Jonah Hill wearing glasses" in Moneyball, I can't fathom the praise he's gotten. Inexplicable. Plummer was terrific in Beginners, and he'll win, so I suppose this is fine. No Albert Brooks though equals the turd in the punchbowl. Branagh was fine, whatever. I haven't seen and have no plans to ever see Extremely Loud - I almost feel like we people who were here in NYC that day ought to be able to sue the people who made the movie for the continued assault of trailers for it that make me so goddamned angry every goddamned time. (And I am one of ten people who still like The Reader, but no Stephen Daldry, no)

WRITING (ADAPTED Screenplay)

"The Descendants" Alexander Payne Nat Faxon Jim Rash

"Hugo" John Logan

"The Ides of March"George Clooney Grant Heslov Beau Willimon

"Moneyball" Steven Zaillian Aaron Sorkin Stan Chervin

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Bridget O'Connor Peter Straughan

I already half expected them to snub Michael Fassbender and Charlize and Tilda and Michael Shannon so I'm not that surprised this morning on those ones, so I think the nomination off my head that's making me the angriest is this here writing nomination for The Ides of March. That is a TERRIBLE script, I just bitched about it in my review the other day. An awful movie in general, but the script was the worst offender. Just trite nonsense, lazy and boring and awful, ugh. Ugh! Not that the scripts for The Descendants or Moneyball were much better but at least they had their moments. Just keep jerking George Clooney off, y'all. He needs it.

What Do You Suppose They Are Laughing At?

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(via) 

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What Do You Suppose They Are Laughing At?

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(via) 

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Three Quick Reviews

If I don't type up a couple thoughts on these movies I've seen in the past week right now, I probably never will. This is wholly off the cuff, and therefore probably going to be nonsense, but whatcha gonna do? Actually take the time to craft something thoughtful? Bah! Seriously though, if I had much to say on these I would, like I did with Haywire yesterday. But I don't. So I won't.

The Ides of March - Really exceptionally boring. Clooney seemed asleep in front of and behind the camera - I don't know why he made this movie except maybe he wanted to jerk off on the memory of Sidney Lumet. I guess he got to pretend he was running for office without any of the actual tough parts. There's more insight in a five minute Rachel Maddow monologue. The writing was occasionally plunge-out-my-eardrums-with-a-fork awful. Ryan Gosling's accent is all over the place, but he wears his suits well. (Shocker.) He didn't really seem to know who this character was he was playing, either. Nobody much felt like a person. Marisa Tomei maybe, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman was pretty good. 

Moneyball - Speaking of PSH being best in show, I loved every shot of his scowling baseball coach here, but I didn't like this movie either. I have no special love for stereotypically told "Sports Movies" with their routine telling of the old-as-time underdog tale but this movie seemed disingenuous to me in its attempts at being different just for different's sake. Something just rang really false about it all to me, like everybody involved was so actively engaged in carving off expectations that they forgot to make any of it involving, or interesting. Like with Ides of March, Moneyball never got me anywhere near giving a shit about any of these people and their ridiculous problems. Oh Brad Pitt was fine (I generally very much like watching him onscreen, even when he's clothed) and as a vehicle for him coasting along amiably it was fine but we live in a skewed universe where this can be considered the best anything. It's just slightly less obnoxious than Clooney's golden praise for his dull scattered work in The Descendants. Jonah Hill wore glasses, so I guess that was respectable of him? I don't even know.

Carnage - Of the three this is definitely my favorite, and I'm sure I'll find myself watching Carnage again someday, but it's by no means a homerun. As I said earlier this week I'm perfectly on board with Joe Reid's rankings of the performances - Kate Winslet walks away handily with best in show (Barf of the century!), while Jodie seems a little lost. I kept feeling like she was panic-stricken looking for a closet to lock herself in so she'd feel comfortable enough with her surroundings to get her bearings. Although you figure this is, generally speaking, another "trapped in an enclosed space" sort of movie for her - too bad Jared Leto and his cornrows never swung through the window! I'd never seem the play, and I have to admit I was a little bit put off by the occasional facile misstep, but it is a tricky beast and I could see some of the off-notes working if the whole cast were a little bit tighter in step. Polanski does a good job working the space for all its worth - there must be five thousand camera set-ups in this thing, looking at these four people from every single angle there could ever be, keeping the single set feeling more dynamic than it could have.
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Three Quick Reviews

If I don't type up a couple thoughts on these movies I've seen in the past week right now, I probably never will. This is wholly off the cuff, and therefore probably going to be nonsense, but whatcha gonna do? Actually take the time to craft something thoughtful? Bah! Seriously though, if I had much to say on these I would, like I did with Haywire yesterday. But I don't. So I won't.

The Ides of March - Really exceptionally boring. Clooney seemed asleep in front of and behind the camera - I don't know why he made this movie except maybe he wanted to jerk off on the memory of Sidney Lumet. I guess he got to pretend he was running for office without any of the actual tough parts. There's more insight in a five minute Rachel Maddow monologue. The writing was occasionally plunge-out-my-eardrums-with-a-fork awful. Ryan Gosling's accent is all over the place, but he wears his suits well. (Shocker.) He didn't really seem to know who this character was he was playing, either. Nobody much felt like a person. Marisa Tomei maybe, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman was pretty good. 

Moneyball - Speaking of PSH being best in show, I loved every shot of his scowling baseball coach here, but I didn't like this movie either. I have no special love for stereotypically told "Sports Movies" with their routine telling of the old-as-time underdog tale but this movie seemed disingenuous to me in its attempts at being different just for different's sake. Something just rang really false about it all to me, like everybody involved was so actively engaged in carving off expectations that they forgot to make any of it involving, or interesting. Like with Ides of March, Moneyball never got me anywhere near giving a shit about any of these people and their ridiculous problems. Oh Brad Pitt was fine (I generally very much like watching him onscreen, even when he's clothed) and as a vehicle for him coasting along amiably it was fine but we live in a skewed universe where this can be considered the best anything. It's just slightly less obnoxious than Clooney's golden praise for his dull scattered work in The Descendants. Jonah Hill wore glasses, so I guess that was respectable of him? I don't even know.

Carnage - Of the three this is definitely my favorite, and I'm sure I'll find myself watching Carnage again someday, but it's by no means a homerun. As I said earlier this week I'm perfectly on board with Joe Reid's rankings of the performances - Kate Winslet walks away handily with best in show (Barf of the century!), while Jodie seems a little lost. I kept feeling like she was panic-stricken looking for a closet to lock herself in so she'd feel comfortable enough with her surroundings to get her bearings. Although you figure this is, generally speaking, another "trapped in an enclosed space" sort of movie for her - too bad Jared Leto and his cornrows never swung through the window! I'd never seem the play, and I have to admit I was a little bit put off by the occasional facile misstep, but it is a tricky beast and I could see some of the off-notes working if the whole cast were a little bit tighter in step. Polanski does a good job working the space for all its worth - there must be five thousand camera set-ups in this thing, looking at these four people from every single angle there could ever be, keeping the single set feeling more dynamic than it could have.
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